In the univariate analysis presented in Table \ref{table:compare}, the LTTE and Naga are similar across nine of thirteen variables. As an approximation, I considered characteristics as similar if the difference between each country’s value was within two standard deviations of the population of insurgencies studied. The impact of India’s greater population and democratic government will bias their findings towards a longer conflict. Though democracy is commonly believed to reduce conflict duration, regression 1 in Table \ref{table:regtable} showed democracy to be associated with increased duration. Greater population is expected to have a similar association. The LTTE’s bias should also be towards longer duration because both anocracy and diaspora size are theoretically associated with increased duration. While both country’s biases in the same direction, we do not know the exact impact they will have. However, none of these variables were significant predictors of insurgency duration, so I expect the impact to be minimal. Omitted variable bias remains a concern, however these cases are well matched across key explanatory variables prior to the beginnings of these insurgencies.
The LTTE and Naga do differ in two important ways outside the control variables: terrain and diaspora population. Nagaland, the mountainous home of the Naga insurgency, is the eighth most rugged province in India. Nagaland is six times more mountainous than the Northern province of Sri Lanka where the LTTE formed. Though the countries have comparable ruggedness on a cross-country basis, the mountainous conditions in Nagaland favor insurgency. However, the mountainous location did not spread a diaspora, unlike the location of the Tamil insurgency along major trading routes. The LTTE taxed its diaspora heavily, providing external funding unavailable to the Naga. Together, these effects present biases that worked against each other, but to an unknown extent.
India and Sri Lanka present comparable cases in the same region and time period. Despite the mixed bias presented by local conditions, these cases are well-matched and there is value in tracing the influence of maritime smuggling on insurgency. For each case, I will briefly summarize the insurgency’s development and peak capabilities before exploring funding and support mechanisms.
Funding
The Naga’s weak institutions limited funding sources, while the LTTE’s institutions supported funding from a variety of sources: maritime trafficking, the worldwide diaspora, local taxation, and state-owned businesses. The Mackenzie Institute, a Canadian think-tank, suggested that the LTTE relied on external funding and could not have funded their organization locally.\cite{_funding_1995} Instead, rents from their role in illicit maritime trade funded their land campaign and weapons purchased abroad sustained it.\cite{n_manoharan_financial_2017}
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
The LTTE earned four-fifths of their annual revenue from sources abroad: trafficking and the diaspora. After India withdrew support, the LTTE absorbed Tamil criminal gangs and smugglers to fund their organization.\cite{_funding_1995} By 2004, the Indian Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies estimated that LTTE wholesale heroine trafficking revenues exceeded $250 million annually.\cite{n_manoharan_financial_2017} The LTTE also trafficked arms for other groups. In 1995, an LTTE ship ”clandestinely transported a consignment of arms and ammunition dispatched by the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) of Pakistan to the southern Philippines for use by the Abu Sayyaf.”\cite{_sri_2007}
In addition, the LTTE taxed at home and abroad. To tax the diaspora, the LTTE intelligence service registered Tamil diaspora members and charged $1 per day they were outside Sri Lanka.\cite{richards_institutional_2014} The LTTE also managed non-governmental organizations to funnel in aid and diaspora money.\cite{chalk_tigers_2008} Revenues from the diaspora were approximately $2 million monthly.\cite{becker_funding_2006}\cite{n_manoharan_financial_2017} On Sri Lanka, the LTTE’s population was subject to a myriad of taxes: income tax, property tax, and road tolls. The LTTE taxed households about $250 annually. Proceeds from LTTE controlled businesses, including its international maritime trade organization, also funded the LTTE’s political and military efforts.
Naga Insurgency
Since the end of Pakistani financial support in the 1990s, the Naga insurgency relied on “revolutionary taxation” and smuggling for funds.\cite{panwar_nationalism_2017} Both groups levied ”house taxes” and take “army collections” from each household, demanding 50% of government employee salaries, and charging protection fees to the trucking industry.\cite{sashinungla_nagaland:_2017} Fighters also demanded free services from restaurants and other businesses. These taxes destroyed the local economy, curtailing development and impoverishing the population.
Local smuggling of restricted items, narcotics, and firearms also financed Naga factions. A 1994 news article highlighted the large bribes insurgents offered to security officials and underscored the insurgent-narcotics link as detrimental to public health.\cite{mcdonald_hooked_1994} Other articles point to a “corrupt politician-smuggler-insurgent nexus” that has grown with the sale of conflict resources such as gems, heroin, and timber.\cite{mcdonald_india:_1994} In all, Naga internal funding prevented seriously challenging the Indian state.\cite{_suspected_2014}\cite{_suspected_2011}
Funding Analysis
After the withdrawal of external support to each insurgency, the LTTE developed a profitable funding mechanism while the Naga struggled. The Naga engaged in smuggling along the India – Myanmar border, but their mountainous location requires middlemen, like the Chinese Black House syndicate and United Wa State Army in Mynmar, to facilitate long-range smuggling.\cite{rahul_bhonsle_india-myanmar_2015} Their resultant marginal smuggling and revolutionary taxation inhibited their success as an insurgent organization. Conversely, Sri Lanka’s coastal location between the Middle East, India, and East Asia has long hosted profitable smugglers. The LTTE internalized and invested in Tamil smugglers to fund their organization.
Supply