Only a political solution can end dogged LTTE hope for another fight ......
By Ashok K. Mehta
(April 27, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) How has Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse won the war against the LTTE, puncturing the myth of their invincibility? When LTTE leader Prabhakaran showed he was not amenable to a negotiated settlement, Rajapakse seized the challenge thrown by the Tigers in 2006 over the control of Maavilaru sluice-gate that supplies water to Trincomalee district. Though not sure that the Tigers could be defeated on their turf, Rajapakse discussed the outline of the military offensive with Indian leaders on his first visit to Delhi in 2006. The attempts of Tiger suicide bombers in 2006 to take out army commander Lt Gen Sarath Fonseka and defence secretary Gothabaya Rajapakse, the president’s brother, and the easy military success attained subsequently in the Eastern Province reinforced the Lankan president’s resolve to eliminate the LTTE. These three persons became the architects of a brilliant but costly military victory.
The conquest of the East, in mid-2007, was facilitated by Col Karuna, the LTTE’s renegade commander, after the Lankan army engineered a vertical split among the rebels in 2004. The liberation of the East was preceded by securing its legal demerger, undoing the clubbing of the Northern and Eastern provinces as the homeland of the Tamils enabled by the 1987 India-Sri Lanka Accord (ISLA).
Even then few believed Rajapakse would be able to replicate the military success of the East in the North, where there was no Karuna to help the army. The initial strategy of attrition involved liberation of territory where the Tigers were spread thinly and fighting conventionally on a broad front. It was then that a military victory appeared within the grasp of the army, once described by its former chief as funk.
The military’s transformation included doubling the army’s strength to 2,00,000, providing it the wherewithal to fight—the defence budget was raised by 35 per cent over the last three years—and placing a halo around the soldier. A folk hero now, some international figures have referred to Fonseka as the world’s best general.
In 2007-08, Lanka had established its supremacy over the LTTE navy, which had lost seven ships from their arms replenishment fleet. The Tigers were deficient in anti-aircraft weapons and munitions, and their capacity to find funds and fervour among the diaspora was curbed through deft diplomacy. Drawing a distinction between the LTTE and civilian Tamils, projecting the war as a fight against terrorism rather than as ethnic conflict, and describing the offensive as a humanitarian operation to liberate Tamils from the clutches of the Tigers—all this took a bit of creative semantics.
The all-out offensive was executed with unprecedented politico-military resolve, and Rajapakse gave a free hand to the military. India’s backing was critical. Delhi provided vital intelligence, enhancing the air supremacy of government forces, which pushed the Tigers into a corner. And, when an Indian demarche forbade Sri Lanka from seeking weapons from specific countries, Colombo pressed ahead—Beijing provided military aid and Islamabad crucial training and customised ammunition for precision-guided air attacks.
The LTTE’s principal handicap has been Prabhakaran. Because of him, the Tigers missed several opportunities for a political settlement—from the devolution package accompanying ISLA to even better offers later from president Chandrika Kumaratunga and prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Chasing the chimera of Eelam, Prabhakaran became a liability.
Delhi and Chennai couldn’t force Colombo into a ceasefire, as they had in 1987, because India was never serious about it. The humiliating defeat of the Tigers is the price Prabhakaran has paid for assassinating Rajiv Gandhi.The LTTE media calls it India’s war and Sonia Gandhi’s hour of revenge. With 1,00,000 civilians trapped in the conflict zone, a humanitarian operation has become a humanitarian tragedy, fuelling emotions in Tamil Nadu. Though the Americans offered to evacuate trapped civilians by a marine force, Colombo was unlikely to permit a third country presence on its soil without India’s nod. Instead, Delhi was allowed to deploy a military field hospital at Pulumoddai, north of Trincomalee, marking the return of uniformed soldiers after the ipkf’s exit in 1990. Invoking ghosts of the past, some Sri Lankans described it as a possible Indian Trojan Horse.
The last conventional battle, termed the world’s largest rescue operation, is to remove the LTTE from the no-conflict zone. Obviously, the bigger prize is capturing Prabhakaran. No one is sure where he is. But dead or alive, he will live on with the idea of Eelam unless Rajapakse can find a political solution to the Tamil problem. That seems unlikely.
Maj Gen (retd) Mehta was GOC, IPKF, South.
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This article is unfair for the Sri Lanka Government. It is trying to say that government of Sri Lanka has been on the offensive, and have not been interested in Tamils. Sri Lankan Government has looked after the Tamils better than any regime in the world. So many Tamils do live in other parts of the country in close association with the majority Sinhalese. With all the atrocities committed by the LTTE, the government has protected the interest of Tamil people who is living peacefully everywhere in the country. It was LTTE who has done ethnic cleansing by chasing all the Muslims and the Sinhalese from the North and the East. The so called international community including India and Norway was silent when this was happening. LTTE went on to kill both the Tamils and Sinhalese who did not agree with them. With a massive chest of Dollars in hand contributed by the Tamil Diaspora, the LTTE went on to mis-inform the world by their bogus propaganda. They bought influence, media and war material to wage war against a democratically elected government. No body cared when LTTE employed suicide bombing and human shields in furthering their ambitions. Why this double standard? LTTE only had to do was to give up arms and surrender.
Quote "But dead or alive, he will live on with the idea of Eelam unless Rajapakse can find a political solution to the Tamil problem" Quote..There is no such thing as Tamil problem, it is the mentality of reduced to 9% Tamils of which 54% live in majority sinhalese areas, upperhand mentality to dominate 80% sinhalese & some what equal 7% Mulim community.Since Dutch era down British colonial era Tamils were privileged against majority sinhalese to crush sinhalese agitation against foreign invasion in their Motherland.Truth is economic poverty is common to all communities in SL, not an issue common only to Tamils.It is a well planned propaganda since, before 1948 independence by elite Tamils such as Ponnambalm Ramanadan's cry before Britsh Assembly in London, demanding 50-50 share for Tamils ignoring, then 75% majority sinhalese ethnic quota.Readers please check in which country in the whole world a minority of 9% dominate so fiercely against sucha large majority so much unfairly, unjustifiably?
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