Death of a terror group

By Ayesha Siddiqa

(May 27, Islamabad, Sri Lanka Guardian) A few days ago, Sri Lanka announced that the Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was dead. This victory might not be a major milestone in the development of the Sri Lankan state and civil society, but it certainly speaks volumes for the coming of age of Colombo’s armed forces. At another level, it reflects the gradual unravelling of Prabhakaran’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Two years ago, had someone told Colombo or the Tamil expatriates, who backed and funded the Tamil cause, that Prabhakaran would be dead, they would have laughed. Since committing their first political murder in the early 1970s of Jaffna’s mayor and forming the group called the Tamil New Tigers (TNT), later the LTTE, the rebels had given the Sri Lankan government a run for its money. His guerilla organisation aimed to fight the authoritarian Sinhalese state that discriminated against the Tamils. (In fact, Sinhalese too were treated badly. In the 1980s, the army butchered about 60,000 Sinhalese youth involved in a leftist protest.)

Formed by Velupillai Prabhakaran in 1974, the LTTE developed into a potent force that fought the Sri Lankan state for 35 years. Its notorious suicide squads, personally baptised by the leader, wreaked havoc throughout the country and in India where they killed Rajiv Gandhi. In fact, Tamil rebels carried cyanide capsules round their necks which they were ordered to swallow in case they were caught by state forces. This was also their sign of commitment to the cause. Over the years, the LTTE established control over Sri Lanka’s north and east, operating, in fact, as a de facto government whose reins were held by Prabhakaran. The Tamil rebels had their own ‘navy’ and ‘air force’ as well. From a distance all that was left was for the international community to give some formal status to Prabhakaran’s control of this territory which he had hoped might happen through the involvement of some international players such as the Norwegians in the Sri Lankan crisis. Oslo tried several times to negotiate peace between the warring parties.

Prabhakaran clearly had an advantage over his enemies. He managed to become the uncontested leader of the Tamil rebels. In the end, this also proved to be his undoing. Experts believe that the concentration of power in one person and the merger of the political and military wings of the LTTE did not provide sufficient space to the organisation. Eventually, cracks appeared in the top command because Prabhakaran tried to be political leader as well as military commander, resulting in a major rift between Prabhakaran and his commander in the east Colonel Karuna. The rift was later exploited by Colombo to its advantage. Eventually, Colombo managed to squeeze the Tamil leader to the north.

However, Colombo’s plans to fight its rival did not take off until it managed to build an internal consensus to defeat the Tigers and to develop its military. Historically, the Sri Lankan military was a ceremonial force. It was not until the beginning of 2000 that decision-makers focused on the need of restructuring the armed forces, introduce central planning and give it the shape of a professional force. In 2006, during a study tour of Colombo I met young gentlemen who were part of the team of experts that had been hired to establish a more professional ministry of defence that could plan for a winnable war. So, the period at the beginning of this century when the LTTE was seemingly gaining ground, also saw the Sri Lankan military building itself to fight the war. Some of the officers that I met during a trip expressed greater resolve to fight the LTTE.

The above developments coincided with the regional and global resolve to push back the Tamil Tigers. Since assassinating Rajiv Gandhi, the LTTE had lost the support of the Indian government. Having lost the war in Sri Lanka, New Delhi, in any case, had lost the appetite for a Sri Lankan adventure and had begun to understand the high cost of an independent Tamil state. So, it stepped aside while Colombo procured weapons from all over, including Pakistan, to add to its firepower. Apparently, a couple of shiploads of infantry equipment and other stuff produced at PoFs, Wah, arrived in Sri Lanka every month.

Nonetheless, it is important to note that this firepower could not have an impact until the greater professionalisation of the security services. In fact, during the 1990s, Colombo had tried to enhance its military capability through the purchase and use of Kfir fighter bombers from Israel that did not impede the advancing Tamil Tigers. Moreover, aerial bombardment had proved pretty useless.

Some grave tactical mistakes were made by the LTTE. One major blunder was its constant flip-flopping between two positions: war and peace. The bid to attract international attention by agreeing to the Norwegian-sponsored peace initiative meant that the rebel group compromised on its war efforts. The last nail in the coffin, as many suggest, was forcing the people to boycott the presidential elections which resulted in Ranil Wickremesinghe losing to Mahinda Rajapaksa the current president, one who was found to be much more rabid in his approach towards the LTTE.

Politically, the test for the Sri Lankan state begins now regarding its moral and political capacity to accommodate the Tamil population which must be quite confused and scared at this juncture. The LTTE-controlled area along with the rest of the island requires development to repair the battle-scarred areas. This is tough in a place where social sensibilities have changed dramatically. There is a serious chasm between the Sinhalese and Tamil population that can only disappear with the integration of the Tamils in the Sinhalese-dominated state.

As for the region, let’s see if Prabhakaran’s death proves to be a precursor to the physical and ideological elimination of other terrorists in other parts of the region as well. The task shouldn’t be difficult because the militants we are fighting are no match for those of Velupillai Prabhakaran, who will certainly be remembered in Sri Lanka as a legend of terror.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

-Sri Lanka Guardian