Prabhakaran has nowhere to go

Humanitarian crisis worries the world

By Maj-Gen Ashok K Mehta (retd)

(May 06, New Delhi,, Sri Lanka Guardian) Eelam war IV was started and won under the watch of President Mahinda Rajapakse. A brilliant, at times bitterly fought war in Northern Sri Lanka has turned into an unmitigated humanitarian disaster, which was not foreseen by the victors. Part of the problem has been in creative semantics: euphemisms of war which have blurred its ground reality and extended the threshold of tolerance.

First, the focus of war was shifted from fighting an ethnic conflict to combating terrorism which was akin to spreading a camouflage net over operations. A distinction was drawn between LTTE terrorists and “our own people, civilian Tamils” who had to be liberated from the clutches of the Tigers. Further, the military offensive was described as a humanitarian operation. These cosmetic descriptions secured wide international support for the anti-terrorist campaign.

As the war draws to a close, the Sri Lankan government has declared that combat operations have reached conclusion but there is no ceasefire or cessation of hostilities. The reason: the world’s largest hostage rescue mission, a humanitarian operation again, will continue with the use of small arms in the incongruously called “No Fire Zone”. “Freeing the hostages is my duty. And the choice before the LTTE is surrender or face the Army”, Mr Rajapakse said.

In waging this last battle against terrorism, the government has imposed an embargo on the use of heavy weapons like those employed by the Air Force and artillery to minimise civilian casualties, though some reports suggest that the ban was violated. A large number of LTTE cadres along with Prabhakaran and other top leaders embedded with thousands of civilians are trapped between the devil and the deep sea.

Operation Final Countdown has twin objectives - capturing Prabhakaran and forcing the release of civilian hostages. At the centre of this final battle are twin tragedies - a possible civilian massacre in the NFZ; and a humanitarian tragedy involving 2,00,000 displaced persons relocated to internment and refugee camps outside the conflict zone, till recently quarantined from humanitarian agencies. This year alone, the UN has reported 6500 civilians killed and 14,000 wounded besides thousands more malnourished. Mr Rajapakse says there is no humanitarian crisis as such - “we will manage it”.

The contradictions between the government’s stated policy of restraint and actions on the battlefield are echoed in the concerns of the international community over the inevitable risks of mass civilian casualties resulting from the rescue operation. For the Sri Lankans it will be Mission Accomplished only when Prabhakaran is captured. Security forces have liberated all territory barring 5 sq km which was under LTTE control, destroyed its navy and air force, eliminated its war-waging infrastructure, killed 18,000 and taken surrender of 3000 Tigers. They have rendered impossible the resurrection of the LTTE as a conventional force.

The more immediate of the two crises is the one in the NFZ where, according to John Holmes, UN Chief of Humanitarian Affairs, “the civilians are in mortal danger”. The government says it is determined not to allow the LTTE a breather to fortify itself with more earth bunds and mines. A firefight appears inevitable as Rajapakse has refused to order a ceasefire for securing the release of civilian hostages by neutral observers, a contingency the LTTE has been banking on. For the government, any pause is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

The LTTE is cornered and Prabhakaran, unless he has already escaped, has nowhere to go. An agreement short of surrender will be unacceptable to Sri Lanka, but capitulation is not in Prabhakaran’s book. To avoid the bloodbath, immense pressure will have to be brought on Mr Rajapakse to consider the LTTE laying down arms to a neutral country and safe passage for the release of civilians.

Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapakse, the President’s brother and mentor of the war, has ruled out surrender to anyone other than Sri Lanka. He says troops have been preparing for the rescue mission, and to bolster their morale he has glorified Israel’s 1976 Operation Entebbe in Uganda and the more recent Russian hostage rescue operation at Beslan in North Ossetia in 2004 where 300 hostages were killed. He is preparing the international community for another humanitarian disaster.

The idea of a hostage rescue mission was first mooted by the Americans when they offered to evacuate the trapped civilians in the conflict zone, later renamed NFZ, employing their Marine Expeditionary Force based at Hawaii. The French endorsed this plan, but India and Sri Lanka had reservations about the operation. The ICRC was not in favour either, saying that any evacuation must have the consent of the victims. Colombo felt it was Sri Lanka’s legitimate right and duty to conduct the rescue operation on its soil.

More than the rescue of civilians it is the LTTE and Prabhakaran whom the government is after. It believes that to eliminate terrorism and eradicate the LTTE menace, the cancer of Prabhakaran has to be removed. It argues that the Shining Path in Peru and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia were made ineffective only after their top leaders had been captured. Karuna, once the No 2 in the LTTE who defected to the government in 2004 and is now a minister in the government and a key player in the defeat of the LTTE, has said that Prabhakaran will fight to death. Some say he has already escaped.

No one is sure about Prabhakaran’s whereabouts. A few months ago, the Sri Lankan authorities were saying he had decamped to a country in South-East Asia, or India or South Africa. Lately they have been saying that he is in the NFZ along with his son Charles Antony and top aides, intelligence chief Pottu Amman, Sea Tigers Commander Soosai and Field Commander Bhanu. Repeatedly confirming Prabhakaran’s presence among the civilian hostages and his capture as vital for ending terrorism are part of the government strategy to take the war to its logical conclusion. So, it is very unlikely that Mr Rajapakse will be swayed on humanitarian grounds to agree to a ceasefire or a pause in fighting.

Britain, France, Japan and the European Union have called for a humanitarian pause and are seriously considering the use of aid and trade as bargaining chips. The US has asked the IMF to withhold a $1.9 billion bailout package for Sri Lanka. The US is deeply concerned about the developing humanitarian crisis which it says is “utterly unacceptable”. A British minister has said that the shadow of war crimes is over Sri Lanka. Mr Rajapakse has said: “Stop lecturing me. There will be no ceasefire.” His brother has ruled that war will go on till Prabhakaran is captured.

LTTE political commissar Balasingham Nadesan said: “We will not surrender and continue fighting for Eelam.” Former Foreign Minister of Denmark HE Jensen has said that Colombo should be held accountable if there is a bloodbath. Prabhakaran’s death and a banned CD already circulating in Tamil Nadu, showing the tragedy of Sri Lankan Tamils, could trigger riots and violence in the state.

After the big guns fell silent India, too, has gone quiet except for seeking better access for aid agencies to civilian camps. For two decades, New Delhi had been committed to ensuring the sovereignty and integrity of Sri Lanka which included the sacrifice of 1200 IPKF men, but without securing any devolution for the Tamils. Unfortunately, India has made itself peripheral to the political outcome and the new strategic dynamic evolving in Sri Lanka.

-Sri Lanka Guardian