How the LTTE was military defeated: A Soldier’s view - Part Two

Written by Day
EXCLUSIVE TO SRI LANKA GUARDIAN

(April 30, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Balraj’s brilliance came to light when he landed with tiger fighters in Kudaarappu for Iththaavil fighting on the A9 highway during his attack on the Elephant Pass garrison. Soosai and his sea tigers helped Balraj, who always led his tigers from the front and about 1,200 tigers to land behind SLA lines to capture the Elephant Pass complex, which was deemed impossible to overrun by a lightly armed force or by infantry alone.

He cut off supplies going to the Sri Lankan Army and attacked from three directions. This attack was notable not only for the heavy casualties SLA suffered, most of them died of dehydration but scotching the military thinking or the assumption that rear defense in depth of a nation’s conventional army could only be seriously threatened by an armed force supported by strategic air power (StratAir) or close air support (CAS). Another reason that this operation was very successful for LTTE because Theepan aka Velayuthapillai Baheerathakumar and Col K attacked south of Elephant Pass stopping reinforcements coming in. The rest is sad history.

I understand that some in the Sri Lanka military and police/STF, who have not ever been to the frontlines at least couple of times, I mean 300-1000m from where the action is now, sadly and shamelessly, fancy themselves or show off as Balraj of LTTE!

Then there was Imarn, the karateka, the trusted bodyguard of Prabakaran, CID is said to have ‘taken care’ of him in Jaffna at a very early stage of LTTE movement, like a surgeon take care of a ‘patient in an operation theater’! You cannot blame the CID for becoming ‘surgeons’ as a CID team was brutally killed and burnt and their car buried in Murugandi in the early stage of LTTE terrorism in the north.

Another one is Shanmugam Kumaran Tharmalingam (alias Selvarasa Pathmanathan, Kumaran Pathmanathan or simply ‘KP’) who is said to be very good in bed and to have a big ‘tool’. ‘Size’ does matter when one has to tame ‘Thai dolls’ and build up a safe haven for the clandestine and procurement activities of LTTE in Phuket, Chiang Mai, Koh Samui or Pattaya. Another tiger who was said to have a ‘big tool’ was Bala the Theoretician, that is why a nurse who has seen many a phallus in her nursing career opted to leave the Australian outback, Adele leaving Adelaide, to follow Bala for the mosquito infested jungles of Wanni to live in squalid conditions (or the other belief, to engage in lesbian relationships with young tigresses: carnal knowledge using sex toys with young female tigers, how do you like that!)

Erasing Shankar or taking him out was so much important, not only because he was the brains behind TAF (Tiger Air Force), or the founder-commander or commander in charge of the LTTE AA Wing (anti-aircraft or Ack-Ack unit), Military Intelligence (MI), the Sea Tigers Division or Underwater Attack Unit [(Under Water Delivery Team (UDT)] but because of his very closeness to Prabakaran, his IQ (Intelligence Quotient) level, academic and technical brilliance, and most importantly for his vision for LTTE. All the Units or Divisions he headed were not mere routine appointments given to him by Prabakaran based on nothing, but on his total trust in Shankar and his capabilities.

You can gauge the importance, respect commanded or swagger a person has had in life by looking at his funeral arrangements after his demise; who or what sort of dignitaries or powerful people attended his funeral; very elaborate decorations; or by reading the heaps of condolences, the eulogy, and elegies. To give you a sense how LTTE felt about Shankar’s loss I quote here from the official LTTE statement issued; “the LTTE leadership shares the Tamil people's outrage and treats the killing of a senior leader with utmost gravity….Col. Shankar has been an active participant in the Tamil people's freedom struggle for nearly two decades. He was a close confidante of the LTTE leader, Mr. Vellupillai Pirapaharan and accompanied him in the first historic meeting in the Wanni with Oslo's Special Envoy".

Lalth and his team hit where it hurt most!

If a military analyst needs to prepare a target list to erase or to take out some high value targets (HVTs) or key leaders (KLs) he will get hold of the ‘Wedding Album’ of the leader of the terrorist outfit. It is human nature to invite your best friends or very close confidants and immediate family members or close relatives to the wedding. Everything is ‘best’ on that day! Isn’t it? From Best Man, best friends, best dress, best hotel, best wedding car, best dress to best food.

To run a secretive or clandestine and lethal terrorist outfit, a leader needs to surround himself with very loyal, dependable and reliable friends who will be with him through thick and thin, in bad times and good times, and above all in the moment of truth. If they are bright and smart too it is so much better. It is even true for a successful business organization. For Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to necessarily have very loyal, dependable and reliable officers who have to be bright and smart in his ‘Tiger Team’. Why then you blame MR for nepotism? He has also had to have very loyal, dependable and reliable people around him. But the difference between his Cabinet, Secretaries or Chairmen and a CEO’s ‘Tiger Team’ is MR’s selectees may be dumb, crooks or mutt but a successful CEO’s always tend to bright and smart!

Take a look at the Wedding Album recovered by SLA troops of Prabakaran and the duped medical student Madavadani; who is sitting next to the psychopathic killer Prabakaran? Shankar and KP! Take a look at the photo taken with the Norwegian peace negotiation team in 2000; Shankar and Tamilselvam. You can now easily prepare the ‘target list’ and give to 2SF!

Shankar’s Brilliance, Smartness and IQ Level; I do not know how many readers have noticed when a picture of a graduation certificate out of recovered items was published in the Internet (most may have thought or treated it as another photo of a recovered item. I also doubt SLA has the possession of it now, may have thrown into a WPB, for them they do not know the value of Sensitive Site Exploitation (SSE)). If one had read between the lines he would have noted this; ‘Distinguished Graduate-Aeronautical Engineering, Hindustan College of Engineering (HCE). To whom does that certificate belong? Vaithilingam Sornalingam aka Shankar! If one can graduate as a distinguished graduate from a reputed Indian technical college it really says a lot about the graduate.

Shankar was a visionary. He gave new dimensions to the Drealam war. He created TAF that we know for sure. He was said to have set up the overseas procurement of LTTE for lethal and non-lethal cargo before KP aka Kumaran Pathmanathan took over the reins and was said to have also been the founder-commander of many a Division in the LTTE to include sea tigers.

With the creation of TAF it created a balance of terror situation overnight; it sent a bold message to Colombo if we (Tamils) were vulnerable in Wanni, if SLAF could bomb us at will in Drealam then Sinhalese or the places of symbolic importance or the power, economic or population centers were equally vulnerable in Colombo or in the south to tiger attacks. The Palali army camp in Jaffna or the naval dockyard in Trincomalee was no different either. This balance of terror situation tied down military personnel to man AA sites and guns in Colombo, this created fear and anxiety in everyone in the south. This created less freedom of movement for the populace. GOSL needed more money to install cameras, radars and sirens, and what have you and had to conduct air raid drills to create awareness and reduce casualties. You know now the total mess, pandemonium, mockery, and own casualties created by ack-ack fire due to virtually unchallenged TAF forays from time to time into Colombo until the last suicide mission. The LTTE was so emboldened and became more and more audacious. The TAF caused heavy economic damages requiring a lot of FOREX to restore normal operations at the economic targets hit.

With the sea tigers unit being launched it became a balance of terror situation on the coast or seas around Sri Lanka. During the initial days the LTTE dinghies ran away from Dvoras, Fast Attack Craft (FAC) of Sri Lanka Navy (SLN), and beached, unless air around OBMs caught fire due to five zero or 20mm rounds fired from the Dvoras. The air around back of the dinghy are so charged with fuel from the heated outboard motor engines, a round fired from a SLN craft can ignite the boat instantly setting off secondary explosions on board due to the nature of lethal cargo the LTTE are transporting. During those days tigers were burning bright and to death in their boats on high seas. This changed with the sea tigers being introduced, especially ‘suicide sea tiger cadres’. The oppressed became the oppressor overnight!

We know now the names of the officers and sailors or the pennant numbers of the craft and ships that ended up in the Davy Jones’ Locker. We know the enormous amount of national wealth we spent to buy these craft or ships against all odds as no nation except China, South Africa, Israel or Pakistan was willing to sell warlike materials or equipment with military use to the end-user that was GOSL. The economists at Sri Lanka Central Bank or capitalists would tell you the wealth spent on these craft and ships that were lost due to LTTE terrorism would never create wealth, as it was lost forever!

He was the founder-commander of the LTTE Underwater Delivery Team (UDT) and anti-aircraft unit. We know how SLN was clueless at times as to what had hit their FAC sinking it, as there was no ‘contact’ or a ‘blip’ on the radar screens of the FAC in distress or the ships and craft in the surrounding area. It was same balance of terror in the skies over Wanni with the introduction of MANPADS (Man-Portable-Air-Defence-Systems) by LTTE to bring down SLAF craft, from AVROs to MI-24, HINDs.

With these new dimensions in the Drealam war envisioned by visionary Shankar LTTE went from defenceless to being able to defend. To quote Late Saimamoorthi Thondamn about state Tamils asserting against hooligans harassing the state workers; “The worm has turned!”

The first time I saw the visuals of Shankar was in the BBC documentary filmed in 80s in the jungles of Wanni, Sri Lanka. I was in the military, a minnow or a small shot, not even in the Intelligence. If you have seen the documentary by chance you would see him act as the Liaison Officer (LO) to the BBC camera crew, the man with a walkie-talkie in hand, at one time, asking the camera crew to get into an underground bunker under the jungle canopy. He says on camera that they hear the sound of enemy planes (probably the sound of SIAI-Marchetti ground attack planes of Sri Lanka Air Force-SLAF). He also discloses his motivation for leaving his lucrative job as an aeronautical engineer, very cushy life, though cold in Canada for the mosquito infested jungles, to sleep in a cot, to break bread with boys and to be in constant or mortal fear of being captured or killed by Sri Lankan military; he says on camera “Because of the 83 July massacre of Tamils”.

Remember, Sri Lanka is quick to blame LTTE for all the ills due Tamil terrorism, but who is going to accept the responsibility for the tacit contribution of thug politicos and their goon squads, hoodlums and hooligans, the opportunistic ‘red revolutionaries’ (do not be defensive or go into denial now, Red Brothers! Two guys came on a motorbike and tried to incite ‘military personnel’ in a camp in Rathmalana and to seek personnel support to burn down the Maharaja warehouse in Rathmalana).

Some persons participated in this disgraceful act of looting and burning down, and killing the totally innocent out of business jealousy and for economic gain, or the poor took part out of ignorance, necessity and opportunity.

LTTE would not have had the fertile grounds for collecting funds, oops sorry, ransom or hotbeds of terrorism to plan terrorist plots, sway the public opinion in western capitals towards LTTE or influence western government to turn a blind eye to their activities and inhibit GOSL from mounting effective anti-terrorism operations.

In a nutshell, though Gangai Amaran was ‘erased’ before 9/11, Shankar’s death which happened on the death anniversary of Thileepan, was the first ‘tipping point’ that set off the domino fall for the total military defeat of LTTE, and burying the leaders, en-masse, on or about 18 May 2009 in or around the NANTHIKADAL Lagoon and in the mangroves of MULLIVAIKAL.

Part One: In Gratitude to Late Lieutenant Colonel Lilith Jayasinghe

To be continued….