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

THE OTHER FACTORS CONTRIBUTED TO THE DEFEAT OF LTTE:

Written by Day
EXCLUSIVE TO SRI LANKA GUARDIAN

(May 12, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian)a. Two Costly Mistakes LTTE Committed: The Killing of Rajiv Ghandi and the closing down of Mavil Aru sluice gates.

1. The Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the seventh Prime Minister of India by the LTTE suicide bomber Gayatri also known as Dhanu supported by Nalini and others was the one of the two gravest mistakes LTTE had committed ever. If the LTTE leader and his theoretician thought for one fleeting moment that they could kill the national leader of a nuclear state of more than a billion people and get away with murder with the support of 50 millions Tamils in Tamil Nadu then I can imagine what sort of people had participated in the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) to arrive at a decision to kill Rajiv. Most definitely a bunch of smugglers like ‘Velu’ from VVT would have participated. Unless how could you make such a rash decision. The LTTE should have abided Rajiv until he lost elections or was assassinated by someone else as his mother was. It was karmic forces that won the day; a lady who gave ear to Tall Sri Sabarathnam of TELO and created this scourge of terrorism in Sri Lanka was punished by her own people in India.)

True that LTTE was mad at Rajiv for the IPKF (Indian Peace Keeping Force) presence in the north and east and its alleged atrocities in Wanni but you always look at the trade off; to kill and be damned or not to kill and not be damned!

Nothing is more farcical than if the LTTE’s school of thought or line of thinking was: Damn India! We have 50 millions Tamils on our side; in the moment of truth those 50 millions in India and some so many millions across the world would pour into the streets and bring life in their respective country to standstill to influence GOSL to halt the humanitarian operations and the final war. The LTTE were highly mistaken! As long as there is money, sex, wine, and shrewd people in the world and borders of a country are open then divide and rule is possibility, in fact, a way of life! Tell me any country in the world that is not sorely divided, except N Korea. That is why four feet no inches Mr. Kim has decided to drink Scotch and live in recluse with ‘Army First’ army at the ready! The LTTE should have abided Rajiv and his government and let to solve problems than let time ‘heal’ the killing!

2. The ‘Casus Belli’ or Closing Down Of the Mavil Aru Sluice Gates: Because of nothing but total ignorance of LTTE decided to resort to sort of scorched earth policy; decided to use water as a weapon of mass destruction. The foolish LTTE decided to deny water to 60,000 innocent farming people. The LTTE did not have legal or moral right to close the sluice gates at all as water belonged to whoever wanted use or consume or were dependent on it. Without water how you could live and survive.

The LTTE gave GOSL on a platter what it was searching for: Casus Belli for waging war. GOSL was smart enough this time rather saner counseled prevail. The GOSL thought very carefully how this ‘casus belli’ of closing down of the Mavi Aru slice gate to deny water to 15, 00 families could be used to garner the international community’s support; for information Operation purposes; to win hearts and minds of people in Sri Lanka and abroad; the sympathy and understanding of Tamils world over.

As the global atmospheric was very good for GOSL due to the closing down of sluice gates, the GOSL gave full powers to Sri Lankan Security Forces to mount the humanitarian operations and to teach the LTTE a lesson they will not forget. The rest is history.

Do you remember ‘casus belli’ the United States used in invasion of Panama, codenamed Operation Just Cause, in December 1989? Here it is; according to an official U.S. military report "witnesses to the incident, a U.S. naval officer and his wife were assaulted by Panamanian Defense Force soldiers while in police custody". (The naval officer was US Marine Corps 2nd Lt. Robert Paz, who returned from a restaurant in Panama City. Paz was recovering from recent knee reconstruction surgery, and on leave from his duty station of Camp Pendleton California; he was stopped and harassed to the point where he panicked; as he attempted to flee, he was shot and killed.)

I cannot tell you this enough; if one has seen how military decisions of national importance are made you would have see how laborious it was to arrive at the final decision; every aspect of its success and failure is war gamed; nothing is left to chance, wittingly; it is not done on one’s whims and fancies after a stiff drink.

a. The Change Of Heart of Col K: When Col K came out of the Wanni jungles, for the first in life, to participate in peace negotiations (September 16-18, 2002 at Sattahip Naval Base, Thailand) he realized what a miserable life he was living, suppressed and controlled, with fear of LRRP of Army and total anxiety, with his tiger wife. He or for that matter any tiger other than Prabakaran and family was not ‘leading’ a life. Lucky for GOSL Col K was dazed and confused by neon lights and Thai dolls in the red-light districts of Thailand. The temptations were so strong. He was or for that matter every tiger was in pressure cooker situation, after all, due the decades of suppressed feelings and sexual urges and lost youth and denial of freedoms.

Though he told Tamil people on his return from peace rounds at a function in Batticaloa to release a music CD produced by two of his fighting formations "We are strong, we will be patient". He was weak and impatient. He came back in a very sexually excited state. When he saw the ‘Thai dolls’ in translucent dresses he got so amorous. He was lost in mind and unfortunately did not see the wedding band on his ring finger when he used his fingers to fondle the Thai dolls erotically. So he started surfing the Internet. He opened the LNW webpage, a website run by some LTTE sympathizers. He saw onto his left the ever scrolling ‘LNW Special Model Bank’. Viola! ‘Model’ Geethani’s photo appeared and Col K‘s thoughts for one fleeting moment was lost in Geethani’s cleavage and clicked the mouse. For that fleeting moment, being fraction of a second late, once he clicked the mouse, instead of Githani’s photos, Model Sunalie’s came up. He thought Sunalie was ‘Elakiri’ and went through all her photo albums, some taken with ‘Mr. Putt Putt-Shriyantha M’. After that it was so easy for a Lieutenant Commander of Sri Lanka Navy Intelligence to introduce Col K to a very ‘fast life’. You could see now Sunalie and Col K are having time of their lives on the dance floors of Colombo discotheques and at the New Year eve dances at places like Beruwala. One could also see now in the media that his ex-tiger wife is also ‘spitfire’.

On a lighter note about those ladies or Models in the LNW Special Model Bank I remember a song we used to hear in the annual cricket encounters between ‘Somawansas’ and ‘Weerawansas’, which is called the Battle of Mangooseteens! (For starters, Somawansa studied at Kalutara MV, Weerawansa at Tissa MV but both are utter disgraces when we consider people like famous Narada Dissasekara , innovative ‘Dil Scoop’ Thilakaathne, Malinga Banada the next Mularitharan or SP De Silva-army ruggerite-first to convert a free kick beyond 40 yard or Maj Gen Sanath Karunarathne-the Hero of Elephant Pass siege-Dharmashoka MV wants to claim him because he is a hero now but only Kalutara MV accepted him when Dharmasoka MV chucked him out. He used to travel from Ambalngoda to Kalutara, if you do not believe me ask Maj Gen Wijesinge a former Army CofS and KMV cricket captain). The song goes like this ‘Bom(b) Bom(b) Bom(b) Bombay hurray, those ladies are nice but menna hile size (here is the size of the vaginal orifice, and the revelers extend their arms to emphasize!)

It is also apt to remember here how Bala’s ‘Holier than Thou’ attitude in the media on return from the peace negotiations trips. Bala pointed an accusing finger (‘not me, that one!’) at others, or put out names as to ‘who’ visited the strips clubs in Thai red-light districts and when. When the members of tiger peace delegation visited those strip clubs, after a hard day of ‘peace procrastination’, for some fun and night life they lost their bearing and their minds started spinning like the nude Thai dolls spinning, in the neon light, around the club pole in the center of the stage. They could not believe what they saw; there is fun to life than the miserable life the psychopathic killer Prabakaran imposed on others in Wanni while living in luxury and procreating with Madawadani. (Prabakaran messed up the Madawadani’s future like JVP messed up the future of many a brilliant medical student. Lest Sri Lanka could have had a qualified doctor by the name of Dr. Madawadani serving the poor in the Castle, the Lady Ridgeway or the Batticaloa government hospital. Moreover she could have been happily married and still living with her children from a totally different husband. Unfortunately she would not have thought in her wildest dreams what the circumstances would be when she playfully threw water at an ‘animal’, a fanatical tiger named Praba!)

Tiger leaders were nothing but a bunch of crooks. Ask baggage handlers at the Bandaranaike International Airport, when the tiger top rung or the so-called peace delegation returned from their junket tours or the peace negotiation, oops procrastination rounds of talks they brought in lots of luggage and bought a lot of electronic goods at duty-free shops. It showed to us clearly and loudly the ostensible ‘freedom fighters’ vowed to fight to death for a Drealam are nothing but a bunch of rogues yearning to be living in vanity. Why top tigers did not live an austere life, and behaved like Tirunellai Narayana Iyer Seshan (Alsatian), 10th Election Commissioner of India. He was more transparent, fire brand, and gentlemanly than any of the tiger leaders. When Seshan returned from US after a seminar he only brought a yo-yo, it was also for his grandson. Tigers did not practice what they preached.
You could see the anger against Col K by the amount of libelous videos released to the web by LTTE and its sympathizers and the murder of his brother and close associates by a LTTE hit squad in Colombo suburbs when he defected to the ‘Sinhala regime or Army’

The ultimate beneficiary of this new life of Col K was none other than the GOSL; And Sri Lankan military could ‘separate’ the battle space into two and clear the eastern province of LTTE then the Northern Province.
It was like splitting in half or sending half of military of a nation home on compulsory leave. The eastern tigers were like the Republican Guards of Iraqi Army, battle hardened through the war of attrition with Iran. This freed up fighting divisions and resources for Sri Lanka Army to conduct search and destroy operations against the remnants of LTTE in the east, especially in Batticaloa and Ampara districts. Out of all this the intelligence scoop and support GOSL got from Col K and his cadres must be very worthwhile. This intelligence support from eastern cadres who had been to the length and breadth of Wanni to participate in the LTTE military campaigns against Sri Lanka Security Forces could have helped Sri Lanka Air Force to bomb major LTTE camps, operational or training, super bunkers, comfortable, well fortified, disguised and protected safe houses of LTTE top rung, mutation factories, boat yards and what not. The same intelligence may have helped ground troops to zero on LTTE strong points rather than running all over Wanni to find tigers. This way it did not tire soldiers that much and SLA would not have had to tie down resources that much either.

I do not how many have thought about this. The talk of the town or the belief was that always the ‘heavy lifting’ in the major battles against Sri Lanka military was done by fighters born and bred in the East. The LTTE formed a unit named ‘Jeyanthan Brigade ‘. This unit was named after Jeyanthan (alias Sampukuddi Pathmanthan) from Morakkotanchena, who died in an engagement with a SLN FAC off Point Pedro 04 May 1991. The cadres for this brigade consisted of especially the fighters raised from Baticaloa and Ampara.

It was deployed in the LTTE code-named operations; ‘Operation Unceasing Wave I’ (overrunning of the SLA Mulative base complex), ‘Operation Unceasing Wave II’(the recapture of Kilinochchi by LTTE), ‘Operation Unceasing Wave III’ (the overrunning of Elephant Pass SLA base complex), ‘Operation Frog Leap’ to destroy the SLA Ponneryn camp in 1993, and against Sri Lanka Army code-named operations ‘Operation Jaya Sikuru’, Operation Sath Jeya’, ‘Operation Rivibala’ and ‘Operation Rana Gosha’ 'Operation Forward Leap' and 'Operation Sun Ray'.

The most notable thing is that the Jeyanthan Brigade was ‘USED’ to spearhead the LTTE’s crushing of the six-week rebellion by renegade LTTE commander, Col Karuna, dismantling Karuna’s military structures.

The Jeyanthan Brigade tigers were the real warriors. But they were treated like ‘sh*t’ or coolies! No leadership positions in the LTTE, no important appointments in major tiger divisions, no recognition etc for the eastern tigers. The fighters from the east were frustrated and disappointed. It was a major grumble by Col K for the reason for defection from his erstwhile fanatical and innovative terrorist organization and the psychopathic killer leader. I had this in the after burner but I thought to confirm this for myself. To do this I followed the vote block promises to General Fonseka by Tamils and their voting patterns in the recently concluded presidential elections. The northern Tamils abandoned him lock, stock and barrel and threw him under the (victory) bus of MR. Now SF is dying a natural death in a windowless room at the Naval Headquarters without seeing sun rise or set, like high rollers in a Las Vegas casino but for high rollers food, drinks, smokes and girls are around in abundance. The eastern Tamils stood steadfast by SF as promised. It tells me of the quality of eastern Tamils.

b. Tsunami Tidal Waves: The Boxing Day (26 December 2004) tsunami was a huge tragedy in human and material cost to Sri Lanka and South Asian nations. It was another very decisive tipping point in the military demise of LTTE and I will elaborate more on it later. For the first time in their lives villagers the panic-stricken faces of so shaken to the core tiger boys. They had never seen so dull or fear-stricken faces of ‘podiyans’ in their lives.
Though the LTTE never accepted publically the damages to their boats, boatyards, armaments and equipment, and men and women we can fairly gauge the damage was of epic proportions by analyzing the LTTE reaction and the statements issued. "Liberation Tigers declare 26th January as a National Day of Mourning to remember those who lost their lives in the Tsunami disaster in Tamil…..the force of the tidal waves hit the Southeast Asian region including Sri Lanka causing unprecedented devastation ……. Our people living in coastal areas of Tamil homeland have been severely affected. The fury of nature has rendered our people homeless, traumatized them by taking away lives of their loved ones and forced them to seek shelter in welfare centers and in homes of their friends and relatives .”

c. INGOs and NGOs: Let’s talk about a Mercy Corps, a Peace Corps in Crisis Corps mode or an Intelligence Agency (Central or otherwise); of which one, a Mercy Corps which donates cycles to school students in a place like Trincomalee, bath basin, blanket, mosquito net, food, and soaps for tsunami affected pregnant mothers, more than one million rupees worth tools of trade (TOT) for tsunami affected persons in a place like Nilaveli or conducts two day Food Processing Fair in a place like Akkaraipattu; a Peace Corps in Crisis Corps mode volunteers working as Civil Engineers for water sanitation and reconstruction projects, Community Liaison Officers assisting in the coordination of regional relief and reconstruction efforts, Field Officers, Evaluation Specialists, Livelihoods Assistants, Community Health Assistants and Capacity Building Specialists or an intelligence agency spooks ‘pumping iron’ in a hotel gym in the morning, trash talking about their favorite NFL (National Football) Team or doing the Monday morning quarterbacking at breakfast, talking about their ‘Harleys ‘ at lunch and whining, dining in business attire and fornicating with local girls to their hearts’ content using intelligence slush funds at night, are YOU AFRAID MOST? An intelligence agency (central or otherwise), right? If the answer is yes, you have no sense about the intriguing world of intelligence gathering!

I am dead scared of a Peace Corps or a Mercy Corps team wanting to help a strategically important country affected by a natural disaster than a CIA team stationed in normally embassy or a very safe house. These Peace Corps, Mercy Corps teams consist of academics, experts and intellectuals, they basically are Human Terrain Teams that have ‘social scientists’ who map relationships and create databases of local leaders, economic issues, social problems, castes and political disputes as well as using mapped knowledge and cultural insights to advise military commanders. For CIA team they kill time and get hold of a rascal like ‘Curve Ball’ and file a Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) report pushing a nation to a war baselessly or welcome an AQ double agent without frisking him prior to his entry to a base and wait in a receiving line to be blasted to smithereens by him.

I have put out a lot of details to get to my point. Though Sri Lankans and the government friendly or patriotic media, deliberately or not, bashed or pilloried all International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) without an iota of mercy but how do you know that some of these INGOS or NGOs paved the way for the wiping out the tiger terrorist by providing very vital information about locations, activities, equipments and movements of LTTE top rung in real time so that GOSL or Security Forces could take ‘timely’ action? As every Tamil is not a bad Tamil, every INGO is not against unitary state of Sri Lanka. Please remember that.

That is why Pakistan in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) earth quake in 2005 asked only for material aid, not for INGO personnel by plane loads.

d. Unsung Heroes in the Military: I will give you just two examples for the time being.

1. A Young SLAF officer who was in charge of a bunker line took initiative to motivate airmen in trenches to play football. He organized a team that won a lot of matches and about four of his players ended up being selected SLAF soccer team. He took another initiative to get some crushers to crush granite and deliver to other camps pave foot paths or in building construction. He started a project to grow vegetables, his camp and other camps ate ‘organic’ vegetables! Not only that, when a suicide bomber attacked a sister service convoy he heard the loud explosion at his camp, he jumped into a truck and arrived on the scene, on his own, to evacuate the injured and remove the dead.

2. When the entire ship did not have water supply as the only water pump motor was burnt a young naval officer gathered a few trusted ratings. They were to steal/sneak into the LTTE area, passing an active LTTE bunker line, to descend into a disused well and remover the motor. The young sailor who descended into the well had only request; if the LTTE showed up, do not leave him in the well to be captured! When he emerged from the well with the motor he was bleeding in the mouth as he had used his teeth to cut the wires! The water supply was restored to the ship.

Are you not so proud of these unsung heroes who live in a few people’s mind forever? I am! I always remember then when I rise up in the morning and go to bed in the night!

Morale is a force multiplier!

To be continued...

Read previous parts:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight