|
|
|
Last Updated: Aug 26, 2008 - 1:34:55 PM |
The military went onto the offensive in the North last July after
securing control of all LTTE strongholds in the Eastern Province.
Unlike in the East, however, where the LTTE had suffered a debilitating
split, the army ran into concerted resistance in the northern areas,
where the LTTE had prepared elaborate defences. Two offensives near
Muhamalai in November and April ended in disaster, with hundreds of
casualties and the loss of significant military hardware.
For months the frontlines have been relatively static. Rather than
major offensives, the military has waged a relentless war of attrition
using its superior firepower and air strikes, not only to inflict
casualties on the LTTE but also to terrorise the local population. Even
allowing for official bias, the steady stream of reports of LTTE dead,
injured and captured indicates that such methods have taken their toll.
The first breakthrough came in April when the army seized the area
around the Catholic Church at Madhu in the northwest of the island. In
mid-July, security forces took the strategically important coastal
village of Vidattaltivu. Vidattaltivu was vital to the LTTE’s supply
lines as it is located just across the narrow Palk Strait from the
southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The LTTE only withdrew its forces
after weeks of heavy fighting.
On August 12, the defence ministry claimed that its troops had reached
Mulankavil, 35 kilometres to the north of Mannar. On August 13, the
army captured the small, heavily fortified town of Kalvilan, just 15
kilometres south of Kilinochchi. On August 22, the military reported
the overrunning of nearby Thunukkai, another small but strategic town
considered vital if the LTTE is to defend its stronghold at Mallavi.
On August 16, the defence ministry announced that the army had seized
an LTTE jungle base at Andankulam in the northern eastern Weli Oya
area. A military spokesman claimed that the base was equipped with
around 100 underground bunkers and four lecture halls, along with water
wells and other facilities.
There is no way to confirm these reports as independent journalists are
not allowed in the war zones. Both the government and the LTTE
routinely exaggerate casualty figures and downplay their failures. The
military and its paramilitary allies have created a climate of fear and
intimidation through the abduction, torture and murder of journalists
who have been in any way critical of the military.
President Mahinda Rajapakse and his government have certainly seized on
the latest advances. Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse, the
president’s brother, told the London-based Times on August 12: “It [the
capture of Kilinochchi] is possible by the end of this year”.
Campaigning for provincial elections last weekend, Prime Minister
Ratnasiri Wickramayake even boasted that the army would take
Kilinochchi by polling day. “We are very close. Kilinochchi is not very
far from our sight,” he said.
In the event, the army did not reach Kilinochchi district last weekend.
But the LTTE’s silence on the government’s claims does lend credence to
the reports. Rather than denying the advances, the LTTE has focussed on
the humanitarian disaster created by the military. “Persistent shelling
in this area, where two weeks ago a large number of internally
displaced people sought refuge, forced them to [move] again further
inside Kilinochchi,” an LTTE statement declared last week. “Many of the
internally displaced people, who are yet to receive temporary shelter
and are thus still living under trees, are struggling to seek shelter
from the rain.”
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Colombo has
confirmed that the recent fighting has triggered a new wave of
refugees. Its latest estimates add between 55,000 to 75,000 people to
the 125,000 who have already been displaced from the LTTE-controlled
Vanni region. The UNHCR warned that emergency supplies for the victims
of the war were running dangerously low.
As was the case in the East, the government has imposed an economic
blockade on LTTE-controlled areas. Those who are fleeing from the
shelling, bombardment and lack of basic supplies are being strictly
controlled. The military has opened just three exit points from
civilians to cross into the government-controlled Vavuniya.
The ferocity of the military offensives is underscored by the
military’s own casualty figures. The statistics presented last month to
parliament showed that 751 soldiers have been killed and 4,913 injured
in the seven months up to July. The figures are almost certainly an
underestimate of the military’s actual losses.
Military gains
The gains made by the army in the East and now the North are the result
of a number of factors, not least of which is government’s ruthless
determination to pursue the military destruction of the LTTE at any
cost. Since narrowly winning office in November 2005, President
Rajapakse has poured huge additional sums of money into the defence
budget to purchase new equipment and finance the war.
The military’s systematic bombardment of LTTE-held areas has been
paralleled by a vicious terror campaign in government-held zones
against the Tamil minority and any critics of the war. Hundreds of
people have “disappeared” or been murdered by death squads operated by
the military and the paramilitaries. The government has not hesitated
to brand any opposition—including protests and strikes by workers,
farmers and students—as aiding the “Tiger terrorists” and betraying the
motherland.
A major factor in Rajapakse’s favour has been the tacit support of the
US and other powers for the renewed war. Apart from token criticism of
the military’s appalling human rights record, the countries that
sponsored the so-called international peace process—the US, the EU,
Japan and Norway—all lined up behind the Colombo government.
Rajapakse’s formal abrogation of the 2002 ceasefire in January was
greeted with stony silence from the “international community”.
The US and India in particular have played a significant role in
isolating the LTTE politically and boosting the capabilities of the Sri
Lankan military. India supplied crucial intelligence earlier in the
year that enabled the Sri Lankan navy to intercept and sink several of
the LTTE’s supply vessels on the high seas. The Indian military has
been increasingly involved in training its Sri Lankan counterparts and
supplying so-called non-lethal military hardware. At the same time, the
Indian security forces have cracked down on LTTE operatives in Tamil
Nadu, further intensifying the LTTE’s supply problems.
Under pressure from Washington, the EU and Canada outlawed the LTTE in
2006 and 2007 respectively, undermining its ability to raise financial
and political support from the large Tamil diaspora. The US, UK and
other European countries have since taken steps to round up LTTE
supporters and block fund-raising activities. As a result, the LTTE has
floundered politically—its perspective of a separate Tamil statelet
always relied on the backing of one or other of the major powers.
Addressing a provincial council election rally last week, President
Rajapakse hysterically declared: “There is no turning back under any
circumstances or influence now, until every inch of land is recaptured
and each and every terrorist is killed or captured.” After winning at
the August 23 provincial poll, he boasted: “The strength and morale
that our heroic troops will receive from this victory in their battles
to finally end bloody terrorism from our country is immeasurable.”
The outcome of the protracted and bloody 25-year old civil war is yet
to be determined. But a military success in crushing the LTTE would
resolve none of the political issues that led to the war in the first
place and would quickly produce a new political crisis. Ever since
formal independence in 1948, successive governments have relied on
anti-Tamil chauvinism to bolster their support among the Sinhala
majority and divide the working class along communal lines.
For more than two decades, the Colombo political establishment has
exploited the war to divert attention from their inability to meet the
aspirations of working people for basic democratic rights and decent
living standards. The United National Party launched the war in 1983 as
mass opposition to its market reforms was emerging from workers and
farmers. Rajapakse’s Sri Lankan Freedom Party relaunched the conflict
in 2006 as hostility was rising to his broken election promises to
improve living standards.
If the Sri Lankan government were able to finally crush the LTTE
militarily, the “victory” would do nothing to resolve the underlying
communal tensions or the country’s social and economic crisis. Having
demanded that working people “sacrifice” for the war, Rajapakse would
immediately confront demands for better pay and conditions, improved
services and financial assistance for struggling farmers, none of which
his government is capable of meeting. His response will inevitably be a
military one: to use police-state measures against the working
people—Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim alike.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
Top of Page
|
|
|
|