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______________________________________________________________________________
News
Briefs
The
LTTE Retreats
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(Afghanistan and
Myanmar in the
map are not members of SAARC)
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Uncertainties
in the Minds of the International Community and Sri Lankans in the
Aftermath of LTTE Leader’s Heroes’ Day Speech
BY
SATHEESAN KUMAARAN (IDN) *
I am conscious that an equal
division of property is impracticable, but, the consequences of this
enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind,
legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property –Thomas Jefferson
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The leader of the LTTE, in his Great Heroes’ Day
(Maaveerar) speech, broadcast from an unknown location in northern Sri
Lanka on November 27, 2007, put much more weight than on previous
occasions on the need for Tamils around the world to rally in solidarity
with the Sri Lankan Tamils if negotiations with the Sri Lankan
government break down and war results.
Such solidarity may very well determine the eventual destiny of
the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Furthermore,
the LTTE leader, unlike on previous occasions, when his statements were
directed solely toward the Sinhala nation, made it a top priority to
blame members of the International Community (IC) for their failure to
stand by the LTTE’s just and fair struggle to find a permanent
solution, through peaceful means, for the liberation of East Timor and
Montenegro, despite the fact that the Tamils in Sri Lanka have been
fighting for justice, both militarily and peacefully, since the island
gained its independence from Britain in 1948.
The
LTTE Leader’s Earlier Heroes’ Day Speeches
Although LTTE leader Velupillai Pirapaharan has
been addressing the general Tamil public since 1987, these annual policy
speeches did not gain much in significance because the LTTE focussed on
military tactics rather than on ending the ethnic conflict through peace
talks. The speeches of the LTTE supremo and, with them, the concerns
of the Tamils of Sri Lanka began to get international attention only
since November 27, 2002, when the IC and Tamils elsewhere around the
world began to observe the Eelam problem closely because they wanted to
know whether the parties in conflict would find a peaceful settlement. The LTTE leader, in 2002, 2003, and 2004, urged the Sri
Lankan government to enter into genuine peace talks with the LTTE,
despite the fact that the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government had already
entered into several rounds of peace talks in foreign countries under
the Sinhala leaderships of Ranil Wickremesinghe of the UNP and Chandrika
of the People’s Alliance. LTTE
leaders did not approve of the way the UNP leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe,
handled the issues of the Tamils.
Wickremesinghe, they felt, failed to address the grievances
of Tamils, even though the government negotiating team promised to
create normalcy in northern and eastern Sri Lanka.
Ranil’s UNP was the mastermind in breaking the LTTE in
Batticaloa. The government
at the time gave shelter to and accommodated an LTTE faction, under
former-LTTE commander Karuna, in Batticaloa.
Ranil did so during a time of peace.
The LTTE was not in a situation to blame the Sri Lankan
government alone because the issue involved an internal matter within
the LTTE movement. So, the
LTTE leadership took quick action to expel the breakaway group and name
its members traitors. But
the LTTE leadership did not forget the activities of the UNPers.
This was the not the first time the LTTE leadership had discerned
a move to create internal fighting within the LTTE and, thereby, to
weaken it. The Indian government, for instance, did this, but without
success. India managed to
infiltrate the LTTE, to use its second-in-command, Mahthaya, and to name
a few other leaders; these attempts were foiled by members of the LTTE
intelligence, led by Pottu Amman. When
Chandrika Kumaratunga came to power, she tried not to antagonize the
LTTE. Hence, she continued the peace process, but she did not enter
into genuine peace talks. She
even managed to hoodwink the IC. Chandrika’s
government played a crucial role in 2004, when a tsunami hit countries
adjoining the Indian Ocean, including Sri Lanka. She did not permit former American presidents George Bush, Sr.
and Bill Clinton or other dignitaries, such as United Nations
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to visit LTTE-controlled areas, even
though many people in the Tamil areas in the north and east suffered
from the effects of the tsunami, because she claimed their visits to
these areas would sanction LTTE claims for a separate state.
In 2005, just nine
days after President Mahinda Rajapaksa won the
presidential race, the LTTE leader said he was willing to give Rajapaksa
time. The LTTE leader
believed that, unlike other presidents of the country, Rajapaksa would
be sincere and honest in pursuing a peaceful settlement to the ethnic
issue. The goodwill of the
LTTE, however, was of no avail because the Sri Lankan armed forces began
killing Tamils in the north and east.
The LTTE, in return, began defensive attacks against Sri Lankan
troops. One took place on
December 4, 2005, when they killed 10 troops in an attack in Jaffna.
On December 5, 2005, they killed another four troops.
Sporadic clashes between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan armed forces
continued, but the attacks were viewed by the LTTE as defensive one.
Things got worse in 2006,
when the Sri Lankan armed forces captured areas controlled by the LTTE,
thereby violating the Cease-Fire Agreement (CFA) signed between the LTTE
leader and Sri Lanka’s premier, Ranil Wickremesinghe, in 2002.
In return, the LTTE launched defensive attacks, but refrained
from launching major military attacks, except the one in Trincomalee.
The LTTE fighters returned to their camps, due to the pressure of
the IC over violations of the CFA.
LTTE members once again proved they respected the CFA, but the
government violated it many times.
The LTTE leadership took the issue to the IC, asking its members
to exert pressure on the Sri Lankan government to refrain from capturing
LTTE-held areas, as stated in the CFA.
The Sri Lankan government, however, did not follow the demands of
the IC.
On November 27, 2006, the
LTTE leader,
Pirapaharan, in his Martyrs’ Day
speech, clarified the prevailing LTTE position.
He made a strongly-worded statement: “Both our liberation
movement and our people never preferred war to a peaceful resolution.
We have always preferred a peaceful approach to win the political
rights of our people. We
have never hesitated to follow the peaceful path to win our political
rights. That is why we held peace talks, beginning in Thimpu right
through to Geneva, on several occasions, at various times, and in many
countries”. He also stated that Rajapaksa had rejected his final
call, pronounced in his Heroes’ Day statement of 2005, to give more
time to finding a resolution to the urgent Tamil National Question.
He added that Rajapaksa, instead, had intensified the war, even
as he had claimed to want to find a peaceful resolution.
Pirapaharan noted this dual war and peace approach is
fundamentally flawed: “It is not possible to find a resolution by
marginalizing and destroying the freedom movement with which talks must
be held to find the resolution. This is political absurdity on the part
of the Sinhala leaders. Due to this strategy of the Rajapaksa regime,
the CFA has become defunct”. The LTTE leader added that Rajapaksa’s regime, which denied the people
food and medicine, thereby starving them, could not be expected to show
compassion and give the Tamil people their political rights. He said that the Sinhala nation, eternally trapped in the
mythical ideology of the Mahavamsa, has failed to think afresh and has
left the Tamils with only one option, political independence and
statehood for the people of Tamil Eelam.
The
LTTE Leader’s 2007 Heroes’ Day Speech
The
LTTE leader’s speech of November 27, 2007 was seen as important, even
crucial, by all Tamils around the world and the IC for various obvious
reasons. First, Tamils the
world over wanted to know what their leaders had to say because Tamils
from other parts of the world could not pay a visit to their brethren in
the north and east due to security reasons, the closure of roads, and
unsafe air, land, and sea passages to the Tamil homeland. Secondly,
many Tamils from other parts of the world had gone to the Tamil homeland
in Sri Lanka and their youngsters had married there; however, spouses
had been left behind, waiting for foreign embassies to approve their
sponsorship applications. At
the same time, many of the Tamils from abroad who had married in
northern and eastern Sri Lanka and were forced to leave their spouses
there were unable to make safe passage to Colombo, where their
sponsorship procedures had to be completed.
Thirdly, some Tamils who visited Sri Lanka were abducted for
ransom, and, on many occasions, the Sri Lankan armed forces or their
sponsored militant groups kidnapped foreign Tamil nationals.
The Tamils around the world, therefore, yearned for a peaceful
atmosphere. The IC also
wanted to ensure peace prevailed on the island for various reasons.
The war against extremists was taking place in the Middle East
and in Afghanistan. The
Americans and their allies wanted safe sea passage through Sri Lanka
from American and British bases in the Indian Ocean, especially from
Diego Garcia, near Madagascar. Neighbouring India wanted peace in Sri Lanka, even though
India does not want greater autonomy for Tamils in Sri Lanka, fearing
that greater autonomy for the Tamils in Sri Lanka will create internal
problems for India; India especially fears that the Tamils in Sri Lanka
will give moral and material support to the southern Indian state of
Tamil Nadu, which could demand separation from India.
This latter myth has existed for quite some time in New Delhi. The idea was first sown by the American Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), during the early 1980s, when Sri Lankan militant groups
became leading players in the fight against the Sri Lankan armed forces
and Tamil militants got training, money, and support from India.
China, Pakistan, Japan, Israel, and Russia are only a few of the
countries that supported the Sri Lankan government for various reasons,
including geo-political and security reasons, and that now also see the
problem in Sri Lanka as critical. The
IC has economic interests in the region, especially with India; that
makes Sri Lanka important. The
IC also wants to play a critical role in ending the conflict through
peaceful means, in order to save the people from gross violations of
human rights.
Whatever
the consequences to the IC, it is important to highlight the speech the
LTTE leader made on November 27 of this year because he said he had lost
faith in the IC and urged Tamils throughout the world to stand behind
him in the days, months, and years to come, days that will be the
darkest for the freedom struggle because LTTE fighters are determined to
liberate the Tamil Nation from the wrath of the Sinhala occupation.
The LTTE leader, this time, signalled clearly that the
country was heading for a bloody, no-holds-barred war because the
government has unilaterally broken the CFA, which, today, is only a
paper document. He sent two politically-laden messages to the south.
He stated that, since the CFA is no longer in force, everything
and everyone is fair game and that he was going add to Rajapaksa’s
woes by giving the JVP more teeth with which to call on the government
formally to abrogate the agreement.
The day after the LTTE leader delivered his speech, the JVP did
call on the government formally to abrogate the CFA.
That evening, a bomb explosion in the heart of Nugegoda killed 20
civilians and injured 36 more. In
addition, there was a suicide bomb attack, during the early hours of the
same day, at the office of former Tamil militant leader Douglas
Devananda, who is today a cabinet minister in the Rajapaksa government,
even though his EPDP party members are wandering around the country with
weapons. For hours after
the bomb attacks, the government, fearing a retaliatory attack based on
the LTTE claim of 11 students being killed in a blast in the north,
rushed to close all schools in the Western Province.
Vehicles were banned from entering the World Trade Centre and the
Liberty Plaza shopping complex was searched following a bomb scare.
Over 18,000 police and army soldiers are guarding Colombo and its
suburbs. These security
personnel are conducting door-to-door searches in the Sinhala south.
Over 3,000 Tamils have been arrested and put in prison,
regardless of their age and gender.
All these people were taken to prison because they were born to
Tamils. The IC has not
responded to the arrests made by the Sri Lankan government.
The IC, however, responded immediately, condemning the
perpetrators of the November 28 attack on Nugegoda, an attack that
killed 20 people.
On the eve of Heroes’ Day, while the LTTE leader
was preparing his speech, the Sri Lankan government flattened the
building of the ‘Voice of Tigers’ radio in Kilinochchi.
Nevertheless, the ‘Voice of Tigers’ and other media outlets
of the LTTE, as well as other broadcasting and television media around
the world, aired the speech in full.
Although the building of the ‘Voice of Tigers’ radio was
flattened in the raid, the ‘Voice of Tigers’ radio broadcast
continued through a backup station.
Ten people at the radio station, including three employees, were
killed. Reporters Without
Borders and some international media organizations described the attack
as a war crime. On the same
day, 13 civilians in the north, including 11 children, were killed,
allegedly by a deep penetration unit of the Sri Lankan army.
Defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brother of the Sri Lankan
president, vowed his army forces would kill the LTTE leader soon. Vowing to kill or arrest senior LTTE leaders is something Sri
Lankan and Indian leaders have always done; in fact, this is difficult
to do.
With this context in mind, it is important to
highlight another statement the LTTE leader made in his November 27
speech: “The immeasurable dedication and sacrifice of our heroes is
delivering a message to the Sinhala nation. Those who plan to destroy
the Tamil nation will in the end be forced to face their own
destruction”. He noted
the LTTE’s aims: “We are struggling only to regain our sovereignty
in our own historical land where we have lived for centuries, the
sovereignty which we lost to colonial occupiers. We are struggling only
to re-establish that sovereignty and rebuild our nation. The
Sinhala nation is continuing to reject our just and civilised demands
for freedom. Instead, it has declared a genocidal war on our land and our
people. Behind the
smokescreen of fighting terrorism, it is creating immense human
misery”. Furthermore, he
added: “Despite our people enduring injustice, oppression, facing
death, destruction and massive displacement, no country, no nation, no
international organisation has raised its voice on our behalf.
We face this situation alone because, although 80 million Tamils
live all around the globe, the Tamils do not have a country of their
own”. Finally, the LTTE
supremo announced his intention of renewed battle in the following
terms: “Thousands of our fighters are standing ready to fight with
determination for our just goal of freedom and we will overcome the
hurdles before us and liberate our motherland. On
this day, when we remember our heroes, who sacrificed themselves for
this sacred goal, let each one of us carry their dreams in our hearts
and struggle until it is achieved”.
More importantly, the LTTE supremo castigated the
IC for not taking active steps to prevent an outbreak of war that would
then lead to a breakdown in the peace process; there is also an
implication that the LTTE will no longer be mindful of international
opinion when carrying out its operations. It is premature, at this
stage, to judge whether the LTTE is being hypocritical in placing the
entire blame on the government and the IC for the breakdown of the peace
process; what is significant is the message that the country will
witness a brutal war in the days ahead, a war wherein international
norms will find no place. Having
dealt with the failure of the international community to enforce the
peace process, the LTTE leader clearly stated that there is no way the
peace talks can continue and indirectly pointed out that the only
permanent solution is one founded on military means.
This is not due to the fact that he and his people are lovers of
war, but that there is no alternative to military means in finding a
permanent solution. The people of all communities in Sri Lanka are sick and tired
of the ongoing, sporadic clashes, and many civilians are suffering from
economic and military burdens imposed on them under the guise of peace
talks. Extortions,
killings, tortures, and rapes take place on a daily basis in the
Tamil-dominated north and east and in Colombo.
Rajapaksa, too, declared his intention to go to war
with the LTTE. However,
both parties in the conflict refrain from declaring war because of the
exertion of pressure from the IC. Things
have been changing, however, since the LTTE leader claimed the LTTE had
lost faith in the IC.
This time, the LTTE leader spoke at length and publicly
about India’s desire to be a regional superpower.
That is why, for geo-political and security reasons, India sent
Indian armed forces, in the guise of a peacekeeping force, to the Tamil
homeland in Sri Lanka. He
noted that India did not even get the consent of the Tamil nation before
sending the armed forces. India
sent them to suppress the Eelam cause.
The LTTE leader is correct in stating that he was forcefully
taken to New Delhi, with other Tamil leaders, before signing the
Indo-Lanka Accord, in 1987, and that the Indian government then forced
the LTTE leader to agree to receive the Indian armed forces without
resistance. The LTTE leader
only agreed because he knew the mentality of New Delhi at that time and
wanted to escape from the custody of Indian government.
He and others were then safely transported to Sri Lanka, but only
after he gave his word not to launch attacks against the arriving Indian
armed forces. The LTTE
fighters on the ground in Jaffna stopped preventing the Indian armed
forces from landing. By the
time the LTTE leader and others arrived in Jaffna, the Indian armed
forces were deployed throughout northern and eastern Sri Lanka.
Politicians in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, including
chief minister M. G. Ramachandran, told LTTE members not to heed the
advice of New Delhi. The
Tamil Nadu premier told Pirapaharan and others to be careful when
dealing with New Delhi and that, only if they were satisfied with the
promises made by New Delhi, should the LTTE leadership approve the
accord. It is unfortunate
Ramachandran died soon thereafter, whereupon many political changes took
place in India.
To
be concluded
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*
Satheesan Kumaaran
holds B.Sc. (Biology), Honours BA (Political Science) and MA in
Integrated Studies with the specialization in International
Law and International Relations. This was first published in
The Tamil Mirror. E-Mail: satheesan_kumaaran@yahoo.com.
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The
LTTE Retreats
BY AJIT KUMAR SINGH
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management
We
are convinced that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
is now weakened.
We should not pass this ethnic problem to the next
generation.
– Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, September 27,
2007
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With
more than 4,000 deaths in 2007, Sri Lanka continues to be one of the
most violent theatres of conflict in the world. Worse, the conflict can
be expected to become the more intractable over the coming year.
In
2007, the security forces (SFs) continued to gain immense military
victories and appear to have cornered the LTTE, so much so that the
outfit, once controlling a large swathe of land in the Eastern Province
and ruling the Northern Province, is looking for international
intervention to save it from being totally wiped out of the map of the
Island country. That the LTTE has been on the run and at its weakest
ever in the history of its fight against the Sri Lankan State was also
reflected in the annual Mahaveerar Thinam (Heroes’ Day) speech
delivered by its chief Velupillai Prabhakaran on November 27, 2007.
Instead of his customary war rhetoric, he complained that the
"partisan and unjust conduct" of the international community
"severely undermined confidence of Tamil people". Claiming,
absurdly, that the LTTE has been ‘fighting non-violently’ and
through ‘armed struggle’ for a very long time against national
oppression, Prabhakaran asserted that the Tigers were not
"terrorists committing blind acts of violence impelled by racist or
religious fanaticism".
Meanwhile,
the SFs continued their march into LTTE-held areas and are close to
Wanni now. On December 7, 2007, Defence Spokesperson and Minister,
Keheliya Rambukwella, informed Parliament that Kilinochchi was ‘within
sight’, and therefore the Government would pursue the target of
eradicating terrorism to create a democratic environment. The Minister
said that the Government had won unprecedented military victories after
30 years of war and should not relinquish this advantageous position,
adding, "If we let this chance go, the country will slip back to
the position that existed 30 years ago."
Although
there is not much of a difference between total casualties for the years
2006 and 2007, the breakup of fatalities clearly indicates a steady
strengthening of state Forces. 2007 saw a dramatic decline in both
civilian and SF fatalities, and a sharp escalation in terrorists killed,
as compared to 2006.
Fatalities
in Sri Lanka, 2006-2007
*
Till December 18. (Source: Institute for Conflict Management database)
Government
troops, which commenced their operations in July 2006 in Mavil Aru,
captured Vakarai Town in Batticaloa District on January 19, 2007.
Further, on July 11, President Mahinda Rajapakse declared that the
military had captured Thoppigala, the last remaining pocket of influence
of the LTTE in the East, which had remained under effective rebel
control since 1994. Earlier, the military had announced that its
soldiers had reached the LTTE’s Baron’s Camp in Thoppigala and had
declared, "With this victory, troops have captured the ‘nerve
centre’ of the LTTE terrorists in their last stronghold in the Eastern
province."
Validating
the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka’s January
2, 2007, assertion that the Army would liberate the Eastern Province
from the LTTE's hold and then proceed to liberate the Northern Province,
the SFs then turned their attention to the North. The Army Commander had
claimed "After eradicating the Tigers from the East, full strength
would be used to rescue the North." Fighting there continues, with
an average of 10 LTTE militants killed daily. The firefights along the
currently held Forward Defence Line, both in the Jaffna Peninsula, north
of the Elephant Pass, and along the mainland, north of Vavuniya, are now
a continuous process, and SLA sources indicate that ‘long range
operations’ deep into LTTE territory have also been initiated in a
campaign of attrition intended to weaken the rebels in their final
bastion. The Government, however, will have to strengthen its hold in
the Eastern Province where, according to media reports, the Tamileela
Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP), the LTTE breakaway faction led by
‘Colonel’ Karuna, is attempting to consolidate power in Batticaloa
and surrounding areas. On March 11, Karuna had accepted that he had
areas under his control and claimed that his group was "involved in
civil administration" in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka.
However, according to an October 19 report, after a survey of the civil
administration of the East, Karu Jayasuriya, the Minister of Public
Administration and Home Affairs, disclosed that the civil administration
of East will be almost completely established by January 1, 2008.
In
a decisive incident, on November 2, S. P. Thamilselvan, the political
wing leader of the LTTE and its de facto number two, was killed
in a Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) air strike at Thiruvaiaru, a location
three kilometers South of Kilinochchi. The attack was based on ‘very
reliable information’ identifying the location as a meeting place of
LTTE leaders, giving the marauding forces their biggest success in the
ongoing battle. Simultaneously, fighter jets also pounded a Black Tiger
camp in the East of Iranamadu. Five other leaders ‘Lt. Col.’
Anpumani alias Alex, ‘Major’ Mihuthan, ‘Major’ Nethagy,
‘Lieutenant’ Adchgivel and ‘Lieutenant’ Vahakai Kumaran were
also killed in the air strike. Their meeting place was subsequently
confirmed as an international communications centre run by ‘Lt.
Col.’ Alex, as well as a centre for logistics, arms procurement, fund
raising and operational coordination. Following the attack, Defence
Secretary Rajapaksa declared that the military would target the rest of
the LTTE leaders and, "When the time comes only, we take them one
by one."
In
addition to its battlefield reverses, the LTTE has also been trying to
cope with the international pressure exerted by countries across the
globe, with reports claiming that the LTTE’s activities were no longer
confined to Sri Lanka. There was some evidence of emerging commercial
links between the LTTE and al Qaeda. On May 17, the Sri Lankan
Ambassador to the USA, Bernard Goonetileke, stated that the LTTE has
stolen 130,000 Norwegian passports and sold them to the "highest
bidders" including al Qaeda operatives. He said, "One of them
[LTTE cadre] surfaced with 700 of the stolen passports in Thailand and
got caught to the police." During the year, there have been some
arrests of LTTE top leaders in various countries, including:
April
6: The leader of the LTTE’s branch in France since 2003, Nadarajah
Mathinthiran alias ‘Parathi’ and Thuraisamy Jeyamorthy alias ‘Jeya’,
who were in charge of the money collections in France, were among 17
LTTE suspects arrested by the French authorities.
April
25: The ‘director’ of the LTTE in New York, Karunakaran Kandasamy,
was arrested by the FBI in Queens. He was arrested on Federal charges of
providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
May
1: Two LTTE leaders in Australia – Sivaraj Yathevan, in charge of Eela
Murasu, a Tamil community paper, and his aide Arooran Vignanamoorthy
– who had access to AUD 526,000 in two bank accounts between August
2001 and December 2005, were arrested during raids conducted on 10
premises in Melbourne’s east — at Vermont, Glen Waverley, Mount
Waverley, Dandenong and East Burwood — and in the Sydney suburbs of
Toongabbie and Parramatta.
The
depleted LTTE has, nevertheless, carried out several lethal attacks in
Sri Lanka (including the first ever aerial attack, followed by four
others, mainly targeting the capital Colombo. There was an
ill-considered Government backlash in response, and on June 1, Tamils
from the north and east staying in various lodges without jobs in
Colombo were asked to go back to their homes in view of the security
situation. This briefly escalated ethnic polarization, which could well
have been exploited by the LTTE, but the Government quickly realized its
mistake, after the intervention of the Courts, and performed a U-turn,
asking the Tamils to stay on.
Some
of the major
LTTE attacks in 2007 included:
January
5: At least six passengers were killed and 63 were wounded in a bomb
blast inside a bus bound for Giriulla from Nittambuwa in the Gampaha
District.
January
6: At least 16 persons were killed and 40 injured, as a second explosion
occurred in a bus in a span of less than 24 hours in the Galle District,
over 80 kilometres from the national capital Colombo.
February
27: Italy’s Ambassador, Pio Miriani, and US Ambassador Robert Blake
were injured in mortar firing by the LTTE, targeting an air movement
carrying Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, along with a
few foreign diplomats in Batticaloa.
March
26: Carrying out their first ever air attack on the main Sri Lankan Air
Force base in Katunayake at Colombo, the LTTE killed three Air Force
personnel and injured 17 others.
April
29: An LTTE aircraft bombed oil and gas storage facilities in and around
Colombo. One of the two bombs dropped on Shell’s Muthurajawela Gas
Storage Facility caused minor damage to the fire guard equipment while
the other damaged the water supply. The two bombs dropped on the
Kolonnawa Oil Storage Depot failed to explode.
May
28: Seven civilians were killed and 42 persons, including 36 civilians,
sustained injuries, in an LTTE-triggered claymore mine explosion at
Belekkade Junction in the Rathmalana area of the capital Colombo.
October
22: Elite Army troops of the Special Forces confronted LTTE cadres who
infiltrated and carried out a suicide attack on the SLAF base at
Anuradhapura and evicted them from the premises killing 20 militants.
Nine SF personnel, including two officers, were killed and 20 others
wounded in the encounter. Subsequently the LTTE carried out an aerial
attack, dropping two shells damaging two MI 24 helicopters parked in a
hangar. Another BELL-212 helicopter, which was to reinforce SLAF fighter
craft resisting LTTE air movement, had to crash-land at Doramadalawa
area, closer to Mihintale, due to a technical fault, killing both pilots
and two gunners. This was the first time the outfit had carried out a
combined air and ground attack.
November
28: The EPDP leader and Minister for Social Welfare, Douglas Devananda,
escaped unhurt when a polio-affected woman suicide cadre of the LTTE
blew herself up at his office at Isipathana Road in the Narahenpita area
of Colombo.
At
least 19 civilians were killed and 35 others injured as a suspected
parcel bomb exploded near a popular fashion store at Nugegoda junction
near Colombo around 5.55 pm.
There
were six suicide
attacks carried out by the LTTE in 2007 as against 12 in
the previous year.
The
LTTE has collected rich resources for its campaigns. Sri Lankan Foreign
Secretary Palitha Kohona stated, on May 1, 2007, that the LTTE
internationally raised approximately USD 10 million to USD 30 million a
month, of which almost 20 to 30 per cent came from Australia.
Corroborating these claims, the London-based Jane’s Intelligence
Review stated that the LTTE had not only created one of the most
sophisticated insurgencies in the world but also has an annual ‘profit
margin’ of USD 200 to USD 300 million. Despite the Government
proscribing the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation on November 22, having
earlier frozen its accounts, the LTTE retains various sources to
replenish its coffers.
The
ongoing war has had an adverse impact on social, political and economic
conditions in Sri Lanka. According to the Minority Rights Group
International 2007 report, human rights in Sri Lanka reached a ‘crisis
point’ in 2007, with numerous reports of extra-judicial killings,
disappearances and abductions. The Sri Lankan human rights groups
reported that some 662 people had been killed and 540 people have
disappeared between January–August 2007. A vast majority of them were
Tamils, while some were Muslims. The UNHCR office in Sri Lanka stated,
on October 26, that 190,669 individuals of 51,908 families had been
displaced in 2007 due to the ethnic conflict. The highest number of
displacements was reported from Kilinochchi District – 48,512 persons.
Another 38,230 individuals were displaced in the Batticaloa District
while 32,323 individuals were displaced in Mullaitivu District. On
August 17, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, which was due to
donate medical equipment worth millions of rupees to hospitals in the
North, called off their mission due to protection money demanded by the
LTTE, a clear indication of the worsening situation. A South Asian Watch
group on the use of small arms disclosed, on October 28, that there were
over 1.3 million illegal weapons in use in Sri Lanka, adding that the
availability of illegal small arms had led to the escalation of the rate
of crime on the island.
Inflation
in Sri Lanka is currently pegged at 17 percent, the unemployment rate is
6.2 percent, there is a budget deficit of 8.4 per cent and Defence
spending is at USD 1.3 billion. The Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR) has fallen by
around three percent this year against the US dollar, while other
currencies in the region have risen. The tourism industry has taken a
hammering, and there is widespread apprehension among the people of
difficult times ahead.
On
the political front, the Southern consensus which had emerged in October
2006, finally came to a disappointing end on January 29 with the main
opposition group, the United National Party's (UNP) announcement that
the political pact it signed with the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP)
in October 2006 was invalid in the aftermath of President Rajapakse’s
induction of 19 defectors from the UNP into the Government. More
recently, on December 12, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress leader Rauff
Hakeem said that he and three other parliamentarians had decided to
leave the Government as it had failed to guarantee the rights of the
Muslim community. These are a major setback to the Rajapakse regime
which had, in the fag end of 2006, garnered the support of Southern
political parties to deal with the LTTE.
On
a positive note, despite the upswing in violence, the country expected
to record its fastest growth in nearly three decades, according to the
Central Bank. With USD 530 million already received in foreign direct
investment (FDI) by August, total FDI is projected to substantially
exceed the total of USD 600 million in 2006. Foreign reserves were up at
USD 2.8 billion in April 2007, from USD 2.5 billion in April 2006. With
vast stretches of land cleared of the LTTE in the North and East,
agricultural activities are bound to increase. Government control over
these areas can enhance trade because, being an island nation, most of
the trade activities are carried on over the seas, on which the LTTE had
greater control till its recent reverses. Meanwhile, some political
parties which had been intimidated into passivity over the past years
have resumed their activities in the country. On April 20, the Defense
Ministry said that the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation, a mainstream
Tamil political party, which had been silenced since 1990 after
continuous death threats from the LTTE, decided to actively restore
functions as a democratic Tamil Front.
There
are no prospects of peace emanating from anywhere. On April 12, Defense
Secretary Rajapakse declared that Sri Lanka's cease-fire had "no
meaning" and that it was only being left in place to satisfy the
international community. Further, on May 31 Defense
spokesperson and Minister Rambukwella stated that the Ceasefire
Agreement, which now holds only on paper after breaking down on the
ground last year, no longer reflected reality. Earlier, on February 12
President Mahinda Rajapakse, in an interview with the BBC, had said that
the Government's peace pact with the LTTE was a mistake. "Today we
realise we have made a mistake. Through the peace pact, we've demarcated
areas called LTTE controlled areas, and they have taken over the rights
of the people through this pact. In the LTTE controlled areas, no
political parties can function, people cannot walk anywhere in freedom,
and the children are being forced to join the armed forces of the LTTE.
These rights should be given back to the people."
With
the public opinion progressively hardening in favour of continued
military operations, more bloodshed can be expected in Sri Lanka,
already among the most violent places in South Asia.
[Source:
South Asian Intelligence Review]
News
Briefs
LTTE
chief injured in air attack: The
LTTE chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was wounded in an air strike on
November 28, 2007 by security forces shortly after his annual policy
broadcast, The Nation reported on December 16. The report stated
that Prabhakaran was wounded in an underground bunker in the northern
District of Kilinochchi. "A section of the bunker had crumbled and
some falling debris had struck the LTTE leader," the newspaper
said, quoting sources in the LTTE-held territory. The paper added that
Prabhakaran, who delivered his annual policy statement a day earlier,
was treated at an underground medical unit and recovered fully from
"minor" injuries. There has been no reaction so far to the
report either from the LTTE or Sri Lankan defence authorities.
AFP, December 10, 2007.
17
civilians killed in bomb blast in Colombo:
At least 17 civilians were killed and 37 others injured as a suspected
parcel bomb exploded near a popular fashion store at Nugegoda Junction
near Colombo at around 5.55 pm on November 28, 2007. Police believe that
the bomb had been placed in one of the parcel counters at the No Limit
clothing store by a suspected Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
militant who had left the incident site. "The explosion was due to
a suspicious parcel bomb kept in the parcel counter of the No Limit
fashion shop," military spokesperson Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara
said. Daily News,
November 29, 2007.
Peace
with Government impossible, declares LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran: The
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) chief Velupillai Prabhakaran
declared, in his annual ‘Hero’s Day’ speech on November 27, 2007,
that peace with the ‘genocidal’ Government was impossible. According
to him, "The Sinhala nation is... trying to destroy the Tamil
nation. It is unleashing unthinkable violence against another people. It
only desires to find a solution to the Tamil question through military
might and oppression." He said, "The current Government is
never going to realize that the Tamil national question cannot be
resolved by military oppression. All the Sinhala political parties are
essentially chauvinistic and anti-Tamil. To expect a political solution
from any of these Southern parties is political naivety." He
declared, further, "Those who plan to destroy the Tamil nation will
in the end be forced to face their own destruction." Making an
appeal to the international community to change its approach to the Sri
Lankan Government, he claimed that the world today is making the same
mistake India made vis-à-vis Colombo several years ago. The
Hindu, November 28, 2007.
Minister
Douglas Devananda escapes unhurt in suicide attack in Colombo:The
Eelam People’s Democratic Party leader and Minister for Social
Welfare, Douglas Devananda, escaped unhurt when a polio affected woman
suicide cadre of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) blew
herself up at his office at Isipathana road in the Narahenpita area of
Colombo on November 28, 2007. While the Minister was in his office
waiting to see members of the public, the woman was allowed to get into
the office complex unchecked considering her disability, but the Public
Relations Officer (PRO) of the Minister conducted checking on the
physically challenged woman along with others who had come to see the
Minister. However, the disguised LTTE woman cadre blew herself up when
the physical checking was being done by the PRO. The blast critically
injured the PRO, one Ministerial aide and one officer of the Ministerial
Security Division, who succumbed to his injuries later. Daily
News, November 23, 2007.
[Source:
South Asian Intelligence Review]
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