As long as the issue of control over land in the north east provinces
of Sri Lanka remains unresolved, the LTTE will continue to have the support
of the Sri Lankan Tamils.
The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi brought the LTTE into focus of the
Indian public's attention as never before. Terrorism in any form and
politically motivated killings need, of course, to be strongly condemned and
our media have been rightly doing so. In the process the image of the LTTE
that has got imprinted on the public mind is that of a cruel and ruthless
organisation which has not only brought untold misery to the Tamil
population of Sri Lanka hut created law and order problems in our own state
of Tamil Nadu as well.
There is also general amazement as to how the LTTE could stock on Indian
soil such large caches of arms, explosives, radio sets, petrol, etc, as were
found by the SIT on information provided by Shanmugam, and are still being
discovered by the Tamil Nadu police during their current crackdown on the
LTTE. Shanmugam's 'escape' and 'suicide' and the subsequent suicides of
Sivarasan, Suba and other LTTE cadres when cornered, have only added further
to the mystique of a sinister LTTE.
Public perception of the LTTE in
India has shown several sharp shifts as events in the northern portion of
the subcontinent unfolded. The pre-1987 perception was that of sympathy for
this underdog Tamil outfit bravely fighting the Sri Lankan army and keeping
it at bay. The post-Accord 1987 period saw the LTTE portrayed as lungi clad
upstarts who bit the hand that fed them, who dared defy the might of the
Indian state and who would soon be taught a lesson by the Indian army.
By 1990, 4,000 IPKF casualties later and after many dubious claims by the
IPKF Commander Lt. Gen. Kalkat, the LTTE came to be regarded with a mixture
of grudging admiration and condescension: as an organisation that had fought
well but was critically weakened and confined to the jungles of Vavuniya,
and which would soon be mopped up by the Sri Lankan army.
The Sri Lankan army, as professionals, should have known better but for
the decimation of the JVP under its belt and Ranjan Wijeratne to back them.
In the event it soon lost Jaffna Fort, Mankulam Camp and more men in six or
seven months than the IPKF had in three years. The fierce battles at
Elephant Pass and in the Mullaitivu jungles around the 14 Base (so called
because 14 is the radio call signal of Prabhakaran on the LTTE radio net)
have now brought home to the Sri Lankan army that the best they can hope for
is a bloody stalemate in the north-east of the island.
Our media, fed
this time on Sri Lankan rather than Indian defence ministry press releases,
started blaming the LTTE for the latest round of fighting and for the
suffering.
Consequently, the public perception of the LTTE again started turning
negative. The killing of Wijeratne, the blowing up of the JOC HQ of the Sri
Lankan army and the assassination of Lankan army and the assassination of
Rajiv Gandhi transformed the LTTE image completely into that of a body of
rabid terrorists who ruthlessly murdered innocent civilians and eminent
politicians. Not many people sat back to think that in all these years of
stories of LTTE atrocities the views aired in our media has been based
largely on hearsay; that few Indians other than officers and men of the IPKF
infantry battalion have had occasion to interact with the LTTE over and
length of time and were in a position to assess as to why this organisation
had not only survived under extremely adverse circumstances but continued to
nourish.
During the period the IPKF was in Sri Lanka, two worlds
existed in the by lanes of Jaffna and the jungles of Vavuniya and
Batticaloa. One was the safe antiseptic world of headquarters, maps, staff
officers, and helicopters flying above the jungle canopy, which rarely had
any contact with a militant. The other was the hot, humid, tension-filled
world of infantry in close combat, below the jungle canopy and in the
bylanes. Here no quarter was asked for or given; death, injury and privation
were constant companions, and the antagonists got to know each other's
strengths and weaknesses well.
It is a cruel irony that the Indian public's perception of the LTTE's
popular support and capabilities should have been based on press handouts
and conducted tours for journalists organised by IPKF HQ which was
physically and mentally distanced from reality and whose views were shaped
more by what they thought South Block wanted to hear than by facts as they
existed on the ground.
This deception was exposed at least once when the BBC announced in
September 1988 that the camp claimed to have been destroyed by IPKF was a
fake and the weapons supposedly captured there had actually been flown in
from Madras. This revelation, incidentally. was the result of a slip by an
inebriated Special forces colonel captivated by the charms of a comely
Indian reporter. As was to be expected the Indian army top brass were very
upset and ordered an inquiry into the incident. But amour in Vavuniya was
hard to prove, and the colonel, is now a Brigadier.
The actual ground
realities were too well known to the brave, uncomplaining, dirty, tired
infantry soldier who was solely responsible for what success the IPKF had
and who was in regular contact with the LTTE as well as the local
population. Having had the privilege of commanding a battalion of pars
commandos through the battle of Jaffna, the clearing of Batticaloa, the
retaking of Vavuniya Mankulam, Mullaitivu and the initial attempts to clear
the Alampil jungles (then and current HQs of the LTTE), this writer feels
that perhaps a more realistic view of the LTTE as he saw it would help in a
better understanding of the organisation.
REALISTIC VIEW
To
begin with, if the LTTE are the ogres that they are made out to be, how is
that they have lasted so long? Terror alone can not explain the unending
stream of volunteers from amongst the Thamil youth, their dedication to
their cause and willingness to die for it. Any one who walked in 1987 was
instantly struck by the devastation inflicted on the Tamils by the Sri
Lankan army (which should really be called a Sinhala army as it is 98 per
cent Sinhalese; the entire army's senior most Tamil officer in 1987 was a
Lt. Col. posted on administrative duties in Colombo).
It is not
generally understood that the political fight between the Tamils and the
Sinhalas is routed primarily in a tussle for land. The Sri Lankan government
considered all land as crown or government land and allotted large tracts of
Tamil domiciled lands to Sinhala settlers, backed by the army. A deliberate
attempt was made to change the ethnic balance so as to break the link
between the north and east provinces of Sri Lanka by settling Sinhalas. When
the Tamils protested, the Sri Lankan army went about their task of pacifying
the Tamils by methods that, if no gloss were to be put on it, could best be
described as genocidal. When few in India outside of RAW had heard of it,
the LTTE for many long years acted as an effective shield between the
depredations - of the Sri Lankan army and the Tamils. When the IPKF came
into Jaffna it was rapturously welcomed by the local population who thought
it had come to help get the Sri Lankan
army off their backs.
October 10, 1987 the day the IPKF was ordered to commence hostilities
against the LTTE placed it in a no-win situation. While the perception of
our command structure might have been otherwise popular support was in fact
with the LTTE, the proven protectors of the Tamils. And no army can easily
destroy an organised force like the LTTE go long as the people
whole-heartedly support it. The Sri Lankans have currently relearnt this
lesson of military history at great cost at Elephant Pass and Mullaitivu.
Countless villagers told us that we would leave sooner or later and then
only the LTTE would save them and their land from the Sinhalas. As long as
the issue of control over land in the north-east provinces of Sri Lanka
remains unresolved (ironically, this issue wag not even mentioned in the
Indo-Sri Lankan Accord), the LTTE will continue to have the support of the
Sri Lankan Tamils.
The next question that comes to mind is: why can
we not insulate the state of Tamil Nadu from the activities of the LTTE? Our
navy during the IPKF operations periodically claimed to, have sealed off
north-east Sri Lanka from the sea, The Coast Guard, occasionally, with less
conviction, makes that claim now. The fact of the matter is that with the
ships the Navy has at present, it is physically impossible to prevent
ingress, and it is professional hypocrisy to claim that it can be done. The
coastal areas of Tamil Nadu and Jaffna and Mannar are separated by the Palk
Straits which are a maze of shallow water and rocks. At their narrowest they
are about 40 km apart.
The LTTE uses fibreglass fishing boats with hardly any draught and up to
three outboard motors mounded in tandem. These boats have no radar signature
worth the name and can do the trip between the two coasts at 60 knots or in
25-30 minutes. The navy has much larger ships, meant for a blue water role,
which can not move freely in these waters and can not achieve even half the
speeds the LTTE boats can. So the unpalatable truth is that the LTTE always
could, and will continue to be able to, move between the coasts with
relative impunity and ease, Unless a number of small, fast boats of the type
acquired by Sri Lanka from Israel, the state of affairs is unlikely to
change.
As for the image of the average LTTE militant being
brainwashed killer ready to die at the whims of his leaders, nothing could
be farther from the truth. Jaffna is the most literate part of Sri Lanka
with almost total literacy. Jaffna University, the prime recruiting ground
of the LTTE, is considered a hallowed center of Tamil learning. One of the
main reasons why the LTTE are explosive experts is that they are all
educated and most of the explosive experts are science graduates. The LTTE
militants understand the theory of the use of explosives and their means of
detonation. Add to this their native ingenuity and years of practice and you
get the 'mines' that so shocked the IPKF. These in fact were not mines at
all but basically buried explosives triggered electrically. The Claymore
device which was used to kill Rajiv Gandhi was a completely original,
simple, and fiendishly clever piece of work.
In the jungles of
Vavuniya, the infantrymen and especially the para commandos developed a
healthy professional respect for the LTTE fighter, man or woman, The LTTE
did not ill-treat their prisoners. In their radio reporting to their
superiors (which was often intercepted by us) they were extremely accurate
and precise. Sadly, one wishes the same could be said about the reports
emanating from IPKF headquarters in Madras. Whereas the generals deluded
themselves and the nation into believing that the LTTE had been
'checkmated', the man on the ground knew better. None listened to him.
Meanwhile the generals collected their war medals for effective command of
their forces under the stress and strain of battle conditions:
It is not the purpose of this article to defend or glorify the LTTE. But one
man's terrorist, they say is another's freedom fighter. Currently, despite
the fuss over the Sri Lankan army and LTTE fighting together in 1989 to
eliminate the TNA, the LTTE are no doubt the Indian and the Sri Lankan
governments' terrorists, but with equal certainty they are, and always have
been, the Sri Lankan Tamil's freedom fighters.
To conclude with the basic rationale behind the LTTE's continued presence
against heavy odds - and to repeat a point made earlier - the whole struggle
is for land.
The logic behind the LTTE's popularity in the Tamil speaking part
of Sri Lanka is that they are trying to protect what they consider to be
their homeland from incursions by settlers from the south, under the
Protection of the Sri Lankan army. This fact must be understood for a
balanced assessment of their durability and influence in the Sri Lanka
imbroglio.
At present it appears that the only politician, Indian or Sri Lankan, who
understands this reality is President Premadasa, possibly because he does
not belong to the ruling elite class. Unfortunately, however, recent
political developments in that country do not make it likely that he will be
in a position to have any significant parleys with the LTTE for some time to
come.
