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Sri Lanka's Unwinnable War
December
1993
"....Instead of reading out chunks of
Robert Thompson to his restive Parliamentary colleagues,
Prime Minister Wickremasinghe may have more usefully
heeded the words of his own Cabinet Minister, Savyamurthy
Thondaman in March 1992: ''If you mean defeating the
LTTE, it could in my opinion be equated to defeating every single
Tamil in the North-East. One thing is clear. You
cannot isolate the LTTE from the rest of the Tamil
people. Wiping out the LTTE means wiping out the Tamils.
Until there are Tamils there will be a LTTE hard-core.
Remember that the LTTE... is seeking to express the
aspirations of the Tamil people..''
That is why Sri Lanka's war against
the LTTE is unwinnable. It is
unwinnable because the Liberation Tigers are seeking to
express the legitimate
aspirations of the Tamil people. It is unwinnable
because the armed
resistance of the Tamil people emerged as a response
to decades of
oppressive, alien Sinhala rule. It is unwinnable
because the growth of that resistance has been fertilised
and consolidated by the thyagam
of thousands of Tamils who have given their lives so
that their brothers and sisters may live, as a people, in
equality and in freedom. It is unwinnable because
no people may
conquer and rule another; because every people have
the right to freely choose their political status;
because self
determination is the inalienable right of every
people; and because the exercise by the Tamil people of
their
right to self determination will neither violate the
rights of their neighbours nor infringe on their
neighbours security. "
[see also
 SL Government's speak
soft, hit hard policy - D.Sivaram, 10 June 1992
Insurgency,
Counterinsurgency, & the Marines In Vietnam -
Major Frank D. Pelli, 1990
Instruments
of Statecraft - US Guerrilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency
and Counterterrorism 1940 - 1990 Michael McClintock
, 2002 and
What is really wrong with the counter
insurgency methods? D.Sivaram, 2004 "..Sri Lanka is
easily the only country in the world to fight its
insurgency with the undivided support of the
international community, the backing of all the
important nations across the global political spectrum.
It is the most advantageous external environment that
any country may have ever had in fighting an
insurgency. And yet something is obviously going wrong.
There are three reasons that may be attributed to
the apparent failure of western counter insurgency - CI
- methods in Sri Lanka... Firstly, the LTTE has
developed over the years a fairly sophisticated
counter-counter insurgency system. Secondly, it has
consistently focused its resources on building a
conventional force and on preserving the minimum
required territory to sustain such a force. And thirdly
it never lets itself be inveigled or coerced into
the political space that is so necessary for
diluting and mystifying the
basic cause fuelling the
insurgency..."]
First it was the
Janakapura debacle. Then it was the Kilali
misadventure. Thereafter we had the Parliamentary
Select Committee fiasco. And,
now the Pooneryn disaster. But perhaps, Pooneryn too
may be called a debacle. After all the dictionary meaning
of 'debacle' is a 'confused rout' or 'stampede'.
The confused rout at Pooneryn left over a thousand
Sinhala soldiers dead and another five hundred injured.
The Liberation Tigers captured more than 300 million
rupees worth of arms and equipment including five water
jet in shore patrol boats, two battle tanks, eleven 50mm
guns and one 120mm artillery mortar that has an effective
range of 8 km.
It seems that even the ranks of Tuscany could scarce
forbear to cheer. India Today, which is no friend of the
Tamil
struggle for self determination, commented on 15
December :
| 'The storming of the strategic base bore the
stamp of audacity, daredevilry and meticulous
planning that has made the LTTE the most successful
guerilla group in the world today. 'It was not the
normal hit and run attack. It conformed more to
conventional warfare' said a military official who
has seen action in the north..' Pooneryn was the
sixth military camp to fall to the militants since
the latest phase of the conflict after the collapse
of the peace talks between the Government and the
LTTE in June 1989'' |
The Sinhala opposition was ofcourse quick to use the
Pooneryn debacle to attack the Sri Lanka government on
its conduct of the war. Lamented Sinhala Opposition
leader, Mrs. Srimavo Bandaranaike:
''What are you doing with all the money that is
passed? ... the morale of the army is low . It is at
times like these that we feel acutely the loss of
Denzil Kobbekaduwa and Vijaya Wimalaratne.''
The Sinhala owned Sri Lanka Sunday Island commented
editorially on 14 November 1993:
| "We have been attempting to win this conflict
by outdoing the enemy with sheer numbers but this
has led to flocks of sheep being led to slaughter.
All these are matters which have to be considered
in depth by the best minds of this country for this
is not merely a conflict in the sands of Jaffna and
the jungles of the Eastern Province. What happens
in the battle fields often surface in international
fora and foreign ministries of big powers and vice
versa. The LTTE it appears has a think tank
coordinating these activities quite successfully.
In comparison are we using the best available
talent... In any country the muscle of the armed
forces is reinforced with the best brains available
in the country. Are we doing so?'' |
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe rose to defend the
Government in Parliament presumably in an effort to show
that the muscle of the armed forces was indeed reinforced
with the best brains available in the country. On 5
December, the Sri Lanka state controlled Sunday Observer
gave centre page prominence to his speech under a feature
entitled: ''PM unveils the overall objectives of the
Government''.
Prime Minister Wickremasinghe at first expanded on the
elements of guerilla warfare to his restive Parliamentary
colleagues. He explained:
''We are not fighting a conventional war like Word
War II, or the Six Day War, or the Bangladesh war where
one side seeks to defeat the other militarily... The
LTTE does not seek to win a victory in the battlefield
like the Arabs were defeated in the Six Day
War or the Pakistanis were defeated in the
Bangladesh War. What they seek is to prevent the
other side from winning. Dragging out the conflict so
that the other side is weakened, the population is
tired and finally a majority is willing to agree to
(their) political demands... When France had to fight
in Vietnam, the Grid System enabled them to dominate
the Mekong Delta. But they did not have political
strategy. They lost one battle, Dien
Bien Phu which demoralised the whole nation. They
finally agreed to the demands of Ho Chi
Minh and the Vietnamese. We must not allow the
(Pooneryn) setback to demoralise the nation.''
And then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe came to
the centre piece of his speech. Referring to Malaysia as
a country which successfully countered a guerrilla
movement, he unveiled the Government's overall
strategy.
Said he:
''I happened to be reading
the
book written by
General Thompson who handled the ground operations
(in Malaysia). For the benefit of the House, I will
read some extracts regarding the different facets of an
overall plan:
'This plan must cover not just security measures and
military operations. It must include all political,
social, economic, administrative, police and other
measures which have a bearing on insurgencies. Above
all, it must clearly define the roles and
responsibilities to avoid duplication of efforts and to
ensure that there are no gaps in the Government field
of action. It is essential that there should be a
proper balance between the military and the civil
efforts with complete coordination in all field.
Otherwise a situation will arise in which military
operations produce no lasting results, because they are
unsupported by civil follow up action. Similarly
civilian measures, particularly in areas disputed with
the insurgents are a waste of time and money if they
are unsupported by military operations to provide the
necessary protection.' This is what the Government is
doing - an overall objective and an overall plan.''
That which Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe did
not tell the Sri Lanka Parliament was that the so called
'Malaysian approach' that he was 'unveiling' was nothing
new but had been followed by the Sri Lanka government for
10 long years.
As long ago as July 1983, Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremasinghe's uncle, then President J.R. Jayawardene,
in his celebrated interview with Ian Ward of the Daily
Telegraph had wondered aloud about a 'Malaysian ' type
solution. And, nine months later, on 1 April 1984, the
newly appointed National Security Minister Lalith
Athulathmudali declared in an interview reported in the
Sinhala owned Sri Lanka Island:
''Q. Can you tell me one country where tough
measures have arrested (guerilla) activities? A. One of
the best examples is Malaysia where there was a fight
against Communist infiltrators and commandos. The
Malaysians won.
Q. But that was against Communists? A. Yes, but the
majority of these (guerillas) are trained in Marxist
ideology. So it is the same format."
Again, it appears that Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremasinghe was rather selective in his readings from
Robert Thompson's book. If he had been inclined to be
more forthcoming, he may have read out to his
Parliamentary colleagues some further extracts from the
book that he 'happened to be reading'. If he had done so,
his Parliamentary colleagues may have found Robert
Thompson's advice on tackling insurgencies somewhat
familiar - and similar to the methods adopted by the
Sinhala Special Task Force and the Army in the East
during the past several years:
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"...the first requirement is an identity card
system throughout the country..this makes it easy
to check absentees and visitors...Dusk to dawn
curfews outside hamlets should be imposed and
strictly enforced. Bulk supplies of food and
other articles of value should be convoyed
between towns and villages and no individual
should be allowed to take such articles outside
the hamlet...Check points should be established
to enforce all these regulations, and snap checks
should be carried out on all roads, rivers and
tracks ..There are many who will criticise the
harshness of the measures which may have to be
used. This is a mistaken attitude.
What the peasant wants to know is: Does the
government mean to win the war? Because if not,
he will have to support the insurgent. The
government must show it is determined to win.
Only in that way will it instil the confidence
that it is going to win...The blame for the
harshness of the measures can be placed squarely
on the insurgent.. There should be in the whole
of the government's approach an adroit and
judicious mixture of ruthlessness and
sympathy..
As an example of a ruthless measure it is
worth quoting the case of a village in Malaya of
about 3000 inhabitants. This was a very bad
area...Having given the inhabitants a choice
between the government and the communists, and
having failed to make any headway by appealing to
or persuading them to cooperate, the government
surrounded it with several battalions at dawn one
morning and moved the whole village out. Everyone
in it, men, women and children, went into
detention. All the houses were razed to the
ground and crops destroyed. This did not cause a
public outcry because the effectiveness of the
result...silenced all criticism.''
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That
Pooneryn happened after nine long years of Sri Lanka
persevering with an 'adroit and judicious mixture of
ruthlessness and sympathy', should have shown Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe that something was
hopelessly wrong with the Thompson formula. That Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe should solemnly read out
Robert Thompson to his Parliamentary colleagues in the
year 1993, and declare that 'this is what the Government
is doing' is a telling commentary on the political
bankruptcy of the Sri Lanka government.
The question that the Sri Lanka government should be
asking itself is that perhaps, after all, Tamil Eelam is
not Malaysia and the 'format' is not quite the same.
In Malaysia, in 1948, the British launched a campaign
to counter a communist insurgency. The British campaign
lasted several years. The communist insurgency failed but
at the same time the Malaysian national struggle
succeeded and the British handed over power to an
independent Malaysia in July 1957. The British
successfully prevented the insurgency from fusing with
the national struggle for independence by promising and
then granting independence to Malaysia in 1957. This was
the major political plank of the campaign and it was this which was
crucial to its success. The British
quit Malaysia.
If they had sought to continue to rule in Malaysia,
the insurgency would have developed into a full fledged
national liberation struggle to oust the foreigner from
the soil of the people. This was the political lesson of
the Malaysian campaign. It was a lesson which British
Adviser, Robert Thompson, presumably, did learn when he
went to South Vietnam in 1961, after the successful
completion of his tour of duty in Malaysia. In Vietnam,
the 'Malaysian style' approach failed and the liberation
movement strengthened and succeeded.
In Sri Lanka, the Government has adopted a
'Malaysian style' approach, without the Malaysian style
political solution. Unlike the British who quit
Malaysia, the Sri Lankan Government has as yet failed
to see the need to recognise the existence of the Tamil
nation and quit the Tamil homeland.
During the past ten years and more, every act of
Sinhala 'ruthlessness' however adroitly mixed with
'sympathy', has served to increase the togetherness of
the Tamil people and consolidate their resistance to an
alien Sinhala army and to alien Sinhala domination.
That which Sinhala chauvinism prefers not to
understand is that in the island of Sri Lanka, the
resistance of the Tamil people is a resistance to
continued alien Sinhala rule. It is a national
struggle for self determination and so long as the
alien Sinhala Government has no intention of
relinquishing its alien rule, the struggle will
continue.
That is why
Pooneryn happened. And that is why, after ten long
years of applying the methods of Robert Thompson, Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe was driven to calm his
Sinhala constituency at a recent meeting in
Nivitigala:
''...there is no reason for us to panic. Colombo was
half empty on November 26. Attendance in offices and
schools was very poor. We panicked because of our own
rumours and we had a holiday on Pirabaharan's
birthday.. What is the result? Pirabakaran becomes 100 feet tall.''(State
Controlled Sri Lanka Sunday Observer, 5 December
1993)
Instead of reading out
chunks of Robert Thompson to his restive
Parliamentary colleagues, Prime Minister Wickremasinghe
may have more usefully heeded the words of his own
Cabinet Minister, Savyamurthy
Thondaman in March 1992:
''If you mean defeating the LTTE, it could in my
opinion be equated defeating every single
Tamil in the North-East. One thing is clear. You
cannot isolate the LTTE from the rest of the Tamil
people. Wiping out the LTTE means wiping out the
Tamils. Until there are Tamils there will be a LTTE
hard-core. Remember that the LTTE... is seeking to
express the aspirations
of the Tamil people..''
That is why Sri Lanka's war against the LTTE is
unwinnable.
These were the considerations which led 15 Non
Governmental Organisations consisting of the
International Organisation for the Elimination of all
Forms of Racial Discrimination, International Educational
Development, Centre Europe Ties Monde, International
Indian Treaty Council, Fedefam, Association paur la
Liberte Religiose, Codehuca, World Christian Community,
Pax Christie International, International League for the
Rights and Liberation of Peoples, Movement contra le
Racisme, International Association of Educadores for
World Peace, International Association against Torture,
World Confederation of Labour, and International Movement
for Fraternal Union among Races and Peoples to declare on 8
February 1993 at the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights:
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''We are of the view that any meaningful
attempt to resolve the conflict should address
its underlying causes and to recognise that the
armed
struggle of the Tamil people for
self determination, arose as a response to
decades of an ever widening and
deepening oppression by a permanent
Sinhala majority, within the confines of an
unitary Sri Lankan state...
During the past several years the Sinhala
dominated Sri Lankan government has attempted to
put down the armed resistance of the Tamil people
and has sought to conquer and control the Tamil
homeland. The record shows that in this attempt,
Sri Lanka's armed forces and para military units
have committed increasingly
widespread violations of the rules of
humanitarian law.
In the
East whole villages of Tamils have been attacked
by the Army and by the so called Home Guards.
Many Tamil residents in these villages were
killed. Others have been tortured. Those Tamils
who were detained by the Sri Lankan authorities
have had
little or no hope of coming out alive. The
attacks on the Tamil homeland have been coupled
with the declared opposition of the Sri Lankan
Government to the merger of the North and East of
the island into a single administrative and
political unit.
However, despite the sustained attacks of
Sinhala dominated governments over a period of
several decades, the territorial
integrity of the Tamil homeland in the North and
East of the island has remained. The Tamil
population in the North and East, who have lived
for many centuries within relatively well defined
geographical boundaries, share an ancient
heritage, a vibrant culture, and a living
language which traces its origins to more than
2500 years ago.
A social group, which shares objective
elements such as a common language and which has
acquired a subjective consciousness of
togetherness, by its life within a relatively
well defined territory, and its struggle against
alien domination, clearly
constitutes a 'people' with the right to self
determination.
Today, there is an urgent need for the
international community to recognise that the
Tamil population in the North and East of the
island of Sri Lanka are such a 'people' with the
right to freely choose their political status. It
is our view that such recognition will prepare
the ground for the resolution of a conflict which
has taken such a heavy toll in human lives and
suffering during the past several years.''
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It seems that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe is
bent on giving fresh proof of the correctness of Velupillai
Pirabaharan's assessment in December 1991 that ''it
is the Sri Lanka government that has failed to learn the
lessons from the emergence of the struggles
for self determination in several parts of the globe
and the innovative
structural changes that have taken place.''
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