நடந்து முடிந்த சம்பவங்களை
பல பத்திரிகைக்குறிப்புகளில் இருந்து அப்படியப்படியே தொகுத்துத் தருவதற்கு முயன்றிருக்கின்றேன். பிரச்சினையின் உண்மை முகத்தையும் பிரச்சினை எவ்வாறு ஆரம்பிக்கப்பட்டது என்பதையும் வாசகர்கள் புரிந்து கொள்ள இது உதவியாயிருக்ககூடும்.
இருந்தபோதிலும் இங்கு போராடும் ஒரு இனம் அதைச்சார்ந்த குழுக்களுக்கு எப்போதும் மறுதரப்பு மீது நம்பிக்கையீனங்களும் சந்தேகமும் இருப்பது தவிர்க்க முடியாதது. அவ்வாறான நம்பிக்கையீனமும் சந்தேகமும் இருப்பதனாலேயே அங்கு போராட்டம் வெடிக்கின்றது என்பதை யாவரும் புரிந்து கொள்ளலாம்.
விடுதலைப் புலிகளின் நடவடிக்கைகள் அத்தகைய சந்தேகத்தையும் அவநம்பிக்கையையும் அடிப்படையாகக் கொண்டே இயற்றப்பட்டிருக்கின்றன என்பதை யாவரும் புரிந்து கொல்ளலாம்.
ஆனால் மத்தியஸ்தர்களாக வருபவர்களுக்கு அவ்வாறு எழும் சந்தேகங்களையும் நம்பிக்கையீனங்களையும் அகற்றி முரண்பட்டு நிற்கும் இரண்டு தரப்பினருக்கும் நம்பிக்கையூட்டி அது தொடர்பான நடவடிக்கைகளை முன்னெடுத்துச் செல்ல வேண்டிய கடமை இருக்கின்றது. அந்த நடவடிக்கைகளில் இந்தியா எவ்வளவு தூரம் தன்னை மனச்சாட்சியுடன் ஈடுபடுத்தியிருக்கின்றது என்ற கேள்வி எழுகின்றது.
1) வி.புலிகளின் தலைவர் பிரபாகரனை டெல்கியில் தடுப்புக் காவலில் வைத்தபடியே ஒப்பந்தத்தில் கைச்சாத்திட்ட போதே இந்தியாவின் நடு நிலமை தவறி விடுகின்றது.
2) மத்தியஸ்தம் வகிக்க வரும் ஒரு நாடு போராட்டத்தில் தன் படைகளை ஈடுபடுத்துவதில்லை.
தமிழர் தரப்பை அடிபணிய வைத்தாவது ஒப்பந்தத்தை ஏற்றுக்கொள்ள வைக்கும் எண்ணமானது ஒப்பந்தம் இரண்டு தரப்பினராலும் திருப்தி கரமாக ஏற்றுக் கொள்ளப்படவில்லை என்பத்தை நிரூபிக்கின்றது.
இந்த இரண்டு முக்கிய விடயங்களிலேயே இந்தியா தன் மனச்சாட்சியை விற்று விட்டது என்பதையும் தீராத பழியை அது சுமந்து நிற்கின்றது என்பதையும் அனைத்து ஆய்வாளர்களும் சுட்டிக்காட்டுகின்றனர்.
இதனாலேயே இந்தியாவின் செயற்பாடுகளில் உள்நோக்கம் நிறைந்திருந்ததா என்ற சந்தேகம் தமிழர் தரப்பில் இன்றும் நிறைந்திருக்கின்றது. தமிழர் தரப்பில் மட்டுமல்ல சிங்களவர் தரப்பினாலும் அமைதி ஒப்பந்தக்காலத்திலும் அதற்கு முன்னரும் அதற்குப்பின்னான தற்போதைய காலம் வரை பலராலும் அத்தகைய சந்தேகங்கள் காலத்திற்குக் காலம் வெளிப்படுத்தப் பட்டே வருகின்றன.
எது எப்படியிருந்த போதும் வரலாற்றுத் தவறுகளிலிருந்து கற்றுக் கொள்ளும் பாடங்களில் இருந்தே மானுட சமுதாயம் முன்னேறிச் செல்கின்றது.
அதை மையமாகக் கொண்டு யார் தவறு செய்தார்கள் என்று நடந்து முடிந்த விடயத்திற்குள் கிடந்து உழன்று கொண்டிருக்காது நடக்கப் போகும் வரலாற்றில் பழைய தவறுகள் ஏற்படாது நடந்து கொள்வது என்பது நம் எல்லோர் முன்னாலும் உள்ள கடமையாகும்.
இனி வரும் காலத்தில் இந்து சமுத்திரப்பிராந்தியத்தின் அமைதி வலுச்சமநிலையைத் தீர்மானிக்கும் ஒரு காரணியாக ஈழமும் ஈழத்தமிழ் மக்களும் இருப்பார்கள் என்பதை இந்தியா ஏற்றுக் கொள்ள வேண்டும்.
இந்தியா எத்தனைதான் அணு ஆற்றலில் உயர்ந்து சென்றாலும் வல்லரசுக்கனவுகளுடன் வாழ்ந்து கொண்டிருந்தாலும் பிராந்தியத்தில் அமைதி நிலவாவிடில் அது எப்போதும் சாத்தியமேயில்லை.
இந்தியாவைச் சுற்றி இப்போது நட்பு நாடுகள் என்று யாரும் இல்லை என்பதை இந்தியா உணரவேண்டும். நான்கு பக்கமும் எதிரிகளைத் தேடி வைத்திருக்கும் இந்தியா எவ்வாறு இப்பிராந்தியத்தில் அமைதியைக் கொண்டு வர முடியும் என்று சிந்திக்க வேண்டிய ஆகக் கூடிய கடப்பாட்டுடன் இருக்கின்றது.
இப்போதே இந்தியாவின் இருப்பைக் கேள்விக்குரியதாக்கும் செயற்பாடுகள் இந்து சமுத்திரப்பிராந்தியத்தில் அரங்கேறத் தொடங்கி விட்டன.
இப்பிராந்தியத்தில் வளர்ந்து வரும் அமெரிக்கத் தலையீடுகள் ஒரு பக்கம் என்றால் பயங்கர வாதிகளை உலகறிய உற்பத்தி செய்து உலகெங்கும் ஏற்றுமதி செய்யும் பயங்கரவாத நாடான பாகிஸ்தானை அமெரிக்கா கொம்பு சீவிவிட்டுள்ளது.
அதை இந்தியாவின் கட்டுப்பாட்டில் இருந்த இலங்கை இனப்பிரச்சினையில் பாகிஸ்தான் மூக்கை நுழைத்திருப்பதும் இந்தியாவிற்கு ஏட்டிக்குப்போட்டியாக இலங்கையில் செயற்படுவதும் இலங்கை வாழ் முஸ்லீம் மக்களுக்கிடையில் இருந்து ஜிகாதிகளை உற்பத்தி செய்ய முற்பட்டிருப்பதுவுமே சிறிய உதாரணம் ஆகும்.
இந்திய அணு ஆயுத உற்பத்தியில் தலையீடு செய்வதன் மூலம் இந்தியாவின் ஆயுத வளர்ச்சியைக் கட்டுப்படுத்த அமெரிக்காவின் எத்தனங்கள் வெளிப்படையாகவே நடந்து கொண்டிருக்கின்றது.
எதிர்கால அச்சுறுத்தலான சீனாவைக் கட்டுப்படுத்த எடுக்கும் முயற்சிகள் இதுவென்று அமெரிக்கா கூறிக்கொண்டாலும் இந்தியாவை இப்போதே கட்டுப்படுத்தவும் தன் போக்கில் வளைத்துக் கொள்ளவும் தொடங்கிவிட்டது என்றே கூறவேண்டும்.
இவற்றில் இருந்து மீண்டுவர இந்தியா இந்துசமுத்திரப் பிராந்தியத்தில் அமைதியை நிலைநாட்டும் பணியில் முழு அர்ப்பணிப்புடன் ஈடு படவேண்டும்.
அது சாத்தியமாகாத பட்சத்தில் இந்தியா என்ற நாட்டின் இருப்பு கேள்விக்குரியதாக்கப்படுகின்றது என்பதை இந்திய அரசியல்வாதிகளும் கொள்கைவகுப்பாளர்களும் புரிந்து கொள்ளவேண்டும்.
////stan said...
Hi,Thanks four explanation. I have some questions to you. I am not sure why the story always starts with October 2 1987 where 17 militants were arrested or with 22nd October in which hospital was attacked.I want to put some facts here. Do you know the cadre who threw a hand grenade on the IPKF and ran in to the Jaffna hospital to escape from the IPKF .?. IPKF was at srilanka from July onwards. I would request you to write the incidents prior to October 2 also.I shall explain, Around august, the talk of election were started where LTTE claimed more representataives and wants to dominate every other groups. In the mean time IPKF undertook to repair railway lines and by August 30 they managed to start Jaffna-Colombo train services which had been disrupted since 1986. Shop shelves started filling up with goods from Colombo as train and road communication improved. Banks were opened, indicating a return of normalcy in the war-ravaged areas.On August 24, A member of the PLOTE was shot dead by LTTE and LTTE start complaining that IPKF is arming other militant groups like EPRLF, PLOTE, ENDLF and TELO.In September, things in Jaffna took a turn to the worse, with continued acts of violence. As many as 120 people were killed between September 13 and September 22, in a series of clashes between Tigers and the rival Tamil militant groups, and the LTTE slowly but steadily initiated a campaign trying to discredit the presence of IPKF in the North and East. Fearing that IPKF will only help other groups, LTTE made propaganda that IPKF is here for personal reasons and made the fasting of Theeleepan a sensitive issue.This created anti Indian feelings among people of eelam. LTTE which wants to dominate every other group announced that accord is failed and was looking for a opportunity to start fight against IPKF.Then violent clashes began between September 30 and October 4 between the LTTE and Sinhalese residents in the Trincomalee district. At least 18 people were killed and 5,000 left homeless. As the clashes mounted, the Sri Lankan government accused the Indian army of doing nothing to protect Sinhalese civilians. Colombo threatened to send the IPKF packing if it could not bring the Trincomalee district under control. Then the Sri Lankan Navy on October 2 apprehended 17 LTTE men traveling in a boat off the coast of Point Pedro and were acting in breach of the accord by transporting arms from Tamil Nadu, and also in breach of Sri Lankan immigration formalities. The navy disarmed them, took off their necklaces with cyanide capsules and took them to Palaly, where the Sri Lankan Army and the IPKF had their bases. This people on October 5 at about 5:30 in the evening, swallowed cyanide capsules and 12 of them died instantly, including Pulendran and Kumarappah, and three died later in the IPKF hospital at Palaly. This is the turning point LTTE, LTTE which was looking at opportunity to fight IPKF started the fight.the first landmine exploded under the IPKF jeep in October 87. You need to understand the not a single Tamil civilian or an LTTE cadre was killed by the IPKF before the IPKF was attacked.Now tell me how IPKF is responsible for fight. If LTTE would have agreed for seat sharing then eelam would have been peace land now.
3:20 AM/////
The Indo-LTTE War (1987-90)---------------------------------------Front Note by Sachi Sri Kantha
Contemporary India has existed as a country for only 60 years, but ‘India’ as a polity (a conglomeration of multi-states and mini-states, conglomeration of many empires, crown colony of a Western empire, and in a whole range of other concoctions) has existed for over four millenia.
In his all-encompassing
‘Dictionary of Wars’ (1986), compiler George C. Kohn has counted a total of 94 major wars which were staged in the Indian subcontinent – excluding Ceylon (Sri Lanka) – since historical times. Kohn’s list of military engagements in India begins from Alexander’s Asiatic Campaign (329 – 327 BC) and ends in the Siege of the Sikh Golden Temple (1984).
Since this compilation first appeared in 1986, India’s most recent war staged in Sri Lanka against the LTTE between October 1987 and March 1990 has not received an entry. As such, it is pertinent to place on electronic record details about this longest war of India, since its independence.
I venture to do this in monthly or bi-monthly segments. Multiple reasons exist. First, to present the guys who ate crow in their predictions of LTTE’s early demise. Secondly, to blunt the thrust of anti-LTTE propagandists in India and elsewhere who are peddling recent history as per their whims. Last but not the least, to pay homage to
LTTE’s young heroes and heroines (maveerars) who stood up against India’s bullies with altruistic motive.
First, it may be of some help, if we absorb the thoughts of Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) on the quality of the past historians of India. In his ‘The Discovery of India’ (1946), the first Indian prime minister had observed:
“Unlike the Greeks and unlike the Chinese and Arabs, Indians in the past were not historians. This was very unfortunate and it has made it difficult for us now to fix dates or make up an accurate chronology. Events run into each other, overlap and produce an enormous confusion…The ignoring of history had evil consequences which we pursue still. It produced a vagueness of outlook, a divorce from life as it is, a credulity, a woolliness of the mind where fact was concerned…Many competent historians are at work now, but they often err on the other side and their work is more a meticulous chronicle of facts than living history.” (pp. 102-103).
On the overt bias of non-Indian aggressors who wrote the Indian history, Nehru had noted as follows:
“The histories of India that most of us have had to read, chiefly written by Englishmen, are usually long apologies for and panegyrics of British rule, and a barely veiled contemptuous account of what happened here in the milleniums preceding it. Indeed, real history for them begins with the advent of the Englishman into India; all that went before is in some mystic kind of way a preparation for this divine consummation. Even the British period is distorted with the object of glorifying British rule and British virtues…” (p. 104)
If Nehru did have valid doubts on the quality of Indian history written by the Indians and non-Indians (the British empire builders), I’d say that history writing should not be left to the retired Colonels and intelligence peddlers either. In presenting a retro-spin to shore the dented image of the Indian army which left the blessed island in 1990 after being nose-thumped and humiliated by the LTTE, recently Col.R. Hariharan (Retired) had painted his version of Indo-LTTE war (1987-1990) as follows:
“….After 20 years, India's role is better appreciated now by most of the Sri Lankans than in 1987 only because the IPKF men fought and died to uphold the Accord in a country that was not their own. This recognition is a small, but fitting tribute to 1255 Indian soldiers who died in Sri Lankan soil.
Was the IPKF a success? Indian troops operation which started off as a conventional one in 1987 quickly changed into a full fledged counter insurgency operation. In such an environment, how do you measure success? The popular perception of success in wars is in terms of territorial gains and body counts. In insurgency wars these yardsticks are flawed, because the battles are for the mind of the people. If territorial gain and body counts were the only the yardsticks of victory, Americans would be considered victorious in Iraq. However, even on this scale the IPKF proved itself. By August 1988 it had LTTE seeking the refuge of Wanni jungles to save itself from the onslaught of IPKF. Within a year after IPKF completed Operation Checkmate-I (Battle of Nithikaikulam) in August 1988, it had restored normal life to the people of northeast. The IPKF, despite some aberrations and limitations imposed by political dispensations, gave them a feeling of security and gained their trust; both of these are absent there to this day. [Note: Italics, are as in the original.] People of Colombo revelled without a conscious thought of the war in the northeast had their good night sleep!...” [South Asia Analysis Group, Note No. 394; August 7, 2007]
Really? Eelam Tamils have solid reasons to challenge Col. Hariharan’s hyperbole that, “Within a year after IPKF completed Operation Checkmate-I (Battle of Nithikaikulam) in August 1988, it had restored normal life to the people of northeast.”
Those whose normal life was restored then belonged to Indian army’s circle of collaborators and militant groups such as EPRLF led by V. Perumal and K. Padmanabha as well as the hotchpotch ENDLF.
The problem with Col. Hariharan’s analysis is that it’s objectivity is dubious. If he wishes to be evaluated as a competent war historian, Col. Hariharan who served as an officer of Indian military intelligence during the Indian army operations, should shed his partiality, omit the exercise of ‘passing the buck’ (towards the politicians’ ill-timed, expedient decisions), and throw more light on the strategic failures of the Indian military personnel and the deceptive ploys of the intelligence section that misfired.--------------------------------------
I
t’s War Again [South Asia Correspondent; Economist, Oct.10, 1987, pp. 29 & 32]
The Tamil Tigers are fighting again in Sri Lanka. In truth the Tigers had never stopped fighting, despite agreeing to the peace pact negotiated by Sri Lanka and India, which seemed to give them much that they were fighting for. But on October 6th they stated formally that they were opposing the pact and would no longer co-operate with India’s peacekeeping force on the island. They have accompanied their defiance with the worst outbreak of violence since the peace pact was signed on July 29th.
The Tigers’ first victims this week were eight Sri Lankan soldiers they had held captive, and four Sri Lankan policemen; they were murdered on October 5th. Next day the Tigers went on the rampage near the eastern town of Batticaloa, hijacking a bus and killing a number of passengers. They stopped a train bound for Colombo and shot dead or hacked to death some of the Sinhalese passengers. In Batticaloa they rounded up Sinhalese men, women and children and butchered them too. In all, they killed more than 100 people.
What precipitated this massacre? The Tigers were doing well in the negotiations about control of the semi-autonomous homeland that the Tamils had been promised in Sri Lanka. The Tigers had demanded, and been given, a majority of seats on the interim council for the Northern and Eastern provinces that is being set up under the peace pact. According to the Tigers, things came apart on October 3rd, when 17 Tigers were arrested while they were on a boat off Sri Lanka’s Jaffna peninsula.
Sri Lanka’s security minister, Mr Lalith Athulathmudali, a hard-liner, decided that the 17 men should be brought to Colombo for interrogation. The Tigers said they would commit suicide rather than be taken to the Sri Lankan capital, where they expected to be tortured. When their pleas were disregarded they swallowed cyanide capsules and 12 of them died, including two Tiger leaders. It was after this that their comrades ran amok.
Even without this tragic sequence of events it seems likely that the peace pact would have been jeopardised. The Tigers, the largest of the Tamil guerrilla forces, believe that India’s intelligence agencies are trying to destroy their organisation. They also claim that 1,500 Tamils are still being detained under Sri Lanka’s prevention of terrorism laws, in violation of the peace pact.
Above all, the Tigers are refusing to tolerate political opposition in the Eastern province, where Tamils do not form a majority. Since the peace pact was signed the Tigers have killed 75 members of rival groups. They may think they would gain by destroying the peace pact before the referendum in the Eastern province which will give its inhabitants an opportunity to refuse to merge with the Tiger-dominated north. This week’s killings may represent a bid to expel from the Eastern province the Sinhalese who make up a third of its population.
The 11,000 Indian peacekeepers have found themselves in a nearly impossible position. They have seen their task as preventing violence, rather than committing it by shooting Tigers. In any case, many of the island’s Tamils have close links with those in India’s adjacent state of Tamil Nadu. Politicians in Colombo have been clamouring for the Indians to be replaced by Sri Lankan troops who would impose peace in their own way.
The day of decision was October 7th. After the Batticaloa killings, the Indian government said that its soldiers had been ordered to use force to restore order in the north and east. This means killing Tigers, if necessary. It has been an appallingly difficult decision for the Indian prime minister, Mr Rajiv Gandhi. In India some people feel that their government has become more deeply entangled in the Sri Lankan mess than it had originally intended.
In Sri Lanka, President Junius Jayewardene’s next problem is his own government. He must see the supporting legislation for the peace pact through parliament. He had probably just pulled together the necessary support when this week’s violence erupted. Opposition to the pact may now grow. If the Indians do not keep the peace, the agreement may fall, not on the battleground in the north, but in parliament in Colombo.
A Comeback for the Tigers: New Violence threatens to Undermine a Peace Accord [Edward W.Desmond; Time, Oct. 12, 1987, p.12]The Tamil Liberation Tigers were up against the wall just two months ago. Their leader, Velupillai Prabakaran, was held hostage in New Delhi to ensure that the Tigers would give up their arms as part of an accord between New Delhi and Colombo to end Sri Lanka’s civil war. Prabakaran reluctantly accepted the agreement, and India sent 7,000 troops to Sri Lanka to enforce it. Yet in the face of defeat, the wily Prabakaran has regained lost ground and, without openly defying the accord, helped place it in jeopardy.
Prabakaran last week made his silkiest move to date. One of the Tiger leader’s best-known lieutenants, Rasiah Parthipan, died while on a hunger strike protesting Colombo’s failure to meet Tiger demands. Parthipan’s death aroused Tamils, and New Delhi and Colombo felt pressured to give in to Prabakaran on a key point: control of an interim body that will rule the merged Tamil-dominated northern and eastern provinces until elections for local government are held later this year. The Tigers were given seven of the twelve seats in return for agreeing, for the first time, to ‘cooperate fully in implementing’ the accord.
As a result, the Tigers will control the police, which will give them the power to crack down on rival Tamil groups. Prabakaran’s forces have already killed about 150 members of the People’s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam and other rival groups since the signing of the accord. Says Annamalai Varatharaja Perumal, a spokesman for the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front: ‘They will finish us off once they control the police.’
Though the Tigers initially promised to hand in all their weapons, Indian High Commissioner J.N. Dixit estimates that only about 60% have been turned in. So far, the Indian army has not intervened to stop the killings. New Delhi, however, has brought in an additional 10,000 combat troops and policemen.
The Tiger comeback has made it difficult for President Junius Jayewardene to gain support from the island’s Sinhalese majority, who are wary of the Tigers’, as well as India’s, intentions. Says once Sinhalese businessman: ‘They didn’t take away Prabakaran’s weapons, and they gave him everything he wanted.’ Riots between Tamils and Sinhalese last week in Trincomalee, a predominantly Tamil town on the east coast, did not help matters. Six people died and 2,000, mostly Sinhalese, were left homeless.
Those developments have fueled support for the radical Sinhalese groups, including the Patriotic People’s Movement (DJV), which attempted to assassinate Jayewardene seven weeks ago. The DJV has threatened to kill any member of the government who votes in favor of making the accord law, and its assassins have already murdered seven workers for Jayewardene’s United National Party.
Jayewardene’s government insists that the Tigers are coming around to the democratic process. But late last week that claim looked questionable as Prabakaran and Jayewardene reached an impasse over who should head the interim council. At the same time, Jayewardene is having a hard time disciplining his legislators, though he has promised to make the accord law by November. One example was Asoka Somaratne, a UNP member of parliament who resigned from the legislative body three weeks ago after a series of death threats. ‘People will hold us responsible,’ he said, ‘and I don’t want to be held responsible.’ [Reported by Qadri Ismail/Colombo and K.K.Sharma/New Delhi.]
Restore Peace, Or Else…Jayewardene Turns the Heat on the Indian Forces [Manik de Silva; Far Eastern Economic Review (Hongkong), Oct.15, 1987, p.50]
Ethnic violence in the eastern Trincomalee district, which claimed at least 12 lives earlier this month, has strained relations between Sri Lankan security forces and the Indian peace keeping force (IPKF). On 4 October, Sri Lankan President Junius Jayewardene indicated that he may be compelled to ask the Indian troops to pull out of Trincomalee if law and order were not restored there immediately. Some 10,000 Indian troops and paramilitary forces are deployed in the north and east of the country to ensure the July Indo-Sri Lankan peace accord.
Jayewardene made this indirect threat at a meeting with Lieut.-Gen. Depinder Singh, the chief of India’s Southern Command, and the acting Indian high commissioner in Colombo. Also present at the 4 October meeting from the Sri Lankan side were National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali and military and police chiefs. Although an official statement only referred to continued cooperation and stated that the Indian general was flying to the east to ensure India’s obligations, sources present at the meeting confirmed that Jayewardene ‘had made his point.’
While the top brass on both sides could iron out the problems at their level, implementing the peace accord on the ground is another matter. The Sri Lankans are convinced that the Indian troops have been partial to the Tamil militants and that the Indians had also provoked the Sri Lankan forces. In turn, the Indians have charged Colombo’s forces with sniping at them.
Sparking off the recent violence was the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam – commonly called the Tigers – whose followers left at least 12 civilians dead and some 400 houses and shops destroyed in the harbour town of Trincomalee. Officials said the death toll in the villages and settlements in the sprawling district was much higher. During the height of the ethnic war, the outlying Sinhalese settlements in the district had been under constant attack, but the town itself had always been very well secured.
The picture changed with the provisions of the peace accord, requiring Sri Lankan security forces to be confined to their barracks. As violence erupted in the east, the government came under heavy criticism by the opposition. Discontent among a section of the majority Sinhalese that the accord had eroded Sri Lanka’s sovereignty also heightened as the incidents in Trincomalee escalated.
Opposition leader Anura Bandaranaike said in a telegram to Jayewardene: ‘Sinhalese civilians have been butchered in cold blood in Trincomalee in the past few days and I am distressed to note that the government has watched helplessly as the killing took place…While the IPKF was deliberately turning a blind eye to the massacres, the government’s law-enforcement authorities were under orders not to leave their barracks and come to the assistance of the people…Is this then the peace you promised the people of Sri Lanka at th ecost of [the country’s] independence, unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity? Please ensure, Mr President that the writ of your government runs in Trincomalee and in other areas where the Sinhalese are a minority.’
The violence in Trincomalee followed the Tigers’ agitation to win a series of demands including a majority of the seats in the interim administration which is to run the Northern and Eastern provinces until the December elections for the joint provincial council. The Tigers were given the lion’s share of the administration with seven places, including the slot of chief administrator of the 12-member council, later expanded to 13.
But their pressure tactics, including a last-minute demand to change the chief administrator selected by Jayewardene from a list of three Tiger nominees, were straining India’s nerves. Jayewardene refused to change the chief administrator, a former municipal commissioner of Jaffna. The official promptly declined to serve. Most observers believed he was under pressure from the Tigers to bow out.
The violence in Trincomalee gathered momentum as the formation of the interim provincial council remained in limbo. In Colombo, Jayewardene presented the legislation on the provincial council to his cabinet. The government made it clear, however, that the joining of the Northern and Eastern provinces as a single administrative unit – a core provision of the peace accord – would not be legislated until the president was of the view that the violence in the troubled areas had ended and that the Tamil separatists had surrendered all their weapons. The president plans to submit the legislation to parliament by early November.
Apparently Jayewardene did not face any major opposition to the legislation at the recent cabinet meeting. Agriculture Minister Gamini Jayasuriya had said he could not support the legislation providing for even the temporary joining of the north and east. But after some deliberation, the cabinet – including Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa who was unhappy about the accord – appeared to have fallen in line. However, Jayewardene’s confident assertion that his party MPs would vote en bloc for the bill was belied by one of them resigning his parliamentary seat saying he could not support the legislation.
The MPs are also under physical threat by Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), an extremist Sinhalese organisation. Special arrangements are being made for their security as JVP activity escalates. Police attributed attacks on the headquarters of the Trotskyist and Communist parties in Colombo on 1 October to this group. Both these leftist parties support the accord. The JVP subversives have also been attacking activists of the ruling United National Party in remote villages and also attempted to assassinate a prominent southern communist on 1 October.
Although the going seems rough at present, Jayewardene is clearly determined to implement the agreement and ensure peace on the terms of the July accord with India. But New Delhi, which has lately engaged in some tough talk with the Tigers, will be forced to flex its military muscle to ensure that the militants are fully disarmed. The Tigers too will have to adapt to the new situation and acquire the administrative and political skills they will need to win the provincial council election.
Jaffna Takes a Pounding [Anonymous; Asiaweek (Hongkong), Oct. 30, 1987, pp.16-17]The battle for Jaffna had entered its second week, and Nallur Kandaswamy Temple was packed. More than 50,000 men, women and children in Jaffna City were crowded within its walls. It was Deepavali, the most auspicious day for Hindus in Sri Lanka. But none of the Hindu Tamils huddled in the temple were celebrating; all were fleeing pitched battles between Tamil guerillas and the advancing soldiers of the Indian Army. Rani Sivanayagam, 24, spent three days and nights in the shrine before she escaped the peninsula, reaching Colombo after a nightmarish journey over little-used jungle tracks, dodging army patrols and aerial strafing by helicopters. ‘There is no room to stand, let alone sleep,’ she reported. ‘Diarrhea is widespread and there aren’t any sanitation facilities. Only those with money or a relative nearby can have something to eat. That, too, is limited to a bowl of rice gruel a day’. Like Sivanayagam, many of the 830,000 Tamils in Jaffna peninsula have taken refuge in similar designated centres or fled south to escape the crossfire.
The battle began on Oct. 9, when Indian peacekeeping forces, in Sri Lanka to enforce the Indo-Sri Lankan agreement of July 29, mounted an offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the largest and most powerful among several groups fighting for a Tamil homeland. The Tigers had earlier massacred more than 250 Sinhalese civilians in Eastern Province, and attacked an Indian convoy, in retaliation for the capture and suicide-deaths of more than a dozen Tiger guerillas. Since then, there has been no quarter given, and none asked.
India has vowed to continue until the Tigers surrender or are conquered. More than 20,000 of its soldiers are now on the island, about 8,000 of them in Jaffna peninsula. Many are crack border patrol troops, paratroopers or Gurkhas. The Indian High Commission in Colombo said at mid-week that more than 600 guerillas had been killed. On the Indian side, 127 soldiers were reported dead and 27 missing and presumed dead. Other sources said at least 40 Indian soldiers have succumbed to their injuries in hospitals in Madras.
Some sources suspect that more civilians have been killed than guerillas or soldiers. India has not supplied details of civilian casualties, and journalists are barred from the area. But a Tamil refugee from a village near Jaffna who reached Colombo last week said that the city was being shelled ’24 hours a day’. According to him, ‘the whole area looks as if a heavy cyclone has struck. Not many buildings are left.’ An independent group of twelve Sri Lankans, including Jaffna Hospital director P.S. Nacchinakkiniyar and the city municipal commissioner C.V.K. Sivagnanam, claimed about 700 civilians have died and more than 300 were wounded. ‘Even drinking water is scarce, and starvation deaths are imminent,’ they reported. Roman Catholic clergy in Jaffna reported that many died from indiscriminate shelling and strafing, although India denied using air cover in its assault.
Both sides have been accused of atrocities. Refugees who escaped to Vavuniya, 120 km south of Jaffna city, spoke of rape and murder. They claimed the Indians went on an orgy of violence after 30 soldiers were killed at Jaffna University. The Tigers had massacred the captured paratroopers and set their bodies afire. Another five captured Indian soldiers were burnt alive in Nallur temple.
The Indians claimed last week that they controlled three-quarters of the city centre, including the main bus stand and the general hospital. However, others on the scene reported that by Oct. 21 the advancing units were still half a kilometre away from the municipal limits, while soldiers camped at historic Jaffna fort had not broken out of the one kilometre security zone around the fort. ‘Their battle tanks are not made to withstand the 250 kg drum mines used by the LTTE’, said a refugee. Three reporters who slipped into Jaffna last week said the Tigers were still in control there. ‘Their supply lines seem intact, and they move about freely,’ said one journalist.
The Indians admitted encountering ‘very heavy resistance’ when they tried to capture the Tigers’ main base in Urumpirai village near Jaffna. After a final four hour assault on the morning of Oct. 16, the Indians said they counted 110 dead guerillas. At least 50 Indians were said to have died. These included 30 who rappelled down from a helicopter into the grounds of Jaffna University, 400 metres away. Their Russian M 18 helicopter returned to Palali airport on the northern coast riddled with bullets. Two accompanying choppers with 60 soldiers aboard veered off after seeing the intense ground fire.
The Tigers have asked for a ceasefire through various emissaries, including Tamil Nadu politician M. Karunanidhi. But India’s Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi has insisted that nothing short of ‘an unconditional surrender of all weapons, and total acceptance of the Indo-Lankan accord’ will do. Tamil mediators have vainly tried to see Indian High Commissioner Jyotindra Nath Dixit, who is ill with malarial fever. ‘Without his approval, Delhi will not even hear of a ceasefire,’ one Tamil source told Asiaweek.
The Tigers seem divided over what course to take. ‘One [group] wants to surrender, while the other, led by [Tiger deputy Mahendraraja], wants to withdraw out of Jaffna while they can,’ an intelligence source privy to intercepted Tiger radio communication told Asiaweek. The Indians were exploiting the apparent dissent. On Oct. 21 they offered an amnesty, which did not include Tiger leaders, over the radio, loud hailers and through leaflets. ‘The Indians are encouraging a split within the LTTE’, said a Sri Lankan military official. ‘The question is whether the cadres will take the bait.’ The Tigers were apparently awaiting orders from their commander, Velupillai Prabhakaran, who had been missing since the day after the Urumpirai assault. He was said to have been directing the resistance from Nallur temple.
Even if the Indians wrest control of Jaffna, several thousand Tigers remain at large in the Northern and Eastern Provinces. New Delhi was apparently worried about a protracted struggle.
Last week Maj.-Gen. Harkirat Singh, commander of the Indian troops, was relieved of his duties and recalled to Delhi. The Indian High Commission announced that the chief of Indian Military Intelligence had arrived in Jaffna on Thursday to take over command of the Indian forces.
Lt.-Gen. Depinder Singh of the Indian Southern Command, who visited Jaffna and Colombo last Monday, was said to have revamped the command structure and issued orders to ‘speed up’ the offensive. Promised Gandhi at a news conference in Washington last week: ‘The problem in Jaffna should not last more than a week, perhaps two weeks.’ Others were less optimistic. Given the breakdown of order in Jaffna, India may be in for a long haul.
