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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:
| "...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.'' |
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:
| ''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.'' |
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.'' |
