Shenali D Waduge

Is it only in Sri Lanka or is there any other nation where the Victory Day gets watered down and scoffed? It is only Sri Lanka that can claim a military victory over an internationally banned terrorist movement but it is only in Sri Lanka that elements that propped up the LTTE and separatism find themselves in the driver’s seat thus determining what gets celebrated and what is not. It is quite a laughable and tragic situation where such a fait accompli by any other military would be treated on par with Victory Day being celebrated since 1945 but in Sri Lanka not only are our leaders cowardly to take a stand but nations that celebrate Victory Day in their own countries are asking Sri Lanka not to and our leaders are meekly agreeing. However, for the record it must be said that no military offensive would have taken place without the political nod of approval by the then President and no rescue operation has ever saved 300,000 people while simultaneously carrying out a military offensive from multiple fronts that annihilated an internationally banned terrorist organization and its leaders who refused to lay down arms and surrender and said they would fight till their last man.

Some Facts never to be forgotten

• Sri Lanka’s armed forces undertook a military offensive against an internationally proscribed terrorist movement while also simultaneously engaged in a humanitarian rescue operation that saved close to 300,000 Tamils while also accepting close to 12,000 LTTE cadres. Note LTTE cadres were also posing as civilians and were dressed in civil.
• LTTE were given several opportunities to surrender and lay down arms – they refused claiming to fight till the last man died. The Sri Lankan President made his 1^st appeal on 2nd January 2009.
• LTTE functioned as no other international terrorist movement. It has its own Navy (Sea Tigers), its own Airforce (Air Tigers), its own ground force (Black Tigers), Radio/TV communication (Voice of Tiger) an international criminal network – arms smuggling, human smuggling, money laundering, credit card smuggling, immigration manipulation, purchase of foreign MPs, functioning as humanitarian charities and camouflaging to lobby UN, foreign envoys and others
• LTTE ground force – LTTE was originally created by India taking groups of unemployed Sri Lankan Tamil youth to Tamil Nadu and training them clandestinely and then arming, funding them to return to destabalize Sri Lanka. The JR Jayawardena government took this threat lightly claiming its military could easily wipe them off but soon the numbers rose and so did the numbers of armed militant groups. India had clandestinely trained close to 30 such armed Tamil groups. At its height LTTE are said to have had 30,000 combatants.  According to the LTTE’s own public declaration 274 male suicide attacks and 104 female suicide attacks were undertaken by LTTE between July 5 1987 and 20 Nov 2008.
• LTTE sea tigers – The Sri Lankan Navy lost 8 major vessels, 20 fast attack craft and 28 inshore patrol craft due          to such            cluster attacks            and suicide attacks by the Sea Tigers. 52            Officers           and 348 sailors were killed during these sea battles.

• LTTE Air Tigers – LTTE had runways in Mullaitivu, Iranamadu and Kilinochchi areas. Its cadres were sent to private South East Asian flight schools for training. LTTE was able to shoot down 52 airplanes and helicopters including civilian aircraft using surface to air missiles as well as ground attacks.
• LTTE’s shipping network included 20 large vessels, trawlers registered under different flags, boatyards in different South East Asian countries, crew were LTTE cadres under assumed identities and bogus passports –arms were transported under normal cargo.
• LTTE raised funds between USD50m-75million annually between 1983 and 2002 and over US$200million annually from 2002 to 2008.
• The IDPs as a result of illegal military interventions by US & NATO (minimum figures source: international displacement monitoring centre) Hypocrisy is such that UN does not apply the same bullying tactics to the nations that military intervened to create the IDP status.

o   Afghanistan – 847,872

o   DR Congo – 2,857,400

o   Iraq – 3,300,000

o   Libya – 434,000

o   South Sudan – 1,690,000

o   Syria – 6,600,000

• LTTE were no saints. LTTE’s terror lasted 30 years. LTTE’s targets were not the GOSL or the Army alone but innocent civilians, economic targets that would affect civilians and civilian infrastructure (LTTE were no friend of the common man)
• LTTE were no representative of Tamils. More Tamils have died by LTTE than by Sinhalese. LTTE emerged against caste system in Tamil society but used caste to generate its cadres. Not one LTTE fighter were from high castes. All cadres and ground troops were plucked from the low caste and poverty stricken Tamil areas while the high castes/class Tamils ran the LTTE international network and political lobbying which continues to this day.
• LTTE assassinated over 100 democratically elected political leaders and government officials from all        ethnicities in Sri         Lanka. LTTE targeted a sitting President and killed a former Indian Prime Minister. LTTE has also killed foreigners.

• LTTE violations of human rights have been ignore by the UN and its entities. Apart from compiling colourful reports on child soldiers NOTHING was done against the LTTE for recruiting children as young as 10. In 2006, UNICEF estimated that over 5,700 of        the LTTE’s cadres were children. The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission has recorded 1743 instances of child recruitment, 253 abductions of children, 579 abductions of adults during the ceasefire.
• LTTE had a command structure – a leader, commanders, uniforms, conventional weapons, an international criminal network from which it generated and continues to generate funding.
• All those that continue to chirp that the Rajapakse government should have given LTTE a chance to enter peace talks have forgotten that LTTE has a history of attending peace talks, negotiations and cease fires that have led nowhere but to buy time for their units to regroup.
• 2 peace processes were facilitated by India & Norway – both failed
• 1985 Thimpu Talks – failed (JRJ)
• 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord – failed accepting granting India a bigger foothold into interfering in Sri Lanka’s affairs (JRJ)
• 1990 Peace Talks – failed (Premadasa)
• 1994-5 Peace Talks – failed (Chandrika) LTTE even demanded the closure of the Pooneryn Camp (surprise surprise TNA is demanding the same)
• 2002 – Cease Fire Agreement – failed (RanilW) but granted LTTE on par status with a national army and the Ranil W government accepted territory held by terrorists as legal. Has anybody heard of any ceasefire agreement that allows a terrorist group to engage in political activity in government controlled areas open ‘political offices’ which would allow recruitment, intelligence efforts, collect arms and threaten residents! (the excuse given to the foolish public was that the LTTE would transform into political kittens) The cover was fantastic that the LTTE was able to tell its diaspora to increase funding by whatever means that LTTE was preparing for a very decisive stage (final War) As luck would have the 2004 tsunami occurred that allowed the LTTE to bring ‘humanitarian’ arms virtually through the Sri Lanka Customs and charity funds that were all preparing for the final assault. People have conveniently forgotten that LTTE went to establish an illegal bank during the ceasefire – North & East Development Bank in Kilinochchi that channelled money from the TRO to the bank.
• 2006 peace talks in Geneva-Oslo failed (Mahinda)
• LTTE’s violations of cease fire are many – LTTE violated the Cease Fire Agreement of 2002 over 3830 times (this was far from the actual figures). The violations attributed to the GOSL were just 351. The 2002 February 22^nd signed cease fire agreement was formally annulled by the GOSL on 16 January 2008

• The killing of Lakshman Kadiragamar was during the cease fire

• The closure of the Mavil Aru sluice gate thus committing a Geneva Violation denying water to people in July 2006 together with the attack on Trincomalee Harbour was the last straw. LTTE denied water to 9510 Muslims, 8013 Sinhalese & 4438 Tamils living in 20 villages. The Government ordered the military to open the sluice gates on 28 July 2006. The innocent LTTE did not sit silent. While the Army was opening the sluice gates the LTTE attacked camps in Kaddaiparichchan, Selvanagar, Mahindapura and Mutur Naval detachment and Mutur Town.

• Eventually the Eastern Province was liberated on 10 July 2007

• The Wanni operation started on 5 March 2007 to liberate 6,792 sq km under LTTE control.

• LTTE’s response was to herd Tamils with them to create a humanitarian crisis with Tamils to be used as human shields or hostages. LTTE’s objective was to blur the distinction between combatant and civilian as LTTE were shooting dressed in civilian and civilians were also trained to shoot. LTTE thus used civilian sites to shoot from. What soldier can make the distinction while also safeguarding his own life????

• The Sri Lankan Army used Tamil written pamphlets, spoke in Tamil across loudspeakers, dropped leaflets in Tamil directing Tamil civilians on where to move to safety.

• The Sri Lankan Army captured Madhu on 24 April 2008. The Church was used by LTTE to treat wounded cadres, used as a LTTE radio station, Rayappu Joseph has much to answer for.

• From 1980s to 2006 – 19,282 Security Forces personnel were killed and 82,104 were maimed or wounded in battles against the LTTE and 2,609 were missing in action prior to the launch of the Humanitarian Operation  in 2006.

• The duty of the Sri Lankan Armed forces was to carry out the military onslaught to defeat the LTTE while liberating the civilians trapped by LTTE. That 300,000 Tamils plus 10,000 LTTE cadres (dressed in civil) were living and not killed nullifies the lies and distortions about Tamils being killed without even their names or skeletons being found even after 7 years.

• Did Tamils voluntarily remain with LTTE as claimed by LTTE and Vany Kumar on C4 video? That Tamils were fleeing LTTE, that LTTE shot at fleeing Tamils, that US Secretary General, Foreign Envoys appealed to LTTE to release the civilians is enough to highlight that these Tamils were not waiting with the LTTE voluntarily.

• The international rules for no fire zones is that it is accepted and signed by both parties (questionable whether under international law armed non-state actors in non-international armed conflicts qualify for this status). The no fire zones or safety zones were created only by the GOSL/Army and had no seal of approval by the LTTE.

• Question unanswered: Tamil Eelam/Tamil Homeland exclusively in North and East of Sri Lanka is a demand made by Tamil political parties (TULF, EPRLF, TELO, PLOTE, ITAK, TNA, LTTE diaspora, LTTE fronts & LTTE) are these demands linked? Tamil population (minus estate Tamils who were laborers brought by British from Tamil Nadu) are less than 2million but are demanding 28.7% of the landmass and 60% of the coastline. How fair is this???

• Why has the world remained silent about the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF SINHALESE & MUSLIMS by Tamils & India from the North? Why is the world silent on the manner Tamils have chased out Sinhalese & Muslims who were living in the North even before 1948? Why have the international community and UN omitted these people from being resettled, from being given compensation packages, return of their lands and property and the provisions and other materials that Tamil IDPs have been given? What is behind this step motherly treatment? Why are the human rights activists and media silent on highlighting their plight? 19,334 Sinhala civilians  recorded in the  Northern province census of 1981. In October 1990, when LTTE expelled 75,000 Muslim residents of the  Jaffna peninsula

• The UN that proudly publishes reports claiming it has FAILED ignores its failure over 30 years to stop the carnage LTTE committed on innocent civilian targets. All of the times LTTE struck the UN’s response was to only issue a signatory sympathy statement and advise the GOSL to continue with peace talks. Nothing was done against the LTTE when in 1987 it killed over 100 people during the Central Bus station attack, when over 86 people were killed when LTTE attacked the Central Bank in 1996, when over 120 Buddhist devotees were massacred inside the sacred Buddhist site of Sri Mahabodhi in Anuradhapura in 1985, when 37 civilian and 33 novice Buddhist monks were massacred in Aranthalawa in 1987 or when 147 Muslim devotees who were praying were killed inside the Katthankudy mosque in 1995. However, for just one attack in September 2001 the world declared War on Terror against Al Qaeda and the UN even banned it even opening a separate unit to monitor Al Qaeda. These double standards need to be exposed fully.

• While LTTE’s attacks on prominent individuals/politicians/civil infrastructure have got public attention the UN and the entire world was silent to the thousands of villagers/villages that the LTTE attacked inhumanely killing men, women, children and even babies. These crimes have never even seen fit to be turned into documentaries but the world can cry over a terrorist son chewing biscuits (while these same countries can shoot unarmed Osama bin Laden and his family) and forensic experts can look at a photo and claim the perpetrators are the Sri Lankan Army (unbelievable)!

• The world doesn’t answer why at the end of the LTTE annihilation it began speaking about solving the Tamil issue when clearly the military option was taken against an internationally proscribed terrorist outfit that targeted all the communities in Sri Lanka? At the end of the conflict the world should have demanded the denazification of the LTTE just like the Allies did to Nazi Germany than demanding a political solution to the Tamil people. Why is the Tamil problem linked with the LTTE when the LTTE were killing Tamils going against them and the rest of the Tamils lived in fear of the LTTE? You wouldn’t find Sambanthan, Sumanthiran, Senathirajah or Sivajilingam behaving as they now do if Prabakaran or LTTE prevailed. You wouldn’t even find the current lot of LTTE fronts and their leaders behaving as they do either.

• What is puzzling is why despite International bans LTTE & fronts remain uninvestigated and are able to even influence foreign MPs and UN officials.

o   32 nations continue to ban the LTTE

o   India banned LTTE in 1994

o   US banned LTTE since 1997

o   US banned LTTE since 2001

o   EU banned LTTE since 2006

o   GOSL proscribed LTTE in 1993 after the bombing of the Dalada Maligawa. RanilW lifted the ban in 2002 to sign the CFA. The ban was reimposed by the Rajapakse government in January 2009.

o   The TRO (Tamil Rehabilitation Organization) was designated a terrorist organization by US in 2007 & delisted as a charity by UK since 2005. TRO collected funds for LTTE for arms on the guise of collecting money for charitable projects.

• All those weeping for the Tigers have forgotten LTTE’s brutal attacks on Sri Lankan Armed Forces

o   5000 soldiers remain Missing In Action

o   LTTE killed more than 1100 soldiers in 1996 Mullaitivu attack

o   LTTE shot down 2 Avro aircrafts of the SL Air Force in April 1995 killing 100 unarmed military personnel who were returning on leave.

o   LTTE missile attacks in November 1995 and a MI-17 passenger transport helicopter in January 1996 killed another 102

• All those shedding crocodile tears for the LTTE have also conveniently forgotten the ridicule and humiliation our soldiers were subject to during the 2002 ceasefire? The provocative acts teasing the soldiers to react including spitting at the soldiers, throwing stones at them, laughing at them, there were instances where LTTE dressed in civilian clothing even attacked and killed soldiers while on patrol, LTTE blocked traffic provoking the soldiers to take action when they were forbidden from doing so because of agreement entered into by the Ranil W government. With all these provocations the Sri Lankan Armed kept their cool. Would the US & NATO troops have done the same if Al Qaeda or ISIS were behaving as LTTE were? Will someone please answer.

• The biased reporting by UN and others present throughout the humanitarian/military offensive are too many to list. Little emphasis has been paid to LTTE cadres posing as wounded taking the place of actual wounded and ill civilians that were transported by ICRC. The food provisions confiscated by LTTE have been hidden too, the equipment and other vehicles that conveniently came to be used by LTTE have also been downplayed. Even the officials that went to the war zone did not make any effort to demand LTTE to release the civilians or made a noise about LTTE keeping the civilians except to quote figures and sensationalize the news. Even after saving the civilians all that they were capable of doing was to claim the soldiers were not doing enough when they were nicely carrying provisions and came back with empty vehicles with not even a pregnant woman, an elderly man/woman or any sick.

• Having militarily defeated the LTTE, saved close to 300,000 Tamils the GOSL was quick to hold elections without denazifying the LTTE and taking action against the TNA for links with LTTE thus continuing the LTTE under another names. There were many shortcomings in the LLRC as well. LTTE’s creation by India, the crimes that must cover from the time militancy was created to the roots of separatism by Tamil politicians need to be covered in order to get to the root of the problem. Without knowing the problem we find our leaders drafting solutions which is likely to create further problems in the future. LTTE rode on the eelam ideology which remains very much alive and is being carried by the very parties that propped up the LTTE. Unless these are named, investigated and action taken against them it is pointless deriving at solutions.

Close to 30,000 soldiers sacrificed their lives to ensure this island nation is not cut into pieces or separated just to satisfy the personal political ideologies of politicians who have political careers because they are supported by external parties with their own agendas.

Seven years after the elimination of the LTTE we are still grappling with the problem and searching for solutions in a cowardly path that refuses to point to the left over elements of the LTTE and the separatist ideology. Unless that is that there would be no peace for any of the communities or the sovereignty of Sri Lanka.

Shenali D Waduge