{"id":96850,"date":"2019-12-24T23:45:09","date_gmt":"2019-12-25T05:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=96850"},"modified":"2019-12-24T16:29:49","modified_gmt":"2019-12-24T23:29:49","slug":"eelam-war-series-1-bungling-the-eelam-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/12\/24\/eelam-war-series-1-bungling-the-eelam-war\/","title":{"rendered":"EELAM WAR SERIES: 1 BUNGLING THE EELAM WAR"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The public wanted to\nknow why the government took so long to defeat the LTTE.  Why had they not won the war when the LTTE\nwas much weaker? If the LTTE had been defeated earlier, then many lives could\nhave been saved. The armed forces knew the strategies needed to defeat them.\nThey wanted an eastern strategy. The east was the real centre of Eelam and the\nwar must be fought there, they said. \u2018LTTE would have collapsed long ago if the\nnorth- eastern waters had been patrolled.  LTTE \u2018successes\u2019 were due to our \u2018failures\u2019\nand those failures were due to government blunders. The war would not have\nlasted three decades if the government had taken the war seriously. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tamil separatist war was anticipated by N.Q.\nDias, when he was Permanent Secretary for Defence and External affairs in the\nSLFP government of 1960-1965. Neville Jayaweera recalls that \u2018NQ\u2019 was the most\npowerful public servant of the time. He was feared and respected even by\ncabinet ministers. Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike listened to him.  In 1963, NQ had told Jayaweera, then GA,\nJaffna that within the next twenty years the Tamil protest would develop into\nan armed rebellion and the government must prepare for that now.   N.Q. Dias had been in Jaffna as AGA in the\n1940s.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NQ wanted to set up a chain of\nmilitary camps to encircle the Northern Province. They were to be set up at\nArippu, Maricchikatti, Pallai and Thalvapadu in the Mannar District, Pooneryn,\nKarainagar, Palaly, Point Pedro and Elephant Pass in the Jaffna District,\nMullaitivu in the Vavuniya District and Trincomalee in the East. He said that\nthere were already two military camps of platoon strength in Pallai in Mannar\nand in Palaly in Jaffna and a rudimentary naval presence in Karainagar, but\nthat he wanted to upgrade them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To avoid an outcry from the Tamils, he intended\nto say that these camps were for controlling illicit immigration from India to\nSri Lanka and smuggling from Sri Lanka to India.    Work started immediately and within a year,\nthe infrastructure for setting up the military camps was nearly complete. When\nJayaweera left Jaffna in 1966 all of the camps were up and running.  This network of military camps helped to\nmount counter strikes against the LTTE later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 NQ also\nset up a Task Force for Anti Illicit Immigration (TAFFI) under the command of\nLt. Col. Sepala Attygalle,  to encircle\nthe North militarily and wanted to know whether the Gal Oya Board could turn\nout boats to use for \u2018anti smuggling\u2019 work. He raised new infantry regiments,\nstarting with the Sinha Regiment. He wished to get rid of the \u2018unpatriotic\npersons\u2019 in the military top command  and\nplanned to strengthen Sri Lanka\u2019s relations with Beijing to neutralize India\u2019s\ninfluence in Sri Lanka\u2019s internal affairs.  \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  Jayaweera\nnotes that N.Q\u2019s vision of Tamil uprising, and gun running from Tamilnadu began\nto unravel exactly as he had foreseen. \u2018He was a political prophet as well as a\nmilitary strategist. His grand design for strangling a future Tamil revolt by\ngirdling the north with a chain of military encirclement was as audacious as it\nwas brilliant.\u2019 Jayaweera says NQ Dias was an outstanding strategist.  It was NQ\u2019s duty to plan well ahead for the\nsuppression of any anticipated armed rebellion and he fulfilled that obligation\nas no one else had done before him. Sri Lanka is much in his debt,  said Jayaweera.\n\u2018NQ\u2019s vision of a future armed Tamil uprising and of India\u2019s intervention on\nthe side of the rebel cause has not been properly chronicled.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If these military camps had been nurtured and\ndeveloped in the 1970s, the armed forces would have been better prepared for\nthe Eelam wars. They would have studied the northern landscape from the\nmilitary angle, prepared military maps and got ready for a future separatist\nwar. Instead, when the Eelam wars began, the LTTE had the advantage. They knew\nthe landscape of the north intimately; the soldiers did not know it at all.\nVadamarachchi was selected in 1987 using data obtained at great risk by the\nintelligence units.   In 1990, a seaborne\nrescue mission was launched to save an army detachment at Mullaitivu. The\nforces first had a mock landing north of Mullativu as they had never done this\nbefore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The  war dragged on for so long because our\nPresidents did not give a clear order to the armed forces to go ahead and win.   President Wijetunge, alone, said LTTE were\nmerely terrorists and ordered the armed forces to clear the east of the LTTE\nwithin two months. The other three Presidents wanted to avoid war.  They wished to negotiate a deal with the LTTE\nat any cost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of this, the\nauthorities neglected the military. Recruitment and training were stopped\nwhenever there was a lull in the war. The government refused to provide the\nmultiple rocket launchers   and Bushmaster cannon the army and navy\nurgently needed. But they bought a hovercraft at a staggering cost of Rs 250\nmillion. It was never used for war. The government   wanted to know why the army needed need a\nlarge stock of ammunition when there were only 2000 LTTE fighters. Troops died because substandard arms and equipment were\npurchased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officers were\npromoted, on seniority not competence. They were not vetted, there was no\nsecurity classification  and sensitive\ninformation was easily obtained.  \u2018Our\nbattle plans were known to the media before operations began\u2019.  The Eelam war was not over, but in 2004, Sri\nLanka sent troops to the UN peace keeping forces in Haiti. The service\ncommanders had no say in the matter. Earlier, the government set up a Defence\nReview Committee (2002) which was asked  \nto examine the size of the security forces and see whether such a large\narmy was necessary. Observers are now asking did the authorities want the LTTE\nto win?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politics took\nprecedence over war. The heads of the three forces were selected on loyalty to\nthe government. Commanders who stood up to the government were dismissed and\nreplaced by persons with less experience. In-fighting\nbetween senior officers of the army was encouraged. The media said that\nsuperior officers opposed strategies planned by subordinates  and that   \nsubordinate officers wanted to kill their superiors. There was political\ninterference in the military campaigns. \nBut when things went wrong the army was blamed.  The government said that the army had allowed\nLTTE to win the Oya Alaigal\u201d operation. \nThe army furiously denied the allegation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officers capable of\ndefeating the LTTE such as Janaka Perera and Sarath Fonseka were brought in,\nmoved out and brought in again. Janaka Perera angrily complained that he had\nnever been allowed to command the army though he had the knowledge and\nexpertise needed to defeat the LTTE. Officers who opposed the LTTE were\nremoved. Vajira Wijegoonawardene, then Overall Operation commander called for\nfirm military action against the LTTE. He was transferred. Eastern Naval\nCommander, Rear admiral Sarath Weerasekera was moved out of Trincomalee when he\nobjected to the LTTE flexing its muscles. \nAdmiral Wasantha Karannagoda reported that LTTE had positioned guns pointing\ntowards the Trincomalee navy base. Instead of taking action the government\nattacked me. State television ran a programme defamatory of me and I decided to\ntake legal action.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Chandrika\nKumaratunga\u2019s period of office (1994-2005) is notable for a series of\nbattlefield defeats. LTTE took Mullativu (1996) Kilinochchi (1998), Elephant\nPass (2000) and nearly took Jaffna peninsula. At Elephant Pass, the most\nimportant military base in the north, with access to the Jaffna peninsula, the army withdrew leaving behind massive stock of arms,\nammunition and equipment including artillery pieces.  In Kilinochchi, 500 soldiers were   killed, 3,000 wounded and 500 missing.  LTTE burnt alive the 1300  Sri Lankan soldiers at Mullaitivu and removed\nthe entire arsenal including artillery pieces, mortars, and machine guns. Those\nwho survived the Mullaitivu attack  had\nrevealed the pathetic state of Mullaitivu defenses at the time.  Experts \nsay the  Mullaitivu debacle could\nhave been avoided. The government wanted to regain\nMullaitivu, but the  military opposed\nthis and refused to deploy any more men. \nThey were against maintaining isolated bases.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government engaged\nin  a\nseries of highly\npublicized, knee jerk military operations\nwhich kept\nthe focus on Jaffna, and off the Eastern province. These seriously weakened the\narmy and helped LTTE further entrench itself.  These operations were given names that\nscreamed success even before the operations had started,   \u2018Thrivida pahara\u2019,    \u2018Sath jaya, \u2018Jayasikurui, \u2018Edibala,   \u2018Rivi bala\u2019 and \u2018Ranagosa\u2019. They  suffered from a shortage of weapons and the\nlack of holding strength at crucial moments. They all failed. \u2018Thrivida\npahara,\u2019   was called off within hours,\nleaving a group of soldiers stranded on the beach. They were eventually killed\nby the Tigers.   \u2018Ranagosa\u2019 spread three\ndivisions thinly on the ground. LTTE crushed them. Jayasikurui seemed a lunatic\nventure even to the public. It was trying to regain the highly exposed\nJaffna-Kandy road, with the LTTE lined up on both sides of the route,  using just two fighting divisions. These two\ndivisions were soundly defeated by the LTTE. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These ill planned\nmilitary operations resulted in a huge number of deaths. Operation Riviresa\n(1995) took Jaffna, but with a loss of 600 men.    The government did not care. The lives of the\narmed forces and police didn\u2019t matter. \nSecurity issues and long term implications were not important.  Governments simply wanted to show territorial\ngains. When the campaigns failed, the government imposed censorship .The press\ncould not report on the bloody fighting and the number of lives lost.   The statement issue by LTTE when they took\nElephant Pass was completely censored. ( CONTINUED)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS The public wanted to know why the government took so long to defeat the LTTE.  Why had they not won the war when the LTTE was much weaker? If the LTTE had been defeated earlier, then many lives could have been saved. The armed forces knew the strategies needed to defeat them. They […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}