Sri Lankans get a wake-up call from Tigers

A few hours before the strike, a large majority of Sri Lankans — perhaps the exception being the people in the war-ravaged north and east, the hundreds of thousands of people living in refugee camps in squalid conditions and the snobbish westernised elite — were watching the most popular television show, Sri Lanka’s version of the American Idol. The elimination of a poor glamour girl — actually she is a woman with a child — from the southern dry zone village of Embilipitiya where poverty-stricken people trek miles to access potable water, was the topic many discussed as they retired to bed. The show probably had made them forget the war and the unbearable cost-of-living burden.

In Anuradhapura where the airbase that was to be over-run within hours is situated, military officers were on high spirit, celebrating the successful completion of a motor race. The event is organised annually by the Gajaba Regiment of the Army with support from the Sri Lanka Army Motor Sports Committee and the Sri Lanka Association for Racing Drivers and Riders, to raise funds for the welfare of the families of the soldiers who died in the war.

We had all forgotten that the Tigers were on the prowl, waiting for an opportunity to hit where it hurts most. We had been made to believe by our government and hawks who see the call for peace as a treacherous act that the Tigers were a spent force and, therefore, could be defeated militarily. We were told that the Tigers had been well and truly defeated in the east. We were fed stories of military successes in the north almost on daily basis. We were assured that the military had wiped out the entire fleet of the Tigers’ arms-transporting ships. The government’s information campaign was so aggressive that the task of finding a needle in a haystack has become much easier than spotting a peace activist in southern Sri Lanka.

But I must admit that the security forces had their fair share of success, too. They had successfully quashed attempts by the Tigers to penetrate the Colombo Port on more than two occasions. They thwarted suicide attacks by the Tigers on a southern naval base while heavy security measures in and around Colombo have made the capital relatively safe.

The Tigers also had major setbacks internationally with the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigations arresting key members of their arms procuring unit and other western countries cracking down on fund-raising activities.

But I would not call the capture of the east a military success for the government. It is a tactical withdrawal by the Tigers. In a game of checkers, you deliberately allow a piece or two of yours to be cut by your opponent with the aim of cutting several of his pieces and finally win the game. The Tigers’ withdrawal from the east or their decision to lie low is a strategic move which placed a heavy burden on the security forces to protect the recaptured or liberated territory.

With half the soldiers being tied down in the east and parts of the north safeguarding territory, the Tigers are faced with only a truncated army in the northern theatre. This is why the much-bragged-about northern offensive to capture the Tiger heartland has failed so far to make much headway and appears to be very costly in terms of men and material. The troop strength in the north could only be increased at the cost of exposing the east to Tiger attacks. Already it is happening with the Tigers, who went underground after the security forces’ victory in the east, surfacing at will to carry out attacks on security forces and kill political opponents in the east.

In the Anuradharpura raid, the Tigers achieved a morale-boosting military victory, something for their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran to strut and speak during their heroes’ day ceremony on November 26.

A week or two before the attack, I overheard someone saying that a Tamil barber from the north was angry with the Tigers not because they were facing defeat after defeat, but because he believed that the Tigers had betrayed the Tamil cause by taking bribes from the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration. “It seems that war is a big business for both government and LTTE leaders,” he said. The attack on airbase sent a message to the disappointed sympathisers of the Tigers that the LTTE’s struggle is very much on course, bribe or no bribe.

For the government, the attack was certainly a shameful and shocking setback. But the bigger setback was the absence of any condemnation from the international community. It may because the Tigers targeted a military facility. But the silence is also tantamount to a tacit approval of the Tigers’ military action against a state which has miserably failed in presenting a meaningful and effective political solution to the Tamil problem. The silence of the international community is certainly a sign of its disappointment with the government’s lack of progress on the political front.

Ameen Izzadeen is a Sri Lankan journalist based in Colombo