Tigers roar over US visits to Sri
Lanka By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - The visit to Sri Lanka of two
high-ranking American generals in recent months appears
to have rattled the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE). The visits, which come at time when the peace
process seems almost impossible to revive, is being
described as a show of American support for the Sri
Lankan government.
In June, Lieutenant-General
James Campbell, commanding general of the US Army
Pacific Command, accompanied by a special team of US
military officials, visited the Jaffna Peninsula and the
Lankan naval base at Kankesanthurai, and took an aerial
tour of islands to the northwest of the peninsula. In
early August, Lieutenant-General Wallace Gregson,
commander of United States Marine Forces Pacific, also
visited the Jaffna peninsula.
The Jaffna
peninsula, which is part of the overwhelmingly Tamil
Northern Province, was once the bastion of the LTTE. It
has been under army control for several years now.
While LTTE and pro-LTTE websites simply reported
the first visit, the response to the second from the
rebel organization was sharply critical. In a statement
issued on its peace secretariat website, the LTTE said
that "civilian-based organizations are highly perturbed"
over Gregson's visit and claimed that there is a
"widespread sense of panic" in the minds of the people
in Jaffna peninsula in particular and generally among
all the Tamils following the "secretive discussions"
between Lankan and American military officials.
The LTTE website quotes various civilian-based
organizations in the Jaffna peninsular to show how
unpopular the American visits are with the Tamil people.
It says that the Tamil National Vigilance Organization
sees the visit of the US official as "an act of
encouraging and strengthening the morale of SL [Sri
Lankan] forces to go back to war". The International
Tamil Students Organization views the visit as "a
supportive step to the SLA [Sri Lankan Army] to prepare
again for war".
Incidentally, the civilian-based
organizations the LTTE cites are believed to be front
organizations of the Tigers.
The visits of the
American generals to Sri Lanka are perceived to be
signals "to all concerned" - the LTTE as well as
political parties in Colombo - that Washington is
backing Lanka's present government's approach to the
peace process as well. American support to former prime
minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's government is well
known. Now it appears the Americans are backing the
present United Peoples' Freedom Alliance (UPFA)
government as well. The UPFA government's approach to
the peace initiative is markedly tougher with the
Tigers.
The LTTE is on the US State Department's
list of foreign terrorist organizations. Over the past
two years, senior officials of the George W Bush
administration have issued strong statements of support
to the government. In March 2002, for instance, US
Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs
Christina Rocca made clear US support for Sri Lanka's
territorial integrity - a big blow to the LTTE's
aspirations for a separate state.
While refusing
to state what the US would do if the Tigers pulled out
of the peace process, Rocca said that Washington was
monitoring developments closely. Without committing to
providing military assistance to the Sri Lankan
government in the event of the Tigers walking out of the
peace process, she pointedly referred to the "long
history of close military cooperation" between the US
and Sri Lanka.
Last year the US refused to
invite the Tigers to a crucial preparatory aid
conference it convened in Washington - a move that
evoked an angry response from the Tigers.
In
July this year, in response to a suicide bombing in
Colombo - the first since the Lankan government and the
Tigers agreed to a ceasefire two years ago - the US
"strongly condemned" the bombing and described it as one
that "bears the hallmark of an LTTE attack". And the
spate of killings in Sri Lanka in recent months that are
believed to be the work of the LTTE prompted the US
government a fortnight ago to call on the Tigers to halt
political assassinations and suicide bombings.
Washington's clear show of support to the Lankan
government comes at a time when efforts by the Lankan
government and the Norwegian mediators to bring the
Tigers back to the negotiating table seem to have hit a
dead end. The LTTE has made it clear that it will not
consider any alternative to the proposal for an Interim
Self Governing Authority for the predominantly Tamil
North Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. The LTTE had put
forward this proposal in September 2003, a proposal
widely regarded in Sri Lanka and India as a step away
from secession, a blueprint for the partition of the
country.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga was
bitterly opposed to the Wickremesinghe government's
approach of endlessly conceding to Tiger demands to keep
the peace process alive. Now with her party in power,
the peace process, which started unraveling last year,
has become even more complicated. The present government
is a minority government dependent on the support of the
virulently anti-LTTE, even anti-Tamil Janata Vimukti
Peramuna. It also has to contend with the opposition
parties. Kumaratunga is stuck between an intransigent
LTTE and powerful sections of the Sinhalese public and
political parties that are opposed either to her and any
step she might take to jump-start the deadlocked
dialogue or to any proposal that makes concessions to
the Tigers.
The government has been saying that
the spate of killings in recent months is threatening
the ceasefire. Officials are, however, saying that while
the LTTE is trying the government's patience with its
killing sprees and intransigence on dialogue, war is not
an option. In August, cabinet spokesman Mangala
Samaraweera said that the LTTE was testing the
government's "threshold of patience", but this did not
mean that war was imminent or that government would
resort to war to rein in the LTTE. There were other
means to bring it around, he said.
P K
Balachchandran, Colombo correspondent of the Hindustan
Times writes: "Presumably, Samaraweera was thinking of
harnessing the services of the international community,
when he referred to alternative ways to restrain the
LTTE. According to him, the LTTE was testing the
patience of the international community too."
The Lankan government is said to be unhappy with
the role of the Norwegian mediators. Deputy Defense
Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake has said that the
Scandinavian-staffed Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM)
is biased towards the LTTE. Sections in Colombo believe
that the SLMM has not pulled up the Tigers enough for
truce violations and not ruled against them despite a
spate of killings in the eastern districts of the island
and the capital. However, it does seem that the SLMM
has little influence over the LTTE. Apparently, the
monitors have raised issues with the Tigers, but the
latter have simply ignored them. In one of the latest
incidents, the Tigers snubbed the SLMM by denying it
access to two Sinhala homeguards, a paramilitary unit
detained by them in the eastern port city of
Trincomalee.
Although the ceasefire still holds
by and large, both sides, the government and the LTTE,
are arming themselves. The LTTE has been actively
recruiting cadres, collecting funds from the Tamil
expatriate population and is said to be on a shopping
spree for military hardware. The government is said to
be firming up military and defense ties with the US,
India and China. It is in this context that the recent
American visits must be seen. Colombo is also said to be
pushing hard to speed up the finalizing of a defense
pact with India.
This international support that
the government is sewing up will come in handy in the
event of the ceasefire collapsing and an outbreak of
hostilities with the Tigers. In the event of
hostilities, two factors can be expected to tilt the
advantage in favor of the government - international
support and the Karuna factor.
The split in the
LTTE following the revolt by its erstwhile commander in
the east, "Colonel" Karuna, is said to have cost the
LTTE dearly. The LTTE's position in the east, where
Karuna still enjoys some support, is said to be
precarious, as the LTTE's weaponry and support among the
people in the east has diminished with Karuna's exit.
Analysts believe that in the event of an outbreak in
hostilities, the LTTE will be forced to abandon the east
to defend the north.
International support for
the government in terms of weaponry and pressure on
Tiger fundraising abroad will prove significant. Over 10
years ago, international support for the government's
military operations against the LTTE was far less.
Today, support from the Indian navy, for instance, in
policing the waters could prove decisive.
Both
sides are reluctant to call off the ceasefire as they
don't want to be seen as the one who opted for a return
to the battlefield first. It is in this context that the
government's show of patience and the LTTE's provocative
acts of violence must be seen.
Sudha
Ramachandran is an independent researcher/writer
based in Bangalore, India. She has a doctoral degree
from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal
Nehru University in New Delhi. Her areas of interest
include terrorism, conflict zones and gender and
conflict. Formerly an assistant editor at the Deccan
Herald (Bangalore), she now teaches at the Asian College
of Journalism, Chennai.
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