By M H Ahssan
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is in dire straits. Territory under its control is shrinking by the day and the Sri Lankan armed forces are knocking on the door of its political headquarters, Kilinochchi.
Things have never looked this bad for the LTTE. Two years ago it was in control of the entire Northern and Eastern provinces. Then territory began slipping out of its grip in the east. It was driven out of the Eastern province in July 2007. And in the past year-and-a-half, it has been losing ground in Northern province as well, having suffered serious military reverses. If the army wrests control of Kilinochchi - which it says it will capture soon - the LTTE will be boxed into the jungles of Mullaitivu.
On November 15, the LTTE lost Pooneryn, a strip of land in the northwest of the island that runs parallel to the neck of the Jaffna Peninsula. This is a huge loss for the LTTE. With the fall of Pooneryn to the government, it has lost access to the island’s west coast. This means that its access to the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu through the west coast of Sri Lanka has been cut off. It is to Tamil Nadu that injured LTTE fighters are taken and it is from here that the LTTE gets much of its supplies.
With the capture of Pooneryn, the Sri Lankan government finally has full control over its western seaboard. What’s more, for the first time since November 1993 (when Pooneryn fell into the Tigers’ hands) the government controls a land route into the Jaffna Peninsula. Previously, supplies for civilians and the armed forces in the peninsula have been ferried in by air or sea. These can now be taken through the land route that the capture of Pooneryn has opened up. Repair of the road from Pooneryn into the peninsula has already begun.
Two days after the capture of Pooneryn, the Sri Lankan army took another strategic town, Mankulam, on the arterial A9 highway in the Wanni. On November 20, the armed forces overran the LTTE’s first Forward Defense Line at Muhamalai. This is the area separating the government-controlled Jaffna Peninsula from the LTTE-dominated Mullaitivu and Kilinochchci. And then on Monday, Kokavil, a town that has been under LTTE control for the past 28 years, fell to the armed forces.
While the Sri Lankan army has made major gains in recent weeks, its advance towards Kilinochchi has not been easy. Heavy rains have slowed its operations and the LTTE has fought pitched battles against the advancing troops.
The loss of Pooneryn and other strategic areas could not have come at a worse time for the LTTE, as these setbacks came in the run-up to Great Heroes Week.
For the past 19 years, the LTTE has been observing Great Heroes Week between November 21 and 27, when it pays homage to its fighters who have fallen on the battlefield. The "martyrs" are glorified, their sacrifices are remembered and their families honored. Then on the last day - Great Heroes Day - the LTTE chief delivers his annual address, where he makes a "policy statement" and highlights the LTTE's achievements over the past year.
This year Prabhakaran's speech made little reference to achievements. But he indicated clearly that, military reverses notwithstanding, he is not about to throw in the towel. "Whatever challenges confront us, whatever contingencies we encounter, whatever forces stand on our path, we will still continue with our struggle for the freedom of the Tamil people … we will continue with our struggle till alien Sinhala occupation of our land is removed," he declared.
Tough talk? Or a picture of what lies ahead? A look at the way the LTTE has conducted itself over the past 25 years, skillfully maneuvering itself out of the tightest of spots would indicate that it will survive the recent military reverses. Its fighters are now engaged in pitched battles and it is likely to put in all its resources to hold Kilinochchi town. And it will continue to bleed the Sri Lankan forces with guerrilla strikes. More suicide attacks can be expected in the coming months.
That the LTTE has not yet given up is evident from the way it has been mobilizing support in Tamil Nadu over the past few months. Parties and Tamil nationalist organizations have been organizing massive rallies and demonstrations across the state to put pressure on the Indian government to end its considerable defense and other cooperation with the Sri Lankan government. With the LTTE cornered in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu, its supporters in Tamil Nadu have been pushing for a ceasefire.
Recently, the Tamil Nadu assembly passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire between the government forces and the LTTE, the return of the armed forces to their original positions and commencement of peace talks. The LTTE strategy is that public and political pressure in Tamil Nadu will push the Dravida Munetra Kazhagam, the party in power in Tamil Nadu, to convince its allies in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition government in Delhi to get Colombo to call for a ceasefire.
This strategy hasn't quite worked out the way the LTTE would like it to. India has not withdrawn its defense cooperation with Colombo, neither has it pressed the latter to call for a ceasefire. The furthest Indian officials have gone is to warn Colombo on avoiding civilian casualties. Besides, India is providing humanitarian support through the government to the hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians who are trapped in the war zone.
That Prabhakaran is desperately seeking India's support at this critical juncture is evident from his appeals to the "Indian superpower" in his Great Heroes Day speech. Drawing attention to the "great changes taking place in India" - he was referring to the resurgence of political support for the LTTE in Tamil Nadu - the LTTE chief called on Indian leaders "to raise their voice firmly in favor of the LTTE's struggle for a Tamil Eelam state, and to take appropriate and positive measures to remove the ban which remains an impediment to an amicable relationship between India and our movement."
But Prabhakaran's pleas are likely to fall on deaf ears in Delhi. The Indian government recently extended the ban on the LTTE which officials in Delhi have repeatedly said will remain in force. Prabhakaran and his intelligence chief Pottu Amman are wanted in India for their role in the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. It is unlikely that, as long as they are around, India will lift the ban on the organization. "Nothing has changed in India's perception of the LTTE as a terrorist organization," an Indian Home Ministry official told HNN.
In fact, hours before Prabhakaran delivered his Great Heroes Day speech, Mumbai came under attack from terrorists leaving over 215 dead and 300 injured. Indians are angry with the government for having failed to protect them from terrorists. At a time when the UPA government is facing public wrath for failing to act against terrorists, surely the government cannot be seen to be lenient with the LTTE, much less bailing it out of a tight corner by calling for a ceasefire. India has accused "elements in Pakistan" for the attacks and is considering stern measures against Pakistan to express its ire. At such a time, India is highly unlikely to make things easier for the LTTE.
Besides, in the aftermath of the audacious attacks in Mumbai the government is considering steps to tighten security, including beefing up the coast guard to prevent terrorists from entering the country, whether to carry out attacks or for treatment of injured cadres.
Cornered in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu, the LTTE is likely to find the going will get tougher in India as well.
Fleeing Tamils hit Indian political wall: The treacherously choppy Indian Ocean waters of the narrow Palk Strait, which separates India and Sri Lanka, now loom as a bridge too far for Sri Lankan Tamils trapped between the cornered Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and an uncertain welcome in India.
The Tamils escaping the conflict cross into the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu join the community of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees already there, which has shown little interest in recent demonstrations organized by local politicians supposedly on their behalf.
Sri Lankan Tamils in Tamil Nadu instead speak of horror stories they say are trickling out of LTTE-held territory, and demand urgent international support for the Sri Lanka's push to liberate fellow Tamils they say are being held hostage by the LTTE.
"For more than quarter of a century, the LTTE have been taking the Tamil people for a ride," veteran Sri Lankan Tamil politician V Anandasangaree said in a statement on October 13. "The Tamils need liberation only from the LTTE."
Anandasangaree, who said he grew up in the LTTE's political capital of Killinochchi, in northern Sri Lanka, accuses the LTTE of violating the human rights of fellow Tamils "beyond one's imagination". He talks of mass abductions of Tamils by the LTTE, and of "torture camps".
"In one form of torture the person is put into a triangular-shaped cage smaller than the person. The cage is wrapped round with barbed wire. Another form is throwing snakes inside the dark room where a person is detained," he said.
"Every home in the areas under the control of the LTTE is like a funeral home. Parents who resisted recruitment of their children [as LTTE soldiers] have been mercilessly assaulted. The outside world does not know what is happening in the LTTE-held areas."
Anandasangaree said in recent years he had made many futile pleas to foreign governments asking for their help to rescue the civilian Tamil population from the LTTE.
"The Tamil civilian population is trapped in northern Sri Lanka," said V Suryanarayanan, a retired senior professor from the Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Madras. "The advancing Sri Lankan army is capturing ghost towns, as the LTTE has forced the local Tamil population to evacuate and into the forests. People are dying from snake bites there."
Only 199 refugees arrived in India in October 2008, according to the Chennai-based Organization for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation (OfERR), though the month has seen some of the fiercest fighting in the bloody, three-decade long war fought by the LTTE for a separate Tamil nation called Eelam.
OfERR figures estimate 100,000 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees live in Tamil Nadu, with 78,500 of them sheltered in the 119 government-run camps. The number does not include Sri Lankan Tamils who arrive as 'tourists' by regular air services and illegally settle in Chennai and other cities in Tamil Nadu.
The LTTE is banned as a terrorist organization in 31 countries, including India, the US, the UK and other European Union.
"As terrorist groups go, it [LTTE] has quite a resume", said a US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) note on January 10. "[LTTE has] perfected the use of suicide bombers; invented the suicide belt; pioneered the use of women in suicide attacks; murdered some 4,000 people in the past two years alone; and assassinated two world leaders - the only terrorist organization to do so."
The FBI was referring to the May 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at a campaign rally in Tamil Nadu, a murder that ended India's covert support of the LTTE, and the May 1993 assassination of Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa.
The FBI's note, hoped to warn US citizens against donating to spurious charities run by LTTE, also sought to remind them of "the suffering and bloodshed that the Tamil Tigers have caused", and its "ruthless tactics, [which] have inspired terrorist networks worldwide, including al-Qaeda in Iraq".
Instead of bluntly reading the riot act to covertly pro-LTTE Tamil Nadu politicians, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his government are instead mulling over calls for a ceasefire that would help the LTTE.
The Sri Lankan government, for the first time, has in recent months stepped up its offensive against the Tamil rebels, yet India has failed to emphatically express that its interests, as well as the interests of Sri Lankan Tamils, lie in the Sri Lanka army quickly destroying the LTTE and bringing its chief to answer to the crimes he is charged with.
The end appears near for Velupillai Prabhakaran, 53, known as Pirapaharan by the LTTE. He is reportedly holed up in an underground bunker as the Sri Lankan army nears Killinochchi. Yet Prabhakaran's desperation is still voiced through Indian Tamil politicians screaming for a ceasefire.
India's Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party, led by M Karunanidhi, 84, the Tamil Nadu chief minister, in October threatened to have its members of parliament resign in hopes of pressurizing the central government into calling for a ceasefire that, as in earlier ceasefires, would give the besieged LTTE breathing space to recoup.
Indian politicians in Tamil Nadu expressing concerns for the Tamils in Sri Lanka have yet to express any concern about the alleged LTTE atrocities against Tamils, such as the persistent accusations it has forcibly recruited Tamil children as soldiers.
LTTE crimes against Tamils are rarely mentioned in the national media, particularly the forced conscription of Tamil children, some as young as nine. The New York-based Human Rights Watch has for over a decade said the LTTE is the world's worst offender in forcibly recruiting children for its army.
Sri Lankan Tamils arrive in Tamil Nadu only to be met by local politicians who hope to convince the Indian public that the Sri Lankan army assault is a "genocide" against the Tamils, and that there is widespread public anger in Tamil Nadu against the Sri Lankan army.
For instance, Tamil Nadu politicians hailed the success of a "human chain" held in Chennai on October 23 in protest against the Sri Lankan army offensive, but leading Chennai-based daily The Hindu discredited the demonstration in a recent report.The "human chain" largely comprised neighborhood school and college students being forced to participate under pressure from their teachers, reported the newspaper.
When asked about the "human chain" report, Radha Krishnan, a senior editor in the Hindu, told HNN, "There's barely any public support here in Tamil Nadu for the Sri Lankan Tamils issue. It's more a political issue."
Krishnan claimed that the LTTE has also now begun to recruit men between aged between 50 and 60. "These elderly men in civilian clothes form the frontline of attack, with the LTTE uniformed cadres behind them," he said. "These elderly men get shot in the front if they fight the Sri Lankan army and they get shot in the back by the LTTE if they refuse to fight."
A example of Tamil Nadu politicians' support for the LTTE came recently from chief minister Karunanidhi, who wrote a paean praising Thamilselvan, the LTTE political wing leader, who was killed in an aerial attack by the Sri Lankan air force on November 2, 2007.
Thamilselvan promised the United Nations in May 1998 that the LTTE would stop conscripting children under 17 years of age and would not use people under 18 in combat. Yet when the LTTE released a funeral photo of Thamilselvan a 10-year-old girl clearly in LTTE uniform was seen standing next to his coffin.
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