Sri Lanka: Indecisive victory

Accompanied by the rumbling of armored tanks and artillery fire, Sri Lankan armed forces continue to move further into the country's northeast to overrun the last remaining rebel strongholds as months of fierce clashes appear to have tipped the balance in the military's favor. 

After losing the administrative center and de facto capital Kilinochchi, and strategic points such as Paranthan and Elephant Pass to the Sri Lankan army in the first 10 days of the new year, the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have vowed to fight back and recover lost ground in the near future. However, the Sri Lankan army, on a recent conquering spree, remains optimistic that its latest successes soon will lead to a decisive end to the long-running conflict.

Following the Kilinochchi and Elephant Pass victories, the Sri Lankan army is now poised to take control of the jungles of Mullaithivu, considered the last strongholds of LTTE.

Major General Jagath Dias of 57th Division commanded the battle at Kilinochchi and hoisted the Sri Lankan national flag there. He told media: "The Tigers' territory is shrinking […] and the objective of finishing this war won't be that long off."

Still, observers caution against too much optimism. Even though the rebels seem to have lost their footing to some extent, some say, the military has no easy task ahead of it and it is far too early for Sri Lankan officials to break out the champagne. 

For Reva Bhalla, the South Asia director for private intelligence company Stratfor, based in Austin, Texas, the battle is far from over, but the rebels have certainly lost major ground. "It will definitely be an uphill battle for the rebels to try to regain the territory they've lost thus far unlike earlier occasions," he told ISN Security Watch, cautioning, however, that "the LTTE is a not a spent force yet, even after so many recent setbacks."

Ravi Vaitheespara, assistant professor of history at the University of Manitoba, Canada, told ISN Security Watch that in the absence of lasting political solution, the conflict might linger even if the LTTE is wiped out significantly in this ongoing war. Adding further, he said "If one has followed the conflict for a long period of time, it is clear that the LTTE has had severe reversals […] from which it had bounced back."

Civilians as collateral

Fierce fighting in the region has been raging since July, leaving scores of rebels and soldiers either dead or wounded.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his military had vowed to follow what they called a "Zero Civilian Casualty Policy," but on the ground, things are not going according to plan. A pro-rebel News portal, TamilNet, on 12 January reported massive civilian causalities in and around Kilinochchi as a result of indiscriminate government air strikes and artillery attacks.

"Sri Lanka has the dubious distinction of bombing and shelling the Tamil civilians on a daily basis for the past two years where the LTTE nor the Tamils have no defense," lashed out Jayantha Donald Gnanakone, founder of Los Angeles-based Tamils for Justice.

"Out of one million Tamils in Wanni region in the north, more than half are either internally displaced, refugees or orphans and maimed by the military onslaught," he told ISN Security Watch.

Nearly 75,000 deaths have been reported and millions rendered homeless since the war began in Sri Lanka in 1983, heralding the first Eelam war between ethnic Sinhalese and the minority Tamil population. Since then, the LTTE has spearheaded one of Asia's longest civil wars to carve an independent Tamil homeland.

After a relative period of quiescence, this latest phase of the conflict, perhaps the fourth Eelam war, began in early 2006 just after the advent of Rajapakse onto the political scene. He has maintained a hardline stance against the Tamil Tigers ever since.

Tigers in trouble

Unlike in the past, when the world seemed to recognize in the Tigers a supreme fighting force that could certainly rival the military, this time around, the rebels are not living up to their perceived potential.

In an interview with the Tamil bi-weekly Junior Vikatan, LTTE political chief B Nadesan justified the rebels' changing circumstances, saying that "the LTTE's withdrawal from the battle scene is a war strategy to ensure minimum casualties."

"It is normal during a war to lose territories and retrieve them later," he added.

Indeed, losing and regaining territory has become a major part of the rebels' folkore. In 1996, the LTTE lost Kilinochchi only to recapture it in September 1998 and then to lose it again this year. In April 2000, the LTTE regained control of Elephant Pass, killing more than 300 government soldiers, only to give up the pass after nine years in January. However, the rebels have never managed to regain strategically important Jaffna city, which it lost to the army in 1995.

According to Bhalla, this time around, the Tigers have "little choice but to retreat from conventional warfare and revert to guerrilla tactics that include suicide attacks, mortar attacks, roadside IEDs, hit and runs, raids […] to demonstrate its combat spirit.

"If the Tamil constituency becomes convinced that the LTTE is finished, and that they now lack the means to intimidate them, it will be very difficult for the LTTE to survive in the long run," she added.

For Vaitheespara agrees that the fighting is far from over. "Even if the SL army has a huge advantage this time in terms of manpower, equipment and unimpeded motivation […] the conflict will go on until there is a sea change in SL government's perception and handling of the ethnic issue."

And the guerrilla tactics have already been used since the beginning of the year, with the LTTE on 2 January launching a suicide bombing mission outside the Sri Lankan Air Force headquarters in the capital Colombo, shortly after the fall of Kilinochchi. And on 9 January a roadside mine attack killed seven people, including three Air Force personnel, at Morawewa in Trincomalee.

By way of response, on the evening of 12 January air force jets carried struck LTTE hideouts in the jungles of Mullaittivu, frequented by the top LTTE leadership, in an apparent attempt to capture or kill rebel chief V Prabakaran.

Diaspora resolve

Facing enormous setbacks at home, the rebels are looking toward their massive global diaspora for continued moral and financial support in the ongoing battle. The role of the Tamil diaspora has been restricted since 2006, when many western nations placed sanctions on those aiding the LTTE and following the arrests of weapons suppliers worldwide.

Gnanakone disagrees that the diaspora's wings have in any way been clipped. "The resolve of the Tamil diaspora has doubled now and [it] continues the legal support that is possible to the internally displaced people, refugees and to the liberation fighters," he said.

According to Gnanakone, “the entire Tamil diaspora, which is estimated at 1 million Eelam Tamils and 70 million Tamil speaking people, can play an active role in enforcing a boycott of goods and services of Sri Lanka, impose sanctions, further disrupt tourism, airlines and the hotel business."

Gnanakone said the diaspora would continue to "relentlessly campaign for trade and diplomatic sanctions especially in Europe, Canada, the US and Australia."

Media: Another victim

Another victim of the ongoing war has been freedom of the press, with a series of recent attacks directed against journalists and independent media houses that have been labeled "unpatriotic" for their perceived pro-LTTE coverage of the conflict.

On 6 January armed men attacked the private Maharaja TV network station, causing heavy damage to the establishment. Only days later, the editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper, Lasantha Wickrematunge, was assassinated in broad daylight.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a veteran journalist in Colombo told ISN Security Watch that "the recent attacks […] were carried out by government-sponsored armed gangs. The Lasantha assassination has confirmed the existence of state-sponsored death squads in the country," he said. 

Sri Lanka expert and rights activist Rohini Hensman told ISN Security Watch that "the killing of Lasantha is only the latest example of a vicious crackdown on the independence of the media."

"This is one of the most disturbing aspects of the overall attack on democracy currently in progress," she said.

Recollecting past events, Hensman, author of the book Playing Lions and Tigers, noted that under the regimes of JR Jayawardene and R Premadasa, freedom of expression in Sri Lanka has been under sustained and brutal attack.

Sluggish pressure

With the humanitarian situation threatening to spiral out of control as the battles rage, international pressure on Colombo to pursue a ceasefire with the LTTE to prevent massive civilian casualties (some have even suggested genocide) in the name of the "war on terror" is gathering momentum, however sluggish.

"It is quite sad that the international community is standing idly by while this massive tragedy is unfolding," lamented Vaitheespara.

For his part, Gnanakone says the international pressure is symbolic rather than real, and he remains pessimistic about a political solution to the conflict. "With Rajapakse wanting a military solution fighting a genocidal war, I cannot see any political solution which would bring any peace or stability in Sri Lanka even in the short term," he said.

However, many observers are indeed optimistic that a lasting political solution can be found. Among them, Hensman says that "a solution through attrition and violence won't last long. A political solution is the only [long-term] solution."

Otherwise, Hensman continued, another Tamil rebel group will simply replace the LTTE.