Sun, 2007-09-09
By H. L. D. Mahindapala

Opening the Emergency debate in Parliament for the UNP last week Lakshman Kiriella said that “the government should target ‘Wanni’ in its military onslaught against terrorism instead of focusing its attention on insignificant locations.” In effect, he is ridiculing once again the achievements of our soldiers who are sacrificing their lives to liberate the areas held by the Tamil Tigers. He also said that Mavil Aru, Sampur, Mutur, Thoppigala in the east and now Silavathura in the west are “insignificant locations” not worth capturing.

The Security Forces and the military strategists both at home and abroad think otherwise. The latest poll said that 84% of the nation too endorses military action as the way to go forward. They all believe that the capture of these locations is essential to (1) protect the nation and (2) pave the path for future negotiations and peace. However, taking his word for what it is worth, let us consider which is more “insignificant”: these locations or Kiriella? For instance, who would care two hoots if Kiriella loses his seat in parliament tomorrow? Does it really matter to anyone? On the contrary, consider the fate and the future of the nation if the Security Forces failed to capture these strategic locations. Since these locations serve a greater purpose in holding the nation together what justification is there and what purpose is served by directing Security Forces to guard Ka-kiriella – a totally irrelevant and insignificant puppet dancing on his master’s string?

Then there is the SLFP MP Sripathi Sooriyarachchi, the new ally of the UNP. He too said that Kilinochchi and Mulaitivu should be attacked if the government is genuinely interested in defeating the LTTE militarily. Sooriyarachchi said that such major terrorist locations should be attacked in the initial phase of a war without selecting easy targets.

He added: “I still challenge this government to go to Kilinochchi. They still have an arrangement not to think of the sensitive areas. Even Silavathura is a militarily, strategically unimportant place. Why don’t the forces go to Kilinochchi?” This is as stupid as asking King Dutugemunu why he wasted time in conquering the outposts on the way up north from Ruhuna instead of going straight to Vijithapura to defeat Elara.

And guess who else agrees with these two cardboard Napoleons? Who else but LTTE Military Spokesperson I. Ilanthirayan! He told his favourite daily, The Morning Leader: (5/9/07) that the government’s move to capture Silavathurai in Mannar was yet another political stunt aimed at fooling the people in the south and challenged the security forces to launch an offensive into areas where there are Tiger cadres in the Wanni.

Ilanthirayan, at least, has some hands-on-experience in the battle field and he may be hoping to draw the Security Forces into the Tiger trap at this early stage. But what do the UNP Ka-kiriella and SLFP (Moda) Wing Sooriyarachchi know about military strategies? It is doubtful whether they were even boy scouts in their school days. And yet, overnight, they have become Field Marshals dictating military strategies to the soldiers in the front lines.

The strategists in the Security Forces have succeeded so far because they do not have idiots among them to draw up military campaigns based on puerile political agendas or challenges. Besides, it is most unlikely that even primitive dunderheads would agree to fight according to the political agenda of the enemy. If they know anything about military strategies they should know that an army that fights according to a political agenda of either the enemies or allies is doomed to fail.

Judging from the strategies adopted by the Security Forces it is clear that their plan is to move slowly and steadily without rushing into places where experienced and better informed strategist fear to tread. The Security Forces began their military movement, almost defensively, from Mavil Aru and moved steadily to the top of Thoppigala with the minimum of fuss. In the process they cleared the east, demolishing the eastern naval and land bases of the Tamil Tigers.

By the way, the Security Forces need not have wasted their energy, resources, time and manpower if the respective leaders of these two political corporals, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Chandrika Kumaratunga, did not hand over the east and the north on a platter to Velupillai Prabhakaran. The nation is forced to pay through their noses today – just not in terms of taxes but in terms of lives too -- because Wickremesinghe-Kumaratunga duo were vying with each other to survive politically by donating the real estate owned by the nation to a bunch of armed, fascist terrorists.

The nation is in this predicament today because of the monumental blunders committed by these two leaders. Besides, they left a dismal legacy and the nation is forced to paying for it with blood and tears. The Mahinda Rajapakse government is facing the brunt of it all. The biggest problem facing President Mahinda Rajapakse is to foot the enormous bill of correcting their stupidities of Wickremesinghe and Kumaratunga. The cost of living would not have rocketed to this level and the Defence Ministry would not have been called to spend colossal amounts on liberating the east if Wickremesinghe did not hand over the north and the east to Prabhakaran through his failed Ceasefire Agreement.

Coming back to the military strategies, the Security Forces are not eager at this stage to rush into Vanni for obvious strategic reasons. The Army Commander, Maj-Gen. Sarath Fonseka, has stated categorically that his forces need three years to crush the Tamil Tiger terrorists. In other words, he is refusing to march to the lunatic drum beat of Ka-kirella and Soriyapathyarachchi and sacrifice his men. He has to calculate every step of the way to Killinochchi.

Besides, if the Security Forces take their advice and run into heavy losses will these two nincompoops stand up and defend the heroic forces or will they laugh at our soldiers and cheer the Tamil Tigers? These two are daring the Security Forces to go to Vanni hoping they could make political capital out of the possible failures. They are belittling the capture of the east because each victory exposes the failures of their leaders who surrendered to the Tamil Tigers. First they scoffed at the victories in the east and now they are ridiculing the calculated advances along the western coast because each gain of the Security Forces is knocking them out as a political force. In short, these two political pygmies are pretending to be military Goliaths by recommending the most disastrous course for the nation.

Military matters should be left strictly in the hands of the experienced soldiers who know their job. They have demonstrated their skills and capabilities in the recent battles, debunking the myths of Tiger superiority and invincibility. It is, indeed, a remarkable achievement when the Security Force defeat the Tigers who boast that they had defeated the fourth largest army in the world: the Indian Army. No wonder Indian military analysts have conceded that the Sri Lankan forces have shown a remarkable capacity to tackle the Tamil Tigers on their own.

There is commendable sense in the military strategy pursued by the Security Forces. Having come down from Mavil Aru to Thoppigala in the east, the Forces are now moving up north along the western coast to clear the strategic bases of the Tigers in the Mannar region – a key base of the Tigers for unloading their smuggled military hardware. The clearing of the western coast and the adjoining land routes are also vital for the Security Forces to block supply routes of the Tigers to their headquarters in Vanni.

The Palk Straits in the north is dicey for the Tamil Tigers because they have to face the Indian Navy as well. All this is adding up to what seems to be an encirclement of the Tigers from the east, west and the north and trap them inside Vanni for the final assault.

Once territories surrounding the Vanni are in the hands of the Security Forces the Tigers would be forced to fight with their backs to the wall. This would make the road to Killinochchi that much easier. At this stage the blocking of land and sea routes are more important than capturing territory in the Vanni. There are also the logistical problems of holding on to the territory regained from the Tigers. All in all, this “heming – heming way” (to quote Governor Andrew Caldecott) is the more sensible and practical way to Killinochci. This is a lesson the soldiers have learnt from bitter experience.

But, in a policy of wanting to place a bob each way, the UNP voted for the emergency saying that they are for the war. Once again this contradictory policy of the UNP leaves them nowhere except in the wilderness. When they say they are for the war they lose the Tamil votes. And when they ridicule the soldiers they lose the votes of villages that had sent their sons to save the nation. This leaves the UNP with only the votes of the NGOs and Erik Solheim who brokered the ill-fated CFA and buried chances of Wickremesinghe rising ever again from his political grave.

Of course, both Wickremesinghe and Mangala Samaraweera are buoyed by the belief that the people are with them seeing the ageing loyalists bussed to each meeting. But the polls are running against them. A whopping 84% told the MARGA-National Peace Council (NPC) polls that they are for Mahinda Rajapakse’s war to defeat Prabhakaran. In political terms, this means that the anti-war campaign of Wickremesinghe-Samaraweera duo, denigrating the victories of the Security Forces, is left with only 16%. What’s the future in that? First, it means that the youth, who see the military victories with a degree of self-satisfying triumphalism, are not buying what the Anti-National Congress is selling. Second, the crowds may flock to the meetings but the votes are with Mahinda Rajapakse.

This massive vote is also a stunning blow to the NGO peace mudalalis like Jehan Perera of NPC, Kumar Rupesinghe and Paikiasothy Saravanmuttu who have devoted a life-time in trying to defeat the Sri Lankan forces by tying their hands behind their back through international pressure. They also theorise indefatigably in their hollow heads why the war should be stopped by the Sri Lankan forces leaving the field open for the Tamil Tigers to grab all the land they want to establish their Pol Potist Evil-lam.

As indicated by the polls the post-Mavil Aru-Thoppigala politics has clearly brought about a decisive backlash against the Wickremesinghe-Samaraweera-Kumaratunga school of defeatist politics. The other victims of this backlash are the NGO pundits – the whole caboodle – with their international network. Swallowing the bitter pill reluctantly Jehan Perera, the director of NPC wrote: “The LTTE’s behaviour gives a measure of credibility to the government’s justification for expanding the theatre of war.”

This obviously is a sign that the post-Mavil Aru-Thoppigala politics is beginning to sink into the boneheads in the NGOs. After manufacturing justifications over the years for the brutal violence of the Tamil Tiger terrorists the NGO pundits have at last come to the conclusion that there is justification for the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) to “expand the theatre of war”.

All these years they blamed the GOSL for engaging in offensives and counter offensives to retain its sovereignty and territorial integrity, not to mention liberating the oppressed Tamils from the jackboots of Pot Potist Tigers. By directing accusations against the GOSL the NGOs were directly and indirectly justifying the unending cycle of violence unleashed by the Tamil Tigers. They argued that the way to end the war was not to go to war but to appease the Tiger demands.

The new realities, arising from the advances of the Security Forces, have shaken them up. They haven’t given up their anti-Sinhala-Buddhist campaign yet though. They will continue to give moral support to the Tamil separatists by highlighting human rights issues. The NGOs will feed their funding agencies in the West blaming the GOSL for the violations of “human rights”. This is the identical line pursued by the Tamil Tigers through their expatriate lobbies, Tiger websites and their agents in the Churches, particularly the Catholic Church.

The Mahinda Rajapakse achievement so far has been to change entrenched perceptions and the conventional wisdom that had stultified progress towards a political solution. Wickremesinghe-Kumaratunga formulas went along with the separatist agenda in one form or another. Mahinda Rajapakse is now legitmising new terms. Put simply, he says that all grievances and aspirations must be resolved within a unitary state.

In short, he is de-territorializing ethnic politics which was obsessed with carving out mono-ethnic enclaves for only one community. Kumaratunga is screaming her head off saying that this is against party policies. Party policies were laid down not by her but by her father and latterly, to some extent, her mother. It is Kumaratunga who is deviating from party policies when she discards her father’s and mother’s policies. Her father laid the overall politico-cultural ethos for the nation. Her mother legalized the unitary state in her constitution of 1972. The Soulbury Constitution did not enter the debate of unitary/federal constitution. But in 1972, faced with the threat of separatism her mother, along with the Marxists, spelt out the unitary, indivisible character of the nation in the Republican Constitution. Mahinda Rajapakse adheres to the constitutional principles endorsed by the founders of the SLFP with, mark you, the backing of the Marxists. So why should the SLFPers follow Chandrika Kumaratunga who left the party and specialized in French wines? The fact that she has the Bandaranaike tag nominally doesn’t give her the right to declare, ex cathedra, the party policy. Her claim is similar to Prabhakaran’s claim to “the sole representative” of the party and the people, denying others to dissent from her dictatorial political line. Besides, her anti-national, anti-Bandaranaike and anti-SLFP activities have deprived her the right to interpret and dictate party policy.

Of course, there is a debate as to what S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike’s policy is in relation to what he called “the outrageous demands” of the Jaffna jingoists. Whatever compromises he made with the Jaffna Tamils, it certainly would not have gone down the track of either the Ceasefire Agreement or her P (Pacha)-TOMS. Other party loyalists like President Mahinda Rajapakse who stuck to the party through thick and thin have a better claim to the Bandaranaike legacy than the Bandaranaike name sakes.

To all intents and purposes, Mahinda Rajapakse represents the letter and the spirit of the people’s Cultural Revolution of 1956. Besides, whatever may be the outcome of this war, it is impossible to argue that he did not fight valiantly to restore the lost dignity of the nation. He has stopped the political rot that set in with Kumaratunga-Wickremesinghe regimes. He has recast the road map to the future and those who attempt to reverse it will be courting disaster. His achievements have even forced the inveterate enemies of the nation in the NGOs to re-think their political platform.

Only the frustrated Bandaranaikes and the failed Wickremesinghe are left standing in the periphery wailing for their lost toys. They are demanding the gifts of power without having worked for it. They believe that being a Bandaranaike or a Wickremesinghe is good enough from them to be in power perpetually. The tragedy with the Bandaranaike siblings -- Anura and Chandrika -- is that neither has worked with commitment and dedication to save, to protect and to further the spirit of the Cultural Revolution ushered in by their father. In all their actions they have veered away from their father. Of course, from time to time they climb on his coffin and shed a few teary words to win sympathy votes. But beyond that they have done nothing substantial to wear his mantle with pride and dignity.

S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike certainly deserves better heirs than his children. Their misguided and unenlightened politics has proved time and again that their craving for power is merely to consolidate their personal power and profits and not to serve the historic ideology of their father who sacrificed his life for the nation. Their past proves that they have nothing solid to contribute to the party, the people or politics of the nation. In fact they have brought disgrace to the Bandaranaike name. The SLFP and the nation will stand to gain immeasurably if the children bow out gracefully without being parasites on the state’s coffers.

No one can forget that Bandaranaike was killed by his closest political allies. Should the children now continue in politics to kill what is left of his revered name?

- Asian Tribune -