When Counterinsurgency Wins: Sri Lanka's Defeat of the Tamil Tigers 9780812206487

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WHEN COUNTERINSURGENCY WINS

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When Counterinsurgency Wins Sri Lanka’s Defeat of the Tamil Tigers

Ahmed S. Hashim

u n i v e r si t y of pe n n s y lva n i a pr e s s ph i l a de l ph i a

Copyright  2013 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hashim, Ahmed. When counterinsurgency wins : Sri Lanka’s defeat of the Tamil Tigers / Ahmed S. Hashim. — 1st ed. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-8122-4452-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Tamilila Vit.utalaippulika.l (Association)—History. 2. Counterinsurgency—Sri Lanka. 3. Insurgency—Sri Lanka. 4. Tamil (Indic people)—Sri Lanka—Politics and government. 5. Sri Lanka—History—Civil War, 1983–2009. I. Title DS489.84 .H375 2013 954.93⬘032 2012045106

For Shara

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CONTENTS

Introduction

1

1 The Sri Lankan War in Context

20

2 Background to War: State Formation and Identities in Conflict

50

3 The Eelam War I–III Campaigns

88

4 Eelam War IV: A Military Analysis

132

5 Postwar Sri Lanka: Reconciliation or Triumphalism?

197

Notes

215

Bibliography

229

Name Index

261

Subject Index

263

Acknowledgments

267

Introduction

‘‘A few hours ago our troops recovered the body of the world’s most ruthless terrorist.’’1 Thus came the announcement by General Sarath Fonseka, commander of the Sri Lankan army (SLA), on May 19, 2009, heralding the death of Vellupillai Prabhakaran, founder and leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. VP, as Prabhakaran was known, along with his family and much of the senior leadership of the movement, had been killed at or near Karayanmullivaikal, a village on a thin strip of coastal land sandwiched between the Nandi Kadal lagoon to the east and the Indian Ocean to the west. This was not far from Puthukkudiyiruppu village, VP’s traditional headquarters and an area that had witnessed intense and bloody fighting between the SLA and the once formidable Liberation Tigers during the final phases of the war in April and May 2009. The circumstances of VP’s death and those of his family and the top leadership of the movement in the space of twenty-four hours remain unclear. Were they shot in the heat of battle? Were they killed as they tried to surrender? Were they executed after they surrendered as a result of orders from above? The facts remain classified by the government, but numerous speculative theories have made the rounds.2 Nonetheless, the decapitation of almost the entire leadership of a movement remains without precedent in the struggle between a government and an irregular entity. It is quite possible that the top government political and military leadership decided to prevent the escape of the Liberation Tigers (LTTE) leadership. If VP and his closest subordinates had escaped, they might have rallied the struggle from overseas. Capturing them alive would have presented Sri Lankan authorities with considerable headaches and calls for release to move overseas or for a free and fair trial that might have gained the movement more traction. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, were crushed and annihilated, marking a signal and unprecedented victory for the government’s counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign. This was reflected in the speech Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa gave on May 19, 2009, in which he

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declared: ‘‘We have liberated the whole country from LTTE terrorism. . . . We all must now live as equals in this free country.’’3 The magnitude of the victory was also reflected in the surrender statement by one of the few senior Tiger leaders left, the enigmatic Salvarasa Pathmanathan, which was emailed to the Associated Press the same day as Rajapaksa’s victory speech: ‘‘This battle has reached its bitter end. It is our people who are dying now from bombs, shells, illness and hunger. We cannot permit any more harm to befall them. We remain with one last choice to remove the last weak excuse of the enemy for killing our people. We have decided to silence our guns.’’4 It has been rare in contemporary war for one side to declare victory unequivocally and the other to concede defeat so readily. The magnitude and decisiveness of the victory is compelling reason enough to study this case of insurgency and counterinsurgency. It is, without a doubt, the first counterinsurgency victory of the twenty-first century. But it is not without controversy, as the accusation of human rights abuses by the government that began in the closing weeks of the war have continued to be heard, and magnified.

The Roots of Conflict When Ceylon—as Sri Lanka was then known—became independent in 1948, it was a ‘‘fortunate country’’ (to paraphrase a term often applied to Australia, the ‘‘lucky country’’). Ceylon had one of the highest human development indices of any Asian country at the time. It had a vibrant economy and a seemingly stable parliamentary system bequeathed by the founders of parliamentary rule, the British. Everyone thought it was a country set up for success. Yet this early assessment turned out to be hopelessly optimistic. There were simmering tensions below the surface between the two major ethnic groups in the country, the Sinhalese and the Tamils, over distribution of resources and goods, and the ideological direction of the country. As tensions deepened, each side became wedded to an exclusivist communitarian nationalism; moreover, each felt itself to be the genuinely aggrieved party. The delicate political system proved incapable of reconciling the irreconcilable. The inevitable result was violence, and the eruption of political conflict and then war has proved enormously costly. Violence has hindered sustained economic development, prevented the country from

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devoting resources to modern infrastructure, promoted mass emigration, and lost the beautiful island nation lucrative revenue from tourism. The active military phase of war in Sri Lanka began on July 23, 1983, when a group of militants from the newly formed LTTE ambushed and killed thirteen Sri Lankan soldiers on patrol in the area of Thirunelveli, near the city of Jaffna.5 The soldiers were from the majority Sinhalese community; the insurgents were Tamil. The soldiers’ funerals became emotionally charged, setting off the worst intercommunal violence the country had experienced. Groups of Sinhalese civilians went on a rampage in the south; Tamil businesses and houses were torched, and hundreds of Tamil civilians, including women and children, were killed. Although the exact number of dead is disputed, estimates range from 400 to 3,000. The authorities turned a blind eye toward and at times even actively encouraged the violence. Security forces often stood by as Tamils were slaughtered. Tamil youths, already weary of their elders’ failure to achieve redress of grievances by peaceful means, were traumatized by harrowing stories brought back to the north by survivors. Violence and vengeance were on their minds, and they responded accordingly. Naturally, the Sinhalese retaliated, and because they had the material resources of and paramilitary groups associated with the state, their response in the early days was more extensive, and more brutal. A yawning chasm opened between the two communities, which was exploited by the LTTE and right-wing anti-Tamil Sinhalese politicians. The civil war was on. It lasted twenty-seven costly years. Not surprisingly, most observers, both inside and outside Sri Lanka, came to view the conflict as an intractable and protracted war that appeared to defeat all efforts at either military resolution or peaceful settlement. When the war erupted again in spring 2006 after a four-year lull, the consensus was that the hapless country was in for yet another episode of bloodletting that would settle nothing. The international community would have to step in yet again and try to mediate between the warring parties. Imagine the collective global surprise when the Sri Lankan armed forces wiped out the LTTE in May 2009: it was as sudden as it was unexpected. Sri Lanka remains at peace, much to the relief of the population. Although terrorist cells have been uncovered and arms caches secured, not one successful terrorist incident has taken place since the war’s end. Though there has been no outbreak of terrorist violence by the LTTE, the situation in the east and north, in particular, nevertheless does not

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give much optimism for progress in stability and security. There have been allegations that the state, its institutions, and Tamil groups allied with it have mistreated the population. The promises of a new dawn have not been borne out, and the prospects for a revival of violent Tamil political expression should not be underestimated. Thus it is a tense and watchful peace, as I discovered from the moment I entered the country on a steamy June 6, 2010, at the unearthly hour of 3:25 a.m. The Qatar Airways plane carrying me from Doha, Qatar, was filled with Sri Lankans returning home for vacation or for good from the Persian Gulf, where they worked. There was a sizable contingent of Westerners as well, going either for vacation or for business opportunities in a country that is slowly emerging from the ravages of a war—one that killed between 80,000 and 100,000 people in three decades and left Sri Lanka unable to attract sufficient tourism or foreign direct investment. The airport itself was incredibly busy for that time of the day. As I made my way outside, I was struck by the massive police and military presence both at the airport and on the highway into Colombo, the capital city. Inside the city, traffic control points were manned by heavily armed security forces. Vehicles of all sizes and shapes were randomly stopped and passengers questioned. I was not completely surprised by this suffocating security blanket, particularly within the confines of the city. During the war the LTTE launched deadly suicide bombing assaults on the international airport and the military airfield adjacent to it, as well as in Colombo itself. As secretary of defense Gotabhaya Rajapaksa told me in an interview, the presence of armed human beings stationed every few hundred meters was Sri Lanka’s equivalent to blanketing the urban areas with closed-circuit television. The determination to maintain postconflict operational readiness at a high level was reflected in an interview the secretary gave Indian Defence Review: We cannot allow LTTE terror to come back. The first phase of the war is over. The LTTE’s war machinery, its fighting ability, and its leadership in Vanni have been decimated and destroyed. The second phase of the war will be in a different form. So we can’t relax. Our operational preparedness must be high, but invisible. Our strategy has to be in a different form.6

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5

Rajapaksa made clear in the interview that the suffocating presence of security forces would be modified. Sri Lanka would adopt a more sophisticated and more subtle behind-the-scenes approach to maintaining security and watchfulness. It was in the process of exploring the security practices of other countries, such as Israel and Britain.

A Tarnished COIN? This book examines the trajectory of the conflict from its origins, including the prosecution of the military campaign, through to its dramatic and violent denouement in 2009. It focuses primarily on the last three years of the war, which ended with the government victory over the LTTE. The book posits that the Sri Lankan counterinsurgency campaign between 2006 and 2009 must be studied and judged on distinct but interrelated levels. At the outset we must assess the success of the campaign at the international, political, strategic, operational, and tactical levels. The primary focus of this study is to address the question of how Sri Lanka managed to turn the tide and win a protracted irregular war that had lasted almost three decades. This question especially requires an answer, because the Sri Lankan government had major difficulties in prosecuting an effective military campaign against the LTTE between 1983 and 2002. Yet the armed forces went from resounding success to resounding success from 2005 to 2009, when the final campaign destroyed the LTTE. What changed? How states and their militaries learn during war and from war—the concept of innovation and adaptation, which will be discussed in Chapter 1—is a major field of research in international relations and strategic studies. Until now, the focus has been on learning during conventional wars.7 Studies of how states learn irregular war are less extensive, although in the light of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan there have been greater efforts in that direction.8 Significantly, how non-Western states learn irregular war is an under-researched area of study. This fact is remarkable since, despite third-party intervention by Western powers in contemporary and on-going insurgencies, it is mainly non-Western nation-states that face serious irregular conflict. This study describes how a small non-Western state learned effective counterinsurgency and seeks to find out how it did so.

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Though many countries have indicated an interest in learning lessons from the Sri Lankan experience, there has not been a flurry of interest in Western academic, political, or military circles in studying how the Sri Lankan government of president Mahinda Rajapaksa managed to formulate and implement a winning counterinsurgency campaign.9 This is surprising in light of recent and costly Western experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some journalists, like Australian Jeremy Page, have noted that ‘‘Colombo [has rewritten the] counter-insurgency rulebook,’’10 but have not elaborated; while others have made wrong assumptions and thus drawn wrong conclusions. Others still have been caustic in their comments and declared that the Sri Lankan COIN model is of little relevance to other battlefields or is highly unethical and immoral and thus cannot be implemented efficaciously by Western powers. Indeed, the prevailing sentiment in the West is that the way the conflict ended was unfortunate; it would have been better to negotiate with the LTTE. Sri Lanka was both surprised and infuriated at the negative Western reaction to its decision to fight on and actually win the war without resorting to a ceasefire. The question here is why, as Sri Lankan officials have asked, it is permissible for Western countries and Israel to insist that they will not negotiate with terrorists and insurgents or to pick and choose which ones they will negotiate with and which are totally beyond the pale. In the colorful and angry words of one Sri Lankan defense ministry commentator: ‘‘Are there two sets of anti-terrorism standards, one of the white man and another for the brown man? Why is the white man not negotiating with Fidel Castro, Iran, Taliban, Hamas in Palestine or Al Qaeda in Iraq?’’11 The Sri Lankan COIN campaign also must be judged as to its ‘‘moral cleanliness.’’ The heading above, ‘‘A Tarnished COIN?’’ may be dry, as befits the topic, but it relates precisely to this moral issue of the Sri Lankan campaign, an issue that has overshadowed the impressive changes in the military that led to the equally impressive victories of 2006–2009. The heading requires some explanation. Several years ago—in late 2003 to be precise—I was in Baghdad as advisor to the U.S. military Central Command, headquartered in deposed Saddam Hussein’s Republican Palace. Our job was to deal with the pressing problems occasioned by the unexpected emergence of the Iraqi insurgent movement and our initially inadequate response. To gain some historical insight, I decided to read Neil Sheehan’s monumental book on John Paul Vann, the U.S. army officer and subsequent civilian adviser during the failing war in South Vietnam. Sheehan

Introduction

7

titled his book A Bright Shining Lie, which is the inspiration for my section heading ‘‘A Tarnished COIN?’’ COIN, of course, is short-hand for counterinsurgency; it also, obviously, refers to metal currency. Most of us would prefer to have shining or shiny coins in our possession than tarnished or ‘‘dirty’’ ones. In the West there is a clear preference for counterinsurgency campaigns that ‘‘shine’’—in the sense of being ethically and morally ‘‘clean’’—and that avoid needless destruction and killing of civilians. A tarnished COIN campaign is precisely the opposite, and the West has tended to point fingers at the COIN campaigns of non-Western countries and to criticize them if they do not adhere to Western ethical and moral standards. More often than not, the criticisms are valid, as many countries wage counterinsurgencies characterized by atrocious government behavior. In short, the state’s COIN campaign in these instances might be ‘‘tarnished.’’ At other times, the West has not been able to avoid being self-righteous, much to the discomfort of other states facing serious internal violence. This self-righteousness often stems from self-satisfaction with the evolution of its contemporary COIN doctrine—known as ‘‘population-centric’’ and judged as the most ethical and protective of innocent lives in a type of war that is messy and full of ambiguity, where the lines between civilian and military spheres are increasingly blurred. In this context, how will we judge the Sri Lankan COIN effort? Was it morally unblemished or tarnished? Many have already passed judgment on it, and in the West, in particular, that judgment—by policy observers, human rights organizations, and the media—has not been favorable. On the other hand, there is some sneaking admiration in Western military and strategic circles for Sri Lanka’s success. It seems that these circles do not wish to be too open about their admiration for Sri Lanka’s success, however, because the campaign has been judged wanting in ‘‘cleanliness.’’ Still, the allegations of human rights abuses in the north and east of Sri Lanka during the war and its aftermath have caused considerable tension in Sri Lankan-Western relations. The tense relations between the West and Sri Lanka were exacerbated by the devastating UN report on alleged human right abuses during the war. An expert panel appointed by UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon published its report on April 25, 2011.12 The report states unequivocally that the Sri Lankan government and military were responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war against the Liberation

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Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The extensive report is a direct refutation of the Sri Lankan government claim that Eelam War IV—as the final stage of the civil war was known—was a ‘‘humanitarian operation’’ in which the armed forces killed no civilians; that, indeed, the primary goal was to free hapless civilians from the clutches of the LTTE. The UN report focuses specifically on the period between September 2008 and the LTTE defeat in May 2009, during which Sri Lankan armed forces pounded the LTTE into oblivion: driving it out of all major towns, destroying its military capabilities, and finally trapping it in an unprotected waterlogged enclave on the island’s northeastern coast. According to the UN, the problem was that in the process thousands of civilians found themselves in the midst of this intense fight along with the remnants of the LTTE. Nothing good could come out of this dire situation. Things began to go awry after the fall of the LTTE administrative center, Kilinochchi. This was both a military and psychological turning point of considerable importance, since afterward LTTE fighting capacity and morale crumbled before a larger and better equipped military force that was not averse to using the considerable firepower at its disposal. The LTTE units—heavily outnumbered and outgunned—were mainly on the run, along with hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians. Despite some desperate and heroic local counterattacks by diehard LTTE cadres, including one that pushed a stunned Sri Lankan division back four miles, the LTTE in the final stages was no longer a cohesive fighting force. It was using civilians as human shields, and both fighters and civilians were finally trapped in a shrinking coastal strip to the north of Mullaitivu. On three occasions, the government and military declared no-fire zones (NFZs) inside Tiger-held territory and claimed the ‘‘security forces are fully committed to provide maximum safety for civilians.’’ According to the UN report, however, the civilians, far from being protected, were slaughtered by the thousands as the military mercilessly subjected these areas to aerial and artillery bombardment. The first no-fire zone was announced on January 20, 2009, covering an area several kilometers north of Mullaitivu. The report states that this no-fire zone was subjected to continuous SLA bombardment. On January 24 hundreds of shells were fired onto the NFZ. Those with access to bunkers took cover and survived; but the report added that most IDPs (internally displaced persons) had no access to cover. Hundreds of refugees were allegedly killed by the indiscriminate shelling. Repeated entreaties by UN officials to stop the shelling were ignored. Hospitals—which were clearly

Introduction

9

marked as such—came under attack as well. Vallipunam (as written in the UN report) hospital, located in the no-fire zone, was shelled on January 20, killing a number of patients; Udayaarkaddu hospital in the same zone was hit on January 24; and PTK hospital was bombarded every day between January 29 and February 4, taking nine direct hits. On February 12, the military established a second no-fire zone covering a 123-mile coastal strip. The UN estimated that more than 300,000 civilians—men, women, and children—were densely packed into this area, which had already been heavily bombarded. The bombardment continued even after the establishment of the NFZ in the strip. The UN report mentions repeated attacks by heavy weaponry. On March 25, the army launched a bombardment by MBRL (multi-barreled rocket launcher) batteries on Ambalavanpokkai village, killing 140 people. On April 27, during the final stages of the campaign, the government declared a third, smaller no-fire zone. An estimated 100,000 civilians remained in this zone, crammed in intolerable conditions, without adequate food, water, shelter, or medicine. The UN report stated: ‘‘Due to the lack of space in the third NFZ, civilians had nowhere to hide from shelling, which was coming from all sides. . . . Many died and were buried under their bunkers without their deaths being recorded.’’ The final days of the war that ended on May 18 were, in the words of the report, an ‘‘unimaginable human catastrophe.’’ The shelling was so intense that Red Cross ships were unable to approach the no-fire zone to evacuate patients and drop emergency supplies. The report’s litany of accusations against the Sri Lankan government is extensive. In an attempt at even-handedness, the report also damns the LTTE, confirming that the organization suffered not only military defeat but political collapse. Unable to appeal to the Tamil masses, let alone working people more broadly in Sri Lanka and internationally, the LTTE resorted to repression to enforce its dictates. It should be mentioned, however, that violent repression of its own people and cadres had been a longstanding hallmark of this almost cultlike organization. Its fighters prevented civilians from leaving LTTE territory and in the final weeks shot those trying to flee to safety. It forcibly recruited children as young as fourteen and used forced labor to build its defenses. Throughout the final months of the war, as it was staring defeat in the face, the LTTE could do nothing but make futile appeals to the ‘‘international community’’ to broker a ceasefire, to no avail.

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The UN expert panel concluded that ‘‘Sri Lanka’s efforts, nearly two years after the end of the war, fall dramatically short of international standards of accountability.’’ Predictably, the report was bitterly castigated by the Sri Lankan government. Colombo had earlier warned that the UN decision to publish the report would ‘‘damage’’ postwar reconciliation between the island’s Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority. The government stated that the panel was overwhelmingly biased in favor of the Tamil Tigers and so the findings were baseless. The report is problematic. There is the matter of whether the evidence fully substantiates what the UN and other critics have stated. The panel was able to gather considerable information through interviews, reports, videos, and photographs from various sources, including the UN and its agencies; other international relief and human rights organizations; the media; and individuals. It also had access to satellite surveillance of the war zone. The picture, however, is incomplete, because the Sri Lankan government banned local and international media from the war zones. Most relief organizations were also prevented from operating near the frontline or inside LTTE-held areas after the government declared in September 2008 that it could not ensure their safety. In the final months of the war, only limited supplies from the International Committee of the Red Cross and several UN agencies were allowed into the LTTE enclave. The government refused to allow UN representatives to visit Sri Lanka or interview Sri Lankan officials or military officers. It is not clear why the government refused to cooperate. It may have been a matter of jealously seeking to uphold sovereignty and genuine outrage over Western attempts to dictate terms to Sri Lanka. It may also have been because the government had something to hide. There is no denying that civilians died. The issue is not primarily, in my view, the number, but whether this was the result of a deliberate policy or a series of cumulative mistakes and misjudgments by the government in Colombo and the military on the ground. Right now we simply cannot conclude one way or the other. If civilian deaths were due to mistakes and poor command, control, and coordination among the civilian leadership and at operational and tactical levels, then the Sri Lankan government and armed forces displayed rank incompetence and hubris in spite of a brilliant military campaign. It would mean that they would have to seriously look at themselves and make major structural changes. This is unlikely to happen.

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If, on the other hand, there was a deliberate policy, they would have a lot to answer for in theory. But it is unlikely that the international community—mainly the West in this case—will make them answer for it. It is evident that a full investigation would require Colombo’s consent and agreement among UN member nations. Russia and China, which both have veto power on the UN Security Council, are, along with India, opposed to formal Security Council involvement in Sri Lanka. Practically, this means there is little chance of an international investigation. China, in particular, would most likely vehemently oppose such a process, because it is heavily invested in Sri Lanka politically and economically.13 The UN approach has been pusillanimous and hesitant. It issued a damning report with great fanfare in April and hesitated afterward to act on the panel’s findings and recommendations. Why go to all the trouble and then back off? It managed to raise the hackles of a prickly and extremely defensive nationalistic government in Colombo, which has ‘‘circled the wagons’’ and further reinforced its postwar triumphalism. The feeling in Sri Lanka was that there seemed to be a distinct lack of satisfaction in the West that the country had won the first COIN campaign of the twenty-first century. The government argues that there is a ‘‘hidden agenda’’ behind claims of human rights abuses by the ‘‘international community.’’ While this might sound paranoid to Western ears, there is considerable truth in what the Sri Lankan authorities say concerning the tendency of Western governments to brandish the stick of human rights when they are displeased with the policies of specific countries. Sri Lanka initiated its own investigation into what happened during Eelam War IV. The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) was tasked with investigating the circumstances behind the collapse of the February 27, 2002, ceasefire agreement. Its report, a chronicle of LTTE perfidy before and during Eelam War IV, concluded that the LTTE was responsible for the breakdown of the ceasefire and the humanitarian outrages during the war, and claimed the military was innocent of wrongdoing. The commission was not independent, and had access only to the evidence presented by the Sri Lankan government, which it was trying to shield from international opprobrium. To its credit the LLRC made 160 recommendations to the government to heal and move the country forward. They have been ignored or implemented in a desultory fashion.

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I am not denying that human rights are important, but human rights issues are often used as a weapon in international affairs for political rather than moral purposes. The situation in Sri Lanka is still fragile, and this reality must be taken into consideration. The focus on the human rights of those who died in the war reinforces Tamil animosity toward and distance from the state; it also further heightens Sinhalese paranoia and fears, of which there is a historic abundance. One of the most sensible and rational analyses of the early postwar situation was undertaken by the U.S. Senate, which noted that the war in Sri Lanka may be over, but the underlying conflict still simmers. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Sri Lanka is not a postconflict environment. While the fighting between the Government and the LTTE may have ended, the reasons for the political and social conflict (that also gave rise to youth militancy and armed clashes in the 1970s and 1980s) will take time to address. Those root causes must be tackled soon and with a sense of urgency to prevent the country from backsliding. Thirty years of violence have taken a toll on the majority Sinhalese population, giving rise to a siege mentality toward the ethnic Tamil minority. For their part, Tamil leaders have not yet made anticipated conciliatory gestures that might ease government concerns and foster a genuine dialogue. Some Tamils are wary about the long-term significance of postwar Sinhalese ‘‘triumphalism’’ and fear that they may be marginalized in the unified country of Sri Lanka. The Tamil middle class has been devastated, many having emigrated years ago, leaving behind few mainstream leaders to represent more moderate views. The situation is particularly dire for Tamils in the North, who are trapped between living in government-run camps and returning to homes destroyed in the war.14 It will be difficult to come to any final judgment on this controversial matter as long as the West, the UN, and the NGOs make allegations that cannot be fully substantiated and the Sri Lankan government refuses to engage. The suspect moral character of the COIN campaign remains an unresolved issue as far as the West is concerned; it is clearly one more key reason there has been no great interest in the COIN approach as a model that offers insights to Western practitioners of irregular war and strategic

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13

analysts/academics attempting to uncover the secret of successful counterinsurgency. For Western governments, Sri Lanka has not been able to provide satisfactory answers to questions about serious human rights abuses—which include torture, extrajudicial killings, and of course large-scale killings of hapless civilians in the course of the fighting. That civilians did die is undeniable. As I noted earlier, the LTTE was notorious for using civilians as human shields and putting them in harm’s way. And the Sri Lankan military’s claim that very few if any died is not tenable. The military’s official policy was that of zero civilian casualties; this is laudable in theory but impossible in practice. No army can conduct operations in the midst of people without killing civilians. When it became obvious that civilian casualties had occurred, the Sri Lankans claimed, in the face of evidence to the contrary, that the numbers were minimal. There is a clear difference, however, among deliberately targeting civilians, being callous or indifferent to civilian casualties, and making mistakes. Was it the official policy of the Sri Lankan government to commit genocide against the Tamil people? Sri Lanka’s human rights record has been tarnished by the implementation of a national security state in which the government has granted itself extraordinary powers to deal as it sees fit with terrorism and insurgencies by both disgruntled Sinhalese and Tamils. The bloodletting by the state against its opponents and vice versa has simply been mind-numbing. But let us put aside moral and ethical considerations for a moment and point out that it would not have been prudent for Sri Lanka to adopt a policy of genocide for one reason: India. Given the government’s sensitivity to India’s looming presence and propensity for interference in Sri Lankan affairs based on its own concerns about fallout from the island nation’s conflict, Colombo weighed its steps very carefully. Indeed, throughout the final phase Colombo was in direct contact with the government in New Delhi. Genocide may not have been what the government and the military intended, but it is not farfetched to assume they had sufficient arrogance to believe they could get away with mass deaths of civilians—deliberate or otherwise—because the countries that mattered supported them and knew the parameters and goals of the campaign. It is also conceivable that the fog of war—where things that can go wrong, do—played a part. One has to remember that several Sri Lankan army divisions and task forces were converging on the LTTE, and hundreds of thousands of civilians were caught in a small area. The terrain in this

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small area around the coastal town of Mullaitivu did not help matters. To the east is the sea, making escape eastward difficult for the masses of terrified civilians desperate to flee the LTTE and Sri Lankan artillery. Civilians simply did not have access to large numbers of seaworthy boats. The remnants of the LTTE naval force, the Sea Tigers, had some boats left, but these were small combat vessels that could not get through the Sri Lankan navy’s tight blockade. Escaping to the west was hindered by the Nandi Kadal lagoon, which the civilians, again, had no means to cross. Even if they succeeded, they would have run into Sri Lankan army units. Army units—five divisions and three task forces with enormous firepower—were also closing in from the north and south. The UN report claimed that about 7,000 civilians died in this last phase of the war, mainly during the final weeks. NGOs and human rights organizations estimate that somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 people died, although one source went as high as 40,000. The truth lies somewhere between the claims of the Sri Lankan government and those of outside sources. The absence of independent verification by the media or other channels contributes to the controversy. The lack of independent media reporting on the situation, indeed, was another irritant between the West and the Sri Lankan government, because the latter tightly controlled access to the battlefront. The response was that the West had all but ignored the war for two and half decades—why was interest suddenly so high? Resolution of the moral and ethical aspects of this war will not take place anytime soon; we simply do not have the full facts. What is undeniable is that the deaths of civilians cast a shadow on the Sri Lankan undertaking. This fact should not preclude us from engaging in an extensive analysis of the war, especially of the final stages and the postwar environment.

Postwar Sri Lanka A COIN campaign success should not and cannot be measured only by military victory and the silencing of guns. We must not think the conflict is over because the government won the war in 2009. Despite the manifest military success, the permanence of the victory remains to be seen. Resurrection of extremist Tamil politics cannot be ruled out. It is unlikely, however, to return in the guise of a resurrected LTTE. Narayan Swamy, an

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15

Indian journalist who developed extensive and expert knowledge of the LTTE, argued that the reappearance of the LTTE in its original shape and form was unlikely.15 This does not mean that the ideological sentiments behind the LTTE have withered away. In May 2009 a self-professed Marxist group of putative rebels with the grandiose name People’s Liberation Army reared its head in the Eastern Province. One of its alleged leaders, a Commander Kones, stated that ‘‘this war isn’t over yet. There has been no solution for Tamils since the destruction of the LTTE in May. So we have built and organised the PLA and are ready to act soon. Our aim is a democratic socialist liberation of the northeast for a Tamil Eelam.’’16 Little has been heard of the People’s Liberation Army since. Any Tamil return to political violence to give vent to accumulated grievances would have to take into consideration the enormous structural weaknesses and strategic mistakes of the defunct movement and try to overcome them; the palpable warweariness of the population in the north and east; and the indisputable fact that the disgruntled Tamil diaspora—which provided much of the funds and ideological support—is entirely out of touch with the situation at home. There is a long way to go before we can truly say that this conflict has been resolved. What states do with their victories—whether in regular or irregular war—is as important, if not more so, as how they achieved victory on the battlefield. What the Sri Lankan government does in the coming years to remove the sources of conflict is crucial to prevent a slide toward open warfare against a new and revitalized Tamil militancy. But the ideological climate does not augur well for genuine reconciliation. On one side is a vengeful and outraged Tamil community. On the other is a relieved yet deeply insecure Sinhalese majority. One of the most important facts I learned in Sri Lanka was the depth of Sinhalese insecurity vis-a`-vis the Tamils. The Tamils, say the Sinhalese, may be a minority in Sri Lanka, but there are millions of them across the Palk Strait in the state of Tamil Nadu in India—65 million, to be precise. Sri Lanka, on the other hand, is the only home of the Sinhalese people and Sinhala language.17 The Sinhalese never fail to mention this, and they often bewail their minority status in a sea of Tamils to the point of self-pity. From their perspective, they simply cannot afford to see the unraveling of their country into two separate entities, both of which would end up rump states under Indian domination. The situation could have been even worse if the Tamil state of Eelam had come into existence under the leadership of VP. Well-known Sri Lankan

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diplomat and academic Dayan Jayatilleka has presented a scenario of doom and gloom in which he theorizes what would have transpired had the LTTE defeated the Sri Lankan government and established Tamil Eelam, instead of what actually happened in 2009. Much of what he says reflects the sentiment of many Sinhalese and might explain the dogged determination with which they fought the LTTE. Jayatilleka begins by posing a question: The question that has to be squarely faced is this: Why not just give Prabhakaran what he is asking for quite so insistently? . . . What’s wrong in ceding Tamil Eelam, walking away from it all and spending our time rebuilding the economy? Someday, war weariness could make society submit to this siren song of surrender. The problem is that the trade-off is not going to work. Colombo cannot trade Tamil Eelam, i.e. the North and East, for peace, because even if such a Faustian bargain is struck, peace will not be the result. The Sri Lankan state will not be able to withdraw into its southern cocoon and live in tranquil prosperity. The country will neither have the North-East nor peace.18 Why does Jayatellika argue that peace would not have ‘‘broken out’’? For him, given VP’s sanguinary track record against his own people as well as the Sinhalese, an independent Tamil Eelam would have been an ‘‘iron-fisted totalitarian dictatorship,’’ enamored of war. VP would ignite border wars whenever he wanted to. He would ‘‘annex Sinhalese territories on the grounds that they are actually ancient Tamil territories or because the tiny state of Tamil Eelam ‘needs defensible borders.’ He [would] strike deep into the other provinces whenever he [felt] sufficiently provoked by the status of Tamils in those areas and [was] moved by pleas for help by his brethren.’’ In short, VP would have been a nasty neighbor, emboldened by the attainment of his lifelong goal of Tamil Eelam. As a result, the military expenditures of the rump Sri Lankan state would not have been reduced; the country would have to remain on a permanent war footing. It would not be able to devote resources to modernization, reconstruction, or development. Its security dilemma vis-a`-vis a well-trained and fanatical enemy— which would now have the status of a state, with its own armored corps, surface-to-surface missiles, navy, and air force—would have increased dramatically. Finally, the ‘‘Northern state will always have in its rear, a contiguous cultural area, namely a friendly, even admiring Tamil Nadu and beyond

Introduction

17

it the vast Hindu hinterland,’’ while the Southern state will have nothing at its back and no strategic depth.19 It is not surprising that the Sinhalese adhere strongly to the idea of the unshakable unity of the country under their control. This is an existential issue for the Sinhalese, starkly captured in the statement fifty years ago by a Sri Lankan politician: ‘‘In this country the problem of the Tamils is not a minority problem. The Sinhalese are the minority in Dravidastan. We are carrying on a struggle for our national existence against the Dravidastan majority.’’20 Thus in this conflict we have the unusual situation of the majority in a country subscribing to a deeply ingrained minority complex and acting as if the whole country were its sole preserve. From the perspective of outsiders, the assessments of both Jayatilleka and the unnamed politician of long ago seem self-serving and overly alarmist. However, what is important is not what we outsiders believe to be the objective reality but what the belligerents think and how they act on these perceptions.

Filling a Gap Some words on methodology are in order. First, I would like to reiterate that this is a case study of an internal/civil war—specifically, why it occurred, how it evolved, and why it ended the way it did. In this study I adopt an implicit interdisciplinary approach. I examine the historical and socioeconomic factors behind the conflict in depth. I make considerable use of the literature on ethnic conflicts and the theories of irregular war. In the interest of focusing on the conflict and war itself, and to reach both an academic and policy/military audience, I have avoided extensive theoretical discussions and literature reviews. Hence, there is no extensive explicit discussion of theories in the opening chapter. Second, this study labors under limitations, as does any study of an ongoing or recently concluded conflict. The human rights issues associated with the termination of the conflict make any conclusive and overarching, authoritative study of the war impossible. Furthermore, field research in a conflict zone, even if the shooting war is actually over, is subject to considerable limitations. As academic Elizabeth Woods points out: Field research in conflict zones is challenging for both methodological and ethical reasons. In conflict zones, the usual imperatives of

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empirical research (to gather and analyze accurate data to address a relevant theoretical question) are intensified by the absence of unbiased data from sources such as newspapers, the partisan nature of much data compiled by organizations operating in the conflict zone, the difficulty of establishing what a representative sample would be and carrying out a study of that sample, and the obvious logistical challenges. Similarly, the ethical imperative of research (‘‘do no harm’’) is intensified in conflict zones by political polarization, the presence of armed actors, the precarious security of most residents, the general unpredictability of events, and the traumatization through violence of combatants and civilians alike.21 The Sri Lankan conflict is a clear example of an underreported, overlooked, and understudied internal conflict. Few full-length studies of the conflict in English have examined the critically important military aspects of strategy, operational art, and tactics. Hundreds of books and articles do address in detail the historical and political origins of the conflict between the Sinhalese and Tamils, and I have made extensive use of these studies in Chapter 2, which deals with the origins of the conflict. I have also been fortunate that it is not difficult to do research in Sri Lanka on Sri Lanka. Despite the war, the suspicions engendered by the war, and the subsequent emergence of a ‘‘national security state’’—where almost everything is seen through the lens of how it affects national security—this is a relatively open society with a wealth of available research resources and studies. Sri Lanka think tanks and universities have conducted well-written and informative studies on the origins of the conflict.22 Data on military operations, however, including those that have ended, are generally difficult to acquire—military institutions and personnel are often reluctant to talk openly or fully about recently concluded operations, and this has been the case for all conflict zones. I have reconstructed the operational aspects of the last campaign from interviews, media, the Sri Lankan military media center, numerous situation reports, and finally visits to some of the combat terrain, particularly in the Eastern Province. This study intends to fill the gaps in our knowledge of this little-known war. A definitive account must wait until the Sri Lankan government is more amenable to examination of the still classified materials regarding

Introduction

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decision making and campaign planning. A fully objective account, assuming such a thing can exist, will also require access to captured LTTE documents and interviews with former members to obtain their side of the story. When the Sri Lankan military overran the remaining LTTE headquarters, it captured huge numbers of documents, computer drives, and other materials that contained in exquisite detail much of the organizational structure and modus operandi of the organization. It is unlikely that researchers will gain access to these data. I was granted access to the Sri Lankan side, but repeated requests to visit certain areas and formally interview a larger number of officers of all ranks were routinely ignored during my four-week stay. Some of this was understandable, given the Sri Lankan government’s suspicions of Western intentions, the inveterate suspicion of military and intelligence people concerning requests for information regarded as sensitive, and suspicions of my agenda. However, in this case, the government in Colombo was its own worst enemy.

1 The Sri Lankan War in Context

The Nature of the Conflict What kind of conflict was the war in Sri Lanka? On the surface the answer is quite simple: it was a conflict between two ethnic and religious communities separated by what appeared to be vastly different cultures. The conflict emerged in the wake of rising Tamil ethnic separatism that stemmed from discrimination and violence at the hands of the entrenched power of the Sinhalese majority.1 German sociologist Max Weber wrote that ethnic groups are those human groups that maintain a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or shared customs or both, or because of common memories. The belief itself is important for the propagation and sustaining of group formation; in this sense, it does not matter whether or not an objective blood relationship exists. Ethnicity has been and continues to be a powerful force in the politics of many countries around the world, with profound effects on political legitimacy. However, there is very little agreement among academics on the causes of ethnic conflict in plural societies. Essentially, two sets of theories purport to explain the onset of ethnic violence. The primordialists argue that conflict between two ethnic groups A and B is inevitable because of unchanging, essential characteristics of the members of these categories. In particular, the primordialists suggest that ethnic violence results from antipathies and antagonisms that are enduring properties of ethnic groups.2 In this context, the Sinhalese and Tamils of Ceylon were destined to conflict with each other because of palpable and manifest differences between them. The constructivist position rejects the notion of unchanging and essential characteristics. It argues that even if members of A and B are hostile to

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each other now, this need not be and has not been an eternal condition. Constructivism argues that ethnic animosity is ‘‘constructed’’ by circumstances, events, and political conditions.3 Ethnic animosity can contribute to ethnic conflict, and such conflicts are exceedingly difficult to resolve because the parties to such a conflict will have backed themselves into their respective corners of mutually exclusive nationalisms.4 The Sinhalese and Tamils clearly existed as distinct ethnic groups on the island in the past, but both crossed over from the Indian subcontinent centuries ago, and there has been intermarriage between the groups. Both groups recognized that they were different from each other: they worshipped differently, spoke different languages, and often looked different. And yet they have had periods of cooperation and of conflict. We should not impute too much to the ethnic factor in the past and conclude that the premodern period was one of either unalloyed conflict or cooperation.5 The evidence shows that sustained ethnic conflict was constructed over the course of modern history, as the two groups came into regular and sustained contact with each other and fought over scarce resources. With the spread of education and the mass media, both sides were able to effectively articulate their conflicting nationalist narratives. Colonial policies contributed enormously to the rise of ethnic discord. Four hundred years of colonial control of the island clearly had an impact on hitherto stable social structures. Two analysts who examined the various theories that purport to explain or account for ethnic violence in Sri Lanka summarize the arguments of those who blame colonialism as follows: Colonialism’s divide and rule policies, census taking, and promotion of ethnic identities all enhanced (and sometimes even created) cultural and ethnic condition in colonial societies. . . . [P]roblems arose when colonial rulers favored and allied with a particular group, often a minority, to help in colonial administration.6 One Sri Lankan academic, Asoka Bandarage, put much of the blame for the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka on the baleful impact of colonialism: ‘‘divide and conquer was a key to conquest, consolidation and maintenance of colonial regimes.’’7 Yet we cannot assign all the blame to the evils of colonialism. The dynamic of colonialism indeed often disrupted and unraveled static and traditional societies, setting in motion new social processes, creating new

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classes, and leading to the emergence of new institutions. In short, colonialism was a modernizing as well as a destructive process. Under British colonialism, in particular, Ceylon underwent phenomenal modernization and development. The introduction of modern Western education created new classes and a quest for upward mobility. Literacy also introduced communities to new ideologies. Modern communications and transportation allowed various communities to develop ‘‘knowledge’’ of one another. Such knowledge is not necessarily positive. This is almost invariably the case when distinct communities begin to see one another as rivals for resources and office. The Sinhalese and Tamils began to fight over allocation of resources within the state as well as over the nature of the state following independence. Tamil dissatisfaction grew in proportion to their diminishing role in the state, and the rise in militancy developed in the late 1970s as the Sinhalesedominated state repeatedly ignored or contributed further to Tamil grievances through its policies. The Form of Warfare The war in Sri Lanka defies simple categorization. One thing is apparent from the outset: the war was an internal rather than an interstate one, although, as we shall see, it had very important regional and international dimensions. Indeed, it is rare for an internal war not to affect or be affected by external factors, events, or interested third parties. The war started in the early 1980s as a low-key, desultory conflict between two poorly armed and ill-trained entities. By 2009 it had been transformed into industrialized warfare on a major scale, characterized by brutal and horrific combat at the front and widespread violence against civilians. The death and destruction that occurred in Sri Lanka was on an industrial scale as well because of the massive mobilization of people and resources by both sides. By the time the war ended in 2009, it spanned the spectrum of violence from terrorism (and counterterrorism by the state), insurgency (and counterinsurgency by the state), and conventional warfare by both sides. Terrorism is a controversial term for many reasons. First, there is no one definition that is universally accepted.8 One of the best and most neutral definitions, in my view, is the following: the deliberate creation and exploitation of fear through violence or the threat of violence in the pursuit of political change. All terrorist

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acts involve violence or the threat of violence. Terrorism is specifically designed to have far-reaching psychological effects beyond the immediate victim(s) or object of the terrorist attack. It is meant to instill fear within, and thereby intimidate, a wider ‘‘target audience’’ that might include a rival ethnic or religious group, an entire country, a national government or political party, or public opinion in general. Terrorism is designed to create power where there is none or to consolidate power where there is very little. Through the publicity generated by their violence, terrorists seek to obtain the leverage, influence and power they otherwise lack to effect political change on either a local or an international scale.9 Second, no organization that uses violence for political goals refers to itself as a terror group, though many go out of their way to justify use of means others would classify as reprehensible. Terrorism is a pejorative term; nobody proudly says ‘‘I am a terrorist.’’ States in good standing do not engage in terrorism, even though some of the worst perpetrators of terrorism are and have been states. Because states define the norms of permissible and impermissible action in the international arena, it is believed that states do not and should not engage in terrorism. If they do they are practicing ‘‘illegal violence,’’ and quite often they come to be seen as ‘‘rogue states.’’ Terrorism is declared to be the weapon of the substate actor, whose legality, not surprisingly, is suspect. Terrorism was a constant scourge throughout the conflict in Sri Lanka. On one side there was a terrorist organization, indeed a pioneer in terrorist methods and one of the foremost practitioners of this art during the course of its existence. On the other was a beleaguered state that flailed around for years before it succeeded in finding a solution to its terrorist problem. The LTTE was, without question, a terrorist organization. This was clear to the Sri Lankan government, and it frequently disseminated its views on this matter through various official publications and statements such as the following: The LTTE is labeled as a terrorist organization because it does not have respect for human rights and because it does not adhere to the standards of conduct expected of a resistance movement or what might be called ‘‘freedom fighters.’’ The LTTE kills innocent civilians, recruits child soldiers, has been responsible for assassination of

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political figures and nonmilitary officials, and extensively uses suicide bombers.10 The Sri Lankan state denounced the violence as a challenge to its security, territorial integrity, and authority. Yet it is clear that, for many Tamils and their supporters, the LTTE was not a terrorist organization but a national liberation movement fighting for its people’s right to self-determination. It may be painful for the Sri Lankan state and its supporters to admit, but the LTTE at one point in time had considerable support among the Tamil population within the island, not just in the diaspora, whose knowledge of what was going on in their former homeland was through LTTE propaganda. Nonetheless, even among the Tamil population in Sri Lanka, much LTTE support was not really voluntary at all, particularly toward the end of the conflict, when people got fed up with LTTE brutality and exactions. People often supported the LTTE because they felt it was the only force that could protect them against the depredations of the Sri Lankan armed forces; they feared that if they did not, they would suffer terrible consequences. Moreover, the LTTE had wiped out other competitors. The decline in Tamil support toward the end of the conflict was reflected in the fact that people were pleading with or even attacking LTTE cadre who came to conscript their children to fight and die in the failing war effort. Furthermore, for the many Tamils who ran afoul of it because of differences over methods and goals, the LTTE was a terrorist organization. The same holds for the countless Sinhalese and Muslims who died brutally at LTTE hands in attacks by the group’s suicide bombers. In his otherwise well-researched article on the Liberation Tigers, Syed Rifaat Hussein writes that the LTTE was a ‘‘problematic case of a terrorist organization,’’ because its violence was directed primarily at the coercive capacities of the Sri Lankan state.11 This is simply not accurate. Yes, the LTTE did violently and successfully target the Sri Lankan military on many occasions. In this context, despite what states say—and one should remember that it is their representatives who define what terrorism is—the targeting of armed military personnel of the state by non-state actors in fair battle is a problematic issue. However, what about the frequent LTTE targeting of military personnel waiting to take buses home or back to duty stations? The LTTE killed hundreds of civilians in terrorist attacks as well (as I detail below). The October 15, 1997, attack on the Colombo World Trade Center, in the heart of the city’s financial district, which killed 18 people and

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injured 100, had nothing to do with military targets. It was as much a terrorist outrage as the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. After 9/11, countries were less tolerant of the activities of many socalled national liberation organizations around the world. Their military activities were viewed in a less positive light than in the past and were increasingly equated with terrorism. Two of the most important non-state actors to suffer from the negative fallout of 9/11 were the Chechen national liberation movement and, of course, the LTTE. The latter had garnered significant de facto recognition of some of its goals after its 2002 ceasefire agreement with the Sri Lankan government. September 11 was catastrophic for its image; a situation its leadership was unable to reverse and of which Colombo took advantage, highlighting Sri Lanka’s struggle as part of the global war against terrorism. As American journalist Barbara Crossette put it, ‘‘the Tigers were a heavily armed movement that never deserved the illinformed sympathy it got outside Sri Lanka.’’ It was ‘‘a totalitarian movement that instilled terror with mass indiscriminate killing of civilians, and introduced suicide bombing to assassinate a generation of leaders, both Tamil and Sinhala.’’12 Nonetheless, after 9/11 the international community intimated it would be willing to stop categorizing the LTTE as a terrorist organization if it gave up terrorism and was genuine about its desire for negotiating an end to the conflict. Despite the tendency of states the world over to label even large, violent political movements backed by real popular support ‘‘terrorists’’ (or ‘‘bandits’’ or ‘‘miscreants’’—the latter the favored Pakistani government term for Baluch insurgents in western Pakistan), the LTTE was not simply a terrorist organization. No ‘‘mere’’ terrorist organization could have created havoc and destruction to which the LTTE subjected the island for thirty years. No terrorist organization could have undertaken the well-organized attacks on military installations by LTTE cadres. The conflict was a fullfledged insurgency; that is, a war between a government with a conventional force fighting a non-state actor that used guerrilla or irregular tactics. Insurgency is a form of warfare by a weaker side—often a non-state actor or a state defeated in conventional war—against a stronger side. The stronger responds with counterinsurgency. The two together can be referred to as ‘‘irregular,’’ or better, ‘‘small war’’ as distinct from conventional war between states, ‘‘big war.’’ Massive conventional wars like World Wars I and II may have overshadowed small wars, but the latter returned

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with a vengeance in the post-World War II era. Moreover, as British general Frank Kitson, well versed in fighting insurgencies, put it: ‘‘the advent of nuclear weapons has done nothing to reduce the incidence of it.’’13 In the 1960s and 1970s in particular, policymakers and strategists were heavily focused on preventing humanity from collective suicide through use of nuclear weapons. Some of the brightest minds in science and strategic studies focused their efforts on making sure nuclear weapons stayed sheathed. In the meantime, the world continued to witness a large number of wars between states and between states and non-state actors. Small wars caught the attention of policy makers and strategists once in a while; the Kennedy administration wished to make combating the outbreak of small wars a priority of American global strategy in the 1960s but faced fierce bureaucratic resistance. It is incontrovertible that small wars have had a profound impact on human society, the evolution of international law, interracial relations, state formation, spatial configuration of states, and contours of international relations. Small wars are anything but. They are, with apologies to political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, ‘‘nasty, brutish, and long.’’14 Small wars continue to be a vexing problem in international relations. The Correlates of War Project points out that, in its database of 464 wars between 1816 and the end of the twentieth century, only 17 percent (79) were purely conventional interstate wars; the rest (385) were intrastate.15 Put another way, between 1945 and 1999 about 3.3 million battle deaths occurred in 25 interstate wars around the world; in that same period, about 16.2 million people died in about 127 civil/intrastate wars (of which 13 were decolonization wars), a death rate nearly five times that of interstate wars.16 Again, as with terrorism, there is no one standard, universal definition of insurgency. The task of deriving a single such definition has been rendered more difficult by the wide range of descriptors applied to this kind of war, themselves never precisely defined: ‘‘irregular,’’ ‘‘partisan,’’ ‘‘guerrilla,’’ ‘‘low-intensity conflict,’’ ‘‘insurrection,’’ ‘‘rebellion,’’ ‘‘small war,’’ ‘‘fifth generation war.’’17 We will never succeed in getting rid of the deep-seated desire of strategic analysts and academics to invent new terms for this kind of war. It is a form of leaving one’s mark on the field. For the purposes of this study, the word ‘‘insurgency’’ will suffice as the general term, while the phrase ‘‘guerrilla tactics’’ will be used to describe the methods of this type of warfare.18 Bard O’Neill, a noted expert on irregular war at the United States National Defense University, defined insurgency as a ‘‘struggle

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between a non-ruling group and the authorities in which the non-ruling group consciously uses political resources and violence to destroy, reformulate or sustain the basis of legitimacy of one or more aspects of politics.’’19 The well-known U.S. Field Manual 3-24: Counterinsurgency, written for the U.S. army and marine corps in consultation with leading thinkers and practitioners in the field of irregular war, defines ‘‘insurgency’’ as ‘‘an organized, protracted politico-military struggle designed to weaken the control and legitimacy of an established government, occupying power, or other political authority while increasing insurgent control.’’20 An insurgency breaks out in a state because there is something wrong in the body politic from the perspective of the side rebelling. The rebellious side has a cause, as French counterinsurgent theorist and practitioner David Galula pointed out.21 That cause stems from the belief—right or wrong— that there is an injustice in the system or the system itself is no longer legitimate. No government, of course, is going to accept the notion that it is illegitimate. Therefore, it will fight. If the goals of the insurgents are less about carrying out revolution and more about alleviating injustices, they will find governments at first loath to accept that there may be structural injustices in the system, since this would mean accepting the legitimate claims of the insurgents. There are several structural types of insurgencies.22 An anti-colonial insurgency is designed to expel a colonial or occupying power. The post1945 era witnessed dismantling of colonial empires as a result of successful nationalist and anti-colonial insurgencies—however, the paradigm that truly set the standard was the Irish War of National Liberation, between 1919 and 1921. A revolutionary insurgency is dedicated to the overthrow of the existing political system and its total replacement by a new political and socioeconomic structure; among the most famous examples are those of Maoist China and Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam, which were also anti-colonial enterprises. In the case of Sri Lanka, the insurgency was designed to separate from the existing political system. Separatist insurgencies are usually ethnic insurgencies. They seek to withdraw from the nation-state of which they are formally a part, and they may or may not include radical social transformation n the territory they capture.23 Separatist insurgencies are hard to defeat because they are almost a zero-sum game between two distinct communities. One has the guns and resources, and is the dominant group; the other often lives in a territorially defined and marginalized part of the country. The insurgents may choose to fight for greater rights in the

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existing country or for outright independence. Their task is to mobilize the disgruntled ethnic community in favor of whatever goal the organization has decided on. This is an arduous task because it is not clear that the entire community, despite its alienation from the center, will necessarily see things in the same light as the insurgent organization that purports to represent the community’s national interests. Hence the organization often has to battle other political groups in the marginalized community. Much bloodletting will take place before the insurgent organization can consolidate its position. More time will pass before it succeeds in achieving hegemonic status over its community, reflected in the invention of a new national identity and nationalist narrative, which solidifies the insurgent movement’s legitimacy over the people and which it hopes irrevocably breaks the community’s links to the existing country.24 What are the armed methods of insurgent organizations? Terrorism is one of them. The intent here is not to equate insurgency with terrorism. Terrorist and insurgent groups are not one and the same. Terrorist groups are usually small, often with have grandiose goals they have little or no hope of ever attaining. They have modest if any traction among the populace; furthermore, their modus operandi, terrorist action, often alienates. Terrorist groups never succeed in moving beyond terrorist acts against civilians or infrastructure; this is the extent of their combat repertoire. Insurgent groups are a different breed, even if hostile governments often refer to them as terrorists. Insurgent groups are large, they are functionally specialized, they seek and require the support of the populace, and terrorist actions are only part of their combat operations. It would not make much sense to put the Baader Meinhof terrorists in the same category as the Vietminh in Indochina or the Front de Libe´ration Nationale in Algeria, large organizations with a wide repertoire of violent means. While many insurgent groups and insurgent theorists and practitioners have eschewed terrorism and regarded it as counterproductive, as did the iconic Ernesto ‘‘Che’’ Guevara, not all have evolved this way. Indeed, some used terrorism quite extensively. The FLN used terrorism against members of the organization, the Muslim population, and French settlers. The Vietcong terrorist actions against civilians and government officials in rural areas are well documented. Yet neither insurgent movement viewed its terrorism as indiscriminate; they saw it as instrumentalist and undertaken with a rational purpose in mind. The same held for the LTTE, for which terrorism was as indispensable as its irregular warfare capabilities, to which we now turn.

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Insurgent groups are traditionally associated with and use guerrilla tactics as their primary operational method. O’Neill defines guerrilla tactics as ‘‘highly mobile hit-and-run attacks by lightly to moderately armed groups that seek to harass the enemy and gradually erode his will and capability.’’25 Whenever one side in a conflict is observably weaker than the other, the former will resort to guerrilla tactics to be able to fight. Mainstream theorists of war in the West, known primarily for their studies of conventional war, have written extensively on guerrilla tactics, their evolution, and their relationship to the political dynamics of a conflict. Contrary to prevailing opinion in the English-speaking world, Carl von Clausewitz wrote about irregular war quite extensively. A good part of this work, however, has yet to be translated from the original German and thus not been widely disseminated. Clausewitz wrote that guerrillas or partisans were an adjunct to conventional forces when a nation was resisting an invader. Guerrilla forces would harass the invader, nibbling at its flanks, lines of communications, and supplies, and ambushing small groups of its soldiers. These actions would cause the invader great difficulty, increase the cost of its war, and gradually exhaust its resources. Guerrillas were not to confront the invader in direct, face-to-face battles; to do so would mean their destruction and the end of their effectiveness to the cause.26 They were instead to be ‘‘nebulous and elusive,’’ like the Scarlett Pimpernel: ‘‘they seek him here, they seek him there, they seek him everywhere.’’ One of the best descriptions of the actions of guerrilla military art is the oft-quoted definition by the most successful irregular warrior of the twentieth century, Mao Zedong: What is basic guerrilla strategy? Guerrilla strategy must be based primarily on alertness, mobility, and attack. It must be adjusted to the enemy situation, the terrain, the existing lines of communication, the relative strengths, the weather, and the situation of the people. In guerrilla warfare, select the tactic of seeming to come from the east and attacking from the west; avoid the solid, attack the hollow; attack; withdraw; deliver a lightning blow, seek a lightning decision. When guerrillas engage a stronger enemy, they withdraw when he advances; harass him when he stops; strike him when he is weary; pursue him when he withdraws. In guerrilla strategy, the enemy’s rear, flanks, and other vulnerable spots are his vital points,

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and there he must be harassed, attacked, dispersed, exhausted and annihilated.27 The LTTE was not limited to terrorism and guerrilla tactics. It devoted considerable resources to building a conventional military capability. Much of the final campaign, known as Eelam War IV, resembled conventional warfare more than anything else. As Sri Lankan military analyst Sergei DeSilva-Ranasinghe, writing for Jane’s Intelligence Review, put it, In many respects, the final phase of Sri Lanka’s long-running conflict with the LTTE was very different from other insurgencies. Although infamous as a pioneer of asymmetric tactics, including suicide bombings, the LTTE had transformed itself into a relatively conventional enemy by the time the conflict re-escalated in 2006. Having developed a separatist state, complete with ground, maritime and air forces, it was determined to hold territory and had become dependent on maritime supply lines.28 Two other analysts who studied the LTTE in some detail, Eleanor Pavey and Chris Smith, referred to the organization’s conventional forces’ structure in their extensive analysis of security sector reform in Sri Lanka: By the late 1990s the LTTE had transformed itself into a disciplined and highly effective conventional fighting force of well over 10,000 cadres at its height, capable of operating along a continuum that encompassed, at one extreme, suicide-bomb attacks in the capital, Colombo, and conventional warfare in the north and east at the other, and even an air and naval arm. It was a formidable fighting force. Though massively outnumbered and outgunned by the Sri Lankan armed forces, estimated today at over 200,000 personnel, it made up for these shortfalls in many ways, through effective use of resources, bravery/ martyrdom and tactical mobility, for example, enough to deprive the Sri Lankan state of a monopoly of force and even to lay plans to create a de facto state within Sri Lanka.29 While too much has been made of the LTTE development of a conventional force structure, the fact that it had developed and was able to do conventional operations does raise the question what kind of warfare was taking

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place in Sri Lanka. Was the LTTE waging an insurgency or conducting conventional warfare? And was the Sri Lankan military waging a counterinsurgency campaign or conventional warfare? Once the war ended, outside observers wondered whether this had been a bona fide irregular war or a conventional war. This postwar debate is sterile and artificial in my opinion, as it does not recognize the complexity of contemporary irregular war. The fact is that the Sri Lankan war did not have to be one type of war or the other. It could be both, and indeed it was. During the heyday of anti-colonial insurgencies in the twentieth century, there was a clear recognition by the most successful practitioners, such as Mao Zedong and Vo Nguyen Giap, that irregular war must necessarily transition, move up, or progress to conventional (‘‘mobile’’) war as the insurgent movement becomes better organized, more disciplined, and better equipped. This was spelled out by Mao in one of his more famous tracts: There must be a gradual change from guerrilla formations to orthodox regimental organization. The necessary bureaus and staffs, both political and military, must be provided. At the same time, attention must be paid to the creation of suitable supply, medical, and hygiene units. The standard of equipment must be raised and types of weapons increased. Communication equipment must not be forgotten. Orthodox standards of discipline must be established.30 Very few insurgent movements have been able to successfully transition to the sophisticated conventional level of the Chinese Red Army that defeated the Japanese imperialists and ultimately crushed the Nationalist Chinese.31 Another example that comes to mind, and which borrowed carefully from the Chinese model, was the Vietnamese war of national liberation against the French colonial power, followed by the war to unify Vietnam under Communist rule. Former Vietnamese commander Vo Nguyen Giap describes in considerable detail the requirements to build a guerrilla force into a well-organized, disciplined conventional military in his book People’s Army, People’s War. In more recent times the lines between terrorism, insurgency, and (quasi-) conventional capabilities are increasingly blurred for the more sophisticated/developed non-state actors. For such groups the trajectory will not necessarily be one of transition or progression from terrorism through insurgency/guerrilla methods to conventional war capabilities;

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rather, it will most likely be a combination of the three used in parallel rather than sequentially. Construction of an elaborate conventional military structure takes time, and once it is in place, this does not mean contemporary non-state actors forgo other methods available to them. All three methods as part of an arsenal constitute a force multiplier. This was the case for the LTTE. The best phrase available to understand the LTTE ‘‘tripartite’’ warfare capability is hybrid war. The LTTE was the most advanced hybrid war entity in existence until its destruction in 2009. It was capable of waging terrorism, insurgency, and conventional war. The definition and description of hybrid war has been mercifully uncomplicated in a field of war where definitions are regularly contested or superseded. American strategic analyst Frank Hoffman deserves credit for this useful term.32 Hoffman and several others have argued that many contemporary wars have been ‘‘multi-modal’’ or ‘‘multi-variant,’’ that is, exhibiting many forms rather than one form or method of fighting. The trend of blending or blurring forms of war in combinations of increasing frequency and lethality will continue into the near future. Instead of separate challenges with fundamentally different approaches (terrorist, insurgent, or conventional), we can expect to see some actors (both state and non-state) who employ all forms, often at the same time, as part of their repertoire. In the words of Hoffman, Hybrid threats incorporate a full range of modes of warfare, including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics and formations, terrorist acts that include indiscriminate violence and coercion, and criminal disorder. These multi-modal activities can be conducted by separate units, or even by the same unit, but are generally operationally and tactically directed and coordinated within the main battle space to achieve synergistic effects in the physical and psychological dimensions of conflict.33 As described by the U.S. Marine Corps Strategic Vision Group, ‘‘Hybrid Wars combine a range of different modes of warfare, including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics, and formations, terrorist acts including indiscriminate violence and coercion, and criminal disorder.’’34 A non-state actor endowed with hybrid warfare capabilities is able to exploit the advantages of each kind of force structure to increase the nature of the threat

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posed by each force. The non-state actor’s use of terrorism forces its opponent, the state, to devise and implement a counter-terrorism strategy. The non-state actor’s irregular war forces the government to disperse its conventional forces as it hunts for the guerrillas; this then opens the government forces to attack by the non-state actor’s small conventional forces. In short, a state fighting a non-state actor with a potent hybrid war force structure finds its job rendered considerably more complex. Military historians have noted that many wars have been characterized by situations of both regular and irregular warfare. The long conflict in Vietnam is a classic example of the strategic synergy created by hybrid capabilities, where the irregular operational art of the Viet Cong guerrillas was juxtaposed with the conventional capabilities of the PAVN, the regular army of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam based in Hanoi. Sri Lanka’s civil war evolved into a paradigmatic example of hybrid war. Again, to reiterate, the LTTE was not merely a ruthless terrorist organization. It was not only an insurgent organization using guerrilla tactics. (This it did, and often quite effectively.) It had also started developing a conventional military capability in conjunction with its terrorist and guerrilla forces. Indeed, it was the only non-state actor to date that has developed conventional ground, naval, and aerial capabilities. This was a pioneering effort. The world’s most formidable non-state actor, Hezbollah has ground capabilities more deadly than those of the LTTE, which did not develop a naval or air arm. Hezbollah has developed something the LTTE did not: a significant and potent surface-to-surface missile capability, which it used to great effect in the deadly and devastating summer 2006 war with Israel. Despite journalistic and popular perception, Hezbollah did not win that conflict by any means. Rather, it fought the most powerful military in the Middle East to a virtual standstill. That is what worried and impressed Israel and outside military observers. The LTTE is no more. This, of course, begs the question of what happened to the LTTE. Its collapse came as a result of internal pressures (problems within the organization) and external pressures (learning and adaptation by the Sri Lankan military). The Collapse of Insurgent Organizations By the time the fourth phase of the war, Eelam War IV, had broken out, the situation militarily was as follows. On one side was the LTTE, a hybrid

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non-state actor with a spectrum of capabilities from terrorism through guerrilla tactics to conventional methods. It had fought the armed forces to a standstill in 2000. Indeed, it had emerged in better shape and in a more advantageous strategic position. On the other side was the Sri Lankan military; in 2000 it was a thoroughly battered and demoralized, yet incredibly resilient conventional force. Between 2006 and 2009, it emerged from the doldrums to convincingly trounce the LTTE as a result of lessons learned and wide-ranging restructuring and force recapitalization. A seemingly intractable, protracted war had finally come to an end. Indeed, in a seminal article Gordon McCormick, Steven Horton, and Lauren Harrison (three experts on irregular war) pointed out clearly that ‘‘all internal wars come to an end, even if—from the vantage point of the combatants and those who are caught in the crossfire—they sometimes seem to go on forever.’’35 In the haste to assess how the government did it, people too often ignored the other party to the conflict, the LTTE. The LTTE was forgotten because it lost. Yet less than two years before its defeat, governments, military observers, and journalists seemed to stand in awe of it. A common refrain was that the LTTE was the ‘‘A-team of terrorist groups.’’ It had perfected the art of suicide bombing: fully one-third of all suicide operations in the last twenty years have been the handiwork of the LTTE. It was the most professional and most disciplined non-state actor in the world, the only one with naval, aerial, and ground capabilities. It was very good at learning lessons. And so on. All this was perfectly true. And so what happened to it in 2009? To understand what happened requires some brief discussion of what accounts for insurgent organization collapse in theoretical terms. This is a very important issue, as one analyst recently pointed out: ‘‘Insurgent leaders commit strategic mistakes that can significantly retard their efforts, and if properly leveraged by the counterinsurgent forces, may lead to the insurgents’ defeat.’’36 Much has been written analyzing and dissecting the numerous mistakes, failures, and weaknesses of counterinsurgents; less attention has been given to the errors on the insurgent side. In my wide reading on irregular warfare, I have seen virtually no study, theoretical or otherwise, that deals in detail with insurgent organization failures and collapse. It is an undertheorized area that calls out for more research. No one can deny that in the final stages the Sri Lankan government adopted a totally different approach from the past, and its revitalized COIN doctrine and campaign of 2006–2009 contributed immensely to the victory over the

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LTTE. War is a dialectical interaction between two belligerents; one side’s ability to defeat another highlights not only the victor’s effective way of doing things but also structural weaknesses in and mistakes made by the loser. The Sri Lankan government victory was also aided immensely by strategic blunders by the LTTE leadership and severe structural and organizational weaknesses that became apparent during Eelam War IV. Briefly put, the LTTE suffered from structural problems—for example, an imbalance between its overgrown military wing and its underdeveloped political wing. It began to rely more on the Tamil diaspora than the Tamil civilians within Sri Lanka. Granted, it needed the financial resources and international links of the diaspora; but by focusing on the expatriate Tamil population, it lost the support of the population at home—the people who provided the once formidable personnel that manned its military forces. The LTTE also made strategic blunders, such as the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, an act that earned it India’s undying hatred and determination to avenge itself. Notwithstanding its so-called brilliance at the operational and tactical levels, the LTTE was not above making serious blunders in both areas. In contrast with their past strategies, and in contrast with states facing similar problems, Sri Lanka did not overlook the insurgents’ weaknesses or blunders in Eelam War IV. The Revitalization of the Sri Lankan Military: A New COIN Paradigm? The threat of war is ever-present in the international system, which is why states maintain military forces. However, having military forces is not sufficient; states must have effective military forces. A military must be a dynamic organization amenable to and constantly ready to implement change. However, there is a paradox. By their nature, organizations resist change. The very term organization suggests a tried and accepted way of doing things. Max Weber argued that, by their nature, bureaucracies demand routines, repetition, and orderly action.37 Military bureaucracies, steeped in tradition and focused on discipline, are the epitome of resistance to change. Designed for routine, repetitive, orderly action, they naturally prefer continuity over change. Why and how do militaries change? This question has received increasing scholarly attention over the past few decades. Social and political scientists, military historians, and analysts have added to a growing body of

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literature that focuses on the dynamics driving such military change and its subsequent success or failure. In peacetime it is difficult for a state to assess whether its military is effective except by promoting professionalism, establishing and maintaining rigorous training standards, conducting field exercises, and having ready access to military technology. A military can decide to innovate and adapt during peacetime or be forced to do so as a result of changes occurring among rivals; however, it is difficult to undertake peacetime innovation. There is usually no sense of urgency, and those who dare to raise the issue might find their careers derailed. Innovation and adaptation in the midst of wartime has been common, as militaries seek a way to defeat their opponents. Military adaptation is here defined as changes in tactics, techniques, or existing technologies to improve operational performance. In contrast, I understand military innovation to be a major change that is institutionalized in new doctrine, a new organizational structure, and/or a new technology. Hence, while innovation can occur rapidly (revolutionary innovation), it more often occurs over a long period (evolutionary innovation). Of course, adaptation may lead to innovation: new tactics or techniques may in time be captured in doctrine, or lead to change to organizational structure or acquisition of a new enabling technology. Military innovation and adaptation for conventional warfare has proved difficult enough for most armies. So what does a state do in the face of the complex violence advanced non-state actors can bring to bear? What about military innovation for COIN? The structure and characteristics of violence within an intrastate context is very different from those posed by an interstate one. A state’s response to an insurgency or war within its borders is a counterinsurgency campaign, that is, the political, military, socioeconomic, and diplomatic measures a government takes to solve the existing problem of an internal war.38 A state has a conventional force structure and resources already in existence; these give it a tremendous advantage over the nascent insurgent organization. In the words of French army officer and COIN expert David Galula, the advantages on the government side at the start of an insurgency are many: Endowed with the normal foreign and domestic perquisites of an established government, [the counterinsurgent] has virtually everything—diplomatic recognition; legitimate power in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches; control of the administration and police; financial resources; industrial and agricultural resources at

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home or ready access to them abroad; transport and communications facilities; use and control of the information and propaganda media; command of the armed forces and the possibility of increasing their size.39 In the nineteenth century, when the West set about acquiring colonies in the non-Western world, it naturally met resistance from those who felt offended by the disruption to their lives by outsiders.40 While many insurgencies caused considerable problems for Western armies, and quite often Western armies suffered embarrassing defeats—including conventional ones—ultimately the outcome of a war with ‘‘natives’’ was almost never in doubt, and disciplined, well-organized, cohesive Western armies were able to enforce their will over highly motivated but poorly organized ‘‘native’’ insurgent forces.41 As Edward Katzenbach sardonically commented, native insurgents ‘‘saw fit to die, with glory, with honor, en masse, and in vain.’’42 Such was the fate of 11,000 Sudanese Mahdist soldiers facing the AngloEgyptian army at the battle of Omdurman in Sudan on September 2, 1898; the latter lost only 148 soldiers. Nonetheless, in modern times states have often begun the campaign against insurgents ill prepared for the outbreak of internal conflict, and almost invariably from the beginning states have serious problems in waging effective counterinsurgency campaigns. Most conventional militaries are not organizationally or mentally geared for internal war; they have been built to deal with external enemies. Indeed, it may seem paradoxical, but when an insurgency breaks out, the very initial advantages governments possess—as related by Galula and summarized above—can be disadvantages. The government’s overwhelming superiority at the material and resource levels leads it to become fixated in believing victory should be achievable in short order. Furthermore, military institutions are constrained from learning COIN early and effectively, because of official political reluctance to formally acknowledge incipient or burgeoning insurgent military activities as insurgency. They prefer to portray such violence as simple terrorism in need of a salutary application of direct counterviolence of a particularly intense kind.43 Only reluctantly will they acknowledge the bitter reality; however, once they do, some states have proven able to implement changes in the direction of formulating and implementing COIN strategy. There is a growing literature on the issue of innovation in COIN. However, it is often geared toward analysis of COIN innovation by major

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powers that have found themselves mired in counterinsurgency campaigns during the latter half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.44 When a state is able to innovate and implement changes in the direction of effective COIN, we should not presume to think that there is one set of COIN principles or doctrine ‘‘out there’’ waiting to be adopted effectively by said state. First, if that were the case, the question becomes, Did the state and its military actually engage in innovation or adaptation or simply emulation? Second, the reality is that there is no one universal COIN doctrine waiting to be adopted by states with problems. In this context, I find Mao Zedong’s very much understudied pamphlet Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War, written at the height of China’s massive internal turmoil and war with Japan, relevant to the issue of what and how a military should learn about what it is facing, even though he addresses these issues from the perspective of the irregular side: The laws of war are a problem which anyone directing a war must study and solve. The laws of revolutionary war are a problem which anyone directing a revolutionary war must study and solve. The laws of China’s revolutionary war are a problem which anyone directing China’s revolutionary war must study and solve. We are now engaged in a war; our war is a revolutionary war being waged in this semi-colonial and semi-feudal country of China. Therefore, we must study not only the laws of war in general, but the specific laws of revolutionary war, and the even more specific laws of revolutionary war in China . . . thus the different laws for directing different wars are determined by the different circumstances of those wars— difference in their time, place and nature. As regards the time factor, both war and the laws for directing wars develop; each historical stage has its special characteristics, and hence the laws of war in each historical stage have their special characteristics and cannot be mechanically applied in another stage. As for the nature of war, since revolutionary war and counter-revolutionary war both have their special characteristics, the laws governing them also have their own characteristics, and those applying to one cannot be mechanically transferred to the other. As for the factor of place, since each country or nation . . . has its own characteristics, the laws of war for each country or nation also have their own characteristics, and here,

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too, those applying to one cannot be mechanically transferred to the other.45 There is no universally applicable model. An innovating military’s job is rendered more difficult by the fact that it has to find the most appropriate counterinsurgency measures that suit its environment. As David Kilcullen succinctly points out in his book on counterinsurgency ‘‘the idea that there is a single ‘silver bullet’ panacea for insurgency is therefore as unrealistic as the idea of a universal cure for cancer.’’46 The irregular warfare environment is subject to large-scale dynamic changes. This means, in Kilcullen’s words, that the ‘‘whole art of counterinsurgency is to develop specific measures, tailored to the environment . . . thus counterinsurgency is at heart an adaptation battle: a struggle to rapidly develop and learn new techniques and apply them in a fast-moving, high-threat environment, bringing them to bear before the enemy can evolve in response, and rapidly changing them as the environment shifts.’’47 In recent years the Western approach has been defined by U.S. Field Manual 3-24. Much contemporary Western—particularly American COIN—doctrine, as developed in this field manual, has been influenced by the works and military experiences of Galula, who fought against insurgents in the Algerian War. His most important book is Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, written in 1964 but only recently rediscovered in the wake of the 2003 Iraq insurgency. Fighting an internal war requires that both sides win the allegiance of the population. Galula contends that: A victory [in a counterinsurgency] is not the destruction in a given area of the insurgent’s force and his political organization. . . . A victory is that plus the permanent isolation of the insurgent from the population, isolation not enforced upon the population, but maintained by and with the population. . . . In conventional warfare, strength is assessed according to military or other tangible criteria, such as the number of divisions, the position they hold, the industrial resources, etc. In revolutionary warfare, strength must be assessed by the extent of support from the population as measured in terms of political organization at the grass roots. The counterinsurgent reaches a position of strength when his power is embedded in a political organization issuing from, and firmly supported by, the population.48

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Effective government requires the ‘‘tacit or explicit agreement of the population.’’49 The insurgents seek to draw the population away from the government. An insurgency requires the ‘‘complicity of the population [which] is the key to guerrilla warfare . . . and it has been expressed in the formula of the fish swimming in the water.’’50 Galula explicitly stated that the people were the ‘‘objective,’’ that the side that successfully controlled the population would win the conflict. He argued that, without the support of the people, the insurgents could conduct ‘‘commando-style operations’’ using the same tactics as guerrillas but could not fight ‘‘true guerrilla war,’’ and that without the people, guerrillas cannot be distinguished from bandits.51 Galula’s ideas have become the basis of contemporary Western COIN theory and practice, referred to as ‘‘population-centric’’ and designed to ‘‘win the hearts and minds’’ of the population.52 Operationally, the soldiers’ task would be to clear an area of insurgents, hold the liberated areas, and proceed to build both infrastructure for and trust among the population. The phrase ‘‘clear, hold, and build’’ was first used in Iraq to describe the methods against the insurgents in the towns of Tel Afar and Ramadi. It is a mistake to believe the Western approach to dealing with insurgencies has been devoid of flaws or problems. Nor have all Western COIN campaigns been benign. The successful British COIN campaigns in Malaysia against the Malaysian Communist Party and in Kenya against the Mau Mau insurgents of the Kikuyu tribe were not devoid of harshness. The more contemporary Western approach has tried to transcend these methods associated with the insurgencies of the decolonization era. Yet while the contemporary approach may be less harsh and unethical than those associated with past Western practice or current practice of non-Western states, irregular wars are still ‘‘nasty, brutish, and certainly not short.’’ Clearly, the contemporary Western approach is not on a par with the kind of brutal COIN campaign followed by the German Wehrmacht and the SS during World War II, or the Soviet and Russian campaigns in Afghanistan and Chechnya. As Michael Cohen put it in a critical overview, With its seemingly progressive and humanistic approach, FM 3-24 and counterinsurgency in general offer a seductive ideal for the future of American war-fighting. But the veneration of COIN conceals a brutal reality. The history of counter-insurgency in the twentieth century is not a story of war and fuzzy war, of benevolent soldiers providing essential government services to grateful natives,

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of armed social work, or of the gentleman soldier’s antidote to the Shermanesque notion of Total War. Instead, counter-insurgency is a repeated tale of coercion and violence directed against unarmed civilians. And this defines both those COIN efforts that have been successful—and those that have failed.53 The Sri Lankan military was no different from other militaries faced with insurgencies. In fact, when the war erupted in 1983, it faced greater difficulties than others in similar situations. The armed forces were founded very soon after independence; they were small and largely ceremonial.54 They had no doctrine for or training in large-scale military operations, let alone small-unit training to combat non-state actors. The officers were blindly trained in conventional warfare along British lines.55 This was rather odd, given that Sri Lanka was unlikely to face any conventional attack it could successfully defend against. Any counterinsurgency tactics carried out simply reflected 1950s British doctrine, without apparent regard for the peculiarities of the environment or the situation on the ground in Sri Lanka. The armed forces did learn some lessons from fighting against the insurgency by radical Sinhalese youth in the rural south in 1971; however, this was a brutal, joint counter-terror and counterinsurgency campaign without much finesse against a ruthless group, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP, People’s Liberation Front). In the war against the LTTE, it took a long time for the armed forces to learn, adapt, and find solutions that worked. Over the course of the war, the government was forced to expand the armed forces enormously, with problems in absorption, training, expansion of the logistics base, and formulation of effective doctrine and command and control. Even in the early years (1983–1986), the military did have some success, as reflected in the professionally conducted Operation Vadamarachchi (see Chapter 3), and it did develop a cadre of competent officers in the first three phases of the war, Eelam Wars I–III. There was no clear-cut political direction from the civilian rulers, no civilian-military coordination, and no effective and efficient arms procurement strategy for the materiel-starved forces. So while a competent basis existed in core areas, as defense secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa pointed out in my interview with him, allowing the armed forces to innovate here and there, there was no sustainability and permanence to the military’s efforts. What was needed was a transformation across the board in the government and military approaches. This finally came in 2005, as I discuss in Chapter 4.

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Given the prevalence of irregular wars around the world, it is important to study the Sri Lankan COIN campaign. The campaign itself elicited considerable commentary, some positive and some negative. Many countries are faced with serious internal strife, including those near Sri Lanka, such as Pakistan, India, Thailand, Myanmar, and the Philippines. Not surprisingly, these countries have paid close attention to the Sri Lankan COIN campaign.56 Apparently, officers from countries faced with internal war have made their way to Sri Lanka to learn the secrets of the Sri Lankan COIN success. Even the giant to the north, India, faced with several insurgencies that seem to go on and on, has taken notice. In fact, even before the Sri Lankans had decisively defeated the LTTE, the widely circulated weekly India Today commented: ‘‘For decades, India has been training the armed forces of Sri Lanka at all its military academies and staff colleges. Now, it may be time for us to sit down and listen to our southern neighbor.’’57 The Sri Lankan campaign clearly differed from the Western approach; it was worked out over the course of several years of trial and error. In an impromptu discussion with a former student of mine at the U.S. Naval War College about the Sri Lankan conflict, he jokingly suggested we christen the COIN: ‘‘kill, hold, and build.’’58 We laughed, but on closer inspection this made absolute sense to me. The Sri Lankan COIN paradigm of 2006–2009 was, in fact, predicated on ‘‘killing’’ the LTTE and holding the recovered territories, after which the government would begin to build. General Sarath Fonseka, the overall army commander during the last phase of the war, Eelam War IV, made this crystal clear on numerous occasions, including the following: ‘‘Our main intention is to kill the maximum number of LTTE area leaders and their cadres within LTTE territory. Then the land they control would come under our purview.’’59 The Sri Lankan COIN paradigm was neither the contemporary Western population-centric approach nor that adopted by the Germans in the Eastern Front and the Balkans during World War II. Rather than populationcentric, it was enemy-centric. It certainly was not designed to implement mass collective punishment, since indiscriminate terrorization or extermination of the Tamil population was not the purpose. When the armed forces attacked LTTE positions or territory controlled by the insurgents, the immediate purpose was not to seize and recover part of the homeland that had been under LTTE control; it was to kill as many LTTE cadres and destroy as much combat materiel as possible. Killing the enemy was the

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focus; care of the population came later, after the enemy was killed. Operational and tactical considerations on the ground were also key factors in the Sri Lankan military’s focus on killing the enemy. The LTTE was in control of vast tracts of territory; it acted as a quasi-state and had control over the lives of countless civilians. Paradoxically, while the Sri Lankan government often provided the salaries of officials in LTTE-controlled territories, it had no visible presence or control over these areas, nor a sustained civilian and governance infrastructure to compete with the LTTE for the ‘‘hearts and minds’’ of the people. It had to reconquer territory bit by bit. In this context, winning the population could come only after the LTTE was physically eliminated from the territories in question. In the end, much of the conflict resembled conventional or mobile warfare rather than one characterized by guerrilla tactics, which in its most simple form would have seen the Tigers engaging in hit-and-run raids, ambushes, and the like and then running away and hiding in the population. The government forces would then wander around the countryside looking for the ‘‘bad guys,’’ trying to persuade the population to tell them where the gunmen were. To gain any traction, the government forces would have to be nice to the people. This was not feasible during the later stages of the war, where both sides were often fighting what amounted to conventional battles, with forward defense lines facing each other, major artillery and mortar duels, and infantry formations moving forward to seize positions. Nonetheless, the Sri Lankan campaign was driven also by both pragmatic strategic and moral or ethical calculations. There was considerable worry concerning potential negative Indian reaction to serious civilian casualties. New Delhi watched the Sri Lankan offensive carefully, and Colombo paid close attention to Indian concerns. Senior Sri Lankan officials made sure India was kept abreast of what was happening during the Eelam War IV offensive to ensure that its northern neighbor did not think of intervening in the conflict due to its own domestic considerations. Furthermore, the Sri Lankans also knew that callousness toward Tamil civilians on their part would make it very difficult for the Sri Lankan government to promote and implement any meaningful progress toward postconflict reconciliation. Is the Sri Lankan COIN campaign of relevance to the militaries of the West? There was considerable acerbic commentary on the issue in some

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Western journalistic circles as well as blogs dedicated to the study of contemporary irregular warfare and COIN. Neither Western academics nor militaries have made it a point to devote much attention to the Sri Lankan experience. There are a number of reasons for this. First, there has been a tendency on the part of Western policy and military circles to ignore the irregular warfare experiences of non-Western nations. As P. B. Baejter points out in his informative and long chapter on Sri Lanka, the United States prefers to study the successful British counterinsurgency campaign against the Malayan Communist Party insurgents.60 Mark Moyar, another American expert on COIN, agrees with this assessment: ‘‘the lessons of what was called the Malayan Emergency are among the most frequently cited historical precedents for subsequent American and British counterinsurgency doctrine and operations.’’61 There is even admiration for the French military victory in Algeria, which, ended in a humiliating political defeat. Indeed, much contemporary American COIN doctrine is based primarily on lessons from the French experiences in Indochina and Algeria, derived primarily from the rediscovered writings of Galula. Second, the Sri Lankan COIN campaign was viewed as ‘‘unsavory’’ in much Western commentary. It was focused too much on ‘‘kinetic’’ methods, that is, fighting and killing, as opposed to more sophisticated methods that incorporate a wide-ranging arsenal of measures, including winning hearts and minds. In this context, the Sri Lankan COIN campaign is not a model for the West to follow. A particularly snide article by the respected weekly the Economist appeared on the first anniversary of Sri Lanka’s defeat of the LTTE and was representative of the prevailing negative attitude in some quarters in the West: Little Sri Lanka is rarely a model of anything. But since it crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam its government has found itself in an unfamiliar position. Some of the world’s less savoury regimes are beating a path to its door to study the ‘‘Sri Lanka option.’’ Last November, Myanmar’s military dictator, Than Shwe, who rarely travels abroad, visited the island ‘‘so that his regime can apply any lessons learned to its efforts against the ethnic groups in Burma,’’ says Benedict Rogers, a biographer of General Than. In May last year at a meeting of regional defence ministers in Singapore, Myanmar’s deputy minister made the link explicit, saying the

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world had witnessed a victory over terrorism in Sri Lanka but had forgotten about the insurgency in his country. In October Thailand’s prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, held talks with his Sri Lankan counterpart about the lessons of the Tigers’ defeat (for handling a Muslim insurgency in southern Thailand, not the protests cleared this week in Bangkok). In March a military delegation from Bangladesh met Sri Lanka’s army chief, to swap notes on what he called Sri Lanka’s ‘‘successful completion of the war for peace.’’ Behind the scenes, hawkish generals and politicians from Colombia to Israel seem to be using Sri Lanka’s experience to justify harsher anti-terror operations.62 Third, the terrain and environment Western COIN efforts face in Iraq and Afghanistan are vastly different and more complex than those faced by the Sri Lankans; thus, it is argued, the island nation’s experiences and lessons are of little relevance for the Western forces. The geopolitical complexity and larger spaces of Iraq and Afghanistan, each of which borders six countries, make the task of sealing borders with their neighbors virtually impossible. The size of Iraq and Afghanistan is also a complicating factor. Iraq and Afghanistan have estimated land areas of 437,000 and 647,000 square kilometers respectively, while the Sri Lankan military operated in an estimated land area of 64,000 square kilometers. In contrast, Sri Lanka is an island; thus both belligerents created relatively potent local maritime forces to fight a cat and mouse game, which ultimately the Sri Lankan navy decisively won. Moreover, the United States had very poor relations with Syria and the Islamic Republic of Iran, two key neighbors of Iraq. As the United States got bogged down, it accused both countries of providing safe havens, training, and financial and material assistance to the various insurgent groups. There is a great deal of truth to these allegations; however, the United States must bear a certain measure of responsibility for the state of affairs. The U.S. government went into Iraq implying that both Syria and Iran were future targets of diplomatic and military measures. Making more enemies than necessary is not a wise strategy when seeking to deal with insurgents and terrorists who have potential access to foreign territories. Not surprisingly, both Syria and Iran did their utmost to ensure the U.S. would remain mired in Iraq as long as possible. Contrast this with the careful Sri Lankan strategy of seeking to placate a country like India—a potential safe haven

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for the LTTE—rather than alienate it. In Afghanistan the situation faced by the Coalition is even worse than in Iraq. In addition to tense relations with Iran, the U.S. has been unable to cut off and destroy the safe havens for insurgents along the porous and inhospitable Afghan-Pakistan border. The U.S. and its allies are also faced with the peculiar and unsavory situation where a major ‘‘ally,’’ Pakistan, is both a target and pathological sponsor of myriad insurgent and terrorist groups in the region. Fourth, total military strength is an important factor in combating insurgency. One of the most important lessons from the Sri Lankan success is that counterinsurgency is an extremely manpower-intensive form of warfare. The Sri Lankan military had 300,000 combatants when the LTTE was defeated in 2009. Raising a military that large in the midst of conflict was no mean feat; between 2006 and 2009 the military increased in size by almost 80 percent. As the Sri Lankans built their military to unprecedented levels, they also recognized that the quality of manpower was not going to be uniform across the board. This pragmatic approach allowed the military to deploy newly raised forces to the field as soon as they had finished training. Western efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan had to augment their troop levels by raising, training, and deploying local security forces. The effort in Iraq has been crowned with belated success, but it is unclear what will happen when U.S. forces leave Iraq completely. This brings us to the final point. There is a clear-cut difference between counterinsurgency campaigns by third-party intervention forces and by local or ‘‘host’’ governments. States fighting counterinsurgency campaigns overseas are less likely to win in contemporary times than states fighting insurgencies on their own terrain against a rebellious element of their population.63 In the nineteenth century Western powers, as I briefly mentioned above, would win over insurgencies without fail. Though Western powers argue that their involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan represent genuine national interests and that there is a deep-seated commitment to prosecuting the missions there successfully, one has to ask whether there is the same commitment to defeating the threat as there was for Sri Lanka in the war against the LTTE. For the government of Sri Lanka, the LTTE was an ‘‘existential’’ threat that had to be defeated. The LTTE was demanding 28 percent of the territory and two-thirds of the coastline of a tiny country. Similarly, for Turkey there is no alternative to fighting the Kurdish insurgents who are demanding a separate state in the eastern part of the country. For the Ankara elite, the Kurdish demand is an existential threat and cannot

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be fulfilled. Of course, a local government may ultimately have no choice but to acquiesce to the demands of insurgents fighting for a separate entity, as happened in the long war between Ethiopia and Eritrean insurgents or between the government in Sudan and southern Sudanese insurgents; both intrastate conflicts ended with each insurgent side gaining their respective states.

Politics and Society in the Aftermath of COIN Victory A government military victory is not the end of the conflict; far from it. Governments must not fall into the trap of believing victory over an insurgent group means they can rest on their laurels. On the contrary, the difficulties may be just beginning. The postinsurgency period is underresearched. Resolving the conflict politically is as important, if not more so, as having won the war militarily. Moreover, considerable literature from the fields of security sector reform and reconciliation and reconstruction could be usefully mined to develop a model of what policies governments should adopt following victory over an insurgent organization so that chances of renewed conflict and war are minimized. Here are several distinct issues to be aware of when looking at government success in a postinsurgency environment. First, a government must work to remove the underlying grievances that led to the emergence of the insurgent cause to begin with. This means policies of reconciliation with and reintegration of the disgruntled community. It would definitely be wise to avoid a mood of triumphalism after defeat of an insurgency, particularly if the defeated side represented a visibly different ethnic or sectarian community. Triumphalism on the part of the victors deepens the sense of marginalization of the aggrieved and the differences between victor and defeated. By initially providing support to the LTTE and its ideology, a large segment of the Tamil community had, in effect, supported that organization’s decision to ‘‘exit’’ the existing state and establish its own entity or enclave in the north and more tenuously in the east.64 Others took a dramatic exit strategy that meant migration overseas. Some, of course, stayed to voice their political concerns within the system; their ineffectiveness at the center merely heightened the power of the exit strategy. However, the violent exit strategy collapsed with the defeat of the LTTE. This does not mean aspiration for an independent state is not

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still there among some of them (as among the vast diaspora); it means the capability is no longer there. It is the government’s task to ensure that both aspiration and capability to exit the state do not rear their heads again. This cannot be done by purely military means. Second, war is a phenomenon that strengthens the state and its coercive apparatus. This has been addressed in great detail by some of the greatest political science and sociological minds of the past century.65 Historical accounts of state-building emphasize the crucial contribution of war. Charles Tilly’s statement that ‘‘war makes states and states make war’’ is one of the best-known statements of modern political science in this regard, but other accounts also point to the fact that coercion and violence, as well as transformations of social structures due to war, have been the bedrock of state formation. But war may have an even more insidious aspect: strengthening not only the coercive apparatus itself but also a pervasive national security mindset that settles over a society, particularly if that society has been mired in a long war. It is not easy to dismantle such a structure, nor is it clear that those in power and who are savoring victory on the battlefield might actually want to roll back the vastly inflated state apparatus. Such an apparatus will have created interests and an extensive patronage network. Those in power might promote the national security mindset by protesting that this is the price of vigilance against the recrudescence of terrorism. Another insidious aspect of the vastly inflated national security state is the seemingly permanent state of exception imposed on society by a beleaguered government during a time of national emergency or war. World War I, for example, resulted in a permanent state of exception in the majority of the warring countries. On August 2, 1914, president Raymond Poincare´ of France issued a decree that put the entire country in a state of siege, and this decree was converted into law by parliament two days later. For nearly half its independent existence, Sri Lanka has been under the Emergency rule. As a result, a culture of repression and impunity has developed among security forces. Emergency, combined with special laws like the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), has virtually paralyzed the normal legal process by allowing for overriding, amending, or suspending any law except the provisions of the constitution. Sri Lanka, as I show in the pages that follow, has not moved away from the national security state or state of exception; on the contrary, it seems to be strengthening the nondemocratic elements of governance and furthering a culture of militarism.

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Third, the state must provide economic benefits and development assistance, particularly to devastated areas where the disgruntled community provided rebels with much of their support. However, a government must avoid the trap of thinking that economic benefits and development assistance alone will be enough to assuage the grievances of the disgruntled. It will not. Disgruntled peoples are not only or even primarily motivated by economic grievances. The satisfaction of basic or even the advanced material needs of people will not satisfy their desire for respect, identity, dignity, and their need to run their own lives within a state of which they remain a constituent element.

2 Background to War: State Formation and Identities in Conflict

Once upon a time, many decades ago, a famous French historian, a specialist on the history of the British Isles, was said to start every lecture with the pronouncement: ‘‘Mesdames et messieurs, la Grande Bretagne est un ˆıle’’ (‘‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Great Britain is an island’’). Sri Lanka, like Britain, is an island, and like Great Britain, its history has been shaped by its geography. India, Sri Lanka’s very large neighbor— perceived by Sri Lanka as overbearing and prone to interfering in the small country’s affairs—has also had a profound influence on its history.1 Ceylon, as it was called until 1972 when the name was changed to Sri Lanka (‘‘Resplendent Island’’), was at one time home to indigenous civilizations of which we know little. These civilizations faded in the face of waves of powerful invaders and settlers from the Indian subcontinent: the Aryans from the northern extremity and the Dravidians from the southern part. These two peoples established highly developed and cultured civilizations that, however, weakened over the course of time, allowing Western powers a foothold on the island from 1505 onward, when the first great European seafaring people, the Portuguese, arrived. They were superseded by the Dutch, and the Dutch in turn succumbed to the British, who were in the process of establishing a hegemonic maritime empire. Britain seized control over the island at the turn of the nineteenth century and stayed until 1948. Ceylon experienced one of the longest spans of European control over a non-European territory: 450 years. It had an impact.2

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A Plural Society That ethnic pluralism is a factor in the conflict in Sri Lanka is unquestioned.3 Sri Lanka is a multiracial and multireligious society. Of the total population of ten million, 74 percent are ethnically Sinhalese, descendants of the Indo-Aryan invaders from the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. The Sinhalese are overwhelmingly Buddhist in religious orientation, though there is a small Christian minority of 4 percent. (Other minorities are discussed briefly below.) Historical narratives are important, but they are often not accurate, as they incorporate historical myths. In this context, it is important to address the respective narratives of the two feuding communities, the Sinhalese and the Sri Lankan Tamils. It has been said that one can understand a nation or a people by examining their literature, or more specifically their national epic, if they have one, because it is in each people’s particular literature or epic that we can uncover the construction of their historical origins, values, fears, hopes, and aspirations. A reading of the great Iranian national epic, the Shahnameh, for example, provides the expert on Iranian culture and history a great deal of insight into that ancient people. The Sinhalese national epic is the Mahavamsa (‘‘The Great Genealogy’’), which purports to narrate how the Sinhalese arose as a people and how Buddhism came to the island hundreds of years ago. The arrival of the Indo-Aryans in the fifth century B.C.E. has been endowed with profound mythological significance by the island’s Sinhalese majority. The Sinhalese are among the descendants of the Aryan invaders into India from the central steppes of Russia. Some of these people stayed in northern India, while others continued south and crossed over into Ceylon around the sixth century B.C.E.4 The specific ‘‘story’’ of civilization in the historical narrative of the Sinhalese begins with the arrival of the Aryan nobleman Vijaya and his small group of companions or followers from northern India. Vijaya was the Remus and Romulus of the Sinhalese people. The Sinhala language is Indo-Aryan by origin, but spoken only in Sri Lanka, as the Sinhalese are sometimes overly fond of pointing out. As important as the ethnic and linguistic foundation mythology is the deep association of the Sinhalese people with Theravada Buddhism. Theravada Buddhism is one of the two principal branches of Buddhism, the other being Mahayana Buddhism. The former is doctrinally conservative, reflected

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in its tendency toward a cautious interpretation of the Buddhist canon. The goal of the adherent of Theravada Buddhism is to become an arhat, a sage who has achieved nirvana and will never be reborn. The arhat focuses on his own salvation. The Mahayana branch subscribes to the figure of the bodhisattva, the individual who has attained enlightenment and then out of compassion helps others toward salvation. According to the Mahavamsa, the entry of the Buddhist religion into Ceylon occurred during the reign of Devanampiya Tissa (250–210 B.C.E.), a contemporary of the great Mauryan emperor Asoka whose emissary to the island, Mahinda (son or brother of Asoka), converted Tissa to the new faith. Within a short time after the completion of Mahinda’s mission, Buddhism emerged as the established religion of the island; its spread spurred the process of political unification of most of the island. The Sinhalese identity in Sri Lanka derives from the three intertwined notions of ethnicity, language, and religion. In this context, the Sinhalese were able to develop the twin ideas of Sihadipa—(Sri Lanka as) the island of the Sinhalese people—and Dhammadipa—(Sri Lanka as) the island of the teachings or doctrines of the Buddha. The Mahavamsa records the rise and fall of ancient Sinhalese kingdoms that protected and promoted the religion as part of the Sinhalese national identity. The Sinhalese adhere to this construct deeply and strenuously because; although they may be the majority in Sri Lanka, they see themselves as a distinct minority in a sea of Dravidian Hindu Tamils. They are united by ethnicity, language, and to a great extent religion. There is, however, a clear difference between the ‘‘Kandyan’’ (central highland) and ‘‘low-country’’ (coastal) Sinhalese. The kingdom of Kandy in the inaccessible terrain of the highlands defied foreign powers for hundreds of years and remained independent until 1818. Its longevity meant that conservative cultural and social structures and thought remained intact for a long period of time. When the British took over the kingdom, the English language made little headway among the population, and traditional Buddhist education remained a key force in the preservation of the Sinhala culture in the interior. Subsistence agriculture was the main economic activity in the interior, and most needs of the population were met locally; Kandyans haughtily refused to work for the foreigner. In the interior, almost all the Sinhalese remained Buddhist, and the Goyigama (cultivator/landowner) caste was at the top of the social hierarchy, as reflected in its control over land and political power.

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The situation in the plains and on the coast was very different. These regions were open to European political penetration and experienced great change during 400 years of European rule. Substantial numbers of coastal people, especially among the Karava5 fishing caste, converted to Christianity as a result of the determined missionary efforts of the Portuguese, Dutch, and British. The European powers introduced a cash economy and modern bureaucratic infrastructure. Social mobility based on economic opportunity or service to the colonial governments allowed entire castes in the coastal regions and lowlands to move up in the social hierarchy (in contrast with the past, when caste hierarchies were rigidly fixed). Economic mobility allowed castes like the Karava and Salagama (cinnamon peelers) to challenge the traditional dominance of the Goyigama, setting the stage for the emergence of social hierarchies defined by class rather than by caste. The Tamils are of Dravidian stock from southern India. They are mainly concentrated in the northern and eastern provinces, but there are substantial numbers in the capital city, Colombo. Sri Lankan Tamils, descendants of the Dravidian invaders from southern India, constitute 12.7 percent of the total population. They are overwhelmingly Hindu by religion, but again there is a small Christian minority. The Sri Lankan Tamils trace their history on the island to at least the third century B.C.E. The Tamil dynasties of Pandya, Pallava, and Chola in southern India invaded the island numerous times from the second century B.C.E. to the sixth century C.E. Again like the Sinhalese, the Tamils are not a monolithic community. Sri Lanka’s Tamils have been divided by caste and regional rivalries. The preeminent caste in the Jaffna Peninsula was the Vellalars, the agricultural cultivators and landowners, the equivalent of the Sinhalese Goyigama caste. Their dominance in Tamil society has been longstanding, but with the entry of colonial powers into Ceylon it was further entrenched. Their position was codified by the second European power to appear in Ceylon: the Dutch. The Dutch colonial authorities allowed Vellalars to own slaves and indentured servants. The British followed the age-old tactic of colonial powers by co-opting the local ruling class, in this instance the Vellalars, as their agents. However, the British, in a fit of moralism in the mid-nineteenth century, outlawed all kinds of slavery in their empire. The Vellalars lost their slaves and indentured servants but remained important landowners.

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The rise of Western education, coupled with the opening of the colonial administration to native applicants (see below), provided new opportunities to maintain their dominance in Tamil society. Lacking access to land or public positions, Tamils from other castes often took to smuggling, particularly easy for the fishermen members of the Karava caste. Velvettithurai, birthplace of Vellupillai Prabhakaran, was its hub. Indian Tamils, whose ancestors were brought by the British in the nineteenth century to work on the coffee, tea, and rubber plantations, constitute 5 percent of the population. Traditionally the most marginalized group, they were viewed with suspicion by Sinhalese, looked down on by native Tamils, and played little or no role in the civil war. The Muslim minority, just over 9 percent, trace their origins to Arab, Persian, Malay, and Indian seafarers who settled in the island centuries ago. The vast majority speak Tamil but identify themselves as a distinct monotheistic religious group. During the civil war they sided with the government against the LTTE, which killed or forced eviction of thousands of Muslims from the North. It can be safely stated that while there are Sinhalese and Tamils who are Christian, no Sinhalese is born a Hindu, and no Tamil is born a Buddhist. This does not mean that the conflict is defined by religious strife of the kind between Roman Catholics and Protestants that devastated Christendom; it is not a conflict between Buddhism and Hinduism. It is clear, however, that religion has strongly influenced each side’s nationalisms. This is particularly true of Sinhalese nationalism, which is strongly influenced by determination to make Theravada Buddhism the dominant religion on the island. Theravada Buddhism is also the dominant religion in Thailand and Burma, but Sri Lanka is the only home of the Sinhalese people and language. Ethnicity and culture/language, are crucial in the formulation of Sinhalese nationalism. Hinduism, contrary to general perception, has been important in the LTTE construction of Tamil nationalism, as evident in some LTTE symbolism, despite the focus on secular nationalism. The Colonial Period At the beginning of the modern age in the sixteenth century, Ceylon caught the attention of the rising European maritime powers and seafarers, among them the Portuguese, who were then plying the Indian Ocean in search of new lands and riches. When the Portuguese arrived in Ceylon in 1505, the island was divided into three kingdoms. There were two Sinhala kingdoms:

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Kotte, based in the southwestern coastal region of the island, and Kandy, in the largely inaccessible highlands. There was also a Tamil kingdom based in Jaffna in the north. By 1594 the Portuguese had managed to secure control over the coastal kingdom, and in 1619 they succeeded in annexing the Jaffna kingdom. Their success was due to their ability to bring superior land and naval power to bear against the locals. The kingdom of Kandy was a different matter altogether. Attempts to march into the central highlands, the Kandyan center of gravity, were met by ferocious resistance by the Kandyans, whose soldiers waged brutally effective insurgency against the advancing foreigners.6 The superior military capabilities of the Portuguese were nullified by the terrain, the weather, and the hit-and-run tactics of the Kandyan soldiers.7 One contemporary Portuguese observer captured in detail the nature of the combat terrain in the region around Kandy: Marching is as difficult and as dangerous as are the battles; for the roads or rather the paths are closed up and narrow, notwithstanding that always numbers of pioneers with picks and spades are sent in front to clear the way. The Companies cannot march as in Europe in fours or fives abreast but in Indian file—one after another— because of obstructions. They travel on foot; for the country is so overgrown with jungle and so full of swamps that horses cannot be used: the force therefore consists only of infantry. The soldiers wear no armor to speak of: their ordinary arms are arquebuses, short spikes, and bows and arrows, and for close quarters some have small broadswords which are called calachhurros.8 The Portuguese were thus prevented from using their cumbersome artillery, which would have wreaked havoc with the Kandyans. The Portuguese faced numerous rebellions because of their ferocious persecution of the Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim populations of the island. The Portuguese focused their attention on the Muslims because of the ageold conflict between Christianity and Islam in the Mediterranean and the Portuguese memory of the centuries-long Muslim control of the Iberian Peninsula, which had only recently been completely recovered for Christendom. The Portuguese promoted Roman Catholicism, and the result was the implantation of Christianity on the island. During the sixteenth century, Portuguese missionaries established one hundred schools designed to

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foster Roman Catholicism.9 Even the native upper classes adopted Portuguese as their official language, and many took Portuguese names, a phenomenon reflected among modern Sri Lankan families with the names Silva, Perrera, Costa, and Fernando.10 The Portuguese were eventually supplanted by their rivals, the Dutch, who were more aggressive commercially and more skillful in naval power. The Dutch were mainly interested in trade and commercial activity; they did not have the missionary zeal of the Portuguese in promoting religion at the expense of making money. However, they despised Roman Catholicism and discriminated against Catholics. When they took over the island in 1656, they set up a well-organized system of primary schools to support the proselytizing activities of the Dutch Reformed Church. By 1760 the Dutch had established 130 schools with nearly 65,000 students. Despite officially frowning on interracial unions, Dutch men were not averse to taking local women as wives or partners; the descendants of these mixed unions, once a thriving community but now reduced by mass emigration, known as Burghers, now constitute barely 1 percent of the population of Sri Lanka.11 Dutch colonial control over Ceylon proved short-lived. The Dutch found themselves unable to stave off what was to emerge as the most powerful empire of the nineteenth century—the British. Britain’s commercial and maritime activities had grown by leaps and bounds in the eighteenth century, and were increasingly protected by what was to emerge as the world’s most powerful naval force, the British Royal Navy. In 1801, the Dutch ceded Ceylon to the British. Through a process of gradual and steady conquest, the island, including the hinterland, came under British control, but not without some initial difficulties. The British faced a major revolt on the part of the refractory Kandyan kingdom in 1803; unable to subdue the Kandyans by conventional means, the British found themselves ensnared in a counter-guerrilla campaign that lasted two years. The British even suffered a significant defeat at the battle of Vatapuluva, on the banks of the Mahaweli River, from which only four British military personnel managed to escape.12 The war petered out, but the British spent considerable effort developing a competent level of knowledge of the culture, politics, and internal rivalries of the Kandyan political elite. This intelligence was to stand them in good stead when they reembarked on a campaign to bring the interior under control. By 1815 the British had managed to subdue the kingdom of Kandy with the help of rebellious noblemen, effectively bringing the whole island under

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control of a single power for the first time since the twelfth century. The agreement by which the Kandyan kingdom was ceded to the British, known as the Kandyan Convention, was signed on March 2, 1815; it resulted in the deposition of the king, the subordination of the kingdom to British control, and a British promise to maintain intact the laws, customs, and (Buddhist) religion of the kingdom. This was a profound event in the island’s history, because it broke the links between the state and the Buddhist religion (‘‘disestablishment’’), much to the chagrin of the clerical establishment, for whom the power of the state had provided protection and patronage. The nobility and clergy, who had not realized the profound implications of asking the British to help against their former king, became disgruntled by their subordination and rose up in a significant rebellion in 1817–1818, which the British easily crushed.13 This was the last serious armed opposition to the British in Ceylon. Britain remained in Ceylon until 1948; the longevity of its rule over the island left a solid imprint on its history, culture, and politics. While the British presence had some positive attributes, it also contributed in no small measure to many of the political problems that the island was to subsequently face. In 1829 the British Colonial Office sent a Royal Commission of Eastern Inquiry, the so-called Colebrooke-Cameron Commission, to assess the overall political and socioeconomic conditions on this recently acquired colony. The two men after whom the commission was named proposed reforms that were both innovative and radical. In the economic domain the commissioners recommended the elimination of state interference in the economy. They opposed mercantilism, state monopolies, and discriminatory administrative regulations. Instead, they proposed a laissezfaire economy in which the state would play a minimal role. The commissioners also worked to end the administrative division of the island along ethnic and cultural lines into low-country Sinhalese, Kandyan Sinhalese, and Tamils. They proposed that the island be put under one uniform administrative structure to be divided into five provinces. They based their thinking on the belief that separate administrative structures encouraged social and cultural parochialism and divisions that would be hard to manage in the future. One of the commissioners also boldly proposed that the judicial system be extended to all classes of people, offering everyone equal rights under the law. The commissioners also put forward the novel proposal that the exclusively British character of the administration be changed, and recommended that the civil service be opened to locals. The

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commissioners favored the decentralization of executive power, because they argued that the governor had too much power. They recommended stripping away many of the autocratic powers vested in the governor and replacing his advisory council, which he controlled, with an Executive Council, which would include both official and unofficial nominees. The Executive Council would appoint members of the Legislative Council, which would function as a forum for discussion of legislative matters. In 1833 three members of the fifteen-member Legislative Council were Ceylon natives. The governor had nominated them to represent Sinhalese, Burghers, and Tamils. These political changes in Ceylon were revolutionary and remarkable; they were far ahead of their time, and more liberal and progressive than any measures implemented by the British in a nonwhite colony at the time. One of the most far-reaching British gifts was an education system in which English became the primary language. Prior to the ColebrookeCameron Commission, the British authorities in Ceylon did not think educating the ‘‘natives’’ was within the purview of the colonial state. The task was left to Christian missionaries, whose primary purpose was to ‘‘christianize’’ the heathens and ‘‘instill some morality and ethics’’ into them to make them better human beings. This changed after the Commission called for standardization of the educational curriculum and advocated substitution of English for local languages. A large number of schools whose language of instruction was English were built, and the missionary schools, which had previously taught in the vernacular, also adopted English. Furthermore, with the emergence of a capitalist economy and the increased size of the administrative and bureaucratic machinery of state, the recruitment of locals educated in the English language to man the low-level and clerical positions became pressing. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the government-funded and Christian schools had expanded rapidly, though they still catered to only a small class of locals. In 1870 the schools’ combined student totals were less than 20,000, which reflects that the educated sector was a small and defined elite. As the nineteenth century drew to a close, the government began to expand the number of state-run schools and instituted a program of grants for private schools that met official standards of instruction. Medical and law schools were set up in Colombo. A disproportionate number of missionary schools were set up in the Jaffna Peninsula. Access to English missionary schools opened the door to employment in the government sector

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and other professions like medicine, engineering, and accounting for Tamils from the north. It is noteworthy that by 1885, of 819 schools in the country, 300 were in Jaffna, where the Tamils were in the clear majority. This meant that 40 percent of total expenditure on education was spent on about 5 percent of the population. The Tamils also dominated in higher education. When the Colombo Medical College was set up in 1872, approximately half the students were from Jaffna. Similarly, when the Technical College and Colombo University College were established in 1902 and 1921, Tamils made up more than 50 percent of the student body. Tamils thus benefited from the educational opportunities more than the Sinhalese, particularly those of the interior regions of the south, and began to occupy proportionately more positions in the government and bureaucracy. Most Tamils who made it into the modern middle class were from Vellalar families, many of whom migrated to Colombo, where the best opportunities in both public and private sectors lay.14 By the time Ceylon gained independence, all major civil services and military were dominated by Tamils. For instance, the first native commander of the Ceylon military (Ceylon Defense Force), Major-General Anton Muttukumaru, OBE, and of the navy, Rear-Admiral Ranjan Kadirgamar, were ethnic Tamils. Modern education was not the only benefit of the British colonial presence. British rule also brought about a major transformation in the political economy of the island: the development of the transportation network. Roads and railroads facilitated the formation of a market economy, which in turn facilitated the emergence of new capitalist classes.15 The major changes the British wrought were bound to have an impact on the indigenous inhabitants. Sinhalese and Tamil political consciousness and identity underwent radical changes in the nineteenth century; they came to know nationalism, so to speak. Attributes like language, race, religion, and even skin color—the Sinhalese, often but not always lighter-skinned than the Tamils, imbibed notions of Aryanism and Aryan heritage—were transformed into fundamental features of identification.16 The emergence of secular nationalist ideologies meant that people began to see themselves as Tamil, Sinhalese, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, or Muslim. Moreover, communities began to inquire into the historical past of the country, to see ‘‘real’’ differences rather than commonalities between communities, thus promoting ethnic distinctions. They also began to question the colonial presence on the island. Unsurprisingly, a nationalist backlash against the British domination was only a matter of time.

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One important result of the Sri Lankan experience with colonialism was the conflict it created between the intruding Western culture and Buddhism.17 As mentioned previously, the intrusion of British power broke the traditional link between state and religion, especially after the subjugation of the Kandyan kingdom in 1815. The 2,000-year bond was erased, leading to the disestablishment of Buddhism as the state religion. The Sinhalese were incensed, regarding the disestablishment as a direct assault on their heritage and culture. The relationship between the ruler and Theravada Buddhism, particularly the clerical establishment, was an important element of royal ideology, dating to the first century A.D. Separation of state and religion led to regular protests by Buddhist activists. The 1848 Matale rebellion had distinct religious overtones, as some rebel leaders articulated their resentment over the British role in eliminating the links between state and religion. Several minor rebellions in later years were organized and led by Buddhist clerics, the Bhikkhus; the British had no problems quelling them, and for a time the religious Sinhalese were quiescent. Sinhala Buddhist revivalism reemerged in the mid-nineteenth century in connection to an anti-Christian movement led by the Buddhist clergy, alarmed by the inroads Christians had made in Ceylon.18 The forces of ‘‘print capitalism’’ greatly enhanced the proselytizing mission of Christian missionaries and allowed them to win many locals away from the indigenous religions. In 1849–1861, for example, it was estimated that more than one and a half million missionary tracts and pamphlets were in circulation in Ceylon.19 Buddhist resentment also increased due to the colonial government’s failure to safeguard the privileges and schools of the Buddhist clergy.20 Finally, the Buddhist revivalist movement also developed partly as a result of the expanding role of the Tamil community in political, educational, and cultural institutions, which spurred the emergence of a ‘‘minority complex’’ among the Sinhalese.21 The emergence of an anti-Christian revivalist movement contributed to shaping Sinhalese national consciousness and identity, with the Buddhist monks playing an important role in the shaping process. One Sri Lankan academic has written that ‘‘ideally, and perhaps in the earliest culture of Buddhism, the monk was a person who renounced material goods and lived on the generosity of the householder, devoting all his time to the quest for liberation from the cycle of birth and death.’’22 But this ideal does not reflect the state of affairs in nineteenth-century Ceylon, where many from within the Sangha (a Buddhist order of monks) began promoting pointedly

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political and social roles for the monks. This Buddhist revivalism was to have a significant impact on the evolution of politics into the present, and may well do so into the coming years with not so positive results for national integration, as I show below. The Buddhist reaction to the presence of the foreigners, their ideas, and their faiths was best exemplified by Don David Hewaviratana, aka Anagarika Dharmapala (Homeless Defender of the Dharma). Often considered the father of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism, he urged Buddhists, particularly those who had imbibed Western cultural mores, to subscribe to a culture consistent with Buddhist philosophy and teaching. He promoted the myth of a once glorious Buddhist state governed by righteous and enlightened kings. In such a society the people had the utmost respect for the monks, whose job was to cultivate wisdom and moral conduct.23 Despite his disdain for Christianity and its presence on the island, Dharmapala viewed Christian missionaries as a model for a revitalized and politically active Buddhist clergy.24 The Buddhist monk, he argued, was a social worker dedicated to uplifting the community; he was also to advise rulers—indeed, make and unmake rulers if need be—and actively promote the defense of a Buddhist Ceylon. Dharmapala hated foreigners and was particularly derogatory about the British and Muslim presence on the Buddhist island. Nor did he care much for the Dravidian Tamils, in his view clearly inferior to the Aryan Sinhala people. The following passage is one of many examples of how he articulated his fiercely held racial nationalism: This bright, beautiful island was into a Paradise by the Aryan Sinhalese before its destruction was brought about by the barbaric vandals. Its people did not know irreligion. . . . Christianity and polytheism [Hinduism] are responsible for the vulgar practices of killing animals, stealing, prostitution, licentiousness, lying and drunkenness. . . . The ancient, historic, refined people, under the diabolism of vicious paganism, introduced by the British administrators, are now declining slowly away.25 Anagarika Dharmapala was a racist but is treated with veneration by Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese, as is reflected in the numerous books about him, the massive volume of his collected works and speeches, and finally, the celebratory editorials in newspapers on the anniversary of his death. Against this background, in the early twentieth century, Buddhist organizations such as the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress (ACBC) and Sinhalese

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nationalist politicians pressed for restoration of Buddhism to the status of state religion. Dharmapala’s ideas about the role of the clergy and his xenophobic nationalism were further developed by Buddhist scholar and one-time chancellor of Kelaniya University Dr. Walpola Sri Rahula. Famous for his works on Buddhism and in particular his political tract The Heritage of the Bhikkhu, Walpola expounded at length on the idea that monks must play a political role by conferring legitimacy on rulers, advising them, and defending the Buddhist state from its enemies. He was adamant that Ceylon was the home of the Sinhalese Buddhist people.26 Walpola never shied away from expressing his views, and he did so in a strident manner in an interview in 1996 with the Colombo-based Sunday Times. When journalist Roshan Peiris asked him whether negotiations should be opened with the LTTE at the time, Walpola was unapologetic and unequivocal about his views: Get this straight and quote me. Sri Lanka is a Buddhist Sinhala country. Let no one make a mistake. Seventy percent of the country consists of Buddhist and Sinhala people. Also make this clear that Sri Lanka is the only Buddhist Sinhala country in the world. If we don’t live here, are the LTTE and some of the Tamil Parties asking us to jump into the sea? I got angry with Mr. Premadasa [Sri Lankan prime minister] because he chose to call Sri Lanka a multi-national and multireligious state. No, it is a Buddhist Sinhala State but we show no discrimination to other races or religions.27 This is a singularly unpleasant expression of majoritarianism and an exclusive claim to a country; and the fact that it seems to be the prevailing sentiment among many Sinhalese people, including those in the government, bothers Western officials and policymakers a great deal. A senior diplomat of a major Western European country expressed his consternation that Sri Lanka under the Rajapaksas had a ‘‘native’’ that is, a mono-ethnic, fiercely nationalistic government.28 The March Toward Independence As noted earlier, the British had set Ceylon up for success. As one political economist put it, At independence in 1948, Ceylon (the British-colonial name for the island until 1971) was by far the most prosperous country in South

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Asia, and much more prosperous than most other Asian countries. Per capita income was a fifth higher than the south Asian average. Ceylon’s wealth had been built on the export of plantation crops, the foundations for which were laid in the 1820s and ’30s by an early British governor, Sir Edward Barnes. The British lavished attention on the island. When Leonard Woolf (future husband of Virginia Woolf) was a colonial administrator in Ceylon in the first decade of the twentieth century, there were over 200 British officials governing a population of about three million—compared with fewer than 1,000 members of the covenanted Indian Civil Service ruling a population of several hundred million. From the 1920s the British nurtured a local political elite to assume the responsibilities of home rule.29 However, Ceylon witnessed major political developments in the first half of the twentieth century, which propelled the island toward self-governance and eventual independence. Many of the problems that were to afflict the country in the postcolonial era were the direct result of events during this period, despite the well-orchestrated and calm transition to independence in 1948, in contrast with the sanguinary partition of the Indian subcontinent to the north and Burma to the northeast. In the decades before independence, the island was characterized by a major social division along lines of class and caste. A large, Western-educated, English-speaking, multiethnic elite—both Sinhala and Tamil, mainly Christian and from high caste and wealthy families—dominated society. The fact that this elite had a common language, English, was of critical importance in providing cohesion and a sense of purpose, and it allowed them to communicate easily in all facets of public and private life. They were secular and modernist in orientation, and promoted a multi-ethnic, democratic Ceylon. While they pushed for further loosening of colonial control over the island, this did not mean they were keen to promote mass nationwide popular participation in the political process. They did not trust the masses and lower classes to believe in the values and mores they themselves had developed as an educated elite. Indeed, the upper-class, educated elite looked down on the lower-class masses with undisguised contempt. The more the Ceylonese ruling class ‘‘mimicked’’ the white man, the less connection they had with the lower classes, and they wanted to keep it that way, which is why they viewed the entry of the dormant masses into politics with fear.

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Between 1911 and independence in 1948, this intercommunal elite struggled for, and achieved, gradual but significant reform and progress toward self-governance. In the aftermath of World War I, the elite, encouraged by the emergence of nationalist sentiment among subject peoples around the world and by the principle of the right to self-determination, formed the Ceylon National Congress (CNC) under Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam, a respected Tamil member of the elite. The CNC, a shadow of the Indian counterpart on which it was based, was supposed to constitute a partnership of all Ceylonese, who would use the organization as a vehicle to push for constitutional reforms. The Ceylonese elite could not stop the march of time and the development of mass-based politics. As the colony developed politically after World War I, interethnic unity at the top began to wear thin. Tensions began to surface, particularly between the majority Sinhala and the demographically smaller minorities, notably the Tamils. Ceylon’s constitutional politics in the early twentieth century witnessed the development of a pronounced Sinhalese nationalism. In 1931 the British implemented the Donoughmore Constitution, which brought about general elections and adult universal suffrage. The Donoughmore Commission wished to eradicate communalism from Ceylon, as was evident from the report itself, which stated that ‘‘Communal representation is . . . a canker in the body politic . . . breeding self-interest, suspicion and animosity, poisoning the new growth of political consciousness, and effectively preventing the development of a national corporate spirit.’’30 Ironically, by promoting universal suffrage and allowing the masses to become politically enfranchised, the Commission’s recommendations opened the door for the demographic weight of the majority Sinhalese population to make itself felt. Before the introduction of universal suffrage in 1931, the Burghers, Moors, Christians, Indians, and Ceylon Tamils were able to ensure that their minority status was protected. This meant that the majority Sinhalese Buddhists were overwhelmingly underrepresented. When communal representation was abolished and replaced by adult universal suffrage in 1931, it was, of course, heavily opposed by the minorities, based on the fear that with implementation of universal suffrage they would be politically swamped by the enfranchised Sinhalese majority. The emergence of universal suffrage led to the breakdown in the multiethnic elite consensus. As Ceylon ‘‘democratized,’’ the Sinhalese leadership

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began to salivate at the prospect of a large constituency of politically enfranchised Sinhalese from the lower classes. Moreover, they began to show undisguised hostility toward Tamil demands for constitutional safeguards in a state dominated by the majority. There were exceptions: far-sighted politicians who knew well that with universal franchise the majority could oppress the minority, and that this would cause serious problems in a multi-ethnic society. In this context, respected politicians like Dudley Senanayake were fervent exponents of what has been referred to as ‘‘civic nationalism,’’ which calls for neutrality with respect to ethnicity in the public institutions of the state and the policies passed in the lawmaking institutions. All individual citizens were to ‘‘direct their political loyalty to the state, rather than to their ethno-cultural groups.’’31 Laws were to apply equally to all citizens. Civic nationalism would not allow for provision of extensive political rights to defined groups; furthermore, open and direct political organization of parochial ethnic and religious interests would be discouraged. The United National Party formed the first independent government in Ceylon; its dominant position remained unchallenged until 1956. The UNP was a center-right party that believed in the virtues of a capitalist economic system. It was led by politicians devoted to a pluralistic notion of nationalism, one that encompassed all the communities that made up the island’s population. These politicians came from the landed aristocracy and professional, white-collar classes; many had been educated in Britain and greatly admired the mother country’s parliamentary system of government. The prominent families of Ceylon—the Senanayakes, Goonetillekes, and Bandaranaikes—were well represented in the higher political elite, particularly the UNP leadership. The party cautiously led Ceylon to independence without violence or the need to create a mass political movement. Shortly after independence, the Soulbury Constitution, modeled after the Westminster Parliament, was legally implemented. Section 29(2)b provided constitutional guarantees against legislation that would discriminate against minorities; Section 29(2)c declared that no law enacted by parliament shall ‘‘confer on persons of any community or religion any privilege or advantage which is not conferred on persons of other communities or religions.’’ With independence in 1948, the UNP sought to present itself as a nation-building party that welcomed people of all creeds and beliefs into its ranks. However, its all-embracing nationalism had an exception: it did

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not initially include the Indian Tamils. Almost immediately after independence, the new government passed the Ceylon Citizenship Act, which denied citizenship to almost one million Indian Tamils. This met with little protest from Ceylon Tamils, for whom Indian Tamils were a distant and alien minority living in their isolated plantations. However, unfortunately for Ceylon’s future, politics definitely became ‘‘communalized’’ or ethnic not long after independence. Initially, the country seemed destined to consolidate and perpetuate the British-style democracy bequeathed by the departing colonial power. With the onset of the 1950s, a revival of Sinhalese Buddhist cultural nationalism emerged, gathered steam, and moved to transform itself into a mass political movement. With independence, exclusionist nationalist discourse was used by conservatives and nationalists in the Sinhala community to gain wider political legitimacy among the lower-class and lower-caste Buddhist Sinhala communities. To paraphrase Lenin, the Sinhalese politicians began to realize that politics is where the masses are, and that these masses represented a potent raw political force. Colombo’s cosmopolitan politicians hurried to adjust themselves to this new mass politics. Their rhetoric turned to language to which they knew the masses would respond positively. These politicians began to accommodate the entry of the masses into politics. In 1951 a group of Sinhalese nationalists broke away from the UNP and founded the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) under Solomon Ridgeway Bandaranaike, a suave, well-educated Anglican from a wealthy and wellknown family. While he definitely had origins in Ceylon’s Anglicized colonial elite, Bandaranaike recognized the opportunity provided by the rise of Sinhalese mass politics and turned ‘‘native.’’ He converted to Buddhism and made an exclusive Sinhalese nationalism—along with some left-wing Fabian socialist ideas—the key plank of his party’s platform. One of the things that concerned the cultural nationalists was the dominance of English as the lingua franca. It was seen as the language of the colonial past and an era of politics that had been restricted to the well-educated upper classes. Beginning in 1948, the ruling elite believed English had to be replaced by Sinhalese and Tamil as the two official languages of the country. However, by the mid-1950s, the Sinhalese went chauvinist, so to speak, and began to promote only Sinhala. This chauvinism found official articulation in the Sinhala Only Language Act. In this context, the origins of the communal conflict in the post-independence period lie in the articulation of beliefs and values and the implementation of deliberate policies that

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enshrined Sinhala dominance in the nation-state. This promoted a counterreaction on the part of the Tamils, which graduated from politics to violence.

Education Policy and Standardization During the colonial era, education in Ceylon followed a strict hierarchy that deliberately fostered a pronounced elitism. The British established a number of high-grade English-language schools in and around Colombo, which emerged as the political and economic capital in the nineteenth century. The schools in Colombo catered to the wealthy sector of the population, especially European expatriates, Burghers, and Christian Ceylonese natives. These schools taught only in English, and their graduates dominated the civil service and colonial economy. The Christian Ceylonese and Burghers were greatly overrepresented in the best schools; this gave them access to prestigious occupations, such as those in the civil service. As late as 1948, Christians and Burghers held more than 21 percent of Ceylon Civil Service positions and 55 percent of high-ranking police officer positions despite constituting no more than 2 percent of the native population.32 When the British consolidated power over Ceylon, they allowed both British and American missionaries to play a key role in the education of the native population. Their missionary activities were concentrated in the north of the island, a region dominated by the Tamil community. The British encouraged the missionaries to work in the north because they feared their activities might stir up conflict in the Sinhalese-dominated south, particularly in the interior regions, which had been more successful in resisting foreign penetration and influence. In addition, although they rarely converted to Christianity, the Tamils were more receptive to missionary education, the primary tool the missionaries used to encourage conversion to Christianity. This receptivity appears to have been caused by the fact that precolonial Tamil education was more secularized than Sinhalese education, which was dominated by Buddhism—indeed, inseparable from it. Finally, several scholars have claimed that the Tamils were more receptive to Western education because they lived in dry, land-scarce regions with limited agricultural opportunities, factors that pushed them to pursue modern education to facilitate their quest for jobs in the administrative layers of the colonial government.

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As noted earlier, like the Christians and Burghers, the Tamils found themselves in a relatively advantageous situation in terms of education because of the concentration of missionary schools in the north.33 Jaffna, for example, had only 7 percent of the island’s total population at independence but 26 percent of the total school enrollment in English-language schools.34 The schools in the north had superior facilities and were among the best in the island. This situation continued after independence; for example, Jaffna had one school with scientific laboratories for every 3,869 students in 1980, compared with one for every 6,907 students in the rest of the island.35 First-class primary and secondary schooling allowed Tamils to excel at gaining entry into universities and particularly to secure places in the most coveted faculties: medicine, law, engineering, and the sciences. Thus in 1970 around 35 percent of university admissions to science faculties were Tamil, despite their comprising only 10 percent of the population; the percentages were even higher in engineering and medicine.36 With their superior education and tendency to excel, the Tamils were overrepresented in the white-collar professions during the colonial era and well after independence. In 1946, for example, they held 33 percent of the positions in the Ceylon Civil Service and 40 percent in the Judicial Service.37 The vast majority of the schools in the island were in the vernacular, most in Sinhalese areas. These schools were of poor quality, often lacking in resources and teachers. Moreover, they did not provide English-language education, and this ensured that they remained at the bottom of the hierarchy. Although a large percentage of the Tamil population received only vernacular education, the Sinhalese dominated this lowest tier of the education system. Their position caused considerable resentment among the Sinhalese majority and contributed to episodes of ethnic violence. The first instance, in 1883, involved Sinhalese attacks on Christians and Burghers largely out of resentment over their dominant socioeconomic position. In 1956 growing Sinhalese nationalism and rising competition between Sinhalese and Tamils for education and jobs pushed Sinhalese politicians to promote Sinhala as the only national language to improve the economic position of the hitherto disadvantaged majority community. Sinhalese resentment against perceived Tamil educational and economic advantages continued well after the government made Sinhalese the sole national language in 1956. In the 1970s the acrimony over education focused on university entrance. The massive expansion of education—due to construction of new

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schools, training of more teachers, and elimination of fees—enabled many families to send their children to school and caused a massive explosion in the Ceylonese student population. With the conclusion of secondary education, the young students eagerly awaiting higher education came face to face with a significant problem. The number of slots open to student enrollment in the university system remained limited. Education beyond the secondary level was highly elitist and limited to a few high-grade universities and colleges, with entry by very competitive examinations. University infrastructure did not witness the dramatic expansion primary and secondary education had experienced. Thus only a small percentage of graduating secondary school students wishing to attend university could do so. In 1965, 20 percent of applicants were admitted; the number declined to 11 percent in 1969.38 In an environment with high ethnic competition over jobs, politics, land, and other resources, competition over university entrance also gained an ethnic dimension. Historian C. R. de Silva notes: Education, especially university education, is a key channel of social mobility in most developing countries and hence the distribution of opportunities for higher education is often regarded as the distribution of future wealth, status and power. In countries like Sri Lanka where university education is available only to a small minority, the competition . . . becomes . . . intense. Further problems arise, when in the context of a plural society each ethnic and religious group tends to evaluate the ratio of university admissions obtained by its members as an index of equality of opportunity or of discrimination.39 Tamils were overrepresented in the most prestigious university faculties, gaining access through competitive national examinations. Students with the highest scores were accepted into the most prestigious programs. While such a procedure seemed very meritocratic, vocal nationalist factions in the Sinhalese community saw two problems with it. First, they claimed the Tamil scores were inflated. Because Sinhalese and Tamil students took their exams in different languages, Sinhalese examiners (usually university lecturers and professors) corrected the exams of Sinhalese students, and Tamil examiners (also lecturers and professors) corrected those of Tamil students. So far so good—this seems eminently logical. However, the Sinhalese claimed the Tamil graders inflated the scores of Tamil students and

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demanded that the government take action to remedy the situation.40 The Sinhalese claim may or may have not been true; the fact remains that Tamil graders had no reason to inflate the scores of the Tamil students, because these students were, indeed, better prepared than their Sinhalese counterparts due to the superb secondary education they had received. Second, it was a common belief in the Sinhalese community that Tamils had a relative advantage in education because of the privileged position they had gained during the colonial era. In this context, something had to be done to reverse this perceived unfair advantage. Many Sinhalese began to demand a type of affirmative action that would allocate university positions on the basis of ethnic quotas, thereby ultimately allowing the Sinhalese majority to get their fair share of university entrance slots. Under pressure from the nationalists, the government implemented various admission formulas, all of which privileged the Sinhalese over the Tamils. This policy was first put into place in 1971; by the mid-1970s the percentage of Tamils in the university plummeted so obviously as to be impossible to miss. The percentage of Tamils admitted into the science faculties declined from 35 percent in 1970 to 19 percent in 1975.41 The declines in engineering, medicine, and agriculture were even greater. One academic noted that in 1969, 48.9 percent of qualified Tamil students entered university; by 1983 the percentage had dropped to 21.3 percent, while the percentage of Sinhalese students entering university increased from 48.9 percent in 1969 to 72.8 percent in 1983.42 The flagrant government interference in university admissions outraged the Tamils and contributed enormously to the decision by Tamil youth to take violent political action. It was not a coincidence Tamil students organized the LTTE’s forerunner in the period in which admissions policy dramatically affected Tamil university admissions. For example, the admissions issue prompted the establishment of the Tamil Students Movement as a means of protesting the policy. Historian K. M. de Silva claims that no issue did more to radicalize the Tamil youth than the university admissions policies of the government: ‘‘Nothing has caused more frustration and bitterness among Tamil youth than this, for they regarded it as an iniquitous system deliberately devised to place obstacles before them.’’43 Even after the discriminatory admissions policy was revised in the late 1970s to increase Tamil admissions once again, the issue refused to go away. Tamils were now too embittered for the new policy to make much of a difference. The government reversal of the discriminatory admissions policy only managed,

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in turn, to outrage the Sinhalese. For their part, the Sinhalese nationalists felt that the government had caved in to Tamil pressure. Discussing the reaction within the Sinhalese community, de Silva wrote in 1984: Rumours were afloat that the pendulum had swung decisively in favour of the Tamils and that the Sinhalese had been reduced to a minority in terms of admissions to the prestigious science based faculties. One rumour held that few, or indeed, no Sinhalese students in some major state schools in Colombo, which normally sent numerous students to the university each year, had qualified for admissions in 1978–1979.44 Nonetheless, rumors notwithstanding, nothing could disguise the fact that by 1980 the ratio of Sinhalese occupying positions in the public sector had gone well above the their demographic weight in the total population. They occupied 85 percent of the jobs in the public sector, 82 percent in the professional and technical categories, and 83 percent in the administrative and managerial categories. The Tamils had dropped well below their proportional percentage.45 Their situation was worsened by the fact that, since they had little or no power at the center, they could not dispense patronage to their kith and kin or close political allies. These were monopolized by the Sinhalese because of their control of the public and private sectors. Well-known Tamil political commentator and activist Neelan Tiruchelvam, later assassinated by the LTTE, claimed that the Jayewardene government had ‘‘given’’ 140,000 jobs in 1978 to political allies, fewer than 1,000 of them to Tamils.46 To cap it all, the slow growth of the Sri Lankan economy in the 1970s due to stultifying socialist programs and market forces resulted in an economic crisis in the middle of the decade; this worsened ethnic tensions between the two main communities as both began to feel economically squeezed. The poor Sinhalese blamed the supposedly ‘‘privileged’’ Tamils; the Tamil community, now faced with a large pool of educated but unemployed youth alienated from the body politic, blamed Sinhalese chauvinism for the political ills of the country.47 Land Colonization Following independence the various governments in Colombo introduced a policy of population ‘‘redistribution,’’ which contributed to ethnic tensions

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between Sinhalese and Tamil communities.48 The thrust of the policy was to settle Sinhalese communities in the area known as the Dry Zone, a region considered by the Tamils to be part of their homeland and which was included by the LTTE in the areas that constituted Tamil Eelam. The Sinhalese felt that they had a right to settle in the Dry Zone because Sinhalese kings formerly had ruled significant parts of the region. The land colonization controversy dates back to the colonial era.49 Prior to independence the Donoughmore Commission recommended projects to improve agricultural areas in the Dry Zone so that landless peasants could acquire a piece of land to call their own. As early as 1933 the colonial government paid subsidies to peasants who would move to and farm in the Dry Zone. This would also serve to reduce population pressures in the heavily populated Wet Zone. After independence it became a high government priority to colonize the Dry Zone with landless Sinhalese peasants from the Wet Zone. The process started with an initial program to settle Sinhalese peasants in the jungles outside Trincomalee District. The government cleared the forests and built water tanks.50 This resettlement program resulted in a dramatic increase in the Sinhalese population in the district: from 11,606 in 1946 (15 percent of the total local population) to 85,503 (33 percent) by 1981. In the 1980s the government decided to settle 30,000 Sinhalese peasants in the Northern Province, much to the outrage of the Tamils. In other districts like Tamankaduwa, the changes were even more dramatic. In 1946 the district had a population of only 20,900 Sinhalese; by 1981 the population was 263,000, more than 70 percent settlers or their descendants.51 In Amparai, Batticaloa, Polonnaruwa, and Anuradhapura, the population changes were just as dramatic.52 The Sri Lankan state’s land colonization schemes were a source of great anger among the Tamils, particularly the militants, who felt it their duty to highlight this grievance. The LTTE cleverly exploited this in well-written press releases, brochures, and statements by senior leaders. One of the best examples, a pamphlet released by the LTTE Peace Secretariat, began: Land is an inherent part of a people. The relationship between land and people [is] complex. Beyond the need for food and living space, land has a mysterious psychological pull on a people. The existence of a people is strongly tied to the existence of their land. It is therefore no secret that one of the major weapons that will destroy a people is to deny them their land.53

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Land can be denied to a people in several ways, according to the pamphlet, including 1. Taking control of the governance of the people and their land. 2. Rewriting history in order to effectively erase people’s memories of their land. 3. Chasing people away from their land. 4. Settling others on the people’s land and giving these newcomers special treatment. The Sri Lankan government, argued the LTTE, has made extensive use of the last two methods to eradicate any Tamil connection to their traditional homeland. The Security Sector and Mono-Ethnicity The Sri Lankan security sector has not been extensively studied. This is odd in light of the impact of the protracted war between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE; moreover, the security sector in Sri Lanka has witnessed a massive expansion over the years and has faced severe insurrections, also in the southern part of the country, by radical Sinhalese youth on two separate occasions. The situation is slowly being remedied; more studies are appearing on the Sri Lankan military. This is helpful, as it enables the analyst to address its trajectory over the course of the LTTE insurgency and to describe organizational and cultural changes.54 The Ceylonese had an extensive and heroic military history in ancient times, but the country has not had such a distinguished modern military history. The local monarchies energetically fought off modern foreign invaders, but ultimately the island succumbed to the British, who managed to subdue the obstreperous Kandyan kingdom in 1818. The British created a colonial police force whose main purpose was to maintain public order and the authority of the colonial government. British officers occupied the top posts; to fill in the ‘‘lesser’’ executive ranks the British favored the ethnic minorities—Christian Sinhalese, Burghers, Tamils, and Muslims. The Sinhalese majority made up the non-officer ranks. Furthermore, according to one source, the British posted the soldiers ‘‘away from their homes, ordered frequent transfers, and housed them in bunkers apart from the community.’’55 The defense of the island was in the hands of the Empire, with the

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powerful Royal Navy ensuring the island’s security. The British did set up an infantry regiment in the 1860s and an established an all-volunteer Ceylon Defence Force (CDF) in 1910. World War I turned out to have little impact on the island, though some individual Ceylonese volunteered to serve with British forces in Europe. The CDF grew in size, and at the time of independence Ceylon had a small army—the Ceylon Light Infantry—and an embryonic navy and air force. The government inherited a military that was neither ethnically nor religiously representative of the population. Most of the officer corps— three-fifths—were recruited from Tamils, Burghers, and Christian Sinhalese.56 Christians were no more than 8 percent of the total population but about 50 percent of the officer corps. Tamils and Burghers were about 20 percent of the population and 40 percent of the officer corps. This patently unbalanced representation was the result of deliberate British policy. As in India and other colonies, the colonial government chose to favor certain minorities for law and order purposes. In addition, the better education of the ethnic and religious minorities gave them an advantage over the majority Buddhist Sinhalese. This imbalance was a source of intense disgruntlement among nationalist Sinhalese politicians. However, the first post-independence governments of Don Stephen Senanayake and Sir John Kotelewala made little or no move to fix it. With the mobilization of the Sinhalese majority in the 1956 elections, the nationalist government of S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike resolved to make changes. Initially, it faced major problems trying to fix the imbalance; the military was small and underdeveloped, and most commissions were filled. The officer corps was young and had virtually no one approaching retirement age. The government strategy was to slightly increase the size of the army and ensure that the commissions that opened went to Sinhalese. Less than a decade after independence, the government ensured that the pendulum swung in favor of the majority Buddhist Sinhalese community. Indeed, this group began to be overrepresented in the tiny armed forces even by the late 1950s, as reflected in the ethnic composition of the officer cadets sent to study at Sandhurst in Britain. Between 1957 and 1959, 72 percent of the candidates sent to Sandhurst were Sinhalese; in 1960 every cadet was Buddhist Sinhalese.57 National security was increasingly becoming a function of the majority community’s purposes and fears. In January 1962, several high-ranking military officers were arrested and accused of planning a coup d’e´tat. They

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had reportedly planned to ‘‘restore order’’ to a country beginning to witness severe ethno-sectarian fissures in the body politic by overthrowing the leftwing nationalist government and returning the more conservative UNP to office. The coup was foiled, but the government used the crisis as an opportunity to deepen its Buddhist Sinhalese credentials and lost no chance pointing out that all the coup plotters were Christian officers. The nationalist governments of the 1960s gradually succeeded in recasting the armed forces as a Buddhist Sinhalese entity. Recruitment at all levels became increasingly dominated by this majority community; and by mid1983, when the Tamil insurgency was launched, the Tamils accounted for less than 5 percent of all military personnel.58 Military training that had been conducted previously in a variety of languages was now limited to Sinhala and English. The regiments imbibed blatantly Buddhist Sinhalese nationalist motifs and historical memories. The Sinhalization of the armed forces continued under the UNP government of President Jayewardene. The retirement of the British-educated Tamil and Burgher officers gradually depleted the ranks of minority members. At the same time, the growing ethnic conflict acted to deter Tamils from volunteering for service in a military increasingly dominated by Sinhalese nationalism. It has been rightly pointed out that the Sri Lankan army is ‘‘an internal security force.’’59 It has never fought a foreign power and is unlikely ever to face one against which it could prevail. The nearest and biggest external threat to Sri Lanka is India, but in no way could Sri Lanka entertain the notion of a conventional defense doctrine against India. Moreover, Sri Lanka needed to call on India to help deal with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP, People’s Liberation Front) insurrections of 1971 and 1987, as well as the chronic Tamil insurgency. The JVP was founded in 1965 as a militant Marxist-Leninist party by disgruntled Sinhalese youths; as we will see, their intent was to bring about a socialist revolution by violence. The problem with the Sri Lankan security establishment is that it has evolved from the politically inspired and instrumentalist British policy of favoring the minorities to an institution that represents the power and interests of the dominant majority. Neither situation has been beneficial to the island nation. Of course, we cannot blame the British for their part in this. They were there not to create a Ceylonese national identity that would embrace all the autochthonous people of the island but to maintain colonial authority and legitimacy, and if this required pitting the ‘‘natives’’ against one another in competition for jobs and resources, so be it. When the Sinhalese-dominated

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state instituted its policy of affirmative action to right what it perceived as the wrongs of the past, one cannot blame them for seeking to reverse the skewed domination of the security services by minorities. However, in time the Sinhalese went too far and created a security apparatus that was almost totally Sinhalese.60 This was to prove a dangerous trend that aggravated interethnic tensions. When the situation in the north and east began to decline in the 1980s, the security forces came to be seen by the Tamils as a Sinhalese army of occupation. Furthermore, the influx of thousands of rural Sinhalese youth into the security establishment—men neither cosmopolitan nor educated, who viewed things simply though the lens of nation and race—has meant there is probably a deep-seated and persistent antiTamil chauvinism in these organizations. Moreover, the politics of many younger military personnel is probably shaped by their alleged adherence to the Sinhalese ultranationalist JVP and the inflammatory and politically dangerous rhetoric of political monks, ostensible men of religion, who have occasionally suggested that the army rebel against any government that concedes to Tamil demands such as meaningful devolution of power. Sinhalese anti-Tamil vigilantism was evident in the police force as early as 1961, when police officers fomented violent acts against Tamils engaged in peaceful political protests.61 This form of indiscipline became institutionalized in the police and armed forces. Clearly, while discrimination against Tamil entry into the security forces reflected the entrenched anti-minority policies of the decades following independence, the Sinhalization of the force by the 1970s contributed immensely to the deteriorating relations between the government and the Tamil community in the north and east. The Sinhalese security forces’ lack of understanding of and behavior toward the Tamils contributed to the outbreak of violence.

Sri Lanka’s Descent into Crisis The 1970s witnessed a downward spiral in Sri Lankan political and socioeconomic stability. Politics took on a coarse hue as unscrupulous politicians, both Sinhalese and Tamil—interested in garnering support from within their respective communities—accelerated their use of racist imagery and negative images of the ‘‘Other.’’ For the first twenty-five years of the republic’s existence, violent rhetoric and discriminatory ethnocentric

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legislation had done little to undermine the general public’s commitment to parliamentary democracy and peaceful elections. The disputes remained political, and ethnic animosities were kept in check. Nonetheless, ethnic rhetoric has implications, particularly when repeated year after year. It introduced a poisonous element into the body politic that ultimately became part of normal political discourse. Moreover, while the political leadership was occupying itself with racist rhetoric and socialist fantasies, the country’s economy was headed for collapse.62 The prices of key crops fell sharply in the 1960s; Prime Minister Bandaranaike’s ill-considered and inefficient socialist economic system ruined the economy. The populist and redistributive economic policies of the Bandaranaike years produced a welfare state that benefited the Sinhalese majority. Provisions included free health care and education, and extensive state subsidies on consumer goods and services. Total recurrent and capital expenditure on welfare services took up more than 25 percent of government expenditure in the 1950s and 1960s, and subsequently escalated further.63 From 1970 to 1977, the SLFP-led government pursued more radical policies of state intervention and import substitution. State planning, price controls, nationalization of the plantation sectors and other ‘‘commanding heights’’ of the economy, much higher restrictions on imports and inward investment, and rigid foreign exchange controls were the order of the day. The government’s professed objective was a self-reliant socialist economy. A distinct urban industrial bias effectively taxed domestic agriculture and exports. Trade as a proportion of GDP shrank by half between 1950 and 1975 (from 70 to 35 percent of GDP). State-owned industries accounted for 50 percent of employment and 60 percent of value added in the manufacturing sector. Sri Lanka had decidedly not followed the East Asian path of macroeconomic prudence and openness to the world economy (from selective opening in northeast Asia to free trade in Hong Kong and Singapore). The government also poured scarce capital into poorly thought out public works projects, including the grandiose Mahaweli River irrigation project. By the early 1970s Sri Lanka’s stultifying socialist economics had all but brought the economy to a halt. As conditions worsened, state enterprises had to be subsidized, strikers needed to be appeased by the promise of higher wages, and the poor received even larger welfare payments. The nation was bankrupt, and by the end of the 1970s around 25 percent of the population, irrespective of ethnic or religious origin, was unemployed. The

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Sinhalese blamed the Tamils and vice versa. Most of the unemployed were young, a group that has dreams and ambitions for the future. When such goals are suspected of being unattainable, governments tend to encounter problems from their young people, who are tempted to take matters into their own hands by mass collective social action. Such actions can take a peaceful or violent route depending on the circumstances, environment, and philosophy of the protestors. In Sri Lanka, many in the younger generation felt that parliamentary politics had failed. It was time to use the language of violence.

The JVP Insurrection In 1971 the disgruntled youth in the Sinhalese south rose up in fury.64 Many young Sinhalese had by now concluded that the nation’s socialism— introduced to benefit them specifically—had failed by being too halfhearted, and that parliamentary democracy was an obstacle in the way of a radical reordering of society. The ideology of the youth was a curious and incongruous mix of barely assimilated Marxist ideas and right-wing, antiTamil political venom. These young militants coalesced around the Jatika Chintanaya, the ‘‘National Ethos’’ or ‘‘Racial Ideology’’ advocated by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna , which in later years was to drop its left-wing ideas and emerge as a full-fledged ultra-right nationalist party. The JVP’s first leader, Rohana Wijeweera, was a medical student turned revolutionary. Under his leadership, the JVP set out to destroy all traces of non-Sinhalese culture on the island. In seeking to implement its bizarre mishmash of radical Marxist, right-wing spiritual ideas, and Luddite views, the JVP intended to eradicate all traces of Western technology, architecture, dress, and religion. The ‘‘mongrel’’ Tamil and Eurasian minorities would be driven out, and the supposedly pure Aryan blood of the Sinhalese race would be purified. Buddhism would be restored to its ancient prominence, and the island nation would return to its pristine agricultural selfsufficiency of the ninth century. To bring about this vision, there would have to be killing on a major scale. The JVP launched an insurrection that focused in large measure on killing ‘‘Westernized’’ Sri Lankans—politicians, policemen, and any Sinhalese who disagreed with the party’s ideology. The security forces

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responded as best they could, despite their lack of experience and manpower; the response of the government forces was marred by serious irregularities. The JVP brought much of the extensive wrath of the security forces on their heads through their own brutality. JVP members massacred scores of police officers and their families. The government set up paramilitary forces to engage in extrajudicial revenge killings. After a desperate struggle, the government suppressed the uprising at a cost of 10,000–20,000 insurgents’ and sympathizers’ lives.65 The remnants of the JVP went underground, to emerge a few years later. In 1971 the JVP made no attempt to appeal to any strata beyond the disgruntled youth who had an abundance of energy and dynamism but little prudence, experience, or skills. The bloody insurrection of 1971 created a culture of political violence. Some disgruntled groups began to think that violence paid; the government view was that counterviolence was the best way to respond to violent groups. Less than a decade later, Sri Lanka was to face an even more serious insurgency, this time by a disgruntled ethnic minority, the Tamils.

The Tamil Response to Sinhala Nationalism and the Majoritarian State In the years leading to independence, members of the Tamil political elite became actively involved in efforts to highlight the concerns and promote the interests of the community in a future self-governing nation. In fact, Tamil political activism had been apparent in the early 1920s with the Jaffna Youth Congress, a group with progressive ideas about a pluralist Ceylon. When the Soulbury Constitution was implemented in 1948, Tamil politicians were seriously worried by the fact that the protection of minority rights was not central to the document. In 1949 Tamil politicians founded the Federal Party under the aegis of S. G. Chelvanayakam. The party purported to represent the Tamils and undertook several efforts to ensure that a decentralized power structure was created in independent Ceylon. These efforts were met by strident opposition on the part of Buddhist Sinhalese clergy and mobilized Sinhalese pressure groups, which responded by pushing for an even more centralized state. From the 1950s onward, as the Sinhala elite secured their hold in government and state power, elite Tamils would attempt to curb the impulse to implement an exclusivist Sinhalese nationalism over the body politic. The designation of Sinhala as the only

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official language prompted the Federal Party to push for the BandaranaikeChelvanayagam Pact, which attempted to limit the damaging effects of the policy in the country. Sinhala Buddhist nationalist forces vehemently criticized the pact, forcing Bandaranaike to abandon it. Chelvanayagam would try again in 1965 with the newly elected UNP government headed by prime minister Dudley Senanayake. These attempts yielded a pact, but its tenets of services for Tamils and district councils would never be honored by the UNP, which prompted Chelvanayagam and the Federal Party to leave the government. The demand for a separate state emerged as a powerful ideological force among Tamils by the mid-1970s. In 1972 the government adopted a new constitution that accorded primacy to Buddhism; in one stroke it dissolved the separation between ‘‘church’’ and state, between sacred and profane. The relevant section declared that the ‘‘republic of Sri Lanka shall give to Buddhism the foremost place and accordingly it shall be the duty of the state to protect and foster Buddhism while assuring to all religions the rights guaranteed by section 18(1)d.’’66 The 1972 constitution resulted in the formation of the Tamil United Front (TUF), which in 1976 became the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and began to openly flirt with secessionism. In 1976 the TULF adopted the far-reaching Vaddokkodai resolution, which stated: Whereas, successive Sinhalese governments since independence have always encouraged and fostered the aggressive nationalism of the Sinhalese people and have used their political power to the detriment of the Tamils by— (a) Depriving one half of the Tamil people of their citizenship and franchise rights thereby reducing Tamil representation in Parliament, (b) Making serious inroads into the territories of the former Tamil Kingdom by a system of planned and state-aided Sinhalese colonization and large scale regularization of recently encouraged Sinhalese encroachments, calculated to make the Tamils a minority in their own homeland, (c) Making Sinhala the only official language throughout Ceylon thereby placing the stamp of inferiority on the Tamils and the Tamil Language,

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(d) Giving the foremost place to Buddhism under the Republican constitution thereby reducing the Hindus, Christians, and Muslims to second class status in this Country, (e) Denying to the Tamils equality of opportunity in the spheres of employment, education, land alienation and economic life in general and starving Tamil areas of large scale industries and development schemes thereby seriously endangering their very existence in Ceylon, (f) Systematically cutting them off from the main-stream of Tamil cultures in South India while denying them opportunities of developing their language and culture in Ceylon, thereby working inexorably towards the cultural genocide of the Tamils, (g) Permitting and unleashing communal violence and intimidation against the Tamil speaking people as happened in Amparai and Colombo in 1956; all over the country in 1958; army reign of terror in the Northern and Eastern Provinces in 1961; police violence at the International Tamil Research Conference in 1974 resulting in the death of nine persons in Jaffna; police and communal violence against Tamil speaking Muslims at Puttalam and various other parts of Ceylon in 1976—all these calculated to instill terror in the minds of the Tamil speaking people, thereby breaking their spirit and the will to resist injustices heaped on them, (h) By terrorizing, torturing, and imprisoning Tamil youths without trial for long periods on the flimsiest grounds, (i) Capping it all by imposing on the Tamil Nation a constitution drafted, under conditions of emergency without opportunities for free discussion, by a Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of the Soulbury Constitution distorted by the Citizenship laws resulting in weightage in representation to the Sinhalese majority, thereby depriving the Tamils of even the remnants of safeguards they had under the earlier constitution. The resolution concluded by issuing the momentous declaration that the Tamils of Ceylon by virtue of their great language, their religions, their separate culture and heritage, their history of independent existence as a separate state over a distinct territory for several

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centuries till they were conquered by the armed might of the European invaders and above all by their will to exist as a separate entity ruling themselves in their own territory, are a nation distinct and apart from Sinhalese and this Convention announces to the world that the Republican Constitution of 1972 has made the Tamils a slave nation ruled by the new colonial masters, the Sinhalese, who are using the power they have wrongly usurped to deprive the Tamil Nation of its territory, language, citizenship, economic life, opportunities of employment and education, thereby destroying all the attributes of nationhood of the Tamil people.67 The resolution notwithstanding, the inability of moderate Tamil political groups to make headway in getting the state to address community grievances resulted in the Tamil groups’ own extremist politics. Sri Lankan government obtuseness continued unabated in the face of the growing threat by extremist elements in the Tamil nationalist movement. The revised constitution of 1978, which also created a powerful executive presidency, went even farther. Article 9 directed the state ‘‘to protect and foster the Buddhist Sasana’’ (doctrine and institutions). The centralized power of the executive branch was also detrimental to Tamil interests. The executive presidency marked the removal of the last few checks and balances on the most senior government post, leaving it open to autocratic rule. The 1982 presidential elections were boycotted by the TULF, and pressure from the growing ranks of Tamil extremists resulted in relatively low voter turnout in Jaffna. Increasing ethnic tension and the refusal of TULF members to recite an oath of loyalty to the state resulted in the expulsion of TULF from parliament. This was a mistake on the part of the government, because from then on Tamil politics headed down the slippery slope of political violence.68 The Tamil community in the north was increasingly divided between the elder and more moderate politicians of the Vellalar caste and the more impatient youth, many of them from such non-Vellalar castes as the coastal Karaivar (fishermen). This younger generation of frustrated and alienated Tamils would go on to build Tamil militant groups. In 1972 the youth wing of the TUF began a series of grenade attacks on civilian officials, most of them Tamils who failed to toe the Tamil hardline and older TUF officials who tried to control the younger members of their party. This in-fighting splintered the TUF and brought ever more extravagantly named extremist groups into being: the Tamil New Tigers, the Tamil Eelam Liberation

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Organization (TELO), and the soon-to-be-notorious Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Groups like TELO, LTTE, and the People’s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), and the Eelam Revolutionary Organization of Students (EROS) were formed by a handful of Tamil students and youths and characterized by ‘‘hit-and-run’’ tactics in the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, the movements did not receive much active support from the Tamil community; the organizations were seen as small cells that planned small operations. The government exacerbated matters by banning the TULF from parliament, further disaffecting Tamils and marginalizing Tamil parliamentary politics on a national scale. Not surprisingly, support for the Tamil militancy on all fronts gained traction. The movement mushroomed in size; youths in the hundreds of thousands from all over the country went north to join. Exuberant militant Tamil youth believed they had enough support to take on the tiny Sri Lankan army. The militants believed—correctly— that they needed to unify the many Tamil militant organizations (TELO, LTTE, PLOTE, EROS, and EPRLF) to fight the government more effectively should violence break out. Initial attempts at unification under an Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF) did not go very far due to internal tensions, often personal, between leaders in the different groups. A major shift occurred when, in a dramatic attempt to consolidate power, LTTE leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran organized the massacres of the other Tamil militant organizations’ core leaders and much of their cadre base. By the end of 1986 a significant portion of the militant Tamil organizations had been dissolved in this way. The LTTE would also paralyze the TULF by assassinating its leaders, including Appapillai Amirthalingam, in 1989. By violently silencing the moderates, the LTTE would forcibly solidify its place as ‘‘the sole representative of the Tamil people,’’ which publicly entrenched a false and hollow unity between the people and the militant, separatist, extremist organization. The LTTE soon secured the assistance of the government of India’s Tamil Nadu state, and, given the demands of coalition politics, the tacit support of Indira Gandhi’s national government. LTTE terrorists attended training camps in Tamil Nadu, where they were trained by sympathetic Indian military officers and agents of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s secret intelligence service. Many Sri Lankans believed RAW hoped to destabilize Sri Lanka and arrange for its eventual incorporation

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into India. LTTE operatives openly outfitted speedboats for raids on Sri Lanka, gathered and transshipped arms, and extorted ‘‘taxes’’ from well-todo mainland Tamils. On more than one occasion the LTTE’s improvised gunboats proved more than a match for the Sri Lankan patrol craft that tried to interdict arms traffic in the Palk Strait, between India and Sri Lanka’s LTTE-held Jaffna Peninsula.

The Goals and Aspirations of the LTTE What did the LTTE want? The LTTE was founded in 1972 by VP and others, with a handful of Tamil youth, as a successor to the aptly named Tamil New Tigers (TNT).69 VP was more a man of action than of deep philosophical thought or ideological clarity. In fact, the only serious ideologue in the group was Anton Balasingham, an educated man on whom VP relied extensively during media interviews. However, VP’s goals have been extensively detailed in interviews and numerous speeches. In a well-known interview with famous Indian journalist Anita Pratap, he laid out in detail why he became a rebel and his vision for an independent state for the Tamils. VP contended that the political system in Sri Lanka had failed and even worsened the situation of the Tamils. There was no choice but to follow the path of armed struggle to achieve freedom for the Tamil people: The democratic parliamentary system, or what you refer to as the conventional political system in Sri Lanka, has always tried to impose the will of the majority on the minority. This system not only failed to solve the basic problems of our people but, in fact, aggravated our plight. For decades, the repression by the state has made the life of our people miserable. The non-violent democratic struggles of our people were met with military repression. Our just demands were totally ignored, and the oppression continued on such a scale as to threaten the very survival of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. It was these circumstances which led me to form our liberation movement. I felt that an armed struggle was the only alternative left to our people, not only to ensure our survival but ultimately to free ourselves from the Sinhala oppression. I have always been aware that our movement would be outlawed. It is for this reason that we

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organized our movement as a clandestine underground structure from its inception.70 In response to Pratap’s question concerning his own personal experiences that convinced him that the only way forward was violence, VP described in detail horrific acts of brutality he allegedly witnessed or heard about: The shocking events of the 1958 racial riots had a profound impact on me when I was a schoolboy. I heard of horrifying incidents of how our people had been mercilessly and brutally put to death by Sinhala racists. Once I met a widowed mother, a friend of my family, who related to me her agonizing personal experience of this racial holocaust. During the riots, a Sinhala mob attacked her house in Colombo. The rioters set fire to the house and murdered her husband. She and her children escaped with severe burn injuries. I was deeply shocked when I saw the scars on her body. I also heard stories of how young babies were roasted alive in boiling tar. When I heard such stories of cruelty, I felt a deep sense of sympathy and love for my people. A great passion overwhelmed me to redeem my people from this racist system. I strongly felt that armed struggle was the only way to confront a system which employs armed might against unarmed, innocent people. VP took exception to his movement’s being referred to as ‘‘separatist,’’ making clear that it was fighting for the creation of a country of Tamils that already exists in people’s minds rather than ‘‘separating’’ from an existing country. The distinction may baffle most, but it seemed to make sense to him. He of course denied that the LTTE was a terrorist organization: It is wrong to call our movement ‘‘separatist.’’ We are fighting for independence based on the right to national self-determination of our people. Our struggle is for self-determination, for the restoration of our sovereignty in our homeland. We are not fighting for a division or separation of a country but rather, we are fighting to uphold the sacred right to live in freedom and dignity. In this sense, we are freedom fighters not terrorists. VP told Pratap that negotiations with the Sinhala-dominated government would never succeed in bringing about a resolution of the Tamil problem.

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Of course, resolution for VP was total independence; he was, however, convinced that no amount of negotiations with Colombo would grant the Tamils even the ‘‘bare’’ minimum, which for many Tamils who were not aligned with the LTTE was some form of devolution of power: I am of the opinion that the round table conferences will not bring about a permanent settlement to the Tamil issue. Our view is based on the experience of several decades. The Sinhala leaders never made a sincere attempt to resolve the Tamil issue. The present negotiations will also meet the same fate. All the major Sinhala parties and the Buddhist organisations are opposed to granting any form of regional autonomy to the Tamils. They are even opposed to giving minor concessions. Hence nothing substantial will emerge from this conference. In a later part of the interview, VP indicated that he believed Sinhala nationalism, backed by the Buddhist clergy, was responsible for the emergence of anti-Tamil racism in the island nation; Sri Lanka was a ‘‘Sinhala Buddhist nation,’’ which by definition excluded the Tamils and anyone who was neither Buddhist nor Sinhala. As he told Pratap later in the interview, the Tamil people would never be safe until they had their own homeland. What VP says about India’s actual and putative role is interesting. This interview was conducted a number of years before India’s ill-fated intervention in the Sri Lankan war (discussed below). VP indicated he would welcome India’s acceptance of the Tamil people’s right to ‘‘selfdetermination.’’ He did not wish for military intervention but called for India’s support and sympathy. The fact was that India was already providing considerable covert support for the LTTE through training, supplies, and weapons in the southern province of Tamil Nadu. What was the goal of the movement? For VP and his close-knit group of advisers, that was clear: the creation of a Tamil homeland, Tamil Eelam. VP was somewhat vague on the ideological foundations or belief system of the movement. He tells Pratap he is committed to ‘‘revolutionary socialism’’ and proceeds to provide some vague formulations of the kind of a state Eelam would be: Tamil Eelam will be a socialist state. By socialism I mean an egalitarian society where human freedom and individual liberties will be

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guaranteed, where all forms of oppression and exploitation will be abolished. It will be a free society where our people will have maximum opportunity to develop their economy and promote their culture. Tamil Eelam will be a neutral state, committed to nonalignment and friendly to India, respecting her regional policies, particularly the policy of making the Indian Ocean a zone of peace. The interview concludes with Pratap asking when he believes a Tamil nation will see the light of day; VP answers in the time-honored fashion of all irregular warriors and leaders. It will be a long (protracted) struggle dependent on many factors. Over the thirty years of its existence, the LTTE evolved into a deadly force.

3 The Eelam Wars I–III Campaigns

Eelam War I (1983–1989) In the 1970s, the various militant Tamil organizations that had mushroomed in the north among the disgruntled youth began to undertake a variety of terrorist and criminal actions. These attacks constituted a nuisance but not a dire threat. However, various senior police officers—many of whom were Tamil and thus had a pulse on what was going on within their community—warned authorities in Colombo that something was amiss. The authorities in Colombo turned a blind eye; they thought these events were merely insignificant ‘‘law and order’’ problems that should be easily handled by the forces available in the north. However, things were about to turn ugly. In 1983 a group of Tamil extremists ambushed an army patrol that had the codename ‘‘Four Four Bravo.’’ The ambush was led by a little-known but charismatic and ruthless individual named Vellupillai Prabhakaran, along with his small group of Tamil ‘‘boys.’’ The ambush left thirteen Sinhalese soldiers dead and triggered the worst anti-Tamil communal rioting in Sri Lankan history. The riots were highly organized and led to the deaths of 400 (the government figure) to 2,000 (the Tamil figure) Tamils and the destruction of scores of Tamil-owned businesses and homes. The ambush and subsequent rioting against the Tamils in the south are generally considered the start of the war, as the LTTE entered the political scene in a major way. The small LTTE had to compete with several other militant groups; but VP—Prabhakaron—ruthlessly crushed these rivals, and by the late 1980s the LTTE had become the dominant organization. When real and more serious fighting erupted between Sri Lankan security forces and the LTTE, neither side was really prepared for war. The LTTE

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in its early days was more of a terrorist and criminal outfit. It began its campaign during what became known as Eelam War I. (Eelam was the name for the proposed Tamil nation-state in the northern and eastern parts of the island; the LTTE intended to claim almost one-third of the total land mass and two-thirds of the coastline.) It attacked police stations to seize arms and to terrorize the police force to prevent it from functioning effectively. To fund its war, it also robbed banks. Eventually, the LTTE graduated to small-scale assaults and ambushes of regular military and police patrols. With improved training and arms supplied by India, it began to attack small military installations. Indian aid and support for the Sri Lankan Tamils was to dominate the political and military scene for most of Eelam War I. Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, who hated Sri Lankan president Jayawerdene because of his tendency to make caustic and biting comments about her, decided in August 1983 to actively support the Tamils. Of course, her motivation did not stem solely or even primarily from personal antagonism for her Sri Lankan counterpart. Gandhi felt domestic pressure from Tamil majority states in the Indian federation to lend support to moderate Tamil demands against the Sri Lankan state. But this was a double-edged sword: Gandhi was clearly keen on ensuring that Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity and unity were not challenged by the Tamil extremists. India’s own ethnic separatist groups might then challenge the Indian state itself. In this context, she was also concerned that violence in the island nation might have an impact on the volatile politics of Tamil majority states such as Tamil Nadu, where sympathy for the separatists of Sri Lanka was on full display. The job of providing training and arms supplies to Tamil insurgents and terrorists was given to the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the Indian intelligence agency.1 Within a year, the number of Tamil insurgent camps in Tamil Nadu had mushroomed to 32. Sri Lanka complained bitterly to India and presented concrete evidence of extensive Tamil activity in India, including fundraising and training in military installations set up for them. Sri Lankan national security minister Lalith Athulathmudali stated publicly in September 1984 that Tamil terrorists had made Tamil Nadu their permanent home and a sanctuary from which to attack Sri Lanka. By mid-1987 the number of Tamils provided with sanctuary, training, and weapons by the Indians had reached 20,000. Specialized training for the Tigers was conducted at Chakrata, near Dehra Dun, India’s leading military academy. Tamil Nadu state was dotted with important bases and

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supply points for the LTTE, including Periya (uniforms), Coimbatore (ammunition, explosives), Tiruch (medical treatment for combatants), Tuticorin (smuggling port), Rameshwaram (transit port for arrival of Tamil refugees, among whom the LTTE recruited), Dharmapuri (explosives), Thanjavur (communications center), and Nagapattnam (port where the LTTE unloaded weapons and ammunition from the Far East, Europe, and Middle East for transfer to smaller boats that could stealthily infiltrate Sri Lankan waters). It took some time for the small and inexperienced Sri Lankan military to respond with some measure of effectiveness. When the situation became unstable in the Tamil north, it became rapidly apparent to many in the Sri Lankan officer corps that there were severe structural and organizational problems in the military. The security services had done a creditable job quashing the 1971 JVP uprising. It was not a pretty operation, but the state response was considerably aided by the security forces’ ability to acquire effective and actionable information, due to the fact that the insurgency was a wholly Sinhalese endeavor penetrated by government intelligence. Moreover, the fact that the JVP insurgents were a poorly armed, ill-trained, amateurish lot made the security forces’ task of destroying them much simpler. The LTTE was to prove a different kettle of fish for an army that was a small, ill-equipped, undermanned, mainly ceremonial outfit. In 1978, as the situation in the north was heating up, it consisted of only 496 officers and 8,489 other ranks, no more than two combat brigades. For much of the 1970s the army’s primary mission in the northern part of the country was to prevent smuggling and illicit immigration from Tamil Nadu in India. These low-level activities hardly prepared it for the coming conflict with the LTTE. One could argue that this did not matter in the early days of the LTTE insurgency, when the group’s numbers were also minuscule. However, counterinsurgency, as the Sri Lankan military was to discover, is a manpower-intensive activity, and at that time the tiny military establishment simply did not have sufficient personnel to deploy in the troubled areas in the north. There were simply not enough government ‘‘boots on the ground.’’ However, rapid expansion to increase personnel creates its own problems; as a military expands, problems arise with integrating new personnel and creating effective command, control, and communications for officers who have no experience in commanding large bodies of men. The Sri Lankan security forces in the north also faced another problem. The personnel were overwhelmingly Sinhalese, and as Tamil militancy

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increased, the government recruited fewer and fewer military personnel and police from that community. Most Sinhalese personnel could not speak Tamil. The Sinhalese-dominated forces in the north were out of their depth and found it increasingly difficult to get human intelligence. They knew even less about the local population, whom they treated with disdain and condescension. This was reciprocated, on the part of the Tamils, by a reluctance to deal with or provide any information to the security forces, which the community came to view as an alien occupying force. Sri Lankan army officer general Cyril Ranatunga relates an incident in his memoirs which can be viewed as a classic case of how not to win the population over: Some of the actions that were taken by the Army were very wrong. There are instances where some Tamil youth who had seen a matinee movie were taken straight from the cinema to a place where they were asked to drop their trousers, and green paint was applied to their bottoms. In some cases they were asked to shave their heads. This type of behaviour made the Tamil youth rise against us.2 In fact, as the activities of the extremists increased in scope and daring, the security forces responded by taking out their frustrations on the local population. Brigadier ‘‘Bull’’ Weeratunga, given a mandate by the government to stop the violence in the north by any means, was the prime proponent for making civilians pay for the sins of the extremists. In the opinion of his army colleague and friend General Ranatunga, this approach only succeeded in increasing the ranks of the Tamil insurgent movements and alienating the population. Yet a number of officers did begin to absorb lessons from their experiences and began to innovate, albeit at a small scale. Small-scale innovation and thinking outside the box by officers can contribute to success, but unless these new ideas and practices receive widespread support, and are accepted and institutionalized throughout the military, they remain mere ad hoc measures and achieve impact only in localized operations. This was clearly evident in the worthy but ultimately unsuccessful efforts of General Ranatunga to improve information-gathering and intelligence in the security forces in the early 1980s. Ranatunga was the primary mover behind the establishment of an intelligence unit at the army base in Gurunagar, outside Jaffna, along with two mid-ranking officers. As he explains in his memoirs:

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I started my own intelligence system. There was a small but enthusiastic band of about half a dozen officers from various units and some other ranks posted to me who were available to work independently in small groups, sometimes consisting of only two or three who went out to collect intelligence. I made use of my own soldiers who were very good in Tamil and set them to collect information. (65) The general makes quite clear that his efforts and those of his men were ad hoc and improvised. They received little if any support from higher authorities in their endeavors: Had we access to finances—not a mere 150 rupees—high quality intelligence would have been easily available, but the authorities were indifferent. There were instances when officers’ ration money was utilized to ‘‘buy’’ intelligence due to the lack of funds and red tape. Intelligence must not only be accurate, but important, it has to be timely so that it can be effectively used. Infiltration of intelligence members within the enemy as a ‘‘sleeper’’ is possible if resources are available as an incentive to compensate for the risk and reprisals. Penetration is made more difficult as the LTTE members belonged to one ethnic group. However, the highest authorities were not interested. Col. Dharmapala, Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, was of no use. (66) The government at the time, concluded Ranatunga, was inconsistent and indecisive in its approach toward the growing Tamil insurgency, both at the policy and operational military levels. At times in those early days, the government seemed to act as if the nascent insurgency were not a serious matter. This drift in government policy was reflected on the ground in operations. In the words of General Ranatunga: ‘‘There appeared to be a total lack of continuity in the conduct of operations against the armed Tamil terrorists. This is the result of having no policy on how to eradicate terrorism. This type of ethnic based armed conflict, once ignited due to many reasons, is difficult to eradicate without a firm policy derived from strength and practicability.’’3 This was to be a constant problem of all governments in Colombo until 2005, when a better organized and no-nonsense administration was elected.

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Despite its problems, the armed forces were able to launch Operation Liberation in the Vadamarachchi area of the Jaffna Peninsula. It was the largest military operation to date, and a creditable effort for a military with no prior experience in such large-scale military undertakings.4 Ranatunga was determined to formulate and implement an offensive that would deal the LTTE a significant and telling blow. To this end he and his staff planned meticulously, taking into consideration civilian and military casualties and the potential reaction of the international community and India to an operation of this magnitude. The offensive started on May 26, 1987, with 8,000 troops comprised of battalions from the following regiments: the Gemunu Watch, under the command of lieutenant colonels Vipul Botheju and Wasantha Perera; the Gajaba, under the command of lieutenant colonel Sathis Jayasundara and major Gotabhaya Rajapaksa; and the Sri Lanka Light Infantry, under the command of lieutenant colonel Naradha Wickramaratne. The ground forces were supported by elements of the Sri Lankan air force.5 The progress of the troops on the ground was initially slow due to the stiff resistance mounted by the LTTE and their destruction of the Thondamanaru bridge to prevent troops from reaching Velvettithurai, VP’s birthplace on the northern coast of the Jaffna Peninsula. On May 28, troops managed to secure parts of the northern coastline by finally capturing Velvettithurai and points to the east and west of the fishing town. Another military column consisting of elite commando troops under the command of Major Sarath Handapangoda captured Nelliady and Point Pedro. During the first week of June, troops secured control of the entire northern zone of the peninsula and captured large amounts of weapons left by fleeing LTTE cadres. VP, LTTE leader, and Soosai,6 commander of the newly established Sea Tiger naval unit, narrowly avoided capture at the hands of forward elements of the Sri Lankan army (SLA). Though the second stage of the operation was launched on June 3, 1987, with the aim of capturing the city of Jaffna from the LTTE, the government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) was forced to call a halt to operations. An outside spoiler, India, alarmed by the situation on the ground, had begun to actively flex its muscles. Despite its extensive support for the Tamil militants, New Delhi had come to the conclusion that the conflict on the island was not in its strategic interests. The violence in northern Sri Lanka might spill into the Indian province of Tamil Nadu, where some Tamils had once agitated for independence. Any splitting of Sri Lanka into separate states

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could impinge negatively on a large and ramshackle federal India, populated by myriad disgruntled minorities. The interference in the Sri Lankan civil war began when India peremptorily called for a halt to the offensive. The ‘‘request’’ was rejected out of hand by Sri Lanka, which objected to Indian interference in its internal affairs. Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, who had succeeded his assassinated mother as leader, ordered a flotilla of ships to be sent to relieve the Tamil population. This action caused consternation in Colombo, but the government decided to stand firm for the moment. The convoy was blocked by the tiny Sri Lankan navy (SLN). The Indian navy would have had no trouble rapidly disposing of the SLN; however, conscious of its international image and its role as a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement, India was determined to get its way without being seen as bullying its tiny neighbor. Indian Antonov-32 transport aircraft escorted by Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft penetrated Sri Lankan air space and dropped humanitarian relief supplies into the Jaffna area, where the beleaguered civilian population was short of food and medical supplies. Following the successful completion of Operation Poomalai, as the aerial mission was called, and faced with the possibility of further involvement by the Indian military (reports had begun to circulate that Indian ground forces were being prepared for possible deployment into Sri Lanka), Sri Lankan president J. R. Jayewardene held talks with the Indian government to resolve the escalating crisis. Intense diplomatic pressure from Indian mediators, exemplified by the supremely arrogant and bullying role played by Indian high commissioner (ambassador) in Colombo, N. H. Dixit, resulted in a ceasefire agreement between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE. The agreement included acceptance by both sides of the deployment to Sri Lanka of an Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) and implementation of an Indo-Lanka accord under which the GoSL agreed to devolve powers to the provinces and acknowledge Tamil as an official language; the Sri Lankan military would withdraw to barracks, and the various armed Tamil groups, including the LTTE, which was the most formidable, would surrender their arms. Sri Lanka would strive to ensure that Indian security concerns would be taken into consideration. This would mean that Sri Lanka would not allow a foreign presence on the island or agree to foreign involvement to solve the conflict. India had begun to worry about Colombo’s pronounced pro-Western orientation, and feared the GoSL would seek extensive foreign

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support to solve the conflict in exchange for close military relations, including possibly naval basing for the U.S. navy. With the accord, India would guarantee the ensuing ceasefire by sending a peacekeeping force to Sri Lanka to keep the warring parties involved in negotiations to resolve the conflict by peaceful means.7 Last but not least, India hoped a resolution of the conflict on the island would take pressure off itself in Tamil Nadu. As a result of the war in Sri Lanka, India had to house and feed thousands of Tamil refugees. Furthermore, Tamil militants in Tamil Nadu felt that they could do what they wanted and were flouting the rule of law in a state that had already witnessed secessionist tendencies in the past.8 As a result, New Delhi had decided that it was time to reassess its support for militant armed groups in Sri Lanka. The agreement came as a shock to the Sri Lankan armed forces, whose officers felt they had the LTTE on the run; they were chagrined and humiliated. The agreement also caused considerable division and acrimony within the Jayewardene government. The government had no choice but to agree to the accord. First, it could not take on a vastly more powerful India. It was far better to have India involved as a neutral party than to have it come in strongly on the side of the Tamils. In fact, Jayewardene thought active deployment of Indian troops in Sri Lanka might ‘‘solve the Tamil problem for us,’’ as he put it. Second, a pressing situation, this time in the south, compelled the government in Colombo to accede to Indian demands. The virulent JVP had begun to rear its ugly head once again. In 1987 the surviving remnants of the JVP, fortified by new, young, eager recruits, launched a second and far more violent and protracted insurgency. The Sri Lankan government needed its troops to deal with an insurgency that was threatening its heartland. Following the agreement with India and the deployment of Indian troops on Sri Lankan soil, the JVP insurgents—now violently nationalistic to the point of anti-Tamil and anti-Indian xenophobia— redoubled their violent efforts. For many Sinhalese nationalists in the south—a large group that included very politically active elements of the Buddhist Sangha order of monks—the accord was treasonous and a betrayal of the principles that Sri Lanka was a unitary and centralized state and the only home of the Sinhalese people.9 By 1989 the JVP almost brought the government to its knees. This, in turn, invited a far more brutal and murderous response from the security forces and shadowy pro-state militia and paramilitary groups. During the second half of 1989, government forces hunted down and summarily executed tens of thousands of

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JVP cadres and sympathizers as well as thousands who were entirely innocent of any association with the movement but happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The government hoped the deployment of Indian troops to the north would mean India would use its large and effective military capabilities against the LTTE. As a result of the negotiations, the siege of Jaffna was lifted, and the Indo-Lanka Accord was signed on July 29, 1987. Sri Lankan troops in the north were confined to barracks or withdrew to the south to deal with the Sinhalese JVP insurgency. The IPKF took over control of the entire north. The accord led to the formulation of the 13th Amendment to the constitution, which called for devolution of political power in the Tamil regions to the Tamil community.10 As the Indians deployed through the various Tamil regions, they demanded that the myriad armed Tamil movements hand over their arms as part of the ceasefire deal. The LTTE refused to surrender its arms in any significant quantities and made a show of turning over obsolescent weapons. In no time at all, the LTTE viciously turned on their erstwhile mentors. Despite or perhaps because of earlier Indian aid, VP had become increasingly uncomfortable with and suspicious of India’s role in the conflict in Sri Lanka. He was less than enthusiastic about the signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord; indeed, he only assented because he was being held as a virtual hostage in India at the time of the negotiations and signing. VP was clearly torn at between two positions. He admitted and genuinely believed that the Tamils needed Indian support. Yet he wanted to keep India at arm’s length for two simple reasons. First, he feared the subordination of the movement to Indian control; thus he was determined not to succumb to Indian blandishments and threats. Moreover, he was adamant that the Tamil independence movement achieve its goals largely and primarily by its own efforts. Second, he knew India’s own interests did not dovetail with those of the LTTE. Indian officials had made it clear on numerous occasions that an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka was not in India’s strategic interests. In that case, wondered VP, why was India involved in supporting the Tamils? Moreover, Indian intelligence operatives with whom the LTTE senior leaders met appeared more interested in getting assessments of Sri Lankan politics, particularly the island’s foreign and security policies to include the future disposition of the strategic harbor at Trincomalee, which India feared the pro-Western Sri Lankan government would lease to Western naval powers. Support for the LTTE’s goal of an independent Tamil Eelam was not at the top of the agenda for the Indians.11

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Prabhakaran was virulent in his opposition to the agreement and made his views widely and publicly known, even to Indian officials and officers. He was even reported as saying he would ‘‘teach Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi a lesson.’’ An amusing indication of the decline in Indo-LTTE relations was related by General Ranatunga in his memoirs. When the Indians first arrived in Sri Lanka, he wrote, they were unfailingly polite to the leader of the LTTE, addressing him as ‘‘Mr. Prabhakaran.’’ After problems began to appear between the two sides, the Indians referred to him solely as ‘‘Prabhakaran.’’ When fighting broke out between the Indian troops and the LTTE, Indian officers began to refer to the LTTE leader as ‘‘that bugger’’ (115). Not long after the LTTE refusal to adhere to Indian demands to surrender its weapons and cooperate in implementation of the accord, the forces of the two sides began to engage in fierce firefights. The LTTE resorted to guerrilla tactics with which the conventional Indian units were unfamiliar. As the Indians began to get bogged down in fighting the LTTE, the glee of the Sri Lankan people and government became palpable. For them, it was blowback time, because India had supported and encouraged the growth of the movement by providing it with sanctuary and supplies. Furthermore, it was welcomed as payback for the Indians’ having stopped the Sri Lankan offensive in the north. However, there was a deeper reason for the Sri Lankan glee over the growing misfortunes of the Indians. In this context, it is worth remembering the words of the Sri Lankan Tamil academic Stanley Tambiah: ‘‘although India is undeniably their parent in many ways, all indigenous Sri Lankans—Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim—become visibly annoyed, if not outraged, if Sri Lanka is mistaken physically to be a part of India (as many people in distant parts of the world innocently do), or if it is thought culturally to be a part of greater India (as some Indians patronizingly do).’’12 Not surprisingly, the government of Jayewardene’s successor, president Ranasinghe Premadasa, who was adamantly opposed to the Indian presence, began to supply the LTTE with weapons with which to fight the Indian troops. This was a major political gamble; the senior officials involved in this odd policy tried to keep it quiet and discreet. The government made this move because it felt humiliated by the Indian presence and was harried on its right flank by Sinhalese nationalists who were pushing it to do something about the situation. The Sri Lankan armed forces were less than pleased by the decision to provide arms to the dangerous renegade

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movement they had just been fighting. The officer corps despised the Indian presence in their country, but once hostilities between the Indian army and the LTTE commenced, their sympathies, as professional officers, gravitated toward the hapless Indian forces. The LTTE harassed and attacked the Indian forces, which were tough, capable, and courageous but not trained for counterinsurgency and often undermanned. Their rising casualty rate led them to acts of indiscipline, which served to alienate the Tamil population from them, to the delight of the LTTE.13 The fall of Rajiv Gandhi from power in India in 1989 removed the architect of the accord and the man with the strongest vested interest in its maintenance. The new Indian government was reluctant to lend its name to a growing embarrassment that was becoming a quagmire. Moreover, the government of Premadasa was clamoring for Indian withdrawal. New Delhi pulled the plug on the mission in 1990. The IPKF withdrew in fury after heavy losses, but not before roughing up, killing, looting, and raping the Tamils who came within reach.

Eelam War II (1990–1994) The humiliating Indian withdrawal was followed by an LTTE declaration of victory. Emboldened by success, the LTTE returned to the fray against the Sri Lankan government with a vengeance, despite the fact that the two sides had tacitly cooperated with each other before the withdrawal of Indian forces. The LTTE began Eelam War II with a tremendous boon: it simply walked into the areas vacated by the departing Indian forces. LTTE forces proceeded to take over whatever infrastructure the Indians had constructed and eliminated the pro-Indian Tamil entities the Indians had set up and any individuals who had collaborated with them. The LTTE now had a fullfledged, readymade sanctuary; they began consolidating control over that sanctuary and undertook the first steps toward creating their embryonic state within a state. Eelam War II opened with an LTTE attack on twelve police stations in June 1990; in an act of unwarranted savagery, it executed 600 policemen who had surrendered. This second phase of the war was marked by unprecedented brutality and mind-numbing terrorism by the LTTE, and equally brutal retaliation by the government forces. The LTTE massacred 113 Sinhalese and Muslim police after they had surrendered following a promise

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of safe conduct. LTTE cadres attacked Sinhalese and Muslim villages and massacred the civilians. One of the worst atrocities occurred at Palliyagodella, where LTTE forces killed 166 Muslim civilians for no apparent reason. The government trained and armed a home guard Muslim unit, which then took revenge on Tamil villagers. The government placed an embargo on food and medicine entering the Jaffna Peninsula and the air force relentlessly bombed LTTE targets in the area; most of the casualties were inevitably civilian. There were also significant massacres of Tamil civilians in the Eastern Province attributed to paramilitary forces associated with the security forces. One of the worst atrocities occurred in October 1990, when the LTTE expelled all the Muslims residing in the city of Jaffna, which they controlled, in a clear and undisguised act of ethnic cleansing. Almost 30,000 Muslims were forced to leave their homes, taking nothing but the clothes on their backs. Thousands of people were kidnapped or killed by shadowy outfits. A series of dramatic assassinations of senior political figures also took place during Eelam War II. In March 1991 Sri Lankan defense minister Ranjan Wijeratne was killed by the LTTE; in September it was the turn of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, assassinated by a female LTTE suicide bomber. In May 1993 Sri Lankan president Premadasa was blown up by a suicide bomber. Countless lower-ranking government officials and security officers were similarly murdered as the LTTE sought to dismantle the structure of the state.14 The spiraling descent into violence and terrorism throughout the country gave the government the excuse to implement and maintain a state of emergency, during which normal law was suspended and security forces armed themselves with sweeping powers of arrest and detention. Eelam War II also witnessed the LTTE’s successful efforts to build up a conventional military capability. This phase of the war was characterized not only by terror and counter-terror; it also saw large-scale military operations. The largest battle of Eelam War II took place in July 1991, when the army’s sprawling Elephant Pass base (EPS), which controlled access to the Jaffna Peninsula from the main body of the island, was surrounded and attacked by 5,000 LTTE troops in a conventional-style operation. The LTTE operation, codenamed Tharai, Kadal, Aathayam (‘‘Land, Sea, and Air’’), lasted 53 days. The government troops withstood the assault, but as time went by their situation became increasingly untenable. More than 2,000 troops died on both sides in the almost two-month campaign. The Sri

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Lankan forces were able to fight the equally motivated LTTE units to a standstill due to their courage and the tenacity with which they clung to their precarious positions. In the meantime, the senior command was preparing a relief mission to break through and lift the siege. This mission, code-named Balavegaya, was planned and implemented by major general Denzil Kobbekaduwa of the 2nd Division and brigadier Vijaya Wimalaratne, who commanded the amphibious task force. It would be a difficult operation: EPS did not lend itself to maneuvers by large military units: it was surrounded on two sides by water and low-lying, water-logged terrain without much cover for the movement of large bodies of men or military vehicles. The senior command realized they had no choice but to conduct an amphibious operation to relieve the besieged troops. They drew up a plan for a massive operation with 10,000 troops from the best and most battle-hardened regiments of the army—the Sri Lanka Light Infantry (SLLI), Gemunu Watch (GW), and Gajaba (GR)—to be supported by units from the armored corps and artillery. Brigadier Wimalaratne led the assault onto the beaches with troops from the amphibious task force. The SLN naturally played a huge role in this mission. A flotilla of ships made up of landing craft, gunboats, supply ships, and fast attack craft (FACs) under the command of rear admiral Quintus Wickramaratne transported the task force to its offshore positions for the amphibious assault. The first attempt at a landing came in the vicinity of Vettilakerni, 12 km east of EPS, scheduled for 14.30 hours (2:30 p.m.) on July 15, 1991. The troops met with stiff resistance from dug-in LTTE cadres. They were unable to establish a beachhead, and the senior command decided to postpone the assault for eighteen hours. The second attempt was made under cover of heavy fire from SLN gunboats and SLAF Sia Marchetti SF-260 ground-attack aircraft. The first wave of assault troops secured a beachhead by midnight. Within twenty-four hours the remaining task force troops had landed and established a secure beachhead. General Kobbekaduwa then authorized Brigadier Wimalaratne to move forward and link up with the besieged troops at EPS. In a major victory the task force successfully fought its way to the base camp and lifted the siege. The Sri Lankan military was determined to transform the base into a military stronghold so the LTTE could not move north out of the Wanni jungle into the Jaffna Peninsula. The infrastructure was expanded to house

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more garrison troops, and the military engineers built better defenses and obstacles. Satellite bases (‘‘forward operating bases,’’ in American jargon) were established at Vettilakerni, Kattaikadu, and Pullaveli to provide the main base with in-depth, all-around defense. The sprawling complex eventually came to house an entire division and its support elements; the GoSL and Sri Lankan military came to view it as impregnable. But the Sri Lankan military was still susceptible to major setbacks. This was clear from the disastrous battle of Pooneryn, on the western coast, in November 1993, when the LTTE infiltrated and captured the government naval base. The base was poorly defended; the troops were unable to counter the LTTE force and eventually fought in small, isolated groups without effective command or control. A post-battle court of inquiry found negligence at the command level, poor training, poor defenses in Pooneryn and other military bases, and a lack of defensive contingency plans.15 At the end of 1993 Sri Lanka was exhausted by the war; it had expended a great deal of resources and despite a major success at EPS, it had also suffered significant and embarrassing setbacks. The country was thus in political turmoil when it went to the polls in 1994. The presidential elections brought to the presidency Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP) candidate Chandrika Kumaratunga, who governed at the helm of a coalition known as the People’s Alliance. Kumaratunga was no stranger to Sri Lanka’s turbulent democratic politics. Her father was the charismatic S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, who had been assassinated when she was still a teenager. Her mother, Sirimavo, the world’s first female prime minister, had led the country for much of the SLFP-dominated political era. Kumaratunga’s husband was gunned down in 1989 in a political assassination. When she took office as national leader, she stated she wanted to break the cycle of violence in the country. She was convinced there was no military solution to the conflict; furthermore, her government believed it now had the political and military advantage, due to the previous administration’s consolidation of control over EPS. Committing to engage the LTTE politically, Kumaratunga pledged she would make every effort to reach a mutually acceptable settlement: ‘‘The first task is, therefore, a new approach predicated on unqualified acceptance of the fact that the Tamil people have genuine grievances for which solutions must be found. The policy of the country must be structured on the premise that all sections of society are entitled to recognition as constructive partners in a pluralistic democracy.’’16

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Kumaratunga declared an immediate cessation of hostilities and began several rounds of talks with LTTE leaders. The president’s desire to negotiate an end to the conflict met with LTTE obstinacy. Government representatives at the talks wished to simultaneously negotiate a comprehensive package of reconstruction aid and political initiatives to settle the conflict. The LTTE representatives demanded a sequential process, from ceasefire to redress of war grievances, and only then could political negotiations proceed. As progress began to stall, the Tigers poisoned the atmosphere by adding four prerequisites for further talks: eliminating the economic embargo on LTTE-controlled areas, rescinding the ban on sea fishing, dismantling the army base in Pooneryn, and guaranteeing the right of free movement of LTTE cadres in eastern Sri Lanka. The government conceded the first two conditions but balked at the last two. These demands were provocative: how could a government dismantle a symbol of its sovereignty, the right to base its military forces anywhere on its territory? Nor could it accept freedom of movement of the LTTE in the eastern region, which would challenge the government’s sovereign control over its territory. The LTTE set a deadline for the government to respond to the demands and withdrew from negotiations when the government ignored them. In spring 1995, VP expressed his frustrations over the failure of the negotiations in a BBC interview in which he complained of the perfidy of the government in Colombo, adding that the Chandrika Kumaratunga government was no different from previous ‘‘Sinhalese regimes’’ in disappointing the Tamils: ‘‘in the past the Tamil people have been betrayed several times by previous Sinhalese regimes. Agreements were made but not implemented. Pacts were signed and abrogated. This is our history. Chandrika’s government is not an exception.’’17 To express their dissatisfaction with the way things had turned out, the LTTE’s Sea Tiger naval cadre planted explosives on the SLN gunboats Sooraya and Ranasuru in Trincomalee harbor and sank them. Kumaratunga was outraged. Thus the stage was set for the inevitable third round of war, Eelam War III.

Eelam War III (1995–2000) In preparation for the third round, the new government implemented the distinctly Orwellian-sounding strategy of ‘‘war for peace.’’ The third

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round started off sluggishly, to expand ferociously when the government implemented Operation Leap Forward. The purpose of the operation, launched in July 1995, was to clear the LTTE from Jaffna and surrounding areas. Government forces seized a considerable amount of terrain, but the offensive ran out of steam, and they were forced to concede the gains to LTTE counterattacks. It was becoming rapidly apparent to both sides, but particularly to mid-ranking and senior officers in the Sri Lankan Armed Forces (SLKAF), that the military’s manifest inability to undertake more than one offensive at any one time—due to lack of personnel and the complexity of commanding and coordinating large numbers of units at once—allowed the LTTE almost always to guess correctly where and when an offensive was coming. This allowed the LTTE senior leadership to concentrate its forces. This lesson would be absorbed for the future, when the SLKAF stunned the LTTE with its ability to launch multiple operations simultaneously. In order to force the LTTE to the negotiating table, the government launched another massive offensive in October 1995. This was the largest to date and indicated that, despite its still immense problems, the army high command had progressed through trial and error and battlefield experience from conducting company- and battalion-sized operations to brigade and division-sized operations and finally to being able to move several divisions on the battlefield. Operation Riviresa1 assembled over 40,000 troops for an offensive to seize control of the entire Jaffna Peninsula. The offensive was part of a national plan implemented in 1995, whose primary mission was to implement the first well-formulated Sri Lankan counterinsurgency campaign.18 The operation was put under the command of general Rohan Dulawatte, who assembled three divisions for the attack: the 51st Division, commanded by brigadier Neil Dias, the 52nd Division by Brigadier P. A. Karunathalaka, and the 53rd Division by Brigadier Janaka Perera. The 51st and 52nd Divisions advanced abreast along two main axes, the Jaffna-Point Pedro Road in the west and the Jaffna-Palali Road in the east. Both advanced toward Jaffna and succeeded in reaching their initial limit of advance, a lateral line roughly connecting the villages of Kopay and Kondavil. There they stopped, and the trailing reserve unit, the firepower-heavy 53rd Division, assisted by the Independent, Air Mobile, Armored, and Infantry Brigades, passed through the lines of the other two to press the attack into Jaffna. Stiff resistance mounted by LTTE units defending the city made the going tough for the Sri Lankan assault forces; however, bit

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by bit they fought their way into the city. By December 5, the town was under full government control for the first time in twelve years.19 In a highprofile ceremony, Sri Lankan defense minister Anurudda Ratwatte raised the national flag inside Jaffna Fort on December 5, 1995. There was euphoria in Colombo: the government rather exuberantly declared the end was in sight for the LTTE insurgency. Operation Riviresa 1 was one offensive, but it showed the army that when the LTTE was subjected to attack by multiple units from different directions it came under considerable stress. The LTTE suffered heavy casualties and considerable loss of materiel. The government estimated approximately 2,500 soldiers and insurgents died during the offensive, with an estimated 7,000 wounded on both sides. The LTTE and more than 350,000 civilians—often compelled by LTTE pressure—fled Jaffna toward the Wanni jungle in the interior. Riviresa 1 was followed by Riviresa 2 and 3, which consolidated government control over the peninsula. The LTTE responded with a devastating terrorist bombing of the Central Bank in Colombo on January 31, 1996, killing 80 and wounding more than 1,300. Despite the humiliation of losing Jaffna, its ‘‘capital,’’ the LTTE was by no means a beaten or cowed force. It was soon to prove that it had extraordinary powers of regeneration. Following the loss of Jaffna, the LTTE leadership planned a revenge offensive that was to send the government and the armed forces reeling. This was Operation Unceasing Waves I, which took six months of meticulous planning. In July 1996, approximately 2,000 guerrillas attacked the SLKAF base in the coastal town of Mullaitivu. The LTTE attack on this isolated but important base—it monitored Sea Tiger naval and smuggling activities—came at a time when the government claimed the Riviresa offensives had eliminated two-thirds of the LTTE combat capabilities. The army base in Mullaitivu covered a large area, bordered by the sea on the eastern side and a lagoon to the west. To the north and south was dense vegetation. The base occupied an area 2,900 by 1,500 meters, with a perimeter of 8,500 meters. Over the years, it had expanded to incorporate the entire town within its defenses. The Tigers launched their assault at 01.30 hours (1:30 a.m.) on July 18, 1996. After eight hours of intense fighting, the lead elements of the Tiger combat units reached the center of the camp. First they had to overrun the forward defense lines (FDLs) and the small forward strongpoints. The Tigers then concentrated on attacking the artillery sites and the armories, where there were vast stores of supplies and ammunition. The attack

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paused short of the very heart of the base HQ, the operational headquarters of the 6th Battalion of the Vijayabahu Regiment. The soldiers of the 6th Battalion fought tenaciously, because they had nowhere to go and feared they would be killed out of hand if they surrendered. All they could manage was to hold out until they could be extricated by the relief forces or by the SLN, which proved unable to extricate the soldiers by sea. Due to the stiff and courageous resistance of the government troops, it seemed the LTTE attack would run out of steam. LTTE commanders leading the assault units were ordered to regroup and await nightfall before mounting the final assault. In the meantime the Sri Lankan military dispatched a few hundred troops in a rescue operation codenamed Thrivida Pahara. The troops were airlifted into Alampil village, south of Mullaitivu base. This move forced the Tigers to fight on two fronts. They launched an attack to pin the relief force in place and concentrated their efforts on the besieged army base with redoubled energy. On the evening of July 18, the entire base fell to the Tigers. At the same time, the Sri Lankan relief force was surrounded by Tiger special forces units. The Sri Lankan military continue to attempt to land more troops to bolster the relief force. Fresh troops were airlifted by helicopter into Alampil. On the evening of July 19, a naval craft, the Ranaviru, which arrived to establish a supply line, was attacked by Sea Tigers off the Mullaitivu coast. The relief mission had to extricate itself since the army base had fallen. The Sri Lankan air force launched a major air assault, using Israeli-made Kfir and Argentinian-made Pucara ground-attack fixed-wing aircraft to hit the Tiger units closing in on the relief force. While these aircraft bombed the surrounding area, the Sri Lankan navy’s Dvora fast attack craft (FAC) attempted to establish a supply line to the relief force. After meeting heavy resistance from Sea Tiger units and Tiger anti-aircraft troops, the Sri Lankan military was forced to call off its attempts, after landing only a few more troops. During this engagement, the LTTE lost 332 fighters, and the Sri Lankan army at least 1,200 troops, including some senior officers. The entire armory of the Mullaitivu base, including 120-mm artillery, was captured intact, and the entire Mullaitivu district came under LTTE control. The disaster at Mullaitivu forced the government to pay attention to some of the more serious structural defects and deficiencies of the armed forces. One of the biggest problems was lack of sufficient and effective manpower; even the successful Operation Riviresa had taxed the army to its

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limits, leaving other defense units stripped of manpower. As a result of this army offensive in the Jaffna Peninsula, hundreds of LTTE fighters infiltrated the Eastern Province, particularly in the area between Trincomalee and Batticaloa, leading one officer at the time to declare: ‘‘it’s like punching holes in a paper bag. We clear the rebels from one place and they just pop up somewhere else.’’20 Not surprisingly, when the army launched Operation Riviresa 2 and 3, it met with little opposition from LTTE forces, as most of the major units had decamped into the Wanni jungle or the Eastern Province. A senior officer, brigadier Sarath Munasinghe, pointed to the military’s lack of sufficient manpower as a clear weakness. In a 1996 interview he indicated that the ground forces needed a substantial increase in manpower to offset deaths, injuries, retirements, and desertions. Desertion from the armed forces was becoming a serious problem; its causes stemmed from low morale and defeatism brought on by heavy casualties suffered during the course of intense battles with the LTTE and from inadequate supplies of food, ammunition, and even uniforms and boots. Even more remarkable and noticeable was the government’s ability to stockpile huge quantities of said supplies yet be unable to put in place an effective and efficient logistics system that could push these forward to the troops. Munasinghe argued that the army needed another 50 infantry battalions and the requisite infrastructure to expand the military to deal with the LTTE. He also indicated that in this type of warfare, manpower, or ‘‘boots on the ground,’’ was more important than high technology weaponry. Another senior officer, major general Gemunu Kulatunge, interviewed at the Joint Operations Headquarters, concurred with this assessment: ‘‘We need manpower both to liberate terrorist-held areas, and to hold these cleared areas.’’ Another officer argued that the military was not able to exercise any effective control over the territory it was contesting with the LTTE: ‘‘the north alone is a large area to control and the LTTE is also seeking all the eastern coast. This is a vast area—two-thirds of our coast and one-third of our total land mass. Most of our army has been continuously deployed for five years—a never ending tour of duty, we must have more men.’’21 Though the lack of manpower was the most obvious manifestation of the armed forces’ deficiencies at the time, it was not the only one. Training was substandard, as were the small-unit fieldcraft. The units stationed in Mullaitivu did not engage in aggressive reconnaissance patrolling of their perimeter and beyond. Had they done so they would have caught wind of

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the major LTTE buildup to the north and south of their main base in preparation for the surprise assault. The army also lacked the ability to move around the battlefield and theater of operations because it did not have a modern fleet of armored personnel carriers or trucks to carry the troops into battle or move them from front to front. The army had a small mixed bag of obsolescent vehicles that lacked armored protection. The ground forces did not have sufficient firepower, and it was clear they needed to invest in more artillery and mortar systems. The ground forces were not trained for night fighting and lacked night-vision goggles (NVGs). Indeed, the LTTE received NVGs before the Sri Lankan military did; furthermore, the best LTTE units were trained for night fighting, at which they excelled. The Sri Lankan military procurement system was a mess and failed to provide the forces with required weapons or supplies. Coordination between branches of the military was abysmal; the army specifically blamed the navy for not providing enough support to ground forces and failing to evacuate stranded soldiers after units had disintegrated under the impact of LTTE assaults. During the battle for Mullaitivu, the army claimed that navy vessels apparently did not wait to pick up soldiers who had fled into the water in hopes of rescue. One officer who managed to swim to the safety of a naval vessel claimed to have witnessed several comrades who had surrendered being executed on the beach by the LTTE. Finally, the senior command complained about political interference in the timing, formulation, and implementation of offensives. Indeed, instead of stopping and revitalizing the armed forces and remedying some of the key problems, the government ordered the military to launch yet another offensive in August 1996. The town of Kilinochchi was taken by government forces on September 29. However, the major military offensive of that period was Operation Jaya Sikuru, launched on May 13, 1997. The military sent 20,000 troops to open a supply line through the LTTE-controlled Wanni jungle. The offensive failed after eighteen months of intense fighting. Casualties on both sides were very heavy. The Sri Lankan infantry in particular suffered due to the effective use of mortars and artillery by LTTE units, which had attained a high degree of skill and professionalism in deploying crew-served medium and heavy weaponry. As the conventional-style war raged on the northern front, the LTTE sent suicide bombers to wreak havoc in urban areas and particularly on the public transportation system in the south, killing hundreds of civilians. In

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October 1997 the LTTE bombed the World Trade Center in Colombo; in January 1998 it detonated a truck bomb in the beautiful city of Kandy, damaging the Temple of the Tooth, one of the holiest Buddhist shrines. The actions sparked outrage among the Sinhalese, and convinced many among them, particularly the nationalist right and Buddhist clergy, that there could be no meaningful resolution of the conflict that involved the LTTE. In response to this bombing, the government outlawed the LTTE and pressed other governments around the world to do the same. Fierce fighting took place throughout the Wanni theater of operations in 1998–99. In 1998 the LTTE seized the town of Kilinochchi from government forces. This was yet another disaster for the Sri Lankan military, one to rival the defeat in Mullaitivu. After seizing Kilinochchi, LTTE forces began moving north, toward the sprawling EPS base, in probing attacks. The leadership was particularly keen to test the defenses of the satellite bases surrounding the main base. In a series of swift and short campaigns, the camps at Karadipokku, Paranthan Junction, the Paranthan Chemical Corporation complex, and Umaialpuram were taken. The loss of Umaialpuram was particularly ominous, because it was one of two sources of potable drinking water for the EPS garrison. In March 1999 the government launched Operation Rana Gosa, whose goal was to invade the Wanni jungle from the south and move in a northern axis of attack. The army made some gains, taking control of Oddosuddan and Madhu, but could not dislodge the dug-in LTTE cadres from the southern defenses of the Wanni jungle. The LTTE returned to the offensive with Operation Unceasing Waves III on November 2, 1999, and rapidly eroded the army’s gains. The LTTE proceeded to launch 17 more successful attacks in the region, which culminated in overrunning the Paranthan and Kurrakkan Kaddukulam bases. Thousands on both sides were killed during these battles. In December the LTTE attempted to assassinate president Chandrika Kumaratunga in a suicide bombing operation at a preelection rally. Kumaratunga lost an eye in the attack, but she recovered and rallied to defeat opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe in the presidential election held only days later, and was reelected for a second term in office. In retrospect one can see that much LTTE operational maneuvering in the Wanni jungle region and to the north of it was in preparation for a major offensive to seize the critical EPS base, the gateway into the Jaffna Peninsula. EPS was a thorn in the side of the LTTE attempt to consolidate control over the north. It was like a huge cork blocking access into the

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Jaffna Peninsula from the Wanni region. Furthermore, the government had invested much prestige and resources into making it into a military stronghold. Its loss would be a devastating psychological blow to the Sri Lankan government. The first stage of the LTTE campaign to capture EPS was launched on December 11, 1999. The camps at Vettilaikerni and Kattaikadu on the east coast and Pullaveli to the north of EPS were taken in daring sea-land joint operations. An unsuccessful assault was conducted on the western flanks of the Iyakachchi satellite base, 5 km northwest of EPS, along a bend on the A-9 highway. With the fall of Vettilaikerni, Kattaikadu, and Pullaveli, the sea to land supply routes to EPS were cut off, and the only way open to the main garrison was along the A-9 highway from Chavakachcheri. The LTTE conducted some limited operations aimed at stepping up the pressure on Iyakachchi, in the hope that it would ultimately fall into their hands. The Sri Lankan army rushed the 53rd Division from Pachilaippalli and Vadamarachchi East Pradeshiya bases to relieve the pressure on the 54th Division, which was deployed in the EPS main base. The second stage of the LTTE operation, a multipronged assault, unfolded on March 26, 2000. A joint operation led by commanders Vasanthan of the Charles Anthony Infantry Brigade and Veerendran of the Sea Tigers took control of the Chembiyanpattru-Maruthankerni-Thalaiaday complex, which housed the third operational headquarters of the Sri Lankan army. A contingent led by LTTE deputy military chief, Balraj captured a large stretch of the Jaffna-Kandy road between Pallai and Eluthumattuvaal. These actions effectively cut off the main road link between the EPS/Iyakachchi bases and Jaffna. The LTTE launched its third and decisive phase of the campaign at midday on April 18, 2000. A Tiger unit headed south on the A-9 highway, reached the northern perimeter of the Iyakachchi base, and mounted a fierce attack on it. Heavy fighting continued around the satellite base, with the Tigers finally managing to position forces south of Iyakachchi, and thus succeeded in cutting it off from the main base at EPS. The Iyakachchi satellite base fell on April 21. The Tigers destroyed the base and seized the ammunition and weapons. EPS was now isolated, and thereafter the focus of the LTTE operations shifted to the main base. Tiger units to the southeast of EPS broke through the Sri Lankan army’s forward defenses and assaulted the base. LTTE armor and artillery units led by commander Bhanu pounded the main base as LTTE infantry and commando units advanced to engage dug-in Sri Lankan infantry. The

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LTTE infantry units advanced from the north, northeast, and southeast. The military defenders began to give way as they realized their positions were no longer tenable; army units began to vacate their defensive positions and tried to break out after they received orders to do so. By midday April 22, the large garrison effectively abandoned the main base, and the LTTE assault units marched in that same day at 14.30 (2:30 p.m.). The LTTE seized a number of powerful guns, including 152-mm artillery pieces, as well as tanks, armored cars, and ammunition. The retreating government troops found their escape routes blockeds and often came under effective mortar attack from Tiger units. By now thoroughly demoralized and disoriented, the retreating soldiers were also suffering from severe dehydration, and many succumbed to the heat. Eventually, the remnants made their way back to the safety of their lines. The EPS debacle was the worst suffered so far by the Sri Lankan forces, a more significant defeat than the Mullaitivu disaster. A strong force of 15,000 troops had been defeated by an assault force of 5,000 LTTE soldiers. The LTTE troops had been specifically trained for this mission and had practiced the assault repeatedly. The army garrison was formidable in quantitative terms, but qualitatively it was in sorry shape. Fitness and skill levels had been allowed to deteriorate by static garrison duties. The frequent change of commanding officers contributed to lowering morale. The LTTE victory against the elite 53rd Division, the ‘‘pride of the army,’’ during the battle hastened the collapse of morale. The haphazard manner in which the 53rd was thrown into battle caused much misgiving and grumbling among the senior command. One senior officer, Brigadier Gamini Hettierarchchi, grumbled about the manner the division was thrown piecemeal into the fray and was transferred. The military had made little effort to guarantee that potable water supplies would continue to be available in the torrid climate. Indeed, the decision to order the garrison to retreat from the main base at EPS had been forced by the shortage of drinking water at the base. The base had been equipped with desalination machinery, but it had broken down, and nobody had thought to order repairs or replacements. The availability of potable water in Umaialpuram and Iyakchchi had lulled the military into complacency. It did not seem to have occurred to them that the LTTE would deliberately target the water wells to render the garrison’s position untenable. Indeed, the LTTE specifically targeted the five wells that served the main base garrison at EPS. The eventual shortage led to the deaths of hundreds of officers and men during the fighting, and ultimately

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to the disorganized withdrawal. Paradoxically, the base had ample quantities of canned food and dry rations. The Sri Lankan Defense Ministry estimated that more than 1,000 LTTE soldiers were killed in the three phases of their campaign against EPS. The LTTE denied this claim and stated that it had lost 303 men, including only 35 in the assault phase on the main base. The Tigers further stated that 1,000 army troops had been killed. The army rather feebly denied this figure, claiming, improbably, that only 80 had been killed and 100 were missing in action. The government was embarrassed when the LTTE returned the bodies of 126 soldiers through the Red Cross and proceeded to show families from the south the battlefields where the putrefying remains of hundreds of soldiers were half-buried. Several senior army commanders were killed during the campaign, including brigadier Percy Fernando, colonels Bhatiya Jayatilleke and Neill Akmeemana, and lieutenant-colonel Hewage Hewawasam. The EPS defeat was given a great deal of press coverage; as the extent of the disaster unfolded, people in the south were stunned and dejected. A sense of defeatism began to spread throughout the area. In a televised address to the nation, president Kumaratunga stated that despite the defeat her administration was committed to relentlessly pursuing the military option. Kumaratunga made some abrupt changes in the defense hierarchy days before the fall of EPS. She established a National Security Council to better coordinate defense policy and bring some order to the haphazard and corrupt system of arms procurement, which had often resulted in the armed forces being provided with unsuitable or unusable weapons. She placed retired chief of the army staff Rohan Dulawatte in overall command of the three services to promote better operational coordination among the army, air force, and navy. She placed combat-proven officers in senior positions: General Janaka Perera became Northern Province commander and General Sarath Fonseka commander of the Jaffna garrison. After a brief lull following the dramatic victory at EPS, fighting erupted again, this time in the Jaffna Peninsula itself. The LTTE called on all civilians from Pallai to Kodikamam, including Eluthumattuvaal and Mirusuvil, to relocate to safe areas. Thereafter, LTTE cadres moved along the A-9 highway and seized the bases at Pallai and Soranpattru to the north, which the government troops abandoned after a brief show of resistance. The LTTE then launched a two-pronged assault on Kilali. One axis moved along an 18-km dirt track that paralleled the coast from EPS to Kilali; the other

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moved west from Pallai to Puloppalai and then on to Kilali. The LTTE also opened another area of operations when it launched an attack on Nagar Kovil in the Vadamarachchi coastal area. Intense infantry battles took place in the Kilali, Nagar Kovil, and Pallai-Eluthumattuvaal areas. The army was forced to abandon several small, untenable fire bases in the areas of Varany, Mathagal, Chankanai, Vaddukkodai, Mahiyapiddy, Navali, Chulipuram, and Kandarodai to consolidate forces to better defend Jaffna city and the Pallai-Kankesanthurai tri-services military complex in the northern part of the peninsula. The remarkable progress of the LTTE on the ground in the peninsula raised serious worries about the future of the 35,000-man garrison in Jaffna. The seizure of Jaffna, which would also threaten the tri-services military complex to the north of the city, would have been a disaster of unimaginable proportions. The loss of the peninsula could, in effect, have meant the end of the war. What would become of the military forces in the north? The government did not have the wherewithal to withdraw almost 60,000 military personnel from Jaffna and the tri-services military complex. It had neither the airlift nor the naval capacity to do so. A defeat of such magnitude would force it to negotiate surrender terms with the LTTE and run to India for support to save the remnants of its military forces. The policy result, in any case, would most likely have been the emergence of Tamil Eelam. The Sri Lankan military forces held on in the Jaffna Peninsula. This was once again a testament to the incredible resilience with which the forces fought, despite the resupply problems and the high rates of desertions. Furthermore, the LTTE’s various operations began to run out of steam; the LTTE leadership was new to conventional operations and had begun to learn that they were not easy to undertake or sustain. Nonetheless, the growth of LTTE conventional capabilities was one of the more remarkable facts of Eelam War III. Equally impressive as the rapid growth of these forces was the skill and professionalism with which the LTTE ‘‘regulars’’ fought. Commander Bhanu was responsible for the transformation of the LTTE into a conventional military force. Initially, VP ordered Bhanu to set up regular artillery units; this he did very competently. At first the LTTE artillery formations depended on artillery units seized from the army. Later the LTTE procured artillery on the global black market and transported the weapons by sea to their Wanni stronghold. The LTTE recruited foreign mercenaries on a contract basis to teach them the finer points of artillery deployment and use. Over time, a competent LTTE artillery cadre emerged;

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the entire formation was named Kittu after a former Jaffna commander. Pleased with Bhanu’s work, VP ordered the commander to set up the Victor armored unit. Again, in the initial stages the LTTE acquired only a few armored vehicles and tanks seized from the army. Later, more vehicles were acquired on the black market. At the time of the heavy fighting of 1998–99, the LTTE artillery and armored units were ready to be thrown into the fray and played critical roles in the fighting. They were responsible for blunting attacks by government forces and were extensively used in support of LTTE infantry to seize army positions. These units contributed greatly to the LTTE’s success at EPS. In fact, Bhanu was given the honor of raising the LTTE flag at EPS in acknowledgment of the roles played by the Kittu and Victor units. Eelam War III ended in stalemate in 2000 due to exhaustion on both sides.22 The intense fighting of the 1990s, particularly from 1996 to 1999, had seen heavy casualties and significant losses of combat equipment on both sides. The government forces seemed to have emerged in far worse shape than the LTTE as the twentieth century drew to a close.23 Robert Rotberg, an American academic who had studied ethnic wars extensively, including the Sri Lankan case, wrote a gloomy analysis of the state of the military forces as Eelam III ended: The official army is weak strategically, poorly led, poorly paid, demoralized by danger and sustained lack of success, and allegedly riddled with corruption. Strategically, its major handicap is a scarcity of intelligence about the enemy. It has few resources for gathering intelligence, few Tamils to do it, and very few trained analysts of the intelligence that is gathered. So the Sri Lankan army fights a committed, even fanatic, cadre of guerillas with overwhelming numbers but with insufficient training, knowledge, and motivation.24 The loss of EPS had been a bitter humiliation for the armed forces. Apart from the disastrous and avoidable loss of large numbers of troops, the army’s logistics had been shown to be an embarrassment. Trucks bringing in new artillery pieces broke down and did not reach the battlefield in time. Ammunition ran out, and some of the shells that reached the troops were apparently of the wrong caliber for the artillery pieces deployed by the garrison. The Sri Lankan military had reached a major supply of weapons at that time, including mortars and artillery-locating radar, but the troops

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had not been trained in their use because the manuals were in English. The armed forces were in a parlous state. Some civilian elites as well as government officials and senior military officers clamored for the introduction of conscription to make up for the severe losses the military suffered due to high casualty rates and desertion. But middle-class politicians were not eager to go down this road, because the middle classes did not wish to see their sons inducted into the army. For them, it was preferable for the burden to be borne by the sons of poor rural peasant families from the Sinhalese heartland. In the south, the government was faced with increasing criticism over its failed ‘‘war for peace’’ strategy. Peace was nowhere in sight, and the economy was in tatters. Hopes for peace briefly gained ground when the LTTE—itself battered—declared a unilateral ceasefire in December 2000. But the senior leadership canceled the ceasefire on April 24, 2001, and launched an offensive against government forces stationed in the vicinity of the Wanni jungle. The LTTE ground offensive was coordinated with extensive terrorist actions. In July 2001 LTTE suicide bombers and sappers carried out a devastating attack on the Katunayake Air Force Base and the adjacent Bandaranaike International Airport. They destroyed eight Sri Lankan air force planes and four Air Lanka passenger planes, almost a third of the civil aviation fleet. The assault on the airport was witnessed by Western tourists and businessmen, and had a devastating impact. The daring twin assaults sent the economy further into a nosedive and devastated tourism, which was a vital component of the nation’s foreign exchange. After losing a no-confidence motion, President Kumaratunga was forced to dissolve parliament and called for new elections. The election, held December 5, 2001, saw a sweeping victory for the United National Front, led by Ranil Wickremesinghe, who had actively campaigned on a pro-peace platform and pledged to find a negotiated settlement to the conflict. The LTTE also declared willingness to explore measures for a peaceful settlement to the conflict. The 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States had made the LTTE leadership more amenable to sitting down and talking with the government, because it had come to realize that the international community was now less tolerant of violence by non-state actors across the globe. The LTTE feared its already tarnished image might be further damaged if it did not show a willingness to engage in political compromise, particularly since there was now a government in Colombo that had expressed a distinct desire to negotiate an agreement.

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On December 19, 2001, amid efforts by Norway to bring the government and LTTE to the table, the senior LTTE leadership announced a 30-day ceasefire and pledged to halt all attacks on the security service. The new parliamentary government in Colombo welcomed the move; it reciprocated two days later by announcing a month-long ceasefire of its own and agreeing to lift a long-standing economic embargo it had previously imposed on rebel-held territory. After intense direct negotiations, the two sides formalized a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on February 22, 2002, and signed a permanent ceasefire agreement (CFA). The peace process was to be implemented in two stages. The first stage would take care of immediate humanitarian needs and initiate reconstruction assistance to the wartorn regions of the north and east. The second stage would begin the long and painful process of finding a mutually acceptable political solution to the conflict.25 Norway was named primary mediator, and the parties decided that it, with the other Nordic countries, would monitor adherence to the ceasefire through a committee of experts called the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM).26 In August 2002 the government agreed to lift the ban on the LTTE, paving the way for resumption of direct contacts with the organization. Following the signing of the CFA, commercial flights to Jaffna resumed, and the LTTE opened the key A-9 highway, which linked government-controlled areas in the south with Jaffna and ran through LTTE territory. The reopening allowed resumption of civilian traffic through the Wanni region. Many countries offered substantial financial support to the island-nation, but only if there was further concrete progress toward a full settlement of the conflict. Optimism grew that the end of the conflict was in sight. The much-anticipated peace talks began in Phuket, Thailand, on September 16, 2002. Five further rounds followed in Oslo and Berlin. During the talks both sides seemed to agree in principle to a federal solution to the conflict. The Tigers appeared to have dropped their long-standing insistence on an independent state. A federal solution also represented a compromise by the government, which had seldom agreed to more than minimal devolution, and for whom in the past ‘‘federalism’’ had been a dirty word signifying the Tamils’ inevitable secession. The optimism generated by the ceasefire was to evaporate slowly but surely over the next three years due to a multitude of factors, but particularly as a result of political developments in the Sri Lankan government and in the ranks of the LTTE itself. Following the elections of 2001, for the first

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time in Sri Lankan history, the president and prime minister were from two different parties. This was to prove an uneasy cohabitation for two reasons, one purely personal and the other political. The prime minister, Wickremesinghe, a suave, Westernized, cosmopolitan individual completely at ease hobnobbing with Western diplomats and politicians, and the president, Kumaratunga, a staunch nationalist, simply did not like each other. This ensured that policy making in the government was marred by tensions, contradictory statements, and delays in implementing policy. The political problems that emerged proved to be more of a structural encumbrance to resolving the conflict than those posed by the ‘‘mere’’ personality clashes between the president and prime minister. Wickremesinghe and the UNP leadership thought a federal solution to the conflict was the only feasible solution; if only the rest of the Sinhalese elite and LTTE leadership could see it their way, the conflict would end. Wickremesinghe believed he would be able to bring recalcitrant parties to his way of thinking. The hardline elements in Kumaratunga’s party and the Sinhalese rightwing parties were immensely suspicious of the idea of federalism. The right believed Wickremesinghe’s government was giving the LTTE too much without anything meaningful in return.27 Moreover, the Sinhalese hardliners and extreme right groups were incensed by what they saw as undue interference by outside powers in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs. For them internationalization of the conflict had always been detrimental to Sri Lanka’s interests; they vividly remembered India’s distasteful intervention in 1987. Now here was an overactive, far-off Scandinavian country, Norway—‘‘salmon-eating busybodies,’’ as one politician memorably described the Norwegians—poking its nose into things that did not concern it. Norway’s ever-smiling representatives, armed with the Panglossian optimism that a solution was just around the corner, were perceived as infuriatingly pro-LTTE. The right-wing elements of this increasingly unstable coalition government argued that the LTTE was using negotiations as a form of warfare to march closer to its true goal of creating an independent state. The evidence was there for all to see. The LTTE continued to levy taxes, smuggle in arms and ammunition, recruit child soldiers, and kill members of rival Tamil groups and government personnel. During the CFA, the LTTE set up a series of key bases in the Eastern Province in the vicinity of strategic government installations and military complexes—such as the port city of Trincomalee, which housed army and naval bases. The open celebration of Heroes

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Day—an annual event in November commemorating LTTE cadres killed in the war—in cemeteries in Batticaloa also rankled. The lack of trust on both sides, which was to be expected at the beginning, never really dissipated over the course of the talks. This remained a serious problem even as personal relationships developed among negotiators on both sides. Often the talks between the government and LTTE representatives ended up nothing more than ‘‘talking about talking more.’’ Little was produced in the way of substance. Unsurprisingly, talks broke down on April 21, 2003, when the Tigers announced that they were suspending any further discussions due to their dissatisfaction with their exclusion from reconstruction talks held in Washington, D.C., the previous week. They complained, too, that the LTTE-controlled areas were not receiving the full economic rewards of peace.28 The leadership maintained that they were fully committed to a settlement of the conflict but cautioned that concrete progress had to be made on the ground before they would return to the talks. Their next move, however, came as a surprise. On October 31, the LTTE issued its own comprehensive peace proposal: the Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA). The ISGA would be fully controlled by the LTTE and have broad authority over the northern and eastern regions; the GoSL would be effectively excluded from meaningful authority in the regions covered by the ISGA.29 In retrospect, this far-reaching proposal was a blunder by the LTTE; worse than a call for federalism, it was seen as a call for separation in all but name. For the Sinhalese hardliners and nationalists, the move led them to gloat, ‘‘We told you so.’’ It provoked a strong backlash in these circles, which accused the prime minister of handing the north and the east on a platter to the LTTE. Under pressure from her own party to take action, Kumaratunga declared a state of emergency and took control of three key ministries: Mass Media, Interior, and Defense. She then formed an alliance with the now increasingly respectable JVP in the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA). She stated her alliance’s opposition to ISGA in unequivocal terms, advocated a harder line toward the LTTE, and called for fresh elections. The elections were held on April 8, 2004. They resulted in a victory for the UPFA and Mahinda Rajapaksa, a rising charismatic politician from the south and an unabashed nationalist, who became prime minister. Initial fears of an immediate resumption of fighting were allayed by the new government’s pious expressions of a desire to continue the peace process and find a mutually acceptable negotiated settlement. However, by then

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it was becoming clear that the trajectory of politics in the center was definitely not favorably disposed toward a settlement with the LTTE. Feelings among the Sinhalese had hardened perceptibly, and the nationalist right was on the rise. Between 1990 and 1993, the JVP completely disappeared from sight, and many believed it would never reemerge, having been crushed twice after its youthful members had arisen in violent insurrections. Within a matter of five years, however, the JVP had not only reemerged but flourished, and it established itself as the third force in electoral politics. At the same time, the situation in LTTE ranks was getting complicated. Indeed, in retrospect, one can see that what happened to the LTTE at this time contained the seeds of its destruction. At one level the LTTE was beginning to act like a state. American journalist Philip Gourevitch, who toured the LTTE-controlled areas in the north, observed the LTTE’s slow but steady process of trying to transform itself into a de facto state: To get there, you must cross what amounts to an international frontier in the middle of the kilometre-wide no man’s land that bisects the island from coast to coast along the ceasefire line. Although the government of Sri Lanka refuses to recognize it, the Tigers have established their own state, with customs officials, a border control, a uniformed police force, and a full complement of ministries. The sheds on the Tiger side of the border crossing, where travel documents are examined, are plastered with posters celebrating the exploits of suicide bombers, and staffed by uniformed female cadres with braided pigtails looped and gathered on their heads, like helmets.30 Many other observers also pointed out that the LTTE was deliberately and methodically moving toward setting up the infrastructure of a state in areas under its control. There were, however, profound weaknesses in the LTTE’s state-building enterprise. First, despite its significant levels of funding, courtesy of the large Tamil diaspora, the LTTE spent very little on actually building the infrastructures of an independent state. Second, due to the LTTE’s minimal expenditure on normal state functions such as salaries and social welfare, it was actually the Sri Lankan government that was paying the salaries of public officials in the Tamil-held areas and permitting NGOs to provide aid and funds to the north and east.

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Nonetheless, the LTTE’s slow but steady attempts to transform itself into a state worried the government, which increasingly believed that the state of ‘‘no war, no peace’’ worked to solidify and perpetuate the LTTE’s quasi-state. Despite the international proscription of the LTTE, there seemed to be a willingness, especially among European nations, to perceive the movement as a quasi-legitimate entity with whom the government should negotiate satisfaction of just Tamil grievances. The more the LTTE succeeded in establishing a de facto infrastructure of authority and legitimacy, the greater the pressure on the government to deal directly with the organization again. The worst possible outcome of the increasing LTTE legitimization as a quasi-state would be the one Sinhalese feared most: secession and territorial division of the island. Even as the LTTE moved toward solidifying its status as a state, it was hit by a political catastrophe that was to have serious military consequences as well: the defection of Colonel Karuna and several thousand cadres. In March 2004 a major fracture developed between the northern and eastern wings of the LTTE.31 Colonel Karuna (whose real name is Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan), eastern commander of the LTTE and one of Prabhakaran’s trusted lieutenants, pulled approximately 2,500–3,500 eastern cadres out of the movement, claiming that insufficient resources and power were being given to Tamils in this portion of the island.32 Karuna also accused VP of being out of touch with domestic and international realities. This was the most serious rift in the history of the LTTE, and it was to prove fatal. After the Sri Lankan armed forces had wrested the Jaffna Peninsula from the LTTE in 1996, Prabhakaran no longer had a ready-made territorial base from which to draw manpower. He had looked to eastern Sri Lanka, where his cadres controlled dozens of Tamil villages and from which Karuna managed to provide the necessary manpower. When the government launched a military operation to take control of a highway in the north, Karuna moved thousands of cadres from the east for the counteroffensive, successfully thwarting the advance and inflicting hundreds of casualties on the Sri Lankan armed forces in what became known as the Highway of Blood during Operation Jayasikuru, a ferocious battle between government forces and LTTE units. Karuna also led the LTTE Unceasing Waves offensives, through which it regained all the territory it had lost to the government in the northern Wanni mainland. The casualties suffered by eastern Tamils became a festering sore. Furthermore, Tamils in eastern Sri Lanka had begun to question what they saw

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as political domination by the northern Tamils. Even before the Tamil struggle turned militant, the top hierarchies of the Tamil United Liberation Front, the main political party of the Tamils, and its forerunner, the Federal Party, were packed with Jaffna Tamils. The LTTE was no different, and Tamils in Batticaloa resented that the group looked east only for cannon fodder, without taking into consideration the political aspirations of the region. As the ceasefire took hold, Karuna began to feel that he was being marginalized, particularly as foreign mediators were spending their time with the senior LTTE leadership in the Wanni region. While it was dangerous for any senior LTTE cadre to overtly display signs of dissent, by spring 2004 Colonel Karuna could contain himself no longer, and rumors of his disgruntlement began to spread north. VP had no compunction in physically eliminating anyone perceived as posing a challenge to his leadership. Mahattiya, his second-in-command through the war with the Indian peacekeeping forces, had met with such a fate because of his alleged membership in the Indian intelligence service. But Karuna’s challenge was different from that by Mahattiya. First, Karuna had a constituency, and a formidable one: his soldiers and civilians in the Eastern Province. Mahattiya had no power base. Second, Karuna understood the power of the press, which is why he decided to make the feud public. In these circumstances, killing Karuna was not going to be as easy as killing Mahattiya. Karuna would not have taken such a bold step as to break away unless he was sure of his support.33 After Karuna raised his banner of revolt, it was inevitable that his group would come into conflict with LTTE units loyal to VP; indeed, some sharp but brief firefights occurred almost immediately between the rebels and the loyalists south of Trincomalee. This fighting was to prove the opening gambit of a counteroffensive by the LTTE. VP had to wipe out the rebellion for many obvious reasons. First, it was a devastating blow to his charismatic control over the movement. It could not be allowed to stand in light of the image that VP had cultivated as undisputed and beloved leader. Second, it made a mockery of the supposedly emergent LTTE nation-state. Third, it threatened to weaken the LTTE’s hand against the GoSL; moreover, the latter could take advantage of the situation—which it ultimately did—and offer Karuna support. For these reasons, VP knew he had to devote time and resources to defeating this challenge. Karuna, however, was confident he could hold his own against the LTTE. He had hundreds of combat-proven cadres at his command. Moreover, the geography of the east and provisions of the ceasefire agreement

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between Colombo and the LTTE worked in his favor militarily. The areas he controlled in the east were completely isolated from the LTTEdominated Wanni by large tracts of land under the control of the Sri Lankan armed forces. It would not be easy for the LTTE to transport heavy weapons, supplies, and troops overland to defeat the challenge posed by Karuna. Without the heavy weapons and large numbers of troops, he was confident that the LTTE could not pose much of a threat to him and his followers. Thus he seemed to have concluded he could face off and successfully contain the LTTE units present in the Eastern Province. Karuna was also convinced that the Sea Tigers—the naval component of the LTTE—would not be able to transport heavy weapons or troops by sea from the north to the east; this would be an obvious violation of the ceasefire with the GoSL. The Sea Tigers would also be likely to find themselves challenged by the Sri Lankan navy; furthermore, the coastal region around Batticaloa district, where the LTTE would have to mass its forces to defeat Karuna, could not sustain a major logistics effort from the sea: the waters were choppy and treacherous, and the land was marshy and waterlogged. Last, Karuna calculated that a major LTTE military effort would run afoul of the Sri Lankan army, which controlled the A-11 highway to the Batticaloa district. It was not possible for large units of the LTTE to cross the Valaichenai-Polannaruwa Road (A-11) without confronting the Sri Lankan army. Karuna had good reason to believe the LTTE could not enter his stronghold by sea or through the Vakarai region in sufficient numbers and with adequate weaponry and supplies. Karuna’s assumptions were derailed, and his defense plans went awry. Once battle was joined, his units were stunned to find themselves coming under a barrage of heavy 120-mm mortar fire. The command and control center of the units held by Karuna’s older brother Reggie, who was in overall charge of the defenses of Vakarai, was captured by a team of LTTE special forces, as were the command and control centers of the pro-Karuna Vinothan, Visalahan-2, and Anbarasi military units. Three LTTE special forces teams had taken these centers by complete surprise and knocked them out of action. Another special forces team ambushed the vehicle in which the commander of Karuna’s Sea Tiger unit at Kathiraveli was traveling deep behind the frontlines. Meanwhile, troops of the Jeyanthan Regiment, the LTTE elite infantry formation known for the fierce battles it fought against Operation Jaya Sikuru, pummeled Karuna’s forces and all but surrounded the main units. Leaders of the LTTE political division from

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Batticaloa, who had opposed Karuna and had gone to the Wanni, called on the surrounded rebel unit to surrender; a few hundred did so. Attempts by most of the troops to break out en masse were thrown back. Karuna’s forces abandoned Vakarai in disarray and retreated to the jungle near Thoppigala. The Sri Lankan army redeployed some units in the region to prevent the LTTE from pursuing the remnants of the rebel force.34 Karuna, defeated, went into hiding and began a low-level war against the LTTE, not so secretly aided by the GoSL. Karuna’s faction began the process of dismantling the LTTE infrastructure in the Eastern Province. To the consternation and alarm of the LTTE, Karuna ultimately recovered, with the help of the Sri Lankan military and intelligence apparatus. Within months his cadres were back hunting the men who had hunted him and his supporters. LTTE personnel began to succumb to a rash of assassinations and ambushes throughout the Eastern Province. One of the LTTE’s biggest mistakes had been to brutalize and kill members of the middle and commercial classes in the Batticaloa-Ampara district over their support for Karuna. The brutality with which the LTTE behaved roused the hitherto somnambulant general populace against the organization; during the battle between the LTTE and Karuna, the populace had generally stayed on the sidelines, perceiving the bloodletting to be between the Jaffna and eastern elites. Karuna’s ambitions extended beyond a desultory military campaign, however; it became clear he had political ambitions. He subsequently formed a political party named the Tamil Eelam Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP).35 The defection of Colonel Karuna was not the only catastrophe to befall the LTTE. The devastating tsunami that hit Sri Lanka and several other countries in December 2004 killed 30,000 people in the island nation. Cleanup and reconstruction after this tragedy became a bone of contention between government and LTTE. The tsunami itself killed close to 3,000 LTTE military cadres, of whom around 2,000 were Sea Tiger naval cadres.36 This loss was to have a devastating impact on LTTE effectiveness when the fourth and final phase of the war erupted in 2006. Another aspect of the post-tsunami situation also annoyed the LTTE: their perception that the government was unwilling to share the stage with the organization in provision of humanitarian aid to the stricken population. As 2004 came to a close, VP gave his Heroes Day speech. In light of the calamities that had hit the LTTE that year and the lack of progress in negotiating a complete end to the conflict, it was not surprising that the speech

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was hardly optimistic. He was clearly worried by the state of ‘‘no war, no peace,’’ which, coupled with the rebellion and the tsunami, was slowly but surely sucking the life out of the movement’s political and military momentum: Today we are faced with a critical and complex situation, unprecedented in the history of our liberation struggle. We are living in a political void, without war, without a stable peace, without the conditions of normalcy, without an interim or permanent solution to the ethnic conflict. Our liberation struggle will be seriously undermined if this political vacuum continues indefinitely.37 VP may have wanted to break the deadlock in 2004 by initiating some form of military action; of course, the catastrophes that year destroyed any prospect for successful military action. As 2005 began there were fears that one side or the other, or both, would initiate some form of action to break the deadlock. The ceasefire largely held through all this political and environmental turmoil in the country, but it was a ceasefire in name only, with more than 3,000 infractions by the LTTE and some 300 by the SLA as recorded by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), up to 2005. The situation was further complicated by allegations that both sides were carrying out covert operations against each other. The government claimed the LTTE was assassinating political opponents, recruiting children, importing arms, and killing government security and intelligence officers. The LTTE accused the government of supporting paramilitary groups, especially the Karuna group, to assassinate LTTE cadres. The August 2005 LTTE assassination of respected Sri Lankan foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, who had undertaken considerable efforts at the international level to delegitimize the LTTE, outraged Colombo and the international community, and was another strategic blunder on the part of VP.38 The year 2005 was to prove contentious in Sri Lankan politics as well, as preparations for presidential elections captured the political limelight. The election cycle ensured that the conflict was sidelined, at least for a while, but the ultimate political outcome was to have a fateful impact on the evolution of the conflict. Presidential elections were held on November 17, 2005. Incumbent prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa defeated former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and took office on November 19. Rajapaksa had quickly emerged as the candidate for the Sri Lanka Freedom

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Party and Wickramasinghe for the United National Party. Both candidates energetically sought to mobilize support among smaller parties that represented key constituencies. Rajapaksa had moved to reenergize the alliance with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party, which had become a respectable member of the mainstream political process and, despite having only 9 seats in the 225-seat national parliament, wielded considerable influence. Rajapaksa also had the support of a critical group in Sinhalese society: the political monks of the Jatika Hela Urumaya (JHU). The monks had long been active in Sri Lanka’s deeply polarized politics, but for the first time they joined the governing coalition with their own political party. Since 1956 successive Sri Lankan governments dominated by the Sinhalese had sought to reestablish and deepen the connection between state and religion that had come undone during the British colonial era. The promulgation of a republican constitution in 1972, including articles entrenching the foremost place of and state patronage for Buddhism, and the current constitution, which came into effect in 1978, granted a special place for the Buddhist religion while ostensibly protecting the religions of the minorities (in article 9). These moves had provided religion with an important place within the state and significantly transformed the nature of the secular state in Sri Lanka. These political measures were accompanied by a meticulous and detailed nationalist mythology. Though political activism by the Buddhist monks was longstanding, contemporary political debates among Sri Lankan Buddhist monks have heavily influenced modern Sinhala nationalist ideology.39 The political monks are xenophobic and resent the interference of foreign powers in Sri Lankan domestic affairs. They were fervently opposed to any talk of federalism, because they subscribed wholeheartedly to the concept of a unitary state dominated by the Sinhalese. According to this ideology, supported by both monks and laypeople, the former glories of the Sinhala nation are to be restored once again. For the adherents of this farright nationalist philosophy, which was made up of a mishmash of reactionary sentiments harking back to the past and of progressive socialist ideals, the Sinhala nation constituted a unified Sinhala-speaking people, who were egalitarian in their social relations, farmed their paddy fields, and lived a life of uncomplicated simplicity in accordance with Buddhist morality. Over the centuries, however, this idealized land of Sinhala racial purity and Buddhist glory had been invaded and devastated, first by Hindu Tamils,

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later by Christians and Muslims, and finally in recent times by Tamil immigrants of Indian origin. Once independence had been wrested from the alien and decadent West in 1948, it was time once again for the Sinhalese to claim their rightful position as rulers of the island, to ensure the predominant position of the Sinhalese language, and to restore Buddhism as the leading force in the country.40 The monks have argued vociferously against any selfdetermination for the Tamils in the north; in this context, federalism—which calls for a significant devolution of power to regions—is anathema to those Sinhalese who are wedded to the idea of Sri Lanka as a unitary entity and believe that federalism is a major step toward secession.41 Furthermore, a unitary state would be essential for the continued perpetuation of the Buddhist faith on the island, since it is only under a unitary state—dominated by the Sinhala people, of course—that the sacred link between Buddhism and the state could be maintained and allowed to thrive.42 The right, including the monks, continue even today to argue against any measure of autonomy or regional devolution, which most political observers believe is critical to reconciliation and stability. The rightist groups denied that the 2,000 year-old Tamil presence in the island was anything but a short-lived, ancient invasion perpetuated by colonial injustice and recent illegal immigration. This influx of ‘‘foreigners’’ had interfered with Sri Lanka’s destined role as the special guardian of Buddhist teaching. It had corrupted the sacred Sinhalese language with foreign terms and, worst of all, polluted the sacred Aryan blood of the Sinhalese people with inferior Dravidian stock.43 Even though they enjoy a strong majority on the island nation, the Sinhalese Buddhists are deeply disturbed by the presence of 65 million Tamils across the Palk Strait in southern India. Buddhist nationalists are able to tap into deep fears that any territorial concessions to the Tamils would lead to eventual Indian subjugation. The monks wield greater power now, because they share their nationalist ideology with many other members of the government and have been remarkably successful in getting a large number of people, including many in the armed forces, to imbibe the militant nationalist vision the religious establishment had been propagating for a long time. The monks used their newfound political influence to urge president Mahinda Rajapaksa to honor the vow with which he came to power in late 2005: to destroy the Tigers.44 Wickremasinghe, however, offered an alternative approach: to continue negotiations and reach a conclusive settlement with the LTTE—a settlement he knew would necessitate major concessions on the part of

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Colombo. By 2005, however, powerful political spoiler forces had successfully and irreparably undermined the political legitimacy of both the CFA and the negotiations. Prime minister Wickremasinghe’s inability to dominate the complex negotiations with the LTTE, and the repeated LTTE violations of the CFA and insistence on a maximalist interim solution, contributed greatly to a Sinhalese nationalist backlash despite the immense war-weariness. Wickremasinghe’s approach was anathema to many Sinhalese, who regarded him as weak and ready to hand over part of the country to the LTTE. He had little or no chance of succeeding among a substantial element of the Sinhalese electorate. His only real hope of victory was through the support of the island’s ethnic minorities. Wickremasinghe, who came to be known as ‘‘dead man walking’’ as a reflection of his waning political fortunes, secured the endorsement of the main Muslim party, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, and Ceylon Workers’ Congress, which represented the estate Tamils of the central highlands. He could not, however, obtain the backing of the main Sri Lankan Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance. Wickremasinghe’s hopes for victory were effectively dashed when the LTTE ordered Tamil voters, most of whom would probably have voted for him, to boycott the polls, allowing Rajapaksa to win the presidency by a narrow margin.45 The UPFA, which won the parliamentary election in April 2004 and the presidential election in November 2005, was essentially an anti-LTTE coalition.46 While socioeconomic issues were a concern of the new Rajapaksa government, everyone knew Sri Lanka’s long-running and unresolved civil war was going to be the focus of his attention. The ceasefire arranged by outside powers was fraying at the edges; this was reflected in the constant infractions by both sides, but mainly by an LTTE that was somewhat overconfident in its abilities and dismissive of the new right-wing government in Colombo. But VP underestimated Mahinda Rajapaksa, and this mind set was ultimately to prove fatal to the organization and to VP himself. Rajapaksa came to power declaring he was ready to do his utmost for peace but equally prepared to face the risk of open war. Rajapaksa had received the support of the two far-right parties after he agreed to reject federalism and renegotiate the ceasefire with the LTTE. This would essentially mean that the LTTE would have to surrender to the diktat of such a right-wing government should it come to power, an unlikely prospect, or face war, for which the right-wing coalition was going to prepare the country.

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The Rajapaksa administration was hostage to its right-wing constituency among the Sinhalese population. Rajapaksa himself is not an ideologically inflexible leader; but although he was not about to implement the hardline platforms of the JVP and JHU, he had made promises to the right wing in the run-up to the presidential elections, and he intended to keep some of them, particularly those pertaining to the conflict with the LTTE. His government’s parliamentary majority depended on JVP and JHU support. In his early months in office, he designed a strategy that appealed to his hardline coalition partners as well as the international community. The strategy would call for negotiations with the LTTE, but from a position of military strength. In the government’s estimation it was never a rational policy to negotiate from a position of weakness, as past administrations had. Furthermore, even if we ignore the ideological influence of the far right on Rajapaksa and his closest advisers, it is an incontrovertible fact that this group of officials, from the president down, was composed of hardnosed realists who had come to the conclusion that defeat of the LTTE was both necessary and feasible. The senior elite believed the war against the LTTE could be won if the professional military was provided with the support and the resources to wage war effectively. The past military failures by the state were attributed to the ‘‘wrong’’ approach of politicians conducting the war. The country would need ideological and political cohesion to understand that this would be a sustained and costly campaign; the leadership believed this cohesion would be provided by the ideological cement of the right wing. The government’s determination to relentlessly pursue the war drive for the east found favor with the monks. When the war started in 2006, the clergy was in the forefront of promoting the principle of war until victory.47 The government actively sought the political support or political neutrality of international actors. The new administration also conducted a thorough assessment of the strategic situation. Defeat of the LTTE was the goal of President Rajapaksa. He and his team were very wary of ceasefires and negotiation ploys that, in their view, had led nowhere except to further consolidation of the LTTE and the spilling of more blood. The centerpiece of previous government approaches had been to bring the LTTE to the negotiating table. Ceasefires had been accompanied by five direct and two back-channel negotiations with the LTTE.48 President Rajapaksa and his close associates—including his brothers, Gotabhaya, secretary of defense, and Basil, a policy advisor— were determined to prevent the LTTE from using negotiations as a form of

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political warfare that would allow them to build up for military operations and achieve their goal of a separate state. That the LTTE was using the CFA as a means to get ready for a more bruising round of fighting was a real fear on the part of the government.49 This was evident in Rajapaksa’s election manifesto, the Mahinda Chintana (Mahinda Vision), where he stated in reference to the CFA that ‘‘the ceasefire agreement entered into by the United National Front government in much haste and in a shortsighted manner without consultations further complicated this problem. The Muslim and Sinhala people living in the East were subjected to abuse, resulting in continuous unrest in the areas.’’50 The belief that the LTTE was manipulating the situation of ‘‘no war, no peace’’ to its advantage was well articulated by the secretary of defense in an extended interview with a Sri Lankan magazine: For the past 30 years, because of LTTE terrorist activities, a major part of the land in the North and East, was lost to us. The Government, the Military or the Police did not have any control of this land. The LTTE had complete control of those areas where they had their so-called police posts and military camps. The LTTE was planning to achieve what Prabakharan wanted for so many years, which was to have a separate country. The LTTE was working towards that by establishing camps, strengthening their armed cadres, recruiting, training and procuring weapons [emphasis added]. You could see how much weapons they had acquired during the ceasefire and prior to that. The amount of arms and ammunition . . . that we captured were matching the Sri Lankan Forces. It was very clear that the LTTE was planning to militarily achieve their goal of a separate state . . . they were using the CFA and the peace talks to militarily strengthen themselves.51 John Richardson, in his comprehensive study of the conflict, Paradise Poisoned, describes how the LTTE had been taking advantage of ceasefires since 1985 in order to improve its political and military positions: Unproductive truces, used by the Tamil militants to rebuild their strength, were another pattern. The first began on July and ended in September 1985. Sri Lanka’s army detachments ceased offensive operations and remained in their encampments. This stand

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down was intended to provide a favorable background for Indianbrokered negotiations between Sri Lankan government officials and militant representatives in Bhutan’s capital, Thimpu. But while talks proceeded, LTTE cadres laid land mines and erected barriers on roads leading from the encampments, severely limiting the army’s mobility. When the truce and talks ended unproductively, LTTE hit squads were in a much stronger position to attack Sinhalese civilians. By decimating rival groups, they established themselves as the dominant Tamil force.52 The new government was gravely concerned by the fact that the LTTE was acting as if it were a state, as was already described above.53 The new government believed that this state of ‘‘no peace, no war’’ would actually work to solidify and consolidate the LTTE’s mini or quasi-state. It would be catastrophic for the government if the LTTE were to gain legitimate status in its own areas. The LTTE’s construction of the apparatus of a rudimentary and seemingly functional state, even in the contested Eastern Province, was viewed with great concern by the government and the Sinhalese nationalist constituency that had brought it to power. Moreover, despite the international proscription of the LTTE after 9/11, European nations, in particular, seemed to perceive the movement as a legitimate entity with whom the government in Colombo should negotiate some sort of permanent solution to Tamil grievances. Colombo was irked by the West’s seeming inability to comprehend the depth of VP’s demands, which were to destroy the territorial integrity of the island nation. As for the LTTE itself, it seemed to have concluded that the 2002–3 peace process had not provided positive or tangible benefits for their side. On the contrary, the ceasefire had weakened the LTTE militarily and politically in the Eastern Province as a result of the Karuna rebellion and the tsunami. The leadership interpreted the failure to establish an administrative mechanism for cooperation for post-tsunami reconstruction (P-TOMS) as indisputable evidence that the Sinhalese ruling elite was not willing to compromise over something as ‘‘mundane’’ as distribution of aid to needy people. The only problem was that the distribution of aid was no mere mundane issue. For the government it meant yet another element in the legitimization of the LTTE. Not surprisingly, bringing to an end the fruitless negotiations with the Sri Lankan state that began in 2002 became a strategic objective of the LTTE as well. VP’s frustration over the lack of

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progress and seeming disregard with which the LTTE was treated came out clearly in his Heroes Day speech of November 27, 2004: Three years have lapsed since we entered into a ceasefire agreement with the Government of Sri Lanka, after three decades of protracted armed struggle. You are fully aware that during this period of ceasefire we have been making every endeavour, with sincerity and commitment, to seek a negotiated settlement to the Tamil national question through peaceful means . . . [these efforts], turned out to be futile and meaningless.54 It is clear that if the political situation had been auspicious, VP would have returned to some form of political violence at the end of 2004. However, given the enormous setbacks caused by the Karuna rebellion and the tsunami, this would have been a difficult step. VP’s frustrations perhaps explain why the LTTE imposed a boycott in the north on the day of presidential elections in November 2005, paving the way for Rajapaksa, in alliance with the JVP and JHU, to win the elections. The LTTE was apparently convinced that the emergence of the unknown Rajapaksa, in contrast to the well-known and polished Wickremasinghe, would be to its advantage politically. Wickremasinghe had earned considerable respect and support in the West for his desire to reach an accord that would satisfy all parties. If he had won the elections, the LTTE would have come under considerable pressure to enter negotiations with a government amenable to compromise, giving the Tamils a great deal of what they wanted short of outright independence. The LTTE hoped Rajapaksa’s fervent nationalist credentials, which made him less amenable to compromise, would have a negative impact in the international community. What the LTTE failed to anticipate was the new government’s strategy of engaging the international community to gain support and show up the LTTE as the unreasonable party. As the two sides were getting each other’s measure, there was an uptick in violence. In early 2006, LTTE agents provocateurs began to promote civilian unrest in the government-controlled city of Jaffna. Security forces and government officials became the targets of systematic assassination attempts and attacks. These were followed by a resurgence of bombings and attacks on military patrols using improvised explosive devices (IEDs), at which LTTE sappers excelled. The violence spread once more to other parts of the country. The LTTE claimed, rather

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disingenuously, that it was not responsible for the sudden resurgence in violence: these actions were undertaken by ordinary civilian waging a ‘‘people’s war’’ (makkal yuthan) as a protest against the violence perpetrated by the security forces and semi-official paramilitary units and death squads that were well known for brutality toward Tamil civilians. The LTTE denials rang hollow, as the attacks clearly were carried out professionally.55 The government forces overreacted as usual, and the result was to speed up the disintegration of the CFA and increase the level of distrust on both sides. Given the mindset of both sides and their inevitable jockeying for advantage to improve their positions, it was only a matter of time before the fiction of the ceasefire was discarded and both sides returned to war. During fall 2005 and spring 2006, there were direct firefights and clashes between SLA and LTTE units along the front lines.56 Both sides returned to the time-honored tactic of mutual assassinations.57 The spark for return to full-scale hostilities was also only a matter of time, and it arrived in the Eastern Province in spring 2006. Indeed, April 2006 was the bloodiest month since the comprehensive ceasefire agreement had been implemented four years before. However, bloody battle was to be joined during Eelam War IV before the government officially abrogated the CFA in January 2008. By then thousands had been killed or wounded on both sides, and the LTTE was stunned to find itself ground down in a sanguinary war of attrition by a revitalized Sri Lankan military.

4 Eelam War IV: A Military Analysis

In 2001, both sides in the conflict ended Eelam War III exhausted; however, the LTTE emerged from this period with a formidable reputation, solidified by its victory at Elephant Pass. By contrast, the Sri Lankan armed forces were demoralized and all but defeated. Eelam War IV started in April 2006 and ended on May 19, 2009, when the LTTE was crushed and almost its entire senior leadership eliminated. In the opening phase of Eelam War IV, the LTTE suffered defeat after defeat in the Eastern Province. Following these reverses, the leadership calculated it could not hold the Eastern Province and made the decision to conserve its cadres for the forthcoming fight in the Northern Province, which was the movement’s heartland and center of gravity. The LTTE fared no better in the Northern Province theater of operations. The Sri Lankan military overwhelmed the LTTE with well-trained units, immense firepower, and mutiple simultaneous assaults. The combat was brutal and both sides suffered severe casualties. In the end, the LTTE was decisively defeated. The world was stunned; after all, the LTTE had been variously described as one of the deadliest or most professional terrorist or insurgent groups in the world. It was disciplined and well organized and had a cohesive hierarchy dominated by VP. It had an extensive global support network in the Tamil diaspora of about one million people, mainly in the West; this gave the group access to financial and material resources to fund its war against the government of Sri Lanka. Almost nobody, including officials in the government, thought it could be beaten. Everyone expected that if there were another round of fighting, the two sides would exhaust themselves and go back to negotiations. How then did the LTTE succumb to such a decisive defeat in 2009? To answer that question, this chapter first provides

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a chronological military narrative of Eelam War IV, followed by an in-depth analysis of the Sri Lankan military’s transformation into a war-winning organization. It also examines the weaknesses and defects of the LTTE that led to its total collapse.

The Eastern Province Theater of Operations Following the implementation of the 2002 ceasefire agreement, the LTTE managed to ensconce itself firmly in the Eastern Province. A presence in this region was of great political, strategic, and operational significance, since the leadership believed strongly that the region was part of Tamil Eelam. It was a recruiting base for personnel, and it had the potential to contribute significantly to the economic prosperity of the nascent state. Thus the LTTE was alarmed by the government’s slow but steady transformation of the province into a Sinhala majority region through settlement of Sinhalese people. In response, the LTTE engaged in extensive, brutal ethnic cleansing of the Sinhala and Muslim populations. Moreover, control of the Eastern Province seaboard was critical for the LTTE, because it enabled movement of troops and supplies between north and east via sea, without requiring travel over insecure overland routes. The Eastern Province contained Trincomalee (Trinco), the best natural harbor in South Asia; the government’s possession allowed it to send troops and supplies by sea to the garrison in Jaffna, whose defeat was high on the list of LTTE targets. Trinco was also a large military complex. The LTTE looked to the future when Trinco would be incorporated into the Tamil state; it would supersede Jaffna and Kankasethurai as the main seaport and naval base of the independent nation. In the final analysis, the Eastern Province was important for political, strategic, economic, and psychological reasons.1 LTTE control suffered in 2004 when Colonel Karuna defected, but this reinforced the leadership’s resolve to restore control over the province. To do so, it had to fight and eliminate Karuna’s breakaway faction and recover the loyalty of the Tamil community in the province. The government, for its part, needed to clear the LTTE out of this province for a number of reasons. The LTTE had established a potent terrorist and guerrilla presence in the province with several seemingly impregnable bases and camps in thick, inhospitable terrain. These posed a threat to the heart of the country to the west by potentially allowing LTTE units access

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to Colombo and other Sinhala-dominated regions. The LTTE presence in the jungles also posed a threat to the port cities of Batticaloa (BCO) and Trinco. The government set up a string of small army bases to keep the LTTE from encroaching farther into the vicinity of the two ports. These mini-bases were manned by naval personnel and troops of the Gemunu Watch infantry regiment. However, as the war continued to intensify during the 1990s, the Sri Lankan military found itself hard pressed to man these bases permanently due to the need for personnel in the numerous offensives launched in the northern regions against the main LTTE forces. When the government launched Operation Riviresa in 1995, it reduced the military presence in the east and abandoned twenty small bases as it pushed troops and materiel up to the northern front for the offensive. The LTTE simply marched into these ready-made infrastructures. By mid-1996 the security presence in the eastern region was almost nonexistent; three understrength battalions were attempting to hold large amounts of terrain against well-trained and disciplined LTTE cadres (this was before Colonel Karuna defected). In spring 1996 these units suffered dearly from constant ambushes along the major roads; they simply could not hold on to the remaining bases. Desertion became a serious issue; one commander reported that 30 percent of his men did not return to their duty station from leave. The tenuous government presence meant that the LTTE had free rein to move into the towns and villages of the eastern region to recruit personnel and to extort money and goods from the locals. When the government launched the massive Operation Jaya Sikuru in 1997, it was forced to vacate most of its remaining small operational bases so that its soldiers could be redeployed to participate in the offensive. The bases evacuated included Sampur, Illankantai, and Upparu. This was a remarkable and desperate step, given their strategic locations. Once again the LTTE moved in to occupy the vacated camps. At Sampur, for example, a coastal village overlooking the entrance to Trinco, the LTTE set up its own police station, court complex, and other administrative offices. It became clear to the government, as the CFA began to collapse, that abandoning the critical small bases had not been a wise decision. Many of these were around Trinco. From most of these camps, especially those close to the coast, the LTTE could observe the port city, the harbor itself, and the military installations. For example, LTTE artillery based in the Sampur area posed a strategic threat to the movement of Sri Lankan naval vessels across Koddiyar Bay. This meant that the military’s supply chain from Trinco

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to Jaffna was under LTTE surveillance and threat of attack. Much to the government’s alarm, the LTTE also established a robust presence and significant influence in Trincomalee. The organization distributed cards among traders and shopkeepers in the city for taxation purposes, and cadres dressed as civilians carried out reconnaissance operations in Trinco, much to the consternation of Sri Lankan security forces and intelligence agencies, which believed—almost certainly correctly—that the LTTE was collecting targeting data should hostilities resume. With a total population of about 1.5 million, the Eastern Province has three subdistricts: Trincomalee, Batticaloa, and Ampara. Each has its own specific and volatile ethnic and political dynamic, which the GoSL has tried to alter in favor of the Sinhalese to lessen the demographic and political relevance of the Tamils and Muslims.2 In Trincomalee Muslims surpassed Tamils as the largest demographic group; this was a worrisome fact for the LTTE, particularly because the subdistrict also bordered the Tamil heartland, the Northern Province. The southern flanks of the Northern Province could not be secure until the Trincomalee subdistrict was secured. Not surprisingly, the subdistrict has always been the most contested part of the Eastern Province, particularly as it contains the important port of Trinco. In Ampara subdistrict, the southernmost of the three, Muslims are also the largest demographic group, with Sinhalese a close second and Tamils a distant third. The Batticaloa subdistrict, in the middle of the province, is three-quarters Tamil and one-quarter Muslim. The Sinhalese presence there is minuscule. In the Eastern Province as a whole, Tamils account for just over 40 percent of the total population, Muslims just under 40 percent, and Sinhalese just over 20 percent. For the LTTE, this demography made a mockery of their claim of solid control in the region. Their regular protestations that the governement had encouraged migration of non-Tamils into the Eastern Province to dilute the Tamil presence was a reflection of their fear that they were not as solidly established as they publicly claimed. So the LTTE sought to ‘‘remedy’’ the situation on the ground by creating new facts.3 The government rightly feared that the LTTE was bent on causing communal and ethnic strife in the province. This did happen when the ceasefire agreement started to unravel, with an increase in ethno-sectarian violence.4 Often it was not clear who was the initial culprit in stoking the violence. However, the LTTE was more often at fault, as it was seeking to regain the initiative. The LTTE attacked the Muslim town of Muttur, leaving scores

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dead and thousands homeless. LTTE units provoked violence in other areas where ethnic groups were intermingled. The specific strategy was to launch a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Sinhalese and Muslim civilians, as Tamil civilians would be subjected to a massive recruitment drive. When Karuna and his group defected, the Tamils were subjected to a large-scale campaign of terror, abductions, and assassinations as the LTTE leadership sought to eliminate its foes and reimpose organizational discipline and cohesion. The Sri Lankan military was loath to undertake major operations in the Northern Province, the LTTE center of gravity, until the eastern and southern flanks were secured. Finally, for the GoSL the Eastern Province was the terrain of choice to test their newly restructured and revitalized armed forces. This was also a risky undertaking, as the terrain favored infantryintensive battles; there was little room for armored or mechanized vehicles to maneuver except in certain small areas. The government was thus banking heavily that the intensive training and specialized skills of the newly raised infantry forces and expanded elite units would carry the day. Minor skirmishes and firefights became a regular occurrence in spring 2006, making a mockery of the CFA. But Eelam War IV started in earnest in summer 2006 over the important matter of control of water resources in the Eastern Province. Clearly, given the simmering tensions over the previous year and the steady disintegration of bilateral relations, the water issue was a precipitating rather than underlying factor. On July 20, 2006, the LTTE closed the sluice gates of the Mavil Aru anicut (dam). The government complained that this action threatened the water supply of tens of thousands of people in government-controlled areas in the Eastern Province.5 The last thing the government needed was mass discontent in an already unsettled multiethnic region; this was driven home when the farmers affected complained loudly and called on the government to do something. The military launched an offensive codenamed Operation Watershed to reopen the sluice gates. While the fighting over the Mavil Aru anicut was going on, both sides claimed that they were genuinely seeking a way to return to negotiations and did not wish to see further deterioration of the situation. In reality, though, it seemed both sides had decided their goals were best met by testing each other on the field of battle. The LTTE put up stiff resistance, but the sluice gates were finally reopened. In response to the government offensive, the LTTE launched attacks on Trinco harbor from its strategically located base in Sampur. It then seized

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part of Muttur from local government security forces and began to harass, kill, and expel the town’s Muslim inhabitants. Muttur is on the southern shores of the Koddiyar Bay and commands the southern approaches into Trinco. The government decided to end the threat to Trinco once and for all and prevent the refugee problem from snowballing. It launched a decisive and efficiently led operation to recapture Muttur and take Sampur. For the Sri Lankan military, the LTTE armed presence in the area overlooking the harbor was simply unacceptable. The LTTE called the advance of the military into Sampur a breach of the CFA and lodged a complaint with the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM). It claimed the operation had left 97 civilians killed and 215 wounded. The government told the envoys that a cessation of hostilities should include the guarantee that the Sampur area did not pose a military threat to the harbor and its environs, and that the LTTE must dismantle its military presence.6 In reality the government was no longer in the mood for equivocation; it had already decided to take further military action to neutralize the LTTE military in the Eastern Province.7 The plan was to ease the pressure on Trinco and then strike at LTTE camps and bases in the interior. On September 4, 2006, government forces spearheaded by the 22nd Division and supported by commandos and special forces attacked the Sampur area along several axes from a number of army camps and installations located in the small rural towns of Toppur, Mahindapura, Panchanoor, and Kaddaiparichchan. The SLAF provided close air support by fixed-wing and Russian-built Mi-24 helicopter gunships from Hingurakgoda air base. SLN vessels stationed off the coast provided naval gunfire support. The military succeeded in recapturing Sampur from the LTTE; now the LTTE positions in the area around Sampur became untenable because LTTE forces were now surrounded to the west and south by government-held territory. To the north and east was water, and the navy had ensured that LTTE naval vessels were unable to approach the area. The LTTE military leaders seemed to have read the writing on the wall and had moved most of their heavy artillery pieces—which had been such a nuisance to the government—out of the area and deployed to the south, around their stronghold of Vakarai (where they would not remain safe for very long). Nonetheless, the government victory at Sampur was not only a militarily important achievement, as it pushed the LTTE away from the vicinity of the port: it was also immensely important as a psychological victory. The government’s first military victory in a long time, it provided

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initial evidence that preparedness and joint operations among the various services had improved.

The Battle for Vakarai It was, however, the difficult battle for the small, run-down coastal village of Vakarai on the decrepit A-15 ‘‘highway’’ that proved the SLA had made considerable progress in professionalism and innovation.8 The military operation was conducted in two main phases. The 23rd Division headquartered at Welikanda was in overall command. Former military spokesman Major General Daya Ratnayake was the general officer commanding (GOC) of the division at the time. The offensive was spearheaded by special forces units under Colonel Prasanna de Silva and included the following infantry units: 6th GW (Gemunu Watch), 7th GW, 8th GW, 10th GR (Gajaba Regiment), 8th GR, and 6th VIR (Vijayabahu Infantry Regiment). These infantry and special forces units were provided with effective and efficient combat service support by armored, artillery, and engineering corps to overcome the entrenched defenses and numerous obstacles the LTTE had set up. The military launched the first phase of the attack between October 2006 and January 2007, during which ground units made four consecutive efforts to advance into LTTE-held areas and succeeded in loosening LTTE control over several outlying areas. Extensive reconnaissance missions by special forces and commandos deep inside enemy-held territory facilitated accurate artillery and air strikes on LTTE formations; these units had personnel trained in calling down artillery and air strikes (forward air controllers, FACs). Constant SLN patrolling off the coast prevented the LTTE from bringing in reinforcements from the Wanni jungle or retrieving their big guns and other equipment from the east. The Sri Lankan military infiltrated elite long-range reconnaissance patrol (LRRP) teams behind LTTE lines; they kept the enemy off balance with a series of surprise assaults in multiple locations. These attacks forced the LTTE to disperse its cadres to deal with the multiple threats and allowed civilians who had been closely watched to flee the theater of operations. Following completion of the first phase of attack by the special forces and commandos, infantry units marched into the newly captured territories to consolidate government control. The operational methods of the past, whereby the army would clear an area of the

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LTTE and then vacate it—allowing the insurgents to reinfiltrate—would now be avoided. The army then made preparations for the second stage of the operation, which commenced on January 16, 2007. Four days of intense battle ensued. The infantry followed the special forces units, which were specifically tasked to take out LTTE bunkers and position.9 The forces moved forward in two axes of attack, from Kadjuwatta and Mahindapura, to put pressure on the LTTE from the north and south. LRRP teams supported by infantrymen marched into the Trikonamadu jungle from the Mavil Aru and Madurankerni Kulam areas to ambush possible enemy reinforcements moving into the area of combat operations and to intercept, capture, or kill any LTTE cadres fleeing the battlefield. Early on the morning of January 18, 2007, special forces commenced their advance from the 2nd LTTE defensive lines, which they had captured south of Panichchankerni. After a short but intense firefight, they captured the 3rd LTTE bunker line by early evening. As the SLA units inched their way north toward the southern banks of Panichchankerni lagoon, the LTTE blew up the Panichchankerni Bridge to slow down their advance. However, the troops continued to push forward along the narrow stretch of beachhead up to Challitivu, east of Vakarai. At Vakarai the LTTE had set up welldefended positions, fortifications, strong points, and observation posts. Frontal assaults, the modus operandi of unimaginative and plodding commanders in the past, would have been suicidal and politically unacceptable in these conditions. A new strategy was needed, and the SLA responded with a hitherto untested combination of special forces and infantry units working in coordination. The LTTE strong points were hit hard and overwhelmed by special forces and commandos. The new strategy required the infantry—strengthened by specially trained units—to swiftly consolidate the gains by the special forces and commandos.10 The major success for the troops advancing from the south came as the special forces captured Vakarai four days after the start of the second phase of the operation. The regular infantry troops advanced on the town from north and south, with the groups meeting in the town on the fourth day of the offensive. The troops then continued their assault northward to chase the remnants of the retreating LTTE forces. Despite the dire situation for the LTTE in the Eastern Province, the organization proved it could still conduct terrorist attacks and psychologically disruptive operations. In October 2006, suicide bombers had launched

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a devastating attack on naval personnel at the Habarana transit point southwest of Trinco, killing nearly 100 personnel. That same month the Sea Tigers launched a seaborne attack far from normal operating areas, when five suicide boats entered the Dakshina Naval Base in Galle port (113 km south of Colombo) and exploded, killing and wounding civilians and naval personnel and damaging two small patrol boats of the Sri Lanka navy.11

The Battle of Thoppigala The government was also determined to reduce the LTTE presence in and around BCO. On February 27, 2007, the LTTE launched an artillery attack on Batticaloa, targeting two helicopters carrying foreign diplomats which were about to land. The ambassadors of the United States, Italy, and Germany sustained slight injuries. This incident reinforced the government’s determination to eliminate the LTTE threat in the surrounding area. To the west of BCO, the LTTE maintained several key bases in inhospitable terrain, including in Thoppigala (Baron’s Cap or Gunner’s Quoin), a densely forested area with craggy rocks and hilly terrain. Thoppigala itself is a large rock standing 1,753 feet above sea level, surrounded by thick jungle and rocky terrain, with large numbers of caves the LTTE had turned into formidable defensive positions and supply sites. The LTTE had transformed Thoppigala itself into a stronghold. It was a jungle hideout and training base, and an important command and control center that allowed the LTTE to show its face in a few administrative districts including Batticaloa, Ampara, and Polonnaruwa. Furthermore, the LTTE presence in this area also allowed it to threaten Kandy and Colombo to the west. The paramilitary forces, including the police Special Task Force, launched a major operation to clear the outlying rural regions of LTTE cadres. However, the battle to reduce the stronghold itself and the surrounding firebases would require a concerted effort by the regular military and elite units. The Sri Lankan army command decided that Thoppigala needed to be isolated and cut off from LTTE reinforcements; this the army did by swiftly capturing several outlying LTTE bases around it, including Vavunathivu and Kohombagasthalawa, and the roads leading into the stronghold. By spring 2007, the LTTE was reduced to controlling only Thoppigala, with its large base and stocks. The isolation of the Thoppigala

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stronghold marked the end of the first phase of operations; the second was seizure of the stronghold itself. On April 14, the SLA launched its operation to take Thoppigala, which was defended by around 1,000 LTTE cadres.12 Colonel Chagie Gallage, in charge of the Thoppigala operation, asked for more battalions to continue his assault, as he was badly in need of troops. Although many new infantry battalions were formed during this period, none of them were deployed to the eastern battle. Army commander lieutenant general Sarath Fonseka was concentrating his attention on the Wanni theater of operations in the north. Gallage was told there were no more to spare, and that he had no choice but to continue his operations with available forces. This incident showed that, despite the massive increase in the size of the ground forces, the SLA still found itself hardpressed. Several units—including the 2nd and 3rd Commando Regiments; 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th battalions of the Gemunu Watch; 1st Sinha Regiment; 10th Gajaba Regiment; and elements of the combat engineers, armored corps, and artillery—participated in the operation to capture Thoppigala. These support forces were needed to clear the way and provide fire support to reduce the well-constructed and well-hidden LTTE redoubts. The SLA used its special forces and LRRP units effectively to infiltrate LTTE defenses. The Tiger leadership in Wanni to the north was keenly aware of the importance of this stronghold and decided to reinforce it by sending a contingent of well-trained units under the leadership of Commander Ramesh (Thambirajah T. Thurairajasingham) through thick jungle terrain in the Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts. However, SLA units detected this movement and engaged the LTTE reinforcements as they were crossing Angodawilluwa, southwest of Trincomalee, on April 12. Government troops converged on the stronghold from several directions: along the Polonnaruwa-Batticaloa A-5 road from the north, Maduru Oya to the west, and the Maha Oya-Chenkaladi road from the east and south. Movement was slow; this was infantry terrain, and it provided considerable cover to the enemy. Commando units took the lead in identifying and destroying LTTE machine-gun emplacements and bunkers. The 6th, 7th, and 8th battalions of the Gemunu Watch moved in to consolidate control over Baron’s Cap and establish defensive positions to meet any counteroffensive by the Tigers after the capture of the areas cleared by the commandos. On June 10, 2007, the SLA overran four LTTE fire bases

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defending the approaches to the major strongholds in Pankudaweli North and Narakkmulla South. Although the offensive met almost no LTTE resistance at the beginning, as the government troops approached Thoppigala rock, they came under heavy Tiger counterattacks. LTTE units resisted fiercely as government troops advanced to capture the final LTTE defense line near Narakkamulla East on June 19. Even after a heavy barrage of artillery and tank fire directed against the forward defense line (FDL), the defenders stood their ground. On June 26, the 2nd Commando regiment under the command of Major Uditha Bandara captured the final LTTE defensive lines at Narakkamulla. On June 26, Team 1 of the Alpha Commando Group, led by Captain Dissanayake, stealthily crossed the FDL under cover of darkness into noman’s land and moved toward the heavily fortified Tiger base. They had to cross six km of terrain to reach the rocky mountain unnoticed by the Tiger cadres. Captain Dissanayake and the team reached the Tiger camp complex from the south shortly before 03.00 hours (3:00 a.m.) June 27, and almost immediately the commandos launched an assault on the Tiger camp. The LTTE resisted fiercely, but the commando team managed to secure the base. The troops, led by the 2nd Commando Regiment, made their way into Baron’s Cap on July 11, to reach their final target in the east. The operation was a major morale booster for the SLA, which now turned its gaze to the more daunting task of crushing the LTTE in the more difficult and strategically critical terrain in the Wanni region in the north. On the LTTE side, 211 LTTE cadres were killed during the Thoppigala operation, and the number of dead exceeded 500 in the operations in the west and south of Batticaloa. The capture of Thoppigala effectively ended major operations in the Eastern Province.13 The was a disaster for the LTTE. First, it deprived them of a coastline on the east; this meant they lost the ability to wreak havoc with the Sri Lankan navy’s northern supply line for the troops on the Jaffna Peninsula. Second, the loss deprived them of the allegiance—however wavering—of an important element of the Tamil population. Third, the defeat in the east proved to be a major psychological blow. The LTTE leadership must have been aware of the disastrous decline in morale and fighting abilities of many of their units. The hard-pressed LTTE began to lose large numbers of well-trained cadres to battlefield casualties and desertion. More than 600 cadres, many from the Batticaloa region, left the organization following the onset of the battles and reunited with their families. The

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leaders of operations in the area made desperate attempts to keep these Tiger cadres in the organization. Many other cadres fled toward the Wanni to seek cover in the thick jungles. With victory in the east secured, the government held a victory celebration in Colombo on July 11, 2007. It also moved quickly to launch a recovery and development program for the region. Called the Eastern Reawakening (Nagenahira Navodaya), it was designed to dispel any lingering doubts that the government was interested in the well-being of the people and the recovery of the region.14 Although these efforts were commendable, as we shall see in the next chapter there were allegations that the recovery and redevelopment programs in the aftermath of the war were mired by corruption and nepotism, and that precious few benefits trickled down to the local population.

The Northern Province/Wanni Theater of Operations The Northern Province, which included the Wanni jungle, was the LTTE center of operations. The interim ‘‘capital,’’ Kilinochchi, was located there.15 Because it did not control Jaffna in the north, the LTTE had to make do with Kilinochchi, where the group set up all the accouterments of a state, including a police force, courts, and administrative centers. This was the town’s only strategic significance, but its loss would be psychologically devastating. The coastal regions on the western and eastern coastlines enabled the LTTE to bring in weapons, supplies, and equipment for its armed units. The thick jungle and inhospitable terrain of the Wanni provided sanctuary for LTTE bases and infrastructure, which permitted VP and his senior leadership to develop a conventional warfare capability, while in other locations they relied on guerrilla tactics and terrorism. The LTTE also had some popular support in the area, although clearly it was beginning to wane due to the increased exactions on the hapless population. The Northern Province theater of operations consisted of three axes: • the Mannar-Vavuniya axis in the west, which ran from the coastline (Mannar) into the center (Vavuniya); • the Weli Oya axis in the east, along the eastern coastline; • the Jaffna Peninsula, or alternatively the Muhamalai-Nagar Kovil axis.

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The Sri Lankan military’s forward defensive line (FDL) in the Wanni region—which incorporated the Mannar-Vavuniya and Weli Oya axes— stretched about 115 km from the Mannar coast along the northwestern shores of the island to the Kokkuttoduvai coast along the northeastern shoreline. The Sri Lankan military deployed most of its forces in these two axes to face the bulk of the entrenched LTTE units. The Jaffna Peninsula front, from Muhamalai to Nagar Kovil, was much narrower and exposed terrain. Nonethelesss, it was an important front for both sides. The Sri Lankan military deployed two major ‘‘heavy’’ and offensive divisions—the combat-proven 53rd and 55th—to prevent an LTTE threat to the city of Jaffna. In turn, the presence of these two divisions in this narrow bottleneck were a threat to LTTE control of the Wanni region. They had to be prevented from thinking of marching southward beyond Elephant Pass and breaking into the LTTE heartland. Hence, the LTTE was forced to devote well-trained units to defending this axis. Over the course of Eelam War IV, the Muhamalai-Nagar Kovil axis initially remained dormant despite an unsuccessful probing attack by government forces; however, for a significant period the presence of the 53rd and 55th divisions in the area forced the LTTE to commit forces to face these divisons when they were badly needed elsewhere in the Northern Province. In short, the two divisions managed to ‘‘fix’’ key LTTE units in place and prevented them from being redeployed to the Wanni region, where LTTE defenses were crumbling. The Sri Lankan military was planning to overwhelm the LTTE with well-trained units, firepower, and multiple assaults. Indeed, as Eelam War IV drew to a close in early 2009, the SLA had eight major units, five divisions and three Task Forces heavily engaged in the northern front operations. These well-trained and well-led forces ultimately crushed the LTTE.

The Mannar (Western) and Vavuniya (Central) Axes Task Force 1, later renamed the 58th Division, as we will hereafter refer to it, began its operations in the Mannar district in September 2007 with the capture of the little coastal town of Silavathurai on the western coast. It was a Sea Tiger base also used to off-load supplies from Tamil Nadu state in India. Its capture was a significant victory in the struggle against the LTTE

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supply lines and was to be the first of many. Looking at a map of the western coast of Sri Lanka, one can see quite clearly why this axis of attack was of the highest strategic importance. The main LTTE main supply route to Tamil Nadu was by way of the Gulf of Mannar. The Sea Tigers had nine bases on the west coast: Silavaturai, Vidaltativu, Mulankavil, Nachchikudda, Kumalamuni, Kiranchi, Valappadu, Devil’s Point, and Palavi. LTTE positions in the northern part of the west coast, beyond the Mannar district, were across the sea from Jaffna; their positions there threatened the army garrison in the city. One of the main overall objectives of the military operations in the Mannar area was to open a supply route to the besieged Jaffna Peninsula, which had been cut off from the rest of the country since 1990 because the land route through the Wanni region was controlled by the LTTE. Operation Jayasikuru, launched in May 1997, saw security forces moving along the A-9 Highway from Omanthai, but after two years of fighting, the government troops could only reach Mankulam before they got bogged down by stiff resistance. This time, the military was determined to complete the mission. Given the importance of this area of operations, the 58th Division mobilized 12 infantry battalions and a commando brigade, supported by the 5th Armored Corps regiment, 15th Artillery Regiment, and 9th Signal and Engineer Corps. The Sri Lanka air force deployed Mi-24 helicopter gunships to attack LTTE bunkers and bring reinforcements to ground personnel; forward air controllers were used to great effect to provide the air force precise locations of LTTE positions. The 58th Division and its supporting units made steady progress against determined resistance. Between November 2007 and early 2008, a succession of towns and villages fell in rapid succession: Adampan May 7, 2008, Mullikandaal May 8, and Maanthottam May 10. LTTE commander Thleepan oversaw the Mannar battle front and was given instructions to hold on to the position and not allow the SLA to enter Vellankulam, the last LTTE-controlled town along the Mannar coast. The LTTE fought fiercely for the town, which was defended by two earth bunds (berms), but it was captured after intense fighting. After the capture of Vellankulam, the 58th Division resumed its advance, and then pivoted eastward toward Kilinonochi.16 The army met with stiff resistance in two areas of the Mannar front. The 58th Division found it difficult to break through fortifications south of Nachchikuda, home to a major Sea Tiger base. With the capture in July of

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Vidattaltivu with its Sea Tiger base, the one at Nachchikuda gained greater significance, as it was the transit point for military and medical supplies across the Gulf of Mannar from Tamil Nadu. An advance beyond Nachchikuda would bring Pooneryn within the military’s reach. Recapture would mean a military-controlled land-based route to the Jaffna Peninsula all the way from Mannar. Thus the LTTE put up a stiff fight for Nachchikuda, and the SLA suffered considerable casualties. The LTTE launched a counterstrike all along their newly constructed trench line, from the western coastal town of Nachchikuda into the interior region of Akkarayankulam, a distance of 18–20 km. This trench line, an earth bund of around 7–15 feet at certain places, was built by LTTE engineering units. The LTTE attacked the 58th and 57th Divisions along the coast and interior respectively, in a series of well-planned assaults that lasted 36 hours. The LTTE used their most elite forces in the counter-strike, the Imran Padiyan and Charles Anthony Brigades, reflecting the significance the Tigers attached to this particular defense line. The Nachchikuda-Akkarayankulam trench line, though not impressive in any measure compared more established forward defense lines in places like Omanthai and Muhamalai, proved to be a formidable barrier against the progress of government infantry forces. It quite literally became a ‘‘last ditch’’ effort by the LTTE to stall forces moving north into their heartland. With the loss of the two bases, the guerrillas were denied use of any coastal facility for unloading and distributing supplies from India. The 57th Division in the Vavuniya central axis of this western area of operations started its military advance from Thampani, and captured Periyapandivirichchan, Sinnapandivirichchan, Madu, Palampiddi, and Periyamadu.17 The other significant achievements for the forces in this area were the recapture of Tunnukai and, more important, Mallawi. From 1996 to 1998, Mallawi and its environs, including Tunnukai, had been the nerve center of all military, political, and economic activities of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Colombo-based diplomats, UN officials, and international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) traveled to Mallawi to meet LTTE leaders. The Wanni theater of operations entered a decisive phase on June 30, 2008, when the SLA linked the Mannar and Vavuniya battlefronts, making it at 75 km the largest ever unbroken front against the LTTE. The 58th Division in the Mannar front and 57th Division in the Vavuniya area linked at a point southwest of the village of Periyamadhu.

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The LTTE simply did not have manpower to defend against two heavily equipped army divisions. It began to fall back, slowly but surely. The Battle for Pooneryn

One of the most significant SLKAF victories in the western area of operations came with the recapture of Pooneryn. The rapid and complete capture of strategically significant Pooneryn by the Sri Lankan army, after precisely fifteen years of LTTE domination, marked the complete liberation of the western coast along its northernmost reaches. This was sweet revenge for the humiliating defeat of 1993, when a predawn LTTE attack codenamed Operation Thavalai (Fog), using both land and sea units, launched a surprise attack on the Pooneryn Defense Complex, held by army and naval personnel. The complex was overrun, but several pockets of soldiers made a determined last stand on November 12, 1993, to cover the retreat of their fellow soldiers. In addition to the loss of military hardware, arms, and ammunition, at least 200 soldiers were captured alive, went missing, or were executed afterward by the LTTE. Another 241, including 4 officers, were confirmed killed in the fighting itself. The LTTE had converted the captured complex into a bastion to disrupt Sri Lankan military supply lines into the Jaffna Peninsula. They also had used the complex for artillery/mortar fire attacks on the troops serving the peninsula, as it overlooks Jaffna-Kilaly lagoon. There were thus strategic reasons for attacking the LTTE in this area. Success would mean the loss of the entire western coast for the LTTE and its Sea Tiger operations, along with the severing of LTTE supply routes from Tamil Nadu. This would also mean that the SLN could reestablish naval observation posts and deprive the LTTE of the ability to fire long-range guns against vital security establishments.18 The recapture of Pooneryn facilitated resumption of a landbased supply route from Mannar to Jaffna. Even more significant was the removal of the LTTE artillery threat to the installations of Security Forces Headquarters, Jaffna (SFHQ-J). In the past, such artillery fire had prevented flights from landing at the Palali airbase. With the western sea coast under their full control, the security forces succeeded in denying the guerrillas access to the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Straits for shipping weapons and supplies from Tamil Nadu. The recapture of Pooneryn and regaining of complete control of the western part of Wanni were major achievements for the revitalized Sri Lankan military. The LTTE did not have the numbers

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to defend a vast swath of land or face the more sophisticated conventional strength of the security forces. The shortage of fuel in the Wanni severely hampered the LTTE. The situation worsened in the coming weeks as supplies could no longer be smuggled in through the west coast. The Battles for Paranthan and Kilinochchi

Following the capture of Pooneryn, the 58th Division turned 90 degrees east and began to advance along the Pooneryn-Kilinochchi road, opening another front to allow the army to seize the LTTE center of political power.19 The first phase of the operation involved moving the 58th Division from Pooneryn in the direction of Paranthan Junction, which had to be secured before the SLA could seize Kilinochchi, the LTTE’s de facto capital. In 1986 the SLA had set up a small administrative base at Paranthan, linked to the main base at Kilinochchi. The LTTE disrupted civil administration in the area in the early 1990s. Due to the exposed position of the SLA base in the small town, the government had been forced to withdraw its garrison in September 1998. The 58th Division’s advance east was split into several mutually reinforcing axes, each of which could come to the aid of any other axis that came under pressure. The aggressive military operations conducted by the 57th Division to the south also helped the 58th Division to spread its units along mutually reinforcing axes of attack without fear that any one of them would be overwhelmed. While the LTTE committed large numbers of ground forces to the defense of the capital, it found itself spread thin in its attempt to face these multiple axes of enemy forces. Thus it could neither counterattack nor defend positions adequately. Furthermore, the operational method used by the 58th Division forced the increasingly manpowerdrained LTTE to deploy its units in a wider front, from Adampan to Jaffna lagoon, to effectively face the division. Because it forced the Tigers to thin out their forces over a wider area—forces initially committed to a narrow front protecting Paranthan and Kilinochchi—the 58th Division could comfortably threaten Paranthan, Elephant Pass, and Kilinochchi. The LTTE did not have sufficient manpower to defend all these critical assets effectively. As it advanced toward the strategic targets of Paranthan-Kilinochchi, the 58th Division smashed through the LTTE trench and berm defenses at Kunchuparanthan, just west of the Kudamurutti Aru River. Some of the units then shifted their axes of attack and struck out in a northeasterly direction, reaching the area of Thattuvaankottu near Elephant Pass. These

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units hit the Tigers hard until their defenses crumbled. Flush with success, they turned and marched in a southern direction toward Paranthan along the Jaffna-Kandy A-9 Highway. At the same time, another column moved from the Kunchuparanthan-Uruthirapuram area in the west toward Paranthan. The LTTE units holding the strategic Paranthan Junction thus found themselves attacked from the west and north by the 58th Division and from the south by elements of the 57th Division. The Tigers risked a double envelopment on both flanks and had no choice but to retreat toward Vaddakachchi in the east. The terrain in the approaches to Paranthan was flat and devoid of cover, so in its advance toward the A-9 highway, the 58th Division made effective use of nighttime operations in an effort to reduce casualties. On December 31, 2008, troops managed to pin down the LTTE in their defensive positions in Paranthan by bringing to bear an immense amount of firepower, to which the LTTE had no effective response. By the evening of December 31, the LTTE cadres were thoroughly demoralized and disorganized. Paranthan and sections of the A-9 were secured by government troops at midnight on December 31, 2008.20 Once Paranthan was taken, the fate of Kilinochchi was a foregone conclusion, although the area was defended by veteran fighters. The 58th Division had no intention of giving the LTTE units any respite; with the capture of Paranthan, units immediately advanced toward Kilinochchi from several different directions. The LTTE did not know which was the main thrust; the 58th troops aggressively probed LTTE defenses and then scored another victory by gaining control over the Karadipokku junction on the A-9 Highway between Paranthan and Kilinochchi. The ‘‘93 Base,’’ the main command and administrative center of the LTTE women cadres, fell into army hands.21 After the heavy fighting on the flanks, taking Kilinochchi itself was a relatively quick matter. Both the 57th and the 58th Divisions continued the momentum, driving east and northeast of Kilinochchi, pushing the Tigers back to prevent an immediate counterattack by units attempting to regain Paranthan and Kilinochchi. Elements of the 58th then turned north again and fought their way up to the southern edge of Elephant Pass. North of Elephant Pass, on the Kilali-Muhamalai-Nagar Kovil line, the 53rd and 55th Divisions continued to apply pressure and force the LTTE to commit troops that could have been valuable to LTTE defensive battles in the Wanni. The LTTE forces were overwhelmed and fled from Kilinochchi in an easterly direction, toward Dry Aru. Fierce battles erupted in Dry Aru

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tank area and Iranamadu tank as government troops pursued the retreating LTTE units. With the capture of Kilinochchi, troops were now poised to advance east to capture the strategic Puthukkudiyiruppu and Vishvamadu areas. On January 6, 2009, four days after troops marched into Kilinochchi, the political head the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Balasingham Nadesan, dismissed the defeat as an insignificant development in the threedecade liberation struggle. He asserted that, with the support of the ‘‘Tamil community,’’ the LTTE would overcome all current and future challenges. But the loss was a devastating blow to the Tigers politically and militarily. The fall of the town was the culmination of a twenty-month arduous military campaign. None of the previous campaigns of the Sri Lanka military since the departure of the Indian Peace-Keeping Force in early 1990 were aimed at the complete elimination of the Tigers from the Wanni. But the mission of the well-planned offensive in the Wanni was to break the LTTE as an organization, not to put the government in a better strategic position for putative negotiations. The fall of Kilinochchi thus reflected the GoSL determination to wage a war until unequivocal victory. Soon after Kilinochchi fell, senior LTTE leaders apparently conferred in Visuamadu to discuss the movement’s dwindling options. Several reportedly believed that the war could no longer be won and that it was time for a new approach; none felt confident enough to tell Prabhakaran the full extent of the debacle of the preceding weeks. Many cadre leaders advised the senior command to stop forced conscription, mend relations with India, and proceed in a new direction, to include agreeing to a cessation of fighting, but to no avail. (Among the first policies the LTTE initiated when the war began in 2006 was forced conscription, which the population resented deeply. At the same time the LTTE claimed that youths were joining voluntarily in large numbers. Conscription was intensified after the UN and many NGOs left the Wanni in September 2008, in accordance with a GoSL demand.22) The major outcome of the meeting, according to sources with access to senior LTTE leaders, was a decision to go on fighting. The leadership apparently concluded the LTTE forces would be able to hold on for a considerable time, making life difficult for the army by stalling its progress and inflicting as many casualties as possible; in the meantime, the LTTE could appeal to the international community to get the Sri Lankan government to halt the fighting. No other decision of consequence was made. A senior commander and the highest-ranking intelligencer officer,

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Pottu Amman (Shanmugalingam Sivashankar), reportedly put forward a plan to start using LTTE assets in a campaign to foment terrorist attacks and paralyze the southern part of the country. VP apparently vetoed the strategy, presumably because it would merely further alienated international opinion. Once the decision was made to continue fighting, the rapidly shrinking LTTE areas to be defended were divided into three zones. The one farthest west, Visuamadu, was under Ratnam Master. He had been responsible for two operations in Vavuniya, against a communications facility and the suicide assassination of General Janaka Perera in 2008. Ratnam Master had become a new right-hand man of VP, commanding a new intelligence unit that had partly sidelined Pottu Amman from 2007 onward. The middle area, around Udayarkattu, was placed under Sea Tiger leader Soosai, whose naval cadres had been drastically depleted by the tsunami and subsequent heavy casualties in fighting the SLN. Puthukkudiyiruppu and a ring around it were placed under Pottu Amman. The plan, if indeed there was a real plan, required the remaining LTTE forces to fight effectively and doggedly to stall the enormous force bearing down on them. This was a tall order. The combat capabilities of the LTTE had been reduced drastically, and combat cohesion was virtually nonexistent. The first two commanders were unable to hold their areas when the army advanced. The LTTE was now virtually incapable of conducting localized offensives to throw the military off balance or conducting defensive actions effectively. When faced with Sri Lankan military thrusts, the units would put up a desultory defense and flee. Contrary to popular perception, the LTTE still had an abundance of ammunition and weapons in certain bases and positions; this was reflected in the enormous quantities seized by the government forces at the end of the war. What was now lacking were trained cadres, morale as in the past, and ability to conduct even simple offensive or defensive operations. LTTE subunits toward the end of the war often comprised three experienced cadres and about 15 newer conscripts. When the army launched an attack, the senior cadres began to flee. Conscripts were escaping regularly from training camps and the battlefield, which the LTTE tried to stop by imposing severe punishments on conscripts’ families. These raw conscripts, aged fifteen to twenty-two, were in no position to stop a determined and well-equipped army advance. Their training, extensive and intensive at the height of the LTTE’s power, had been reduced to about a week during the early days of Eelam War IV. Later

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it was reduced to three days, and in the final stages, it meant merely being taught to fire a gun.23 Pottu Amman managed to hold off the advancing Sri Lankan units longer than the other two commanders; in early February 2009 he even launched an offensive that used many of the remaining suicide cadres, most of them women. They were deployed to halt a northward army advance from Mulliavalai; the offensive pushed the government units back a few miles after inflicting heavy losses in men and weapons. Pottu Amman’s offensive ran out of steam, however; the military he faced was not the mulish and stubborn force of yesteryear whose traditional approach had been to continue butting its head against the enemy until it was exhausted or the casualty rate became untenable. The army outflanked him by moving through Soosai’s area toward the east coast. Nonetheless, Pottu Amman ensured that the battle for Puthukkudiyiruppu, a built up area, was a costly one. It is during the battles of Mullaitivu, PTK, and Anandapuram that the situation on the ground begins to get murky, particularly concerning the level of civilian casualties and which side was largely responsible for killing the innocents. Initial government claims that the military did not use heavy weaponry and casualty rates were low are not sustainable. The government, realizing this, had a senior official, Rajiva Wijesinha, state in early June 2009 that total civilian casualties in the last stages of the war (roughly the last two months or less) were 3,000 to 5,000. He added that the civilian deaths were due to LTTE use of civilians as human shields. Moreover, he defended the government’s use of mortars—a deadly weapon when large numbers of people are concentrated in small spaces—against the remnant of the Tigers, who, of course, had been intermingled with the hapless civilians.24 Sri Lanka angrily took exception to the claims that the casualty figures were higher and that it had committed war crimes. The exact truth may never be known, as there were no independent media on the battlefield.

The Muhamalai-Nagar Kovil Axis The Jaffna Peninsula was of critical importance to both sides of the conflict. For the LTTE, the recapture of the city of Jaffna was the ultimate goal. Jaffna was the main urban center of the Tamil people. If a Tamil state

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were to have any meaning, Jaffna would be the capital city, not ramshackle Kilinochchi. This was also why the government was determined to retain control over Jaffna and its environs. While the war in the Eastern Province was in full swing, the LTTE launched massive attacks on government defense lines in the Jaffna Peninsula on August 11, 2006. The LTTE used a force of 400–500 fighters in the attacks, which consisted of land and amphibious assaults, and also fired a barrage of artillery at government positions, including the key military airbase at Palali. The purpose of the assault was to force the GoSL to shift troops from the eastern front to the Jaffna Peninsula. At first, the Tigers broke through army defense lines around Muhamalai and advanced farther north, but they were halted after ten hours of fierce fighting. Isolated battles continued over the next few days, but the LTTE was forced to give up its offensive due to heavy casualties. Up to 700 rebels and 150 soldiers were killed in the battle. Two months later, in October, an army offensive launched from the city against rebel territory was crushed and resulted in the biggest loss of life for the military in four years, 29 soldiers killed and 519 wounded; only 22 rebels were killed. The SLA accused the Tigers of killing 74 soldiers from a unit they claimed was surrounded and captured. In fact, these two elite divisions, the 53rd and the 55th, had clear mission orders to engage in probing, diversionary, and fixing attacks. (A probing attack is designed to ascertain the strength of enemy positions and force dispositions.) The defenses proved to be quite strong. Close to 2,000 professional LTTE soldiers were in the Muhamalai area, and as government forces advanced deeper into LTTE-held areas, they came up against not only formidable secondary defensive lines laced with obstacles that hindered the advance but also killing zones in open terrain, which proved deadly to troops caught without cover. After these intense large-scale firefights, the two sides were content to watch each other from heavily fortified positions, while more significant events took place elsewhere. This was a more disadvantageous situation for the LTTE, because they had to keep very well-trained units in place facing two of the best divisions of the Sri Lankan army when they could have been used elsewhere. On April 21, 2008, the Sri Lankan army launched a major offensive toward the Muhamalai forward defense line with the help of tanks and artillery. The SLA overran the LTTE FDL, forcing the units to withdraw to their second line of defense. But from their new positions the LTTE units launched heavy and effective mortar and RPG fire in the direction of the Sri Lankan army units, which were caught in open space. There was a fierce

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battle at the Muhamalai FDL on April 23, 2008, as each side sought to improve its tactical position and gain some terrain.25 The LTTE used mortars and artillery to shell the SLA FDL. Subsequent SLA reports claimed they had wrested 500 meters of land from LTTE control. The Sri Lankan army suffered relatively substantial casualties in these attacks on heavily fortified LTTE trenches that were often only 200 meters from the army positions. In November 2008, the 53rd and 55th Divisions once again commenced probing attacks to test the FDLs of the LTTE forces often separated from SLA forces by no more than 200 meters. This time the two divisions were probing LTTE positions in preparation for the coming major battle to destroy LTTE defenses in Muhammalai and Nagar-Kovil. In late 2008 the army high command began to plan a more ambitious set of operations for the 53rd and 55th Divisions. Brigadiers Prasanna de Silva and Kamal Gunaratne, commanding generals of the 55th and 53rd, were instructed by the senior high command to map out a plan to push the LTTE out of the Jaffna Peninsula. In early January 2009, the two divisions started major operations in earnest, with the goal of reaching Elephant Pass and linking up with the forward elements of the 58th Division, whose operations were discussed in detail in the preceding section. The 53rd Division comprised three brigades: the 533rd Brigade commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Jayanath Jayaweera, the Air Mobile Brigade commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Shantha Dissanayake, and the Mechanized Infantry Brigade, the latest addition to the army, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Lalantha Gamage. The 533d Brigade was comprised of the 1st Gajaba and 5th Vijayaba Regiments. The Air Mobile Brigade comprised the 1st VIR and 5th GW Battalions. The 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Mechanized Infantry Brigade were under the command of the 53rd Division. The division was also heavily reinforced as it commenced its advance toward the LTTE FDL: the 5th Gemunu Watch Battalion, the 1st and 6th Battalions of the Gajaba Regiment, and the 5th Vijayaba Infantry Regiment all strengthened the 53rd Division. At certain locations along the Muhamalai front, only 30–40 meters separated 53rd units from the entrenched LTTE units; 53rd units found themselves engaged in fierce firefights as soon as they left their FDL. The 53rd had to overcome an obstacle in the shape of high ground on the Kilali Lagoon side, which afforded LTTE defenders a clear view of the advancing government troops. However, the effective fire provided by army artillery and mortar units in support of the troops as they advanced meant that the dug-in LTTE units

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could not respond. This enabled the infantry to consolidate their control over the LTTE FDL by the evening of January 6. Troops of the 552nd and 553rd Brigades systematically fixed charges to the LTTE bunker lines during the nighttime operation and blew them up. To the north of the A-9 Highway, in the Kadolana area along the lagoon front, the 55th Division moved forward toward the LTTE defenses. Initially the 8th and 7th Battalions of the Vijayaba Infantry Regiment (VIR) and 6th Sri Lanka Light Infantry (SLLI) battalion, which were part of the 55th Division, launched an attack on January 5, 2009, in the middle of the night. For the 55th Division, the LTTE second defense line was about 600 meters away along the A9 road and 810 meters along the Kadolana side. This meant that the 55th Division infantry had to advance in open terrain for a considerable period of time. Nonetheless, LTTE defenses were not as robust as previously thought, although the terrain was strewn with mines. By 4.00 (4 a.m.) the following day (January 6), the entire LTTE FDL from Muhamalai to Nagar-Kovil was captured by the troops of the advancing divisions. At 17.30 (5:30 p.m.) the two divisions linked up in the new defense line. After the capture of the LTTE defense line, the 53rd and 55th Divisions started advancing toward Elephant Pass on January 7. Once the troops started moving forward, Tiger resistance softened dramatically as air force fighter jets and MI-24 helicopter gunships destroyed many of their positions. Southbound troops rolled along both sides of the A-9 Highway. In the course of their operations to dislodge the LTTE from the Muhamalai-Nagar-Kovil front, the two ‘‘heavy’’ and elite divisions managed to destroy several key LTTE area command centers, including the Kilali Echo-9 Base, Golf-7 Muhamalai Area Command Base, Echo-3 Base, and Delta-2 Base. A large cache of weapons and ammunition, sealed inside concrete underground hideouts, was also found by the government troops as they moved forward. On January 8 the strategic town of Pallai fell to government forces. But there was no respite for either the weary SLA or the harried LTTE. Army forces advanced toward Soranpattu, 5 km southeast of Pallai, despite LTTE heavy resistance, obstacles, minefields, and booby traps. By the time the 53rd and 55th Divisions began their advance to the southern part of the Jaffna Peninsula, the 58th Division had already reached the southern part of Elephant Pass along the A-9. They had taken control of the Thamilamadam area and part of the former military complex of the Sri Lankan army by the morning of January 6. By then troops had reached the key Iyakachchi

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Junction, which leads to Vettilaikerni and Elephant Pass. The 1st Vijayaba Infantry Regiment was at the forefront of the troops from the north. Soldiers of the 2nd Commando Regiment, attached to the 58th Division, and the 1st Vijayaba Infantry Regiment, attached to the 53rd Division, linked up at Elephant Pass. Following the historic linkup between the units of the Wanni and Jaffna fronts, the 53rd Division was transferred to the front facing the LTTE strongholds around Puthukkudiyiruppu, west of the Nandi Kadal lagoon, to participate in what would become the final battles. In the meantime, the 55th Division continued south along the coast, reaching the Chundikulam lagoon, one of many it would have to cross. The lagoon was a broad stretch of water more than two hundred feet across, and its currents were strong. The terrain was devoid of cover, and the soil was mainly soft sand that was often waterlogged. This made it very difficult for mechanized vehicles to maneuver.

The Weli Oya Axis The remote Weli Oya theater along the eastern coastline and the southern edges of the Mullaitivu jungle has not received the same level of detailed analysis as the Mannar/Vavuniya and Jaffna theaters described in the preceding pages. It was, however, an important front. This theater of operations was in close proximity to the LTTE heartland in the Wanni, and the LTTE had built strong defenses in the area to prevent the Sri Lankan military from marching northward. The government had responded by building a series of strategic defense and settlement complexes in Weli Oya, which were to assume crucial importance in the effort to crush the Eelam struggle. These complexes had driven a wedge between the Northern and Eastern Provinces, whose merger the Tigers had insisted on in their quest for an independent Tamil Eelam. A solid government presence in the Weli Oya region would ensure that overland communications between the LTTE heartland in the Wanni and the LTTE presence in the Eastern Province were almost nonexistent; furthermore, an entrenched GoSL presence in the shape of government forces and Sinhalese civilians would prevent the emergence of territorial contiguity between the Wanni and the LTTE Eastern Province possessions. As long as there was no territorial merger between the two regions, the dream of Tamil Eelam remained just that. However,

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GoSL control over Weli Oya was very tenuous and subject to threat from the LTTE, which was very keen to consolidate its own control over this critical area. Despite recognizing Weli Oya’s importance and creating settlements and military outposts there, the GoSL had long neglected this sector, mainly because of its remoteness. Getting Sinhalese to settle there in order to ‘‘thicken’’ government geographical control was fraught with difficulties due to the region’s susceptibility to floods; drought and lack of roads in and out of the region made it difficult for farmers to market their produce. Other basic infrastructure, such as schools and clinics, was sorely lacking, as public sector employees were loath to serve there. There was another peculiar reason for the neglect of the region: Weli Oya came under four different districts, so there was no single authority to take responsibility for developing the area. A motion to carve out a separate Weli Oya district was rejected by parliament because of opposition from Tamil parliamentarians. Finally, the GoSL could not spare the troops and paramilitary units required to maintain security against LTTE movements in and out of the region. The Sinhalese settlers—most of the men employed as ill-trained home guards—were subject to harassment by the LTTE. Not surprisingly, many settlers left, mainly because of the lack of security and the harsh environment. Operations by government forces in the Weli Oya sector would eventually make it difficult for the LTTE to maintain control over the coastal areas along the eastern seaboard, including the town of Mullaitivu. If the LTTE were to consolidate control over Weli Oya, it would be able to threaten key Sinhalese towns such as Padaviya, Kebitigollewa, and Anuradhapura. This the government could not allow, as LTTE terrorist activities, including suicide bombings and complex attacks on military forces and infrastructure, remained a serious concern. In light of the importance of the remote region and the rugged terrain, the fighting—when it came—was quite bloody. The 59th Division, led by Brigadier Nandana Udawatta—an armored officer by training—spearheaded the Sri Lankan assault in the Weli Oya sector, which began in January 2008. The main goal was to advance in the direction of the Mullaitivu jungle, roll up LTTE firebases and supply complexes, and ultimately deny the insurgents the use of the coast. The 59th Division was new: it was designated as a heavy firepower unit modeled after the offensive elite 55th and 53rd Divisions. Three brigades—the 591st, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Aruna Ariyasinghe; the 592nd,

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under Lieutenant Colonel Maneesha Silva; and the 593rd, under Lieutenant Colonel Palitha Fernando—were formed under the 59th Division and constituted the division’s main strike forces. The fighting in Weli Oya began when several small assault teams of the Sri Lankan army moved ahead of their defense lines in Weli-Oya (referred to as Manal-Aru by the Tigers) to strike LTTE positions located on their forward defense line, with the aim of dismantling defenses. This operation was supported by special forces and LRRPS operating behind LTTE lines; these combined forces captured the entire Mullaitivu jungle, including the Nitthikaikulam, Thanimurkkuulam, LTTE’s 14 Base complex, Nayaru, Kumulamunai, and Mulliyavalai areas. These forces also received the support of the newly formed task forces III and IV. Their main objective was to link with the 59th Division as it advanced northward. It took the better part of a year for the forces to advance up the interior and along the coastline. The 59th Division fought a series of costly battles with the LTTE before scoring its first major victory on May 30, 2008, when the LTTE abandoned its Munagam base. The division proceeded to capture a series of other bases—Michael (July 4), Sugandan (July 27), and Jeevan (August 16)—before reaching the area west of the Nayaru lagoon. On October 23 it secured Gajabapura, and on November 11 it moved into Kumulamunai village. The 59th Division launched the final assault following a daring LTTE attempt to breach positions held by the 574th Brigade to the east of the village of Dharmapuram. Over the years the LTTE had turned the town into its strongest base, from which they coordinated a large-scale operation to bring in supplies from abroad. On December 4, the 59th Division was able to capture the Alampil fishing village to the northeast of Kumulamunai. The village area, about 12 km south of Mullaitivu, had been used by the LTTE as a major Sea Tiger base in support of naval suicide missions and a main launching pad to strike ships plying the seas east of Sri Lanka. The 591st Brigade, under the command of Colonel Aruna Ariyasinghe, took control of the village and consolidated control over the Nayaru lagoon. The brigade had to fight its way through several earth bunds set up by the LTTE to slow down the advance of SLA units. As the 59th Division consolidated control over the area south of Mullaitivu, troops of task forces III and IV secured control over the Mankulam-Oddusudan A-34 road and forged ahead toward Thanniuttu, a village 43 km east of the Mankulam junction on the A-9.

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Troops of the 9th SLSR (Sri Lanka Sinha Regiment), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Janaka Ariyaratne, and the 593rd Brigade, under Lieutenant Colonel Jayantha Goonaratne, launched an attack in the direction of an LTTE airfield hidden deep in jungle terrain. The troops found themselves embroiled in heavy nighttime firefights with defending LTTE units on January 9 and 10, 2009. On January 10, 59th Division troops were able to capture the fourth airfield of the LTTE ‘‘air force’’ after a fierce firefight with defending units. The next mission for the weary units of the 59th Division was to advance in the direction of a strong LTTE defensive bund in front of the Nandi Kadal lagoon, and the Mankulam-Mullaitivu and AlampilMullaitivu roads. Unless those defenses were reduced, the 59th could not advance to attain its main objective of capturing Mullaitivu itself.26 The 593rd and 591st Brigades were the primary maneuver elements in the operation to capture Mullaitivu. Elements of the 593rd, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Jayantha Gunaratne, crossed the Nandi Kadal lagoon under heavy resistance and overwhelmed strong LTTE units. At the same time the 591st Brigade advanced toward the southern vicinity of Mullaitivu. The 591st found itself stuck to the south of Mullaitivu on the Alampil-Mullaitivu Road due to the earth bunds, which proved to be a serious hindrance to the movement of troops and vehicles. Several attempts to break through the defenses were thrown back by dogged LTTE defenders who recognized the importance of holding on. The 593d Brigade fared better in its operational goal of reducing the defensive lines in its sector, which was to the west of the lagoon, as did the 7th Gemunu Watch Battalion, operating against the southern sector of the LTTE defenses leading into Mullaitivu. The multiple coordinated attacks on their strong defenses eventually proved too much for the dazed LTTE defenders. The ditch-cum-bund was eventually pierced in several places. The LTTE was running out of energy and low on morale. This was a major breakthrough for the 59th Division, now poised to seize the last LTTE-controlled town.The capture of Mullaitivu was not anticipated to be an easy task, because of psychological factors and difficult terrain. The Sri Lankan military had suffered a devastating defeat there during Eelam War III (as discussed in Chapter 3). The LTTE knew it had to hold on to it at any cost. Furthermore, the terrain was not kind to assaulting forces. The town is flanked by the ocean to the east and water or the waterlogged terrain of the Nandi Kadal lagoon to the west. It could be approached only

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from the north and south, along narrow strips of land that provided little room for maneuver for infantry or mechanized forces. The second part of the operation—seizure of the coastal town itself— was planned for January 24, 2009. The 593rd Brigade commander, Colonel Jayantha Gunaratne, was entrusted with leading the final assault into the town. Two eight-man teams from the 7th Gemunu Watch Battalion, under cover of darkness, silently crossed the Nandi Kadal lagoon in boats to reach the town center unnoticed by the Tiger cadres operating there; at the same time troops at the southern edge of the town reengaged the LTTE defenders with the intention of breaking through the defensive bund. A commando unit joined the eight-man teams already wreaking havoc in the center of the town when Alpha Company, under Captain Premachandra, broke through. Meanwhile, the 591st Brigade continued to blast LTTE defenses along the Alampil-Mullaitivu road. The concerted pressure of the various units of the 59th Division proved too much for the LTTE forces; the 7th Gemunu Watch Battalion broke through and entered the center of the town from the eastern edge of the Nandi Kadal lagoon. The LTTE defenders were being hit from all directions, and no longer had any semblance of a coherent defense. At around 1 a.m. on January 24, the 593rd Brigade broke through and flooded into Mullaitivu. The 15th SLLI troops took control of the eastern edge of the Nandi Kadal lagoon. The 12th SLLI troops took control of the beachfront of the town; and the 7th Gemunu Watch Battalion was deployed to the northern tip. Government forces were now in the town in overwhelming numbers, and for the remaining, completely trapped LTTE cadres, it was every man for himself as they sought to flee in any direction, including the sea. But the game was over: the SLAF had avenged its humiliating defeat in Mullaitivu from years before. On the morning of January 26, 59th Division troops secured the entire town and raised the national flag. With the capture of the major Sea Tiger stronghold of Mullaitivu, the LTTE was confined to an area of 280 square km in the Puthukkudiyiruppu and Visuamadu areas. The Tigers had no chance of maintaining this much reduced territory in the face of the overwhelmingly superior force the SLAF was bringing to bear on the now constricted battle space. Six offensive divisions surrounded the territory from the west, south, and east following the fall of Mullaitivu. An overwhelming force of 50,000–60,000 troops was bearing down on the remnants of the LTTE trapped in a dwindling enclave.

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Fierce battles and small-unit firefights continued, such as those at Puthukkudiyiruppu and Anandapuram, as the best LTTE units with their senior commanders fought to the death against overwhelming odds. The little town of PTK and its surrounding villages were invested on almost all sides as government troops converged to trap the last remnants of the LTTE forces. The 57th Division from the Vavuniya front attacked from the west, while the 58th Division kept up steady artillery and mortar fire into the town from the north. Task Force 4 and units of the 59th Division were converging on the town from the south.27 Toward the end, the LTTE was using its remaining Sea Tiger units to infiltrate Sri Lankan army defenses to disrupt operations. The single largest attempt came off Alampil on April 4, 2009, when the attempt to land units onshore was defeated by the SLN and elite Special Boat Squadron commandos.28 In the first week of April, senior LTTE leadership planned a major breakout operation from the Anandapuram pocket; the goal was also to disrupt the army units—the 58th and 53rd Divisions as well as Task Force 8—by bearing on them from different directions. More than 1,000 of the best remaining LTTE infantry attempted to break through the lines of the 58th Division. The battle went very badly for the LTTE; it was short of ammunition, artillery, and mortar shells, and was thus unable to ‘‘soften’’ army lines prior to undertaking the mass breakout. Essentially, the LTTE units marched into withering fire from government units and round-theclock sorties by Kfir ground-attack fighters of the Sri Lanka air force. Fighting was at such close quarters that the air force bombed its own lines on several occasions. The LTTE suffered a decisive, if not the most decisive, defeat of Eelam War IV: 625 fighters dead, including most of its senior leadership. Commander Theepan, in overall command of the LTTE northern forces and an experienced battlefield commander, was killed along with several deputies, including officers with experience in artillery and mortars. Following the Anandapuram battle, the LTTE was no longer capable of coordinated defensive warfare.29 The firefights and small-scale battles after Anandapuram indeed proved that the LTTE was no longer a coherent fighting force, as its units fought without purpose or command and control. These battles were the endgame for the LTTE. On May 10, 2009, the LTTE leadership decided that the game was up. They allowed the civilian hostages they were holding to leave by the thousands. On May 11, LTTE cadres began deserting their posts and destroying everything they could not carry.30 By May 14 the LTTE was

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confined to a very small area to the east of the Nandi Kadal lagoon as army units converged on them from all landward directions; the sea was sealed off by the SLN; and a large flotilla was stationed off Mullaitivu and the surrounding seas to prevent escape by sea. The army was poised to thwart a possible escape attempt by LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, his family, and his top leadership by closing the northeastern seaboard completely. The navy had thrown the bulk of its assets, including more than two dozen fast attack craft (FACs), six offshore patrol craft, special boat squadrons, and the recently set up rapid action boat squadron to guard the sea frontage. The heavy naval presence, believed to be the largest single concentration of firepower, was part of the military’s strategy to stop any attempt by the LTTE and its foreign supporters to interfere with its campaign. The LTTE had finally run out of viable options, and fighting was no longer possible. Unit cohesion had disintegrated for the most part. The territory under LTTE control had been reduced to small slivers of land, and there was no more room to maneuver. Last, the firepower of the Sri Lankan military was formidable, and the LTTE had finally run out of trained cadres. Many cadres at this stage were unwilling young conscripts commanded by senior personnel who had lost the zeal to fight. The former had little or no training; their foremost thought was how to get away from the LTTE grasp. The organization was faced with a particularly troublesome burden: families of combat personnel were forced to move with them as the LTTE began to lose territory. The real story of the last stages of the war—the final weeks that included the battles in PTK, Anandapuram, Mullaitivu, and their aftermath— becomes less clear, as there is no independent verification of what happened, particularly in regard to civilian casualties. During the final stages of Eelam War IV, the LTTE began to resemble a huge nomadic tribe on the move, with families intermingled with fighting cadres and large numbers of civilians, mostly unwilling, forced to move with them as human shields. Some civilians were, of course, moving of their own free will, as some were committed LTTE members, and others were fearful of giving themselves up to the army. In the end most had no choice, despite the existence of a nofire zone, as the army indiscriminately targeted areas from which suspected LTTE fire was directed at them. Civilians were killed by the hundreds in the last firefights; eventually, most had no choice but to move toward army lines to escape the rain of metal. Once they reached army lines, they were

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given water and rations and directed toward camps for the internally displaced. Many were shot at by their ‘‘own side’’ as they attempted to flee. As I have noted, the government initially claimed that very few civilians died at the hands of the military; after all, the state was conducting a ‘‘humanitarian operation.’’ After realizing how risible this sounded, the GoSL amended this to admit, through a senior official, that somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 civilians died in the final stages of the conflict. The spokesman stated that the army had told him no heavy weapons had been used against civilians in the ‘‘no-fire zones.’’ But mortars, which are not heavy weapons, are devastating when deployed against closely packed groups of people without cover. The government took violent exception to outsider claims that it had killed thousands indiscriminately, and that these killings constituted clear-cut war crimes. The truth may never be known; it is safe to say that the total civilian casualties in that final stage are between the belatedly admitted figure of up to 5,000, as alleged by the government, and the estimates of the Human Rights Watch and the United Nations, reaching into the tens of thousands. Similarly, accounts of the final days of the LTTE leadership remain murky, as there are conflicting stories concerning how these fighters met their ends.31 The Sri Lankan ground forces had come a long way by the end of Eelam War IV. The results on the ground proved that they had adapted, innovated, and trained very hard, as I will describe further in the pages that follow. But the war was not fought solely by the ground forces, the Sri Lankan army (SLA). In Eelam War IV, the armed forces acted as a true joint force for the first time in their history. In this context, the roles of the SLAF and SLN need to be addressed in some detail, as they contributed significantly to the success in the final phase of the civil war.

The Role of the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) When Ceylon gained independence it had no air force; indeed, this branch of the military service developed later than the army and navy.32 The SLAF was set up in 1951 with British help and consisted initially of several training planes and helicopters. In 1959 the air force entered the jet age when it acquired twelve British-made Jet Provosts. The Jet Provost was built for light-attack duties; it had two .303-inch machine guns and underwing racks

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for rockets and fragmentation bombs. By the early 1980s, these planes were both obsolete and not airworthy. For a long time, the SLAF remained relatively underfunded compared to the other two military branches, which bore the brunt of the war with the Tamil Tigers. Historically, the air force had never been a significant player in the defense services, as the Sri Lankan military was unable to formulate and implement a joint warfare campaign in conjunction with ground and naval forces. In Eelam War IV the SLAF finally came into its own. Though technically no real joint operations of a major scale involving all three branches took place, this time the SLAF operational roles were more extensive and conducted in an integrated manner with the other branches.33 Eelam War IV saw extensive use of air support for land and sea operations.34 Particularly noteworthy was Squadron 10, established in 1996; this squadron was composed mainly of Israeli-made Kfir ground-attack fighters, an old plane based on the French Mirage series Sri Lanka acquired in 2000–2001. By the time Eelam War IV broke out, the pilots of Squadron 10 had attained a high level of training and proficiency. The squadron’s support of ground operations played a significant role in softening LTTE defenses.35 The air force was considerably strengthened with the acquisition, prior to the outbreak of Eelam War IV, of new, advanced MIG-29 fighters, which also supported ground operations effectively. Relentless air strikes demoralized the Tamil Tigers and hindered their ability to move units around the theater of operations. At sea, the air force helped the navy in operations against Sea Tiger boats. This is evident from the huge number of sorties the air force flew in Eelam War IV. In the period from June 2006 to January 2009, the air force carried out 1,345 missions, flying 2,582 sorties of jets and helicopters.36 The SLAF made effective use of its formidable Mi-24 ‘‘Hind’’ gunships, particularly in close support of ground troops assaulting LTTE earthen bunds. One of the force’s most important innovations was the introduction of Israeli-made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into the SLAF order of battle. The acquisition from Israel of Blue Horizon UAVs, which I saw carried on air force vehicles during the June 19, 2010, victory parade along Galle Face Road, helped tremendously in SLAF operations. This fully integrated weapon system, capable of capturing and reporting intelligence data in real time, with day and night operation over a predetermined target zone, provided Sri Lankan military commanders up-to-the-minute situational awareness. Characteristic missions included intelligence gathering, close

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air-support operations, target acquisition, weapons guidance, and battle damage assessment. Blue Horizon UAVS are rugged and easy to operate, and they do not require extensive maintenance. The SLAF contributed enormously to the mobility of Sri Lankan forces by ferrying elite troops into the battlefield and increasing the amount of firepower at the disposal of the ground forces to aid their offensives or throw back LTTE counteroffensives. The air force also increased the realtime situational awareness of the ground forces.

The Role of the Sri Lankan Navy and the Sea Tigers Eelam War IV could not have been won without the tremendous contribution of the small but combat-effective SLN.37 Indeed, one analyst has argued that the vital contributions of the SLN in Eelam IV at sea were pivotal in the destruction of the military power of the LTTE on land.38 But it took a long time and plenty of innovative and flexible thinking to transform the SLN from a largely ceremonial force into a serious war-fighting one.39 The SLN has the distinction of being the first and only navy in modern history to defeat a maritime insurgent threat.40 This was no mean feat, as the foe had developed an imposing and deadly maritime fighting force. In 1937 the British colonial government established the Ceylon naval volunteer force, which saw action in World War II. The Royal Ceylon navy (RCyN) was created in December 1950 under British auspices.41 The small force consisted of a minesweeper and a handful of patrol craft, and was initially commanded by a British officer. The force remained small and underfunded due to the government’s ‘‘lack of a coherent conception of Ceylon’s overall defence strategy.’’42 Moreover, the defense budget was small, and the government was not keen to expand it. The first missions of the embryonic navy were to provide defense for the port of Colombo, engage in coastal mine clearance, and patrol and conduct surveillance of the Palk Strait, which separates India and the island nation.43 This third mission was thus already important even before the emergence of the Tamil insurgency and the development of its links with Tamil Nadu. According to one source, already in the 1950s the ‘‘narrow and island strewn strait was a haven for smugglers and illegal migrants [from India], and the Ceylon Customs Service was soon overwhelmed.’’44 Throughout the 1950s navy designs to increase the size of the force invariably fell afoul of government

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reluctance to devote resources to defense; monetary resources were devoted to building up the welfare state. This was particularly true under the socialist administration of S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike. The SLN was neglected even more than the ground forces, which were hardly well capitalized themselves. When the war broke out in the 1980s, the Tamil Tigers immediately created civilian and naval maritime arms, although it took years to develop the capabilities they attained by the end of the war. The Sea Tigers were founded in 1984, fewer than two years after the onset of the war.45 The maritime domain assumed critical importance for an obvious reason: Sri Lanka is an island, so supplies and weapons had to come from across the seas. Moreover, the coastal villages in the LTTE stronghold on the Jaffna Peninsula relied heavily on fishing for their livelihood, and the inhabitants knew the waterways well; these villages provided a ready source of recruits for the naval force VP ultimately built. Indeed, the Tamils were adept sailors, mainly from the Karaiyar fishing caste, who knew the waterways between India and Sri Lanka intimately.46 VP recognized the importance of the maritime environment in creating and sustaining an independent Tamil Eelam state.47 Early in the conflict LTTE maritime operations consisted of arms smuggling and moving people between Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu.48 Heavy commercial fishing activity along the northern coast complicated Sri Lanka’s attempts to counter the Sea Tigers. An estimated million people in Sri Lanka and another 800,000 from Tamil Nadu depended on the fishing industry for their livelihood. The area between the Jaffna Peninsula and Adams Bridge is rich in fish and other marine life; it was also a frequent route for smuggling operations. The SLN did not allow fishing in this area from the Sri Lankan side, but on a single day on the Indian side, four or five thousand boats crossing the International Boundary Line (IBL) would enter this area for poaching. The LTTE used fishing boats to smuggle supplies across the Palk Strait. The SLN did not have the resources or training to distinguish legitimate fishing vessels from these LTTE smuggling vessels. An American officer interviewed a Sri Lankan navy officer with extensive operational experience in the area for his own study of the maritime aspects of the war. His Sri Lankan colleague described the difficulties they faced in identifying LTTE vessels: Their vessels are the same as the other fishing vessels. The best way to distinguish them is from their manners in the water. The LTTE

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boats will break off from the other fishing vessels. The fishing vessels have certain directions that they go because they are trawling. I could distinguish an LTTE vessel on the radar based on its maneuvers in the water.49 Drawing on the Tamil community’s seafaring expertise, the Sea Tigers produced a variety of craft and developed tactics that would effectively challenge the SLN. Eventually the LTTE navy operated three general types of vessels: attack boats, logistics craft, and suicide craft, with some boats fitted for double duty. Early in the wars fast dinghies and fishing boats were used to ferry supplies and people between the Jaffna Peninsula and Tamil Nadu. Injured Tigers were often brought to Tamil Nadu for treatment, and the Tigers operated training camps and offices in India under a permissive proLTTE Indian environment. The LTTE’s primary strategic naval goal was to dislodge the government from Jaffna city and the peninsula. Jaffna, where Sri Lanka and the Tamil Nadu area were closest, was a cultural and population center with an excellent harbor. Even when the government controlled Jaffna, it was unable to resupply it by land until the very end of the war, as the Tigers controlled the road north to the city from Kilinochchi. In 1995–96 the government tried to resupply Jaffna by air but lost at least nine aircraft in the attempt, including most of their cargo-hauling Antonovs, due to maintenance issues, pilot error, or rebel missile attack.The Sri Lankan air force abandoned the Jaffna resupply mission, forcing the SLN into the lead. The situation in Jaffna made the SLN Eastern Area Headquarters port of ‘‘Trinco’’ extremely important as a supply point for the forces in the north. The SLN sea lanes from Trinco to the Jaffna Peninsula were close to LTTE-controlled coastal regions along the western shore and were thus susceptible to attack by Sea Tiger craft and suicide boats. Tiger control of this sea lane meant control of Jaffna, and if they could maintain control of Jaffna, they were virtually guaranteed the Eelam they sought. Sea Tigers often kept their small craft hidden, waiting on shore in launching pads for targets to pass off the coast. They maintained the initiative and ability to choose the time and place of attack.50 They also adopted the tactic of clustering amid sympathetic civilian boats. From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, the Sea Tiger naval force and SLN battled for domination of the northern and eastern coasts. In addition, the Sea Tigers deployed LTTE

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guerrillas in amphibious attacks against military bases in Pooneryn (1995), Mullaitivu (1996), Elephant Pass (2000), and the Jaffna Peninsula (2001). In the early years of the conflict the LTTE navy was basic: small speedboats or fishing boats up to 40 feet in length, fitted with machine guns. The SLN enjoyed some early success against these slow, poorly armed boats, which they easily sank. In response the Tigers increased the speed and range of their boats. They produced speedboats with multiple large, outboard engines capable of speeds up to 45 knots. By 2000 they were building a dozen different types of craft, equipping them with VHF communications, radar, night-vision gear, armored protective plates, and global positioning systems. Their newer attack craft could take on the SLN’s major workhorse, the Israeli-built Dvora fast attack craft. Equipped with five 225–250 horsepower engines and a crew of around 14, these craft could travel at 40 knots. They were armed variously with 23-mm twin-barrel cannons and multiple smaller machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and 40-mm grenade launchers. The suicide wing of the Tamil Tigers was known as the Black Tigers; the naval suicide wing became known as the Black Sea Tigers. Suicide attack craft were typically fiberglass speedboats with one to three 225–250 horsepower outboard engines, manned by a crew of two, and equipped with spikes in the front.51 The boats sat wide and low in the water and often had angled surfaces, giving them a low radar cross section. (This also made them unstable in waves or wakes, a feature SLN vessels took advantage of by conducting zigzag maneuvers.) The boats could travel up to 45 knots and would be rammed into surface targets that had been singled out and surrounded by Sea Tiger ‘‘wolf packs.’’ The spikes purportedly would penetrate the target ship’s skin while serving as a trigger mechanism for a combination of 10–14 claymore mines and three booster charges with up to 63 kg of explosives.52 In the early 1990s the LTTE had to break its dependence on Tamil Nadu for arms, medical supplies, and food, as New Delhi had begun to crack down on LTTE activities in the region after the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. As the LTTE began to venture farther afield to acquire its basic needs, it expanded its oceangoing civilian and naval capabilities. Four nations became sources for arms and other supplies: Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. The ships were purchased with funds from the Tamil diaspora. Thailand was used as a logistics shipping hub. By the beginning of Eelam War IV, the LTTE fleet

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size ranged between 10 and 12 reasonably well-maintained bulk freighters bearing Panamanian, Honduran, or Liberian flags, crewed by Tamils loyal to the LTTE and owned by front companies in Asia. The bulk of the cargo included legitimate goods such as hardwood, tea, cement, and fertilizer, and the vessels operated openly in the world shipping market. The funds generated through these activities were used to support the ongoing war against the Sri Lankan government. The cargo also included arms, ammunition, and other materiel necessary to carry out LTTE attacks in Sri Lanka. In some cases, the LTTE also made money by carrying weapons and ammunition for other paying terrorist groups. The LTTE’s arms procurement network was sophisticated and spread across many countries; over the course of time, the LTTE was able to develop extensive knowledge of maritime trading practices and procedures. This knowledge was used to steal weapons shipments intended for the Sri Lankan armed forces. Peter Chalk provided a detailed accounting: On May 23,1997, a Greek-registered freighter named Stillus Limassul left the Mozambican port of Beira for Sri Lanka, carrying 32,400 81-mm mortar bombs intended for the Sri Lankan army. The US$3million arms deal had been arranged between officials of the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry and the government-owned, Chinesebuilt Zimbabwe Defence Industries (ZDI), with the arms to be shipped overland by train to Beira. The Sri Lankan military never received the shipment intended for them. . . . Subsequent investigations revealed that the Stillus Limassul was not included in Lloyd’s international shipping registry because it was owned by the LTTE. A paper trail led to Ben Tsoi, an Israeli arms subcontractor who had arranged the mortar deal and apparently had been bribed by the Tigers to let one of their own freighters pick up the consignment. . . . By the time Colombo learned the full extent of what had happened, the mortars had been off-loaded and transshipped via smaller vessels to LTTE jungle bases off the Mullaitivu coast. A month later the weapons were being used by the Tigers with devastating effect in fierce battles for control of the A-9 highway in northern Sri Lanka.53 The quest for high-grade explosives from various sources has figured prominently in the LTTE global weapons procurement efforts. In the early days of the LTTE insurgency, these had been supplied directly to the LTTE.

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However, the curtailment of Indian support from 1987 on forced the group to seek new outlets further afield, including distant Ukraine. Chalk again: One of the largest single consignments took place in August 1994 when an LTTE freighter, the MV Swene, left the Port of Nikoleyev laden with 60 tons of RDX and TNT explosive from the Rubezone Chemicals plant. The transaction had been arranged through Carlton Trading, a LTTE front company in Dhaka, which had produced a forged end-user certificate showing the Bangladeshi military as the approved recipient. The explosives were transported to the northeastern Sri Lankan coast and, protected by special Sea Tiger speedboats, offloaded and transferred to several secret LTTE jungle bases. Some of these explosives (300–400 kg) were subsequently used in the massive January 1996 truck-bomb attack against the Central Bank building in Colombo—widely recognized as one of the most devastating terrorist assaults in history.54 As the LTTE naval force grew in size and sophistication, the SLN was forced to respond. In the mid-1980s, the SLN had purchasing Israeli Dvora-class fast attack craft (FAC) along with Shanghai-class fast gunboats and other coastal craft to meet its coastal defense and interdiction requirements. The Sea Tigers meanwhile developed a set of effective operational methods to deal with the growing SLN naval capabilities; indeed, they proved the more innovative and deadlier force in the battles in the maritime domain. The Tigers, for example, developed maritime swarm tactics whereby large numbers of small boats and suicide boats would converge on, overwhelm, and destroy the larger SLN vessels. American defense analysts John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt define military swarming as the systematic pulsing of force and/or fire by dispersed but networked units that allows forces to strike the adversary from all directions simultaneously. The swarming force must have the ability to strike the enemy from multiple directions and be part of a ‘‘sensory organization,’’ providing intelligence to other members of the force and the higher echelon units.55 History is full of examples of swarm tactics. The key problem for a commander trying to protect a ship against swarming small boat attacks is reaction time, which is greatly affected by numerous factors, including speed, geographic separation, identification, and maneuverability.

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The first suicide attack by the Sea Tigers against an SLN vessel occurred in 1994. The most common attacks were mounted against the Dvora fast attack craft responsible for patrolling the littorals or escorting merchant vessels between Trinco and the Jaffna Peninsula. On March 21, 2001, for example, three SLN Dvoras were en route from the Jaffna Peninsula to Trinco when they spotted three Sea Tiger craft eight miles off the coast near Mullaitivu. The SLN craft immediately engaged them but soon found themselves assaulted on all sides by seven more Sea Tiger small craft. This LTTE ambush managed to destroy FAC 495, and forced the other two craft to withdraw until they were reinforced by several other SLN vessels.56 Before the Sri Lankan army regained control of Elephant Pass in early 2009, the entire responsibility for transporting fresh troops, food, supplies, arms, and ammunition to the government garrison in Jaffna rested with the SLN for the better part of two decades. The cost to the SLN was heavy, but it managed to maintain the lifeline.57 In late October 2000, LTTE operatives loaded artillery rockets onto an ox cart and disguised them with plant material. They traveled to a beach in eastern Sri Lanka near Trinco harbor, where they buried the rockets. Early on the morning of October 23, a locally owned cargo vessel entered the secure area of the port, on the way to pick up cement. Five Sea Tiger suicide craft slipped into the secure area behind the cargo vessel. LTTE cadres on the beach retrieved the rockets and began dropping mortar and artillery rounds on the harbor from across the bay. A navy patrol craft was able to destroy two of the Sea Tiger boats and damage a third. But one of the remaining boats, traveling at up to 45 knots, reached the navy-operated passenger ferry A-541 and exploded, sending the ferry to the bottom of the harbor and damaging a gunboat moored next to it.58 In another instance, a Black Sea Tiger boat attacked an SLN Dvora in Trinco harbor at night in early January 2006. The Dvora was operating alone and observing a local fishing boat. The Sea Tigers hid in a cluster of other fishing boats, and when the Dvora sailed by, the boat accelerated and rammed the naval vessel, reportedly giving it less than a minute to respond. The explosion killed at least 13 SLN sailors and sank the boat.59 Black Sea Tigers also infiltrated Trinco harbor on May 10, 2008, and sank the SLN’s major auxiliary and cargo ship, A-520, by attaching explosives that ripped through its hull.60 Sea Tigers also used hijacking and piracy further and fund their cause. They captured both military and civilian vessels when possible. In 2006 the

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Jordanian-owned MV Farrah III encountered mechanical trouble and ran aground off Sri Lanka’s northeast coast. According to BBC reports, Tigers boarded the ship, turned its 25-man crew over to the Red Cross, and stripped it of everything from generators and lights to its cargo of 14,000 tons of rice. Pictures later showed the ship with giant holes, suggesting that the rebels were even taking sheet metal from its sides.61 The SLN adapted slowly, but in the end successfully, to the threat posed by the Sea Tigers. From a mostly ceremonial navy, the SLN by 2005 had formed a seasoned group of fighting warriors. However, by 2005 there were also other factors contributing to the demise of LTTE naval capabilities. The 2004 split between the northern faction, led by the LTTE leader Prabhakaran, and the eastern faction, led by Colonel Karuna, weakened the organization on both land and water. Karuna took with him an estimated one-quarter of the LTTE forces at the time. From that point on, the eastern region, long an area of rich LTTE support, was no longer a reliable recruiting ground for Prabhakaran. The LTTE also lost control of a significant portion of the coastal region. The December 2004 tsunami took a significant toll, especially because of the immense destruction in the eastern areas, where many Sea Tiger bases and depots were located.62 Reports estimated that the Sea Tigers lost a quarter of their naval forces.63 Many naval craft were lost because they were not at sea when the waves came ashore, although exact numbers remain disputed. The Sea Tigers devoted considerable resources and time trying to sever sea-lane communication between Trinco and the Jaffna Peninsula. An October 2000 attack crippled an SLN-operated ferry used to transport troops to and from the peninsula. Suicide craft were able to follow a cargo vessel into Trinco harbor to get close enough to attack the ferry. A total of five suicide craft were involved: two were destroyed by the SLN, two others escaped, despite damage to one of the craft, and the fifth completed its mission successfully. In February 2008 Sri Lankan radar detected nearly 400 Indian fishing trawlers, mostly from Tamil Nadu, approaching Sri Lankan waters. One fishing trawler requested help from the patrolling SLN, feigning disablement. As navy boats approached the distressed trawler, the craft and another nearby trawler began firing on them. The SLN claims not to have fired back out of fear of hitting other Indian fishing boats that were too close. One Sri Lankan Dvora was sunk in this attack.64 On October 22, 2008, three Black Tiger suicide waterborne IEDs (WBIEDs) attacked two merchant vessels carrying critical supplies to troops in Jaffna Peninsula.

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The ships were entering Kankansanthurai harbor on the north coast of the peninsula when the three Black Tiger boats approached. SLN personnel onboard the vessels managed to engage the approaching small boats, destroying two and capturing the third. The Sea Tigers proved to be as innovative and as deadly as the ground LTTE forces. They devoted considerable efforts to developing submarine capability and succeeded in constructing a semi-submersible ‘‘human torpedo’’ craft. Carrying an explosive of approximately 25–50 kg, and able to move around 5 knots, the craft would be maneuvered at night by a diver, who would guide it slowly at first, then accelerate as it neared the target, perhaps swimming out just before impact. The Sea Tigers were known to have used these several times with at least two successful attacks.65 In January 2009, as the war was drawing to a close, the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry announced the capture of an armor-plated 35-foot submarine still under construction.66 If the LTTE had succeeded in putting ubmarines into operation, it would have achieved yet further notoriety as the first insurgent group to employ such craft. Sea Tigers also deployed underwater demolition teams that successfully attacked SLN, foreign, and commercial vessels. As early as 1986 the Tigers used divers armed with ordinary scuba equipment, but due to the bubbles the divers produced, several of these fighters were lost to combat action. The Tigers subsequently purchased rebreathing equipment for the divers, who are known to have successfully gathered hull information from berthed vessels. Black Sea Tiger divers were credited with a spectacular success on May 9, 2008. The 80-meter supply ship A-520, formerly known as the Invincible, was loading munitions in Trinco harbor when an underwater explosion sent it to the bottom in thirteen minutes. The Sea Tigers also deployed mines and invested considerable resources into the construction of mine-laying vessels. Mines were credited with destruction of at least one Sri Lankan jetboat. When Vice Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda took command of the Sri Lanka navy in September 2005, he immediately took a more aggressive and comprehensive approach to LTTE maritime operations. His first goal was to build a larger and better-trained navy that would be able to contribute decisively to land operations, cut LTTE supply lines, and defeat Sea Tigers at sea.67 When the army launched its 2006 Eastern Province offensivee, Karannagoda’s primary mission was to ensure that the SLN would be able to thwart LTTE attempts to use the sea to reinforce its members who were

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fighting the army, particularly around Sampur. As the war intensified, the admiral mobilized his forces to track down and destroy the LTTE fleet. Operations began with an attempt to identify and destroy the fishing trawler fleet responsible for smuggling operations. Within a year, eleven trawlers had been destroyed. The SLN used land-based radar to detect small boat threats up to 100 nautical miles from shore. Ships and boats were dispatched to chase down the potential threats. However, the operations took a significant toll on the SLN. The bulk of the navy’s assets were on continuous patrol to detect and destroy LTTE trawlers hiding among thousands of civilian fishing vessels. The crews became worn down and demoralized by the work, which had little impact on smuggling operations. In January 2006, a Sea Tiger suicide craft hid among a cluster of fishing vessels at night. When the FAC patrolling the area was in range, the crew rammed their vessel into the FAC, killing fifteen SLN sailors. In 2006 alone, the SLN had 21 encounters with the Sea Tigers in some of the largest, most violent naval confrontations since World War II. In mid-2006 Karannagoda changed his approach. He decided, first, to formulate and implement a way to take on and destroy the LTTE’s oceangoing fleet; and second, to devise new tactics for fighting the numerous and heavily armed LTTE small vessels that had wreaked havoc with the SLN FACs. Karannagoda and his small team of innovative naval thinkers realized that having the overtaxed SLN chase thousands of small vessels plying the waters off the island was a losing proposition. They began to think in grander terms, gathering information on the location of the ‘‘floating arms warehouses’’ that supplied the small boats with the arms and ammunition tto be off-loaded on the coast. The largest of these warehouses was 70 meters in length, with a capacity of 3,000–4,000 tons. These relatively large vessels could not unload their cargos directly in coastal territories under LTTE control because the Sea Tigers did not have any significant ports and were wary of aerial attacks against these large targets. Instead they used small boat flotillas of logistics craft and attack boats to sail to rendezvous points hundreds of kilometers offshore to collect the arms and ferry them back to the coast. There the cargo was quickly unloaded, hauled onto the beach, and driven away under jungle cover, safe from Sri Lankan air attack.68 Karannagoda and his team began to develop an operational plan to destroy the floating arms warehouses. Locating and destroying these cargo

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vessels would require a coordinated and sustained effort and would certainly tax the small SLN far more than ever before. The SLN required international support for an operation of this magnitude so it could take the naval vessels far beyond coastal waters. The SLN received this help, despite the fact that, traditionally, the littoral powers of the region did not have a good track record of sharing information about the presence of suspicious ships.69 Sri Lanka’s success in locating the floating warehouses came as a result of improved domestic and international intelligence gathering. India’s extensive sharing of maritime intelligence with Sri Lanka is still a closely guarded secret. The United States also provided intelligence on the location of the warehouses. Through signals intelligence (SIGINT) and imagery intelligence (IMINT), the U.S. Pacific Command passed the location of the LTTE cargo vessels to Sri Lankan naval commanders. This intelligence proved critical in locating the more remote vessels loitering more than a thousand nautical miles from Sri Lankan waters. Sri Lanka also substantially improved its own maritime information-gathering capabilities and began to take an aggressive approach toward building a big picture of the LTTE maritime threat. In May 2007 the Maldives coast guard intercepted a group of LTTE cadres attempting to capture an Indian fishing trawler for a smuggling platform. The SLN was allowed to interrogate the LTTE members. This proved invaluable; the SLN was able to obtain information about the LTTE fleet operating on the high seas. Once the LTTE vessels were located, the SLN had to develop tactics to interdict the vessels, that were positioned well beyond the navy’s normal reach for conducting operations. The SLN had earlier added offshore patrol boats (OPBs) to its fleet. These boats gave the SLN its first true blue-water operational capability and the ability to directly target the floating warehouses. (SLN Dvora FACs were not capable of blue-water operations.) Sri Lanka bought its first OPB from the Indian navy in 2000: the Sayura, a 1,900-ton, 101-meter craft, outfitted with one .60-caliber gun and two smaller machine guns. The navy also acquired a trio of smaller seagoing vessels: the ex-U.S. Coast Guard medium endurance cutter Courageous and two fast missile vessels from Israel. To take out the LTTE maritime capabilities, the SLN put together a task force that included these medium combatants and two logistics vessels. Finally equipped with oceangoing vessels and the requisite intelligence, the SLN went into action against the civilian arm of the Sea Tigers. During

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a 13-month period in 2006–7, SLN forces tracked down and destroyed all eight Sea Tiger logistical freighters. The first two were destroyed 250 and 365 km off the Sri Lankan coast in late 2006 and early 2007. After this loss the LTTE moved its vessels farther offshore, believing the SLN had no capability for long-distance strikes. In spring 2007 two vessels were found and destroyed 1,800 km southeast of Sri Lanka. The LTTE was stunned, as were foreign observers. In September and October, the four remaining ships were sunk, nearly 3,500 km south-southeast of Sri Lanka. Indeed, these ships were almost in Australian waters.70 The sinking of these floating warehouses was cited by Vice Admiral Karannagoda as a turning point in the entire war, and the largest contribution to the LTTE defeat by the Sri Lankan navy.71 Between September 2006 and October 2007, the SLN succeeded in consigning to the bottom of the ocean more than 10,000 tons of war materiel desperately needed by LTTE ground units. Karannagoda later described the contents of the ships: ‘‘These vessels were carrying over 80,000 artillery rounds, over 100,000 mortar rounds, a bullet-proof jeep, three aircraft in dismantled form, torpedoes and surface-to-air missiles. There were a large number of underwater swimmer delivery vehicles and a large quantity of diving equipment. There was radar equipment as well as outboard motors with high horsepower.’’72 The SLN also had to counter LTTE naval operations affecting military movements, logistics operations, and commercial shipping. To counter maritime terrorism and sea piracy, Karannagoda and his team developed an innovative scheme he termed the ‘‘Small Boat Concept.’’ The plan was based on new equipment, designed by Sri Lanka’s Naval Research and Development Project Office, and new strategies that effectively copied the Sea Tigers’ asymmetric tactics on a much larger scale. The Small Boat Concept was specifically developed and implemented to counter the LTTE swarm tactics in coastal areas. The SLN found that whenever its FAC patrolled in LTTE coastal areas, the Sea Tigers would attack in a swarm with 20 to 30 boats. Among those boats would be five or six suicide boats indistinguishable from the rest but filled with explosives. The mission of the suicide boats was to attack and sink the expensive major surface assets of the SLN, preferably along with their personnel. Fighting small boat swarms with major surface vessels proved to be a losing proposition and an expensive one, as SLN strategists were quick to realize. So the SLN countered the swarm with its own swarm:

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When we were fighting swarm tactics, they had more of a chance of hitting us. So, we went back to their techniques and developed small boats on our own. When they attacked us with 20, we responded with 50.73 The mission of the Small Boat Concept was to counter the Sea Tigers’ swarm and suicide tactics by overwhelming them with ‘‘large numbers of small high-speed, heavily armed inshore patrol craft (IPC). The navy’s R&D engineers developed three indigenous fiberglass-based IPC variants: a 17-meter command and fighting craft, a 14-meter fighting craft, and a 23-foot craft named the ‘‘Arrow.’’74 They were fitted with 250horsepower outboard engines (two for the Arrow and four for the 14- and 17-meter craft), providing a top speed of 35–40 knots. They were armed with various combinations of .50-caliber machine guns, double- and singlebarrel 23-mm guns, and 40-mm automatic grenade launchers. The boats were organized into six-boat units under one commander. One larger boat (17-meter) provided a command platform, with the communication systems to facilitate command and control.75 The units were organized into rapid action boat squadrons (RABS) totaling 25 to 30 craft. RABS personnel were handpicked from naval personnel who were willing to fight and make it through the extensive training on boat handling and weaponry. Advanced training was conducted with U.S. navy SEALs, who brought their rigidhulled inflatable boats to train with the SLN twice a year, along with many training operators and staff. The training lasted about two months. The squadrons were then stationed in high-threat locations along the northern and eastern coasts to rapidly respond to and interdict Sea Tiger units at sea. They were flexible enough to relocate in short order to combine with other squadrons for specific operations or battles. The ability to concentrate a force at short notice was an important factor in gaining the upper hand in sea battles. Small naval operating bases or camps were set up along the northern and eastern coasts to provide bases for the RABS and land-based radar systems, another essential element of the SLN ability to defeat the Sea Tigers. In 2006, small land-based radar stations were set up along the coast from Point Pedro in the north to Trincomalee in the east. The only area not covered was an LTTE stronghold between Chundikkulam and Mullaitivu. In November 2007 the United States provided a radar-based maritime

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surveillance system that significantly increased SLN ability to detect and interdict Sea Tiger activities. The communications officer at naval headquarters in Colombo at the time made the following comments about U.S. assistance: The United States was tremendously helpful with our command and control systems. The backbone of our networking was set up by the U.S. We had communications in place but the U.S. helped us network our communications and radar systems so that there was direct real-time communications with Naval Headquarters in Colombo. In the later part of the war, we had the ability to view about 20 radar stations at Headquarters.76 With the RABS, maritime surveillance systems, and improved command and control, the SLN implemented a system of layered defense to counter maritime terrorism, sea piracy, and smuggling. The first layer consisted of RABS stationed along the coast to rapidly respond to coastal threats. Next, the Dvora FAC maintained constant patrols to detect illicit activity. Fast gunboats provided another layer seaward of the FAC patrol routes. Offshore patrol vessels provided the final cordon 200 to 300 nautical miles off the coast. Complete radar coverage of the area also assisted in alerting the SLN to Sea Tiger activity. Sea Tigers almost always operated in groups, and preferred to swarm and overwhelm SLN craft. Sometimes two or three groups of two or three boats each would accompany logistics craft, or similar swarms would be used offensively. Vice Admiral Karannagoda noted that ‘‘when the ceasefire ended [2006], we found the LTTE Sea Tigers were very strong and were coming at us with faster and stronger boats. The Dvoras were finding it very difficult in battles at sea with normal fighting craft against about 15 Sea Tiger craft and another eight to ten suicide craft, which would sometimes mingle with fishermen.’’77 The boats were fast but would attempt to remain together to appear as unitary radar targets. If SLN gunships intercepted the convoy, the attack boats would break off and engage, using swarming tactics while attempting to isolate target boats. These gunrunning expeditions were carried out at night to prevent coverage from the Sri Lankan air force.78

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The Military Analysis of the Eelam IV Campaign How did Sri Lanka do it? This question has been posed by military officers and strategic/defense analysts the world over. The following analysis attempts to uncover the political, military, and diplomatic factors behind this remarkable military victory. Clear-cut victories in a protracted internal war seem to be rare in this day and age. Sri Lanka’s government is the first to admit that theirs was not an easy victory. This was clearly reflected in the statement by Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in a 2009 interview: Yes, we ultimately defeated the LTTE but that was through the sacrifices made by the Armed Forces with life and limb. Contrary to what some may say, it was not an easy task. It was very difficult. If we look at the military campaign from Marvil Aru till today we have lost the precious lives of 6,261 from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Police and the Civil Defence Force. 29,551 have been injured though most of them have returned to the battlefront. When we look at the number of permanently disabled, it is 2,556. This is only in the past four years. 6,261 killed in action is a very large number. Therefore, you can see that we have achieved this victory through immense sacrifices.79 The notion of military effectiveness has been used by scholars in political science and military history to address how a state attains and maintains an effective military. An effective military is one that can fight, defend, and win its country’s wars. Military effectiveness is not an end product but an ongoing process by which a state converts available national resources into fighting power. It is a dynamic process among means (available resources), ways (conversion capabilities) and ends (fighting power).80 The process of converting resources into military effectiveness at the political, strategic, operational, and tactical levels is a formidable task and requires the state and its armed forces to find new and innovative approaches and ways of fighting. The German armies of World War I and World War II were known for their military effectiveness at the operational and tactical levels; they were judged better than their opponents. Yet they lost both wars. Israel has managed to produce more military effectiveness than its Arab opponents— whose trials and tribulations in creating military effectiveness have been

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extensively studied—yet despite victory after victory, will never be able to conclusively defeat them. States can have pockets of military effectiveness in their armed forces. This, of course, may help them deal with low-level threats but not a serious war. For example, the Sri Lankan armed forces had ‘‘islands’’ of military effectiveness and competence during Eelam Wars I–III. On a number of occasions—particularly when staring disaster in the face—the GoSL managed to rouse itself and initiate important changes and reforms. However, despite causing near havoc in LTTE ranks during extensive fighting, these changes and innovations did not tip the scales against the LTTE, which proved to be a powerful opponent. In other words, the GoSL was never able to implement military effectiveness across the board, from political and strategic to operational and tactical levels; nor was military effectiveness extensively embedded in the armed forces. These failures and weaknesses proved significant in ensuring that the GoSL efforts in Eelam Wars I–III would be crowned with failure.81 Matters changed significantly in Eelam War IV, as the GoSL and Sri Lankan military implemented changes across the board, from political and strategic to operational and tactical levels. These changes proved to be the catalyst that took the Sri Lankan military from victory to victory.

Political Will I heard Sri Lankan officials and military officers refer to the mysterious notion of political will numerous times while I was in the country. I took it to mean three things. First, it meant formulation of a concise and simple policy goal—defeat the LTTE, that is to say, fight it not to have the government in a better position for the next round of interminable negotiations, but to defeat it comprehensively. Second, it meant unswerving determination to succeed in the goal the GoSL elite set themselves, the defeat of the LTTE. Naysayers and opponents had to be convinced the policy goal was attainable and brought on board, or neutralized so that they could not have an adverse impact on policy making, promote dissension, and destroy the cohesion of the policy. Third, it meant getting the resources and personnel required to implement the goal. In this context, the Rajapaksa government was united, determined, and unswerving, in contrast with earlier governments that were weak, indecisive, and disunited vis-a`-vis the LTTE. In an

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interview the secretary of defense made much of this, saying, ‘‘We have proven that terrorism can be defeated. The main thing that you need is to have a political will to counter this. Without a strong political will you cannot do anything.’’82 But having political will is only part of the story. It is intrinsically tied to having a strategic plan of where one wants to go and how one intends to get there. In the interview cited above, the defense secretary noted that the government—both civilian and military elite—worked together to develop a strategic plan for victory. During previous administrations ‘‘the soldiers were getting mixed signals,’’ due to the inability of civilians and military officials to work effectively together, said Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. However, he continued, with the election of the new administration there was going to be no more ambiguity about what the government intended to do. It was very clear: destroy the LTTE. This was clear from the first day of the government’s emergence to the last day of the war, and the new government had a clear plan: ‘‘We knew what strength we needed. We knew what equipment we needed. . . .83 We gave those to the commanders so the commanders had greater flexibility.’’ Moreover, the senior leadership was committed to seeing the plan it had formulated through to the bitter end: A political commitment to victory was especially important. This time we had the commitment and the will from the President, he wanted to completely defeat the LTTE; he had a plan and he selected the proper people who could do this. He selected the proper leaders and executed this. He didn’t change his stance. He was unwavering throughout the campaign whatever the pressure that came. He didn’t change. Previously we saw the leadership changing its stance and halting military campaigns where they went for ceasefires and peace talks. This time the leadership didn’t change its stance, we continued facing whatever pressure and we succeeded in the end. The Rajapaksa brothers, especially the president and secretary of defense, listened to the army high command and decided to provide the arms and manpower necessary to defeat the LTTE.84 The government was convinced the LTTE was preparing for war and that no amount of negotiation would result in an agreement that was acceptable to both sides. Moreover, the LTTE always used the respite between fighting to rebuild its forces for the next round.85 This was Defense Secretary Rajapaksa’s view, as stated before

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the Sri Lankan War Commission: ‘‘In 2005 they [LTTE] had clear intention of going into military operations. It was very clear that their intention was a military operation because the way that they had established their camps around Trinco harbor, was a clear indication of the way they would conduct the military operation.’’86 This situation was in contrast with the past, when eight previous governments led by four different presidents had manifestly failed to end the war despite having in place good officers and soldiers. What had been lacking was political will and commitment to victory on the part of the senior leadership, according to Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.87 The opposite of political will was defeatism, the prevailing sentiment in Sri Lanka up to 2005. Previous governments were scared of the LTTE, perceiving it as invincible. Indeed, Colombo’s consistent tendency to refer to the LTTE as a ruthless and bloodthirsty terrorist group without parallel in the world led people to believe the organization was ten feet tall when, in fact, it was not. That view contributed to the perception that the Tigers could not be defeated militarily, a sentiment that gained widespread international acceptance. This mindset had to be eliminated to convince the people and give confidence to the military. Political will also means the ability to maintain course unswervingly, even in the face of international pressure. Internal wars are never fully internal; they attract the attention of the outside world and the media. The Rajapaksa government ignored international pressure to restart peace efforts and shrugged off accusations from human rights groups that it sanctioned extrajudicial killings, allowed paramilitaries to run amok, and disregarded the safety of civilians. The government thought too many previous governments had caved in to the international community, which provided the LTTE breathing space and increasing legitimacy over the years. This determination to have its way also had a sinister aspect; the media were regarded as a detrimental force that could derail the coming war. The government barred independent media from the war zone and deliberately underreported its casualties—quite severe in the early days of Eelam War IV, when the LTTE was still full of fight—so the public would not become demoralized. The government also established the Media Centre for National Security and Defence website to ensure that the ‘‘correct’’ story—its own—would be the dominant narrative rather than that of independent media. Secretary of Defense Rajapaksa put a great deal of emphasis on the government putting out its own story to counteract the ‘‘baleful’’ and

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‘‘erroneous’’ reporting of hostile independent media. The absence of independent media on the battlefield may have permitted the GoSL to be somewhat permissive and cavalier in treatment of hapless civilians caught in the crossfire and, allegedly, in mistreating LTTE captives. But it did not help the GoSL much in Eelam IV’s aftermath, when allegations of severe human rights abuses surfaced that continue to dog the government.

Regional and International Engagement For a small country, Sri Lanka has always been extremely active on the international diplomatic scene. However, this activism has not often proved effective, particularly in countering the reach of the transnational LTTE organization. There was considerable criticism of Sri Lankan embassies and missions for not promoting the country’s case in a proactive manner. One government official had referred to them as ‘‘glorified visa offices.’’ This began to change under the Rajapaksa government; officials clearly realized that the countryneeded international support in its forthcoming endeavor against the LTTE. In a number of interviews, the secretary of defense stressed the importance of the outside world, recalling how the international community had helped the GoSL with the counterterrorism campaign. He was particularly disparaging about the West for its focus on the need to negotiate with the LTTE to avoid conflict and stressing human rights issues during the war. He praised the countries that had provided significant material help and did not ‘‘make noises’’ about peripheral matters: When you say ‘‘international Community’’ it is not only the countries that make noise but lot of countries in the region, India, Pakistan, China, Russia, Israel, Japan, Iran and Middle Eastern countries helped us by giving us aid/help during this difficult time. Even countries from South East Asia such as Malaysia and Thailand have helped by sharing intelligence and not allowing the LTTE to operate their ships etc.88 China, in particular, provided the Sri Lankan armed forces with considerable amounts of offensive weaponry and ammunition at relatively cheap

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prices. The West was unwilling to do so due to humanitarian concerns; India was reluctant because of its domestic situation vis-a`-vis its own Tamil population.89 Nonetheless, India was of critical importance to Sri Lanka’s offensive against the LTTE. Indeed, India’s most important contribution was in keeping out of the war. To accomplish this, Colombo set up direct, high-level channels of communication with New Delhi to keep the government apprised of its intentions and plans.90 New Delhi did not hinder Colombo’s offensives in Eelam War IV; indeed, it provided maritime intelligence and some critical military materiel.91 New Delhi was, of course, concerned over the impact of potential civilian casualties among the Tamil population. It feared a spillover political impact on Tamil Nadu state, whose politicians were viscerally anti-Colombo and whose parties were members of the coalition government.92

Mobilization and Involvement of the Population The Rajapaksa government concluded that mobilizing the public and maintaining its support were vital, particularly as war-weariness lurked behind the scenes. War-weariness was not unexpected, because the war had lasted for a long time with no discernible signs of progress. Sri Lanka’s various governments had labored under this disadvantage as well as the public’s growing weariness over casualty levels. The government could not afford to restart the war after it came to power merely to compel the LTTE to negotiate; this time it was determined to finish the conflict. It is unlikely that the government would have received the support of the Sinhala population for yet another bruising and uncertain Eelam war, despite the jingoistic callto-arms by the small and vociferous right-wing parties and political elements in the Sangha—the monastic establishment—if it had intended to resume the war as a form of negotiation. To get the people’s support, the government was determined to instill the notion that victory was possible. This would require a major mobilization and a concerted national effort to recruit the requisite number of soldiers and inform them of the purposes for which they were being readied for war. The government had to ensure that the population had confidence in their leaders, and this meant the government needed to provide the people with a road map for victory. In turn, the people needed to give the government full support for the coming

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war, including the massive recruitment and mobilization needed to prosecute the war with the maximum effort.

Strategic Lessons, Operational and Tactical Restructuring of the SLKAF When the Rajapaksa government took power, it began to study the past campaigns of the SLKAF. The military had undertaken such studies in the past, but nothing that could compare with the extensive process begun in 2005, shortly after the president’s inauguration. Based on this review, one of the most important factors in the government’s success evolved: the formulation (and implementation) of far-reaching and ultimately decisive changes, across the board, in the armed forces and paramilitary forces. The full story of these changes remains to be written.93 The senior high command worked hard to try to deny the LTTE the ability to concentrate its forces against the army during battle; the Tigers were renowned for their flexibility and rapid movement on the battlefield. The Sri Lankan army’s inability to conduct more than one operation at a time allowed defending LTTE units to counter attacking government troops effectively. But what would happen if the army could conduct parallel operations along multiple axes? Outcomes would be different in Eelam War IV because the army had developed the skill and resources to do just that. The ability to attack along multiple axes would enable the army to develop and implement a comprehensive military strategy for liberating the entire Wanni region, whereas in the past the army would focus its attention on simply trying to obliterate Tiger bases. This latter strategy had allowed the Tigers to concentrate their forces, because they knew exactly where the army would strike. Thus the new strategy was predicated on having the SLA open multiple theaters of operations in the Wanni (Mannar, Vavuniya, and Weli Oya), while in the far north, on the Jaffna Peninsula, two major divisions fixed in place the well-trained LTTE infantry forces and support units the Tiger high command would otherwise have deployed to the various Wanni theaters. In an interview with a Sri Lankan newspaper, the commander of the military forces in the Wanni region, Major General Jagath Jayasuriya, stated that one of the factors behind the success of the SLA against the LTTE was its new ability to conduct operations on multiple fronts and along several axes continuously. In the words of General Fonseka,‘‘we never gave them a

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break. . . . For two years and nine months we were engaged with the enemy throughout . . . we were attacking them everywhere continuously,’’ at night or during the day, no matter what the weather conditions.94 The LTTE simply did not have the resources to confront the ground forces in all areas. The Sri Lankan ground forces adopted new tactics, were more innovative, and proved more flexible. Whereas in the past the LTTE forces were the innovative and flexible foe and the government forces generally uninspired, the opposite held true during Eelam War IV. Even senior Sri Lankan officers admitted that their military had been lacking in original and innovative thinking, and that they had often kept making the same mistakes over and over.95 Prior to Eelam War IV, the armed forces had no overall concept of operations in support of the political goals because the latter were often poorly articulated or not at all by civilian policy makers. In effect, the senior military command had to formulate and implement military operations that had no rational, overarching political purpose. In the words of General Fonseka, ‘‘we were always planning for limited objectives, either to capture a particular town or capture a particular road . . . we were only running in circles, basically. The LTTE always had the initiative and the army was merely reacting.’’96 Furthermore, neither the government nor the military had strategic plans for holding areas that were cleared of the LTTE. Fonseka pointed to the time when an operation was launched for the recapture of Jaffna and the government acted in a short-sighted manner by withdrawing large numbers of troops from the east, abandoning many areas to the LTTE. Of course, this episode—which I mentioned earlier—was a reflection not only of poor overall planning but of a severe shortage of personnel for this kind of manpower-intense warfare. The civilian leaders and military high command recognized this as another serious shortcoming to be resolved. In the past when an area was cleared of LTTE guerrillas and infrastructure, the military did not have the option of maintaining a presence in the reclaimed territory. Troops were needed to fight the LTTE elsewhere. Naturally, when they were removed from a cleared area, the LTTE moved back in. To remedy the situation the GoSL increased the size of the special task force paramilitary police, who implemented their own operations and then maintained a robust presence in the cleared zones. Furthermore, the GoSL set up a civilian militia—the Civilian Defense Force (CDF)—which it trained and armed. The CDF’s primary purpose was to maintain security and stability in cleared rural areas and prevent the LTTE from coming back and intimidating the locals.

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One of the biggest problems of the Sri Lankan armed forces was lack of personnel due to the limited resources, weak absorptive capacities of the existing military structure, and massive desertion rates.97 Sri Lanka confronted serious budgetary issues in its quest to expand the number of military personnel, and when manpower was added the military was often unable to absorb it. Soldiers often found themselves inadequately supplied and lacking bare essentials, such as more than one uniform and pair of boots. Not surprisingly, the military also had traditionally suffered from a high rate of desertion. Why do soldiers desert? They may not believe in the mission they have been entrusted with simply because they may not know what the mission is, or because it has not been concisely articulated. They desert because the government has not taken or is incapable of taking care of their needs at the front and in general. The Sri Lankan government remedied these matters by paying considerable attention to the morale and needs of the common soldiery. The government and the military command did not have the luxury of real peacetime to do a thorough restructuring of the armed forces. Fortunately, this was not required. The Sri Lankan military had more than two decades of experience in warfare, and any military involved in highintensity war against a resolute and deadly enemy is bound to learn how to fight. Furthermore, it had proved over the course of the war that it could formulate and implement effective operations. The secretary of defense was correct in arguing that the foundations of the armed forces were sound and the country was going to go to war with the army it had, but with innovative structural changes: ‘‘Sri Lanka launched the war in 2005 with the same military that had fought the LTTE over the course of the entire civil war. In fact, we realized a simple fact in 2005, that if we launched war operations against the LTTE then we would have to fight with the same military that had fought the LTTE in the last 30 years.’’98 One of the most—if not the most—important changes was to massively increase the size of the armed forces. The small size of the military in the previous three phases of the Eelam wars explained why it was unable to handle many of the demands placed on it by the government, especially fighting, clearing territory, and holding territory it had gained. A key factor in the SLAF’s previous inability to finish the war was inadequate numbers. As a result, stated the secretary of defense: ‘‘We came to the conclusion that the solution was to increase the force strength.’’99 The new government increased the size of the armed forces across the board. It began a massive

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recruitment campaign, and succeeded in tripling the size of the army from 100,000 to 300,000 personnel over three years by adding 5,000 recruits to the ranks every month from the time the government came to power to the end of the war. Between 2005 and 2009 the armed forces increased from 125,000 men and women to around 450,000.100 However, increased personnel is not a sufficient solution if they are not well trained and equipped. Counterinsurgency campaigns are intensive and bloody, and they require well-trained soldiers. The government went on a massive training program to improve small-unit and technical skills. In 2002, single-integrated operational teams (SIOT) consisting of eight- and four-man bands had been created; these teams underwent more enhanced and specialized training than average infantrymen.101 Soldiers were handpicked and given a one-month endurance-training course similar to that of elite commando units and special forces. They were then given specialized courses in jungle warfare, medical training, and calling for fires. These infantrymen became very well-trained soldiers who could operate independent of their mother units for a limited period of time. They frequently were reassigned to their mother units, where they raised the training standards by providing effective leadership and disseminating small-unit skills.102 Sri Lanka’s small but effective contingent of special forces and commando units became central players in Eelam War IV. The number of personnel was increased, the training became even more rigorous, and the elite forces were trained to coordinate operations with regular forces. The commandos had been established in 1980 as a counterterror force, and the special forces in 1985 to conduct unconventional warfare and operations in remote, rural, and urban environments. Due to the nature of the conflict and their continuous employment over the years, both forces became highly effective and versatile in counter-guerrilla and counter-insurgent warfare waged in jungle, remote, and urban environments. The skills taught were diversified, and capabilities in long-range patrolling, waterborne and heli-borne operations, anti-hijack and hostage rescue, sniping, and demolitions were emphasized. During Eelam War IV, the Sri Lankan commandos and special forces were an immense force multiplier as they engaged in a wide variety of missions that contributed tremendously to the ultimate defeat of the LTTE.103 First, these elite units helped the infantry units by infiltrating LTTE positions and engaging in fierce firefights to degrade LTTE defenses and morale as the infantry forces moved to contact. This

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tactic forced the LTTE to thin out forces to deal with the multiple threats. Second, the elite units provided flank protection to the advancing infantry divisions. As infantry formations moved forward into LTTE-held areas, their flanks would become extended and were often subject to violent counteraction by LTTE forces. The army was determined to stop the LTTE from benefiting from this tactic in Eelam War IV. This mission was especially important in this phase of the war due the massive and extended fronts of the huge ground formations. The commando and special forces units operated on the flanks of the advancing infantry formations to keep the LTTE at bay and spring traps for strike groups seeking to hit them. Third, the elite units performed counter-penetration missions to prevent the LTTE from overwhelming army units that had succumbed after fierce, coordinated assaults by the enemy. For example, just after the 572nd Brigade captured Thampanai and advanced toward Madhu, the LTTE launched a major counteroffensive that pushed the startled brigade about 2 km back. The brigade would have fared worse had the senior command not rushed two squadrons of special forces to the combat area and countered the LTTE penetration, regaining control after two days of intense fighting. In addition, during Eelam War IV the elite units undertook reconnaissance missions, targeted LTTE assets and commanders for elimination, and, especially in the Eastern Province, led the assault in difficult hilly and jungle terrain against entrenched LTTE cadres.104

What Happened to the LTTE? It is clear from the above analysis that the Sri Lankan military had become a formidable and battle-hardened force by the end of the war. The magnitude of its victory stunned close and not so close observers. Outside observers began to raise questions about the LTTE, which most had believed to be unbeatable. Rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran had transformed the organization from little more than a street gang in the 1970s into a fearsome guerrilla group that ran a seemingly tight and cohesive state that ruled a large part of the north, with its own police, courts, and customs department. The LTTE had also evolved militarily, from small bands of fighters, to guerrilla fighters and terrorists, and ultimately to semiconventional forces that deployed heavy artillery, a significant naval wing, and a rudimentary air force that once bombed Colombo’s international airport.

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Its transnational network was huge and capable of raising as much as $300 million a year from a web of fake charities and international arms and drug smuggling, among other means. Although most associate suicide bombing with the perennial turmoil in the Middle East, the LTTE was a pioneer in this tactic, which involves an individual’s willingness and readiness to blow him- or herself up to destroy specific enemy targets.105 The LTTE developed a formidable suicide bomber unit, the Black Tigers, which conducted more suicide attacks than any other single terrorist or insurgent group in the world in the period between 1983, when it was founded, and 2009, when Eelam War IV ended. There is considerable uncertainty concerning the number of successful suicide attacks conducted by the Black Tigers, from a low of 168 to a high of 239 attacks between 1983 and 2006.106 A more recent count cited a Sri Lankan source to advance a figure of 315 suicide bombing attacks by the end of the war in 2009.107 No matter what the number is, most LTTE suicide attacks were deadly, killing hundreds of ordinary people as well as high-ranking government officials and military personnel.108 The most successful such operation during Eelam War IV occurred when a single Black Tiger suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden truck into a military convoy carrying more than 300 naval personnel, killing 98 of them in one of the most devastating attacks of this kind during the war.109 It is not clear why the LTTE did not make greater use of its Black Tiger suicide bombers in EelamWar IV to reverse the precipitous decline in its fortunes and strike at the heart of the Sri Lankan state. However, GoSL indicated that the LTTE had developed plans to use its maritime suicide capabilities to attack the ports of Colombo, Galle, and Kankesanthurai and cause the collapse of the Sri Lankan economy.110 The LTTE defeat is a classic example of the implosion of an insurgent organization. There are few studies of how insurgent organizations sustain themselves for long periods of time and then seemingly inexplicably implode, although this might be changing now as analysts have begun to turn their attention to this issue.111 Had observers exaggerated its prowess on the basis of some of its most spectacular successes? The LTTE made serious political and strategic errors. It also had serious, deeply embedded structural problems; finally, its military strength and operational capabilities had actually declined by the time of Eelam War IV. Which of these factors were most important cannot be gauged unless and until we have the LTTE side of the story, which I was not able to ascertain. I was not given access to LTTE documents or allowed to interview detained LTTE cadres,

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the only way to get the full story of what happened to the LTTE. It is possible these factors were equally important in the overall decline of the LTTE in Eelam War IV. The LTTE made serious errors of judgment at the political and strategic levels, and most of these were the responsibility of one man: VP. The organization had a central governing committee, but decision making was overwhelmingly dominated by VP. The leader was not above making costly errors despite the near-mythical status in which he was held by his followers. Indeed, VP’s penchant for political and strategic errors of judgment was well known even before the fourth stage of the war. His megalomania and authoritarian decision making style were accentuated by the fact that few immediate subordinates dared disagree with his ideas or countermand his orders. Without a doubt the biggest mistake was the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. This set India—a nearby and powerful country that was also a sanctuary and provider of weapons and supplies—against VP and his movement. The LTTE ‘‘mini-war’’ against the Indian peacekeeping force sent to oversee the end of the fighting between the GoSL and the Tamils was another costly error. Over the course of the conflict, VP managed to alienate India’s political and military elite, even though the movement maintained considerable sympathy among Tamils and their political organization in Tamil Nadu state. It is also not clear that VP fully understood the dynamic and farreaching changes in international politics following the terrorist attacks on the United States on 9/11. The world became less tolerant of so-called national liberation movements after that event, particularly of a movement one of whose key and most fearsome weapons was the suicide bomber. During negotiations after the 2002 ceasefire, VP rejected a deal that would have given the rebels broad autonomy over the north and east but not full independence. This was widely seen as the best deal he could have negotiated at the time. Prabhakaran then called for a Tamil boycott of the 2005 presidential election, which enabled the hardline, no-nonsense Mahinda Rajapaksa to secure an electoral victory. VP then underestimated Rajapaksa, dismissing him as an unsophisticated and naı¨ve politician who was captive to xenophobic Sinhalese and unbending nationalist groups. This too was a mistake; Rajapaksa was not a country bumpkin; he was ruthless, and determined to end the seemingly never-ending war once and for all.112 VP overextended himself politically as well; there was no way the new government would be prepared to grant the kind of autonomy or devolution of powers

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the previous administration had been willing to grant and many Sinhalese regarded as tantamount to secession. The last strategic mistake VP made was in initiating a war he could not win. Of course he did not know that at the beginning; he believed he was facing a Sri Lankan military that was the same war-weary organization, albeit now serving a ‘‘war-mongering’’ and extremely nationalistic political leadership. He believed the Rajapaksa administration to be ‘‘blinded’’ by its ideological inflexibility and bound to make mistakes and alienate the international community.113 VP’s various ‘‘Heroes Day’’ speeches after the outbreak of Eelam War IV were full of complaint and vitriol against the Sri Lankan government and Sinhalese people, and entreaties to India and the outside world, but they were short on strategic vision and policy options and long on self-pity and dire prognostications.114 If he believed the new government in Colombo to be short-sighted and inflexible, he proved to be even more so, as reflected in his ultimate defeat. One of the biggest blunders in the run-up to Eelam War IV was the erroneous strategic assessment of the Sri Lankan military by the LTTE leadership. For much of the 1990s the LTTE had a very formidable situational awareness of the order of battle and capabilities of the Sri Lankan military, thanks to effective human intelligence (HUMINT) sources and interception of signals intelligence (SIGINT). The LTTE had an effective intelligence organization that analyzed the data and disseminated the information accordingly to the appropriate LTTE units. Major headquarters held detailed data on the order of battle, unit strengths, unit morale, and even the names of unit commanders down to the company level. However, from 2005 onward, the LTTE missed the developments taking place within the Sri Lankan armed forces. There was no appreciation for the doctrinal innovations, restructuring, and new armaments being introduced. It is not clear why the vaunted LTTE intelligence apparatus failed to assess accurately what was taking place right under their noses. The answer to this question lies in two distinct areas. The LTTE intelligence outfit was heavily focused on the unsettled situation in the Eastern Province, particularly after Karuna’s revolt plunged the organization into turmoil. LTTE intelligence had also at this point turned its attention outward, toward assessments of the international strategic situation, particularly the global strategic climate after 9/11, and the acquisition of weapons to rebuild and recapitalize the organization’s arsenal in preparation for the possible outbreak of hostilities.115 This meant that, in contrast with the past, its situational awareness

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of the Sri Lankan military order of battle after 2004—not to mention the overall changes in the military—was significantly degraded. Mature and effective insurgent organizations set up two distinct wings: political and military. This is a logical division of labor between the organization’s top political leadership and ideologues (whose purpose is to articulate, implement, and disseminate the political goals of the movement) and the designated military leadership (whose purpose is to ensure that these goals are attained). Of course, the leadership can have membership in both wings. One of the LTTE’s most serious structural problems was a major imbalance between its military and political wings. Its leadership had expended considerable energies on the military wing at the expense of the political wing. VP thought that the national political goal of attaining an independent Tamil Eelam needed no reinforcement, justification, or explanation other than merely asserting it. This weakness was clearly articulated by Ahilan Kadirgamar, a Sri Lankan Tamil analyst, in 2009: The LTTE in reality only had a military structure centered on its leadership and particularly on the personality cult of VP. The LTTE’s political wing primarily functioned to spin messages from its military leadership and fighting cadre. Politics was limited to inculcating loyalty to their leader. With the decimation of its military structure and the elimination of its entire leadership, the LTTE has been buried once and for all.116 LTTE operational capacity declined considerably before and then during the course of the war. This decline was stark relative to the Sri Lankan army’s formidable revitalization by 2009. Earlier in the conflict, the LTTE had developed into a sophisticated organization with functional specialization—that is, with different subunits dedicated to specific tasks and missions. While this functional specialization was in evidence in certain sectors of the Eelam War IV battlefields, the skill level showed a marked decline. We see this in the LTTE’s reduced ability to launch attacks and coordinate multiple attacks, and in the considerable difficulties it experienced in holding ground—even ground whose defenses consisted of well-prepared earthen berms or bunds—against assaults by government troops. Much of this had to do with the fact that, in Eelam War IV, the LTTE had run out of effective manpower. There are of course conflicting estimates of the real strength of the LTTE during the 2006–2009 war, but the issue is primarily

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one of effective combat power. The LTTE still had formidable fighting units whose prowess was evident in many battles; indeed, they inflicted such significant damage on the Sri Lankan army, particularly in the operations around Kilinochchi, that the GoSL stopped publicly announcing casualty rates. However, there were simply not enough high-quality LTTE units or cadres left toward the end of the war. In the war of attrition against the now much better trained and more motivated Sri Lankan military, the LTTE lost. Having large numbers of semi- or ill-trained personnel ensured that they would end up as little more than cannon fodder. The same can be said for the large number of child soldiers in LTTE ranks at the end. The Sri Lankan Directorate of Military Intelligence claimed that as many as 60 percent of the LTTE combatants in Eelam War IV were under eighteen.117 This may have been an exaggeration to show up LTTE sins (the international community has tried to take measures against use of child soldiers), but it is a fact that the LTTE had a considerable number of unwilling and poorly trained combatants at the end of the conflict. The LTTE referred to its military formations as padaipirivu, which means ‘‘unit’’ in Tamil but is frequently translated into English as ‘‘brigade.’’ Many analysts estimated that each LTTE brigade must have had a minimum strength of 2,000–3,000 as is normal in regular militaries. But this dramatically overestimated the trained manpower levels of the LTTE, as each padaipirivu in fact had no more than 1,200–1,400 fighters (equivalent to a conventional battalion). In 2000 the LTTE had four full-strength padaipirivus and a large number of home guards and volunteers with minimal training; an artillery padaipirivu with six batteries; a logistics padaipirivu; and the Black Tigers (estimated at 240 or more fighters), the suicide unit, which consisted largely of volunteers from the north.118 The defection of Karuna in 2004 had deprived the LTTE of well-trained cadres and the loyalties of Tamils in the Eastern Province.119 Not only was the LTTE short of cadres by Eelam War IV, but it had also lost a large number of experienced cadres to death, defection, and simple retirement. Finally, the quality of training declined tremendously as the training cadres were sent to the front to fight; moreover, as the war progressed the raw recruits proved unmotivated and unwilling to fight. As the LTTE lost ground, it also lost its training depots to the Sri Lankan army. The LTTE failed to effectively integrate its methods of terrorism, guerrilla war, and quasi-conventional war. Insurgent organizations traditionally have this problem. Colonel R. Hariharan, an Indian intelligence officer who

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has written extensively on the subject of the war in Sri Lanka, having served there as an IPKF member, touches on this issue. He believed that if any non-state actor could succeed in the seamless integration of hybrid capabilities, it would be the LTTE: Traditionally insurgent forces like LTTE in the third stage of growth to conventional warfare have found it difficult to meld guerilla capability with conventional operations. LTTE had shown that it could strategically use the special operations capability to demoralize the foes by targeting lucrative economic targets in depth. Such operations carried out in coordination with conventional offensives could yield enormous dividend by demoralizing the opponent. But it will call for a high grade of top-level coordination and strategy to make it more telling and useful to further conventional operations. As a learning organisation, LTTE has probably developed this capability. That is probably its strength.120 On the contrary, despite the LTTE’s proven capabilities, it was not able to launch coordinated guerrilla, terrorist, and conventional operations during Eelam War IV to throw the Sri Lankan military off-balance and delay or disrupt its offensives. We do not know whether this would have made much difference in any case, because the GoSL, military, and security forces had anticipated that the LTTE might attempt such an operational approach after their intensive studies of past LTTE modus operandi.But why the LTTE failed to initiate this approach remains a mystery. Perhaps the decline in skills, lack and loss of cadres, and poor intelligence capabilities, combined with effective Sri Lankan security measures, thwarted the organization across the board, whether on the battlefield or in counterguerrilla and counter-terrorist operations. Whatever the case, during Eelam War IV the LTTE had failed miserably in military effectiveness at the political, strategic, and operational levels. (It had, however, remained quite proficient tactically in the early days of Eelam War IV, and even at the end its best-trained units showed that they could still be lethal.) The government and its military high command were ecstatic over their victory. Shortly after the defeat of the Tigers, army commander and chief of the defense staff, General Sarath Fonseka, said: ‘‘We have destroyed the LTTE’s first, second and third rungs. The LTTE is over. They may do a bit of hit-and-run tactics, but they are militarily over.’’121 The LTTE was

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reported to have suffered 22,000 combat fatalities, 8,000 in one year alone: 2008. Almost 10,000 LTTE cadres were captured during Eelam War IV. Still, the triumphalism exhibited by the victorious state and its supporters may yet prove to be misplaced. Sri Lanka’s postwar political and socioeconomic situation remains unsettled. Reconciliation, development, and reconstruction have not evolved along a trajectory that can lead one to state unequivocally that this conflict has been resolved.122 Sri Lanka must ensure that it won not only the war but also the peace.123 Unfortunately, as the following chapter shows, postwar developments have not been positive; one of the more ominous signs has been increased militarization of the island and intensification of Sinhalese nationalism.124 Instead of reducing the size of the military, the government in the aftermath of the war increased it by 100,000 personnel.125 Winning a war on the battlefield does not automatically mean a conflict is over, as we shall see.

5 Postwar Sri Lanka: Reconciliation or Triumphalism?

As the war ended in spring 2009, Sri Lankans heaved a sigh of relief.1 They also realized that much needed to be done to set their country back on track after decades of war. A year later, Sri Lankans celebrated the Sinhala and Tamil new years with considerable optimism. These celebrations came in the wake of the recently concluded parliamentary elections of April 2010, which had returned the ruling party to power.2 Mahinda Rajapaksa’s United Freedom Alliance coalition of ten parties won 144 seats in the 225seat National Assembly.3 This came after Rajapaksa’s overwhelming victory in the acrimonious presidential election in January against former army commander Sarath Fonseka, who had fallen out with the Rajapaksa clan at the end of the war. Sri Lanka appeared to be on the road to recovery and post-conflict development under nearly the same winning team that had crushed the LTTE during Eelam War IV. However, the government and people may have celebrated prematurely. A military victory over a resilient insurgent group representing a large and mobilized ethnic community will not stand unless there is concerted and sustained political follow-through— reconciliation, reintegration, and development—backed up by continued intelligence, police, and military vigilance. And all this must be accomplished without deepening or reinforcing an authoritarian political system. This will be a tall order for Sri Lanka. Indeed, the optimism that extended into early 2010 had all but dissipated by 2011. It is not clear from the vantage point of 2012 whether Sri Lanka is moving from a postwar, peaceful, but tense situation to one of

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normal post-conflict development and stability. The government should take much of the blame for this failure; furthermore, its postwar actions, which I will discuss shortly, have provided oxygen for the militant Tamil separatist movement.4 The Tamil independence movement is backed by a large and vengeful diaspora that is still reeling from the defeat of 2009 but slowly recovering its wits, and there are plans afoot to revitalize the movement. The country has not yet shed its war psychosis; indeed it would be very difficult for a country that has been subjected to thirty-odd years of a war of extreme brutality, destruction, and bloody-mindedness on both sides to return to normality in short order. In the felicitous phrase of one academic, Michael Woost, the conflict ‘‘has not just happened to Sri Lanka but in many ways has become Sri Lanka.’’5 Moreover, as Woost points out, the impetus for the outbreak of the war—that is to say the explanations of its origins and trajectory—which has been the focus of this book, does not explain its (potential) persistence or recrudescence, which is the focus of this final chapter. We must now ask how solid is Sri Lanka’s victory over the LTTE insurgency. A military victory in an internal war naturally means the defeat of the insurgency, but the question that should be (and already has been) raised is whether this victory marks the end of the ethnic conflict as well.6 This remains to be seen. The government has acted as if the Tamils had no legitimate grievances; this is reflected in various statements maintaining that the war had been fought against terrorism. This is similar to the inflexible statements coming out of Washington, D.C., under the Bush administration after 9/11, which implied that the indigenous inhabitants of the Middle East—who had nothing to do with the terrorist outrages of Al Qaeda—had no legitimate claims against American policies in the region or the iniquities of their own local rulers. Governments the world over cannot admit that their policies or actions may have engendered legitimate grievances. They realize this only when they are faced with serious threats or events that require them to recalibrate their policies. Sri Lanka’s COIN victory in the war does not absolve the country of the obligation to remove the causes and origins of the conflict. The postwar period is where the success or failure of its COIN paradigm really stands or falls. Winning a military victory against an internal group is much easier than devising the right political solution.7 In this context, the country needs to implement postconflict policies that will ensure that its military success

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is enduring and will result in a ‘‘lasting political settlement.’’8 The words of veteran Indian journalist Muralidhar Reddy of the Hindu, a long-time observer of Sri Lanka and one of the few journalists actually embedded in the war zone during Eelam War IV, ominously suggest that the COIN victory may be the beginning of Sri Lanka’s troubles: ‘‘It would be fatal,’’ he wrote at the end of the war, ‘‘to see the military death of the LTTE as a demise of the cause that gave birth to the Tigers. The cause, the legitimate grievances and aspirations of the other minorities in the island nation, is not only alive but kicking. That explains the sullen and sombre mood among the Tamils and other minorities.’’9 The government must make every effort to remove the grievances that led to the emergence of the conflict.

From Democracy to the National Security State? Sri Lanka was one of the first British-style democracies in Asia, but its democracy has been buffeted by internal domestic problems. Political trends—xenophobic politics—and the civil wars (I am including here the JVP insurgencies as well as the thirty-year Tamil separatist insurgency) have inflicted severe damage on Sri Lankan democracy. The requirements of a functioning and lasting democracy in Sri Lanka would need to include devolution of some powers to the provinces; protection and advancement of minority rights; promotion of an independent media and judiciary; continuation of a true multiparty polity; implementation of checks and balances on the powers of the head of the central government; and curtailment of the military’s ominous intrusion in areas of society that are not in its purview. It remains to be seen whether democracy in Sri Lanka can be ‘‘repaired’’ in the aftermath of the war. The country will not succeed in moving to a postconflict state of normality unless it revives and strengthens its democratic institutions and requisite democratic culture. Many of these have been compromised on the altar of national security and must be reinstated if Sri Lanka is to resume its journey to the future as an inclusive democracy. This was clearly spelled out in a talk by Sri Lanka’s own leading expert on terrorism and irregular war, Rohan Gunaratna, in which he said that the ‘‘failure of Sri Lankan leaders to govern a multi-ethnic and a multireligious society since independence precipitated Sri Lanka’s ethno-political

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conflict.’’ This failure can be traced to political immaturity. He went on to note that ‘‘unless Sri Lankan politicians build the understanding to never again to play ethnic and religious based politics, poison the ground by radicalizing its youth, and reinforce ethnic and religious divisions, the country is likely to suffer a repetition of its unfortunate past.’’10 Failures, mistakes, or acts of omission by the government in the postwar era will contribute to the persistence of the burning flame of Tamil irredentism. Of course, one might argue that the government can do everything right and there will be still Tamils who yearn for an independent homeland. This is perfectly true, as it is true of ethnonational and separatist sentiments the world over, but it is in the hands of the government of Sri Lanka to prevent this yearning from reconstituting into a mass movement. On January 15, 2010, President Rajapaksa said Sri Lanka still faced a severe threat from separatists, though the LTTE had been militarily crushed. The president mentioned threats posed by LTTE operatives in the Jaffna Peninsula, claiming that the area had not been cleared fully and that LTTE cadres could account for as many as 10 percent of the total population in the district. This concern over the potential revival of Tamil militancy came out in my interview with Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, in his spacious office in the sprawling and unsightly army complex on Galle Face Road in downtown Colombo. This palpable fear of the revival of Tamil extremism is why everything is seen through the lens of national security. That the government is still worried about the security scenario in the country is reflected in the allocation of LKR (Lankar rupees) 201 billion (US$1.54 billion) for defense in 2010, down only marginally from an estimated LKR 210 billion ($1.6 billion) in 2009 and LKR 204 billion ($1.57 billion) in 2008, which marked the height of the fighting with the LTTE. The military has ominously spread its tentacles through much of society, to the detriment of the consolidation of democracy.11 The withering away of democracy in Sri Lanka would not only be tragic for all its peoples but most certainly ensure that mainstream Tamil political aspirations will not be easily accommodated, if at all, in a centralized authoritarian system. The government focus on the threat and its further consolidation of power in its own hands are also ominous developments and will continue to raise fears over the future of Sri Lanka’s democracy.12 As it focuses on maintaining or heightening national security, Sri Lanka must remain aware that it has already traveled far down the road to what has been referred to in political science literature as the ‘‘national security

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state.’’ This is a situation in which almost all important decisions or policies are seen through the lens of national security alone. Even savvy journalists and nonspecialist observers have noticed how far Sri Lanka has gone down this road.13 Sri Lanka is already one of the most heavily militarized places on earth because of the death and destruction visited on the country by the LTTE and the resultant phenomenal increase in the size of the state’s security apparatus. Freelance journalist Brian Calvert captures this in his excellent survey of the immediate aftermath of the victory: War fed the economy, providing jobs for young men in villages across the country, and as the war grew, so did the security apparatus. In the 1970s, Sri Lankan police and military numbered around 10,000, with police carrying only batons. Now the police are armed to the teeth, and uniformed personnel can be found at checkpoints and on street corners throughout the country. The police have a paramilitary, the Special Task Force, specifically designed to counter the Tigers. And the government has plans to expand the armed forces by another 100,000 to 300,000—in order to prevent the Tigers’ resurgence.14 Not surprisingly, the military and security forces’ role in the country’s overall affairs is steadily increasing, although the government believes it can keep it in check. The eruption of the Sarath Fonseka crisis in November 2009 seemed to presage an emerging problem in civil-military relations. Within months of the triumphant end of the war, deep divisions opened up between General Sarath Fonseka, the chief of the Defense Staff (CDS), and the powerful Rajapaksa brothers, namely president Mahinda Rajapaksa and secretary of defense Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. The full details of the rift are still unclear, but the story goes back, it seems, to the time of the appointment of Fonseka as CDS before the outbreak of Eelam IV War. Fonseka was a tough, gruff, no-nonsense soldier who got things done. He was also a successful operational commander and had earned the admiration of the rank and file and junior officers over the course of his military career. His personality grated on people’s nerves, including those of the civilians in government as well as senior officers. There was resistance to his being appointed highest-ranking officer of the armed forces. However, the Rajapaksas wanted a man who got things done running the war and it

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seemed that they thought they could control his mercurial personality and ambitions. During Eelam IV it became clear that Fonseka had ‘‘issues.’’ First, it was alleged that his behavior toward enemy combatants and Tamil civilians was callous; some people were not surprised because he apparently had a history of paying little heed to humanitarian concerns in the previous phases of the conflict despite his outstanding soldiering qualities. Second, he did not get along with other senior officers; during Eelam IV, his conflicts with the chiefs of the navy and air force were legendary. Third, he apparently acted as if he were the sole architect of the victory in Eelam IV; indeed, after he had fallen out with the Rajapaksas, Fonseka attributed the victory to himself and his army.15 The government was alarmed by signs that General Fonseka was beginning to exhibit dangerous political ambitions. The last thing the Rajapaksas needed was an officer with political aspirations, since they wished to capitalize on the victory that owed a lot to their hard work and ruthless determination. In November 2009, Fonseka abruptly submitted his resignation from the military service, to take effect on December 1. No sooner had he done this than he made it clear that he would contest Mahinda Rajapaksa for the presidency in 2010 under an alliance led by the main opposition party, the United National Party. Fonseka lost the election by almost 2 million votes. The Rajapaksas were still popular; however, Fonseka won some support among minorities such as the Tamils despite his strong Sinhalese nationalist credentials and negative views of the Tamils. Nonetheless, the newly reelected president had been thoroughly disconcerted by this direct challenge. He had Fonseka arrested, put on trial, and sentenced to 30-month prison term for engaging in politics while in uniform and for alleged irregularities in military procurement during the war. Ever irrepressible, Fonseka accused the president’s brother, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, of war crimes and was sentenced to a further 3-year term in prison. Fonseka’s tribulations seemingly came to an end with the reduction of his sentence and release in 2012. However, it does not look like he will enter into politics any time soon, as he proved to be lacking in any subtlety and political acumen and is reported to be in failing health. It is in this environment that the government must strengthen civilian oversight of the armed forces. The military should not be allowed to develop Bonapartism, or the belief that it is the savior of the nation, and

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thus take political power into its own hands. It should not be allowed to procure weapons of its own accord. It should not become the repository of extremist far-right Sinhala groups, and should not tread on the human rights and civil rights of the people. Given the enormous increase in the size of the armed forces, it is imperative that the government also create a large cadre of civilian strategic and defense experts who are well versed in national security issues, from the mundane matters of procurement and budget to much higher strategic concerns, such as national security doctrine and strategy and the formulation and implementation of counterterrorism policies.

National Reconciliation, Reconstruction, and Integration The country must promote and implement the politics of national reconciliation, reconstruction, and integration. At this time there appears to be some urgency in the government’s efforts to develop the war-ravaged areas in the north and east. Economic activity in the north has picked up, but in the long term development alone will not satisfy Sri Lanka’s Tamils. Basic aspirations for equity and restoration of trust and security will have to be met before the ‘‘Tamil problem’’ can be considered resolved. Colombo must work out a reasonable political package that will satisfy Sri Lanka’s minorities, something President Rajapaksa has repeatedly promised. The government also must take stock of its role in the past conflict, in particular its record of manipulating ethnic tensions for electoral gain. Rolling back the strategy of the ‘‘Sinhalization’’ of the Sri Lankan nation-state and keeping in check xenophobic nationalism—of any group—are the key to the emergence of a stable and functioning polity. But it is unlikely that the country is headed toward a social reconciliation of its many peoples so long as xenophobic ideologies, which reinforce mutual suspicions, remain part of the mainstream.16 Use of the armed forces in infrastructure development and economic projects must be curtailed and reduced. The Sri Lankan military has spread its tentacles into every aspect of society, including government administration, diplomatic corps, politics, reconstruction, and economy.17 This does not augur well for the future. First, militaries, contrary to the classical theories of civil-military relations, are not effective national development agencies, and certainly not efficient economic organizations. Second, the spread of the military into domains beyond its purview poses the serious danger

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that it will lose its edge in the military arts, developing interests beyond its corporate military ethos and possibly a tendency to interfere in the political process. The Rajapaksas believe they can firmly ride this tiger; this belief may have been reinforced by the defeat of the challenge by General Fonseka in early 2010 and the subsequent retirement and purging of several officers. Third, to reverse the trajectory toward greater militarization and deepening of the national security state, the country must develop parliamentary oversight of the military, which historically has been nonexistent.18 Of course this becomes moot if parliament ends up being nothing more than a rubber-stamp legislature that does what governments want it to do. The current elite—composed largely of the Rajapaksa clan and close friends in the economic sector—has been criticized for taking over the commanding heights of the Sri Lankan body politic. This has allowed the elite to build an extensive patronage network that is not conducive to democratic governance or openness.19 Fourth, the overwhelming presence of the SLKAF in all aspects of society in the north and east, which are in dire need of reconstruction and revitalization, reinforces the perception that it is an army of occupation in those areas. Certainly, it needs to continue to maintain law and order and security, but this should not be more than a temporary measure pending the rebuilding of the police force with manpower from the indigenous inhabitants. National Security and Counterterrorism While the government and Sri Lankan society at large must be cognizant of the dangers of triumphalism and militarization, this does not mean the country should avoid investing in its national security. Indeed, Sri Lankan officials are adamant that the country will do just that. Sri Lanka, they argue, cannot afford to relax its guard in maintaining and enhancing national security against the recrudescence of insurgency and terrorism. But it must find new and efficient ways to improve its vigilance. As the secretary of defense noted in his interview with me on June 7, 2010, Sri Lanka defeated terrorism, and the country could now relax its stringent security modus operandi and allow people greater freedom of movement. Yet security is still priority number 1: the country cannot afford to let terrorism rear its head again, and this has to be a nationwide mission. Despite the vast improvement in the armed forces in the past few years, as reflected in their performance in Eelam War IV, much remains to be

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done.20 The army appears to be well developed and is the largest of the military branches. Sri Lanka’s COIN campaign highlighted the key importance of well-trained and flexible infantry units for fighting and holding territory, as well as the integral work of elite units such as the commandos, special forces, and long-range reconnaisance patrols. But while the forces need equipment modernization, including self-propelled artillery and multi-launch rocket systems (which wrought havoc with the LTTE), Sri Lanka must invest in a dedicated airmobile capability to be able to move its ground forces rapidly by helicopter and transport planes around the country. This means a major modernization of its helicopter and fixedwing transport fleet, supplemented by expansion and modernization of its fleet of helicopter gunships. Aerial surveillance and an expansion of the unarmed aerial vehicle (UAV) fleet are critical for real-time security over the nation’s territories and maritime areas. As the first line of defense for the island nation, the navy, too, must be modernized. Sri Lanka must resist the temptation to go for big surface platforms that are manpower heavy, expensive, and vulnerable to maritime terrorists. The secretary of defense has argued that the country needs to focus on maintaining the navy at a high state of readiness.21 Its effective use of the Israeli-built Blue Horizon UAV suggests an interesting force multiplier in the maritime domain as well; it should consider purchasing an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) such as the Protector, also built in Israel. There has been some debate as to whether the air force, which played an effective role in the conflict, can afford to invest in significant numbers of high-performance fighters rather than in dedicated counterinsurgency aircraft. There are other ways to improve the armed forces. First, the military must institute and implement an effective ‘‘lessons learned’’ set of procedures so that it does not have to reinvent the wheel in the future. For this the the country will need to invest in a dedicated irregular warfare center where doctrine is formulated and personnel are taught not only traditional military subjects but also about the nature of civil-military relations in society, and about ethics and morality in the context of ‘‘wars among the people.’’22 Second, but not least, the government must undertake programs to increase ethnic representation in the armed forces, police and paramilitary forces. If they remain overwhelmingly Sinhala, they will be seen as nothing more than forces of occupation in non-Sinhala areas. Moreover, it is extraordinarily dangerous and wasteful to form units that are wholly Muslim or Tamil. Sri Lanka’s military must be a nationally integrated force.

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To be sure, the military can continue with its overwhelming representation of Muslims and Tamils in the intelligence service; but the government cannot ignore the resulting potential for violent radical politics among disgruntled Sinhalese, as has occurred twice in the past. Considerable attention must be paid to the counterterrorism aspect of irregular warfare. Urban security must be improved; if there is a resurgence of violence in the near future, it will almost surely manifest itself first as urban terrorism. In this context, the threat to Sri Lanka’s major cities must be addressed. The collapse of New York’s Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, dramatically demonstrated the susceptibility of cities to terrorist attacks. Two and a half years later, on arch 11, 2004, bombs were detonated on packed commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 and injuring more than 1,500, extending an amplified sense of urban vulnerability to cities in Europe. This crisis wasdeepened by the London bombings in July 2005, which again targeted ordinary city dwellers going about their daily lives. Colombo is no stranger to urban terrorism. There are rumors that remnant LTTE sleeper cells are still based in Colombo, waiting to wreak havoc at the right time. This may be true or a mere urban legend for the moment. But the government cannot afford to ignore the fact that urban terrorism may be the way for a successor to the LTTE to make its presence felt, just as terrorism wrought havoc in Colombo during the war. Terrorists usually choose highprofile soft targets such as markets, railway stations, airports, bus stands, hotels, places of worship, or government infrastructure to attract maximum attention. Sri Lanka needs to develop well-trained and well-equipped firstresponder and catastrophe management organizations for its major cities. Without the eyes, ears, and intuition of the general public, it is difficult to identify terrorists who are anonymous and blend seamlessly into the environment in which they are living and operating. An effective battle against terrorism can be waged only by involving members of the public. This includes creating societal awareness to keep a steady eye on tentative or errant behavior in the neighborhoods and sharing information of suspicious movements with point persons in the police and intelligence agencies.

Engagement with the Outside World Sri Lanka’s victory in Eelam War IV owed a lot to its adroit international diplomacy prior to the conflict and during the actual fighting. The country

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had developed strong political, economic, and military relations with the People’s Republic of China. That support was crucial to the victory. Colombo also kept neighboring giant India abreast of developments during the war to forestall a negative reaction from New Delhi as well as to diminish the impact of any adverse reaction from the government of Tamil Nadu and its Tamil population. The final stages of the war witnessed expression of concern among some countries, mainly Western, when civilian casualties began to mount and the Sri Lanka government was perceived as blase´ and indifferent. The fact that the government has not taken credible steps to counter the allegations of war crimes identified in the April 2011 report of the UN Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka has not endeared it to the Western community. Furthermore, Sri Lanka’s attitude of indifference or disdain toward the West will not help it much in the coming years. Sri Lanka must remain engaged in the regional and international arenas to ensure that the international community remains invested in the country’s peaceful status. Sri Lanka cannot afford to ignore the West, as it has continued to do since the end of the war. It believes, wrongly, that it need only pay attention to countries that aided its victory or made no allegations about irregularities during the course of the war. Western ire over moral and ethical issues such as human rights, while often hypocritical and selfserving, is a very powerful force in the international arena. For Sri Lanka to rail against it as an expression of duplicity does not help matters much; the West is not going to roll over and say: ‘‘Oops, our bad, we won’t mention it again.’’ On the contrary, it merely reinforces the West’s obdurate determination to make more of an issue of it. The appearance of the UN report on the alleged war crimes of both sides has not helped Sri Lanka’s case. Because the government of Sri Lanka emerged the victor and the LTTE is no more, it is the former that has its feet to the fire. Ignoring the West will not redound to Sri Lanka’s favor should Tamil militancy rear its head again.

The Disposition of the Tamils at Home and Overseas Despite the defeat of the LTTE, the Tamil desire for an independent homeland will never be far below the surface. This desire will gain greater traction if the Sri Lankan state makes little or no effort to reintegrate the thoroughly

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disgruntled Tamil community into the body politic and commit to its economic development. When the war ended in May 2009, much of the rage that Tamil people felt was actually directed at the LTTE for bringing them into a dismal state of affairs in 2008, when starvation was rampant and the Tigers were reduced to ever increasing forced conscriptions of youth into the armed wing.23 At one time the LTTE may indeed have been popular with the local population; some of this was, of course, ‘‘forced enthusiasm’’ but for many it was genuine. The LTTE fighters were seen as protecting against the rapacious and pathologically dangerous military. But by 2009 much of this positive feeling had dissipated. Now, as postwar Sri Lanka moves slowly—or not at all in the minds of many Tamils—toward a supposedly better future for all, Tamils are angry again, this time at the government. It is significant that 75 percent of the Tamils who voted in the presidential elections in 2010 voted against Rajapaksa.24 Indeed, many voted for the man responsible for the demise of the LTTE, Sarath Fonseka. This was obviously a protest vote against the politics and policies of the incumbent. The Rajapaksa government has not been able to capitalize on the LTTE defeat because it has failed to reach out in any substantive way to the Tamil civilian population.25 Victory, however, can never be its own justification, at least in an internal conflict. The Tamils are not convinced they will get much political power in the new Sri Lanka. Many want power devolved to the regions to counteract the increased centralization of state control under the Rajapaksa presidency, as the ruling elite gathers power around itself and dispenses patronage to its closest supporters and allies. Devolution has been a longstanding demand of mainstream Tamil politicians and groups, reflected in their desire to have provincial assemblies in the north and the east gain some measure of local power. The government has so far avoided the issue; it is not clear that this highly nationalistic government would enact devolution. First, it is tied by its own ideological imperatives and those of its coalition partners; this ruling coalition is suspicious of devolution and believes in a unitary and centralized state.26 Second, the government believes that economic development and reconstruction can deflect attention from the quest for substantive political measures. This is misguided: people are not motivated just by tangible material gains; they also live for politics and want a stake in the political system no matter where they are in the world. The Tamils are no different. It is also important to recognize that the origins of the Tamil

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militancy lay in their dissatisfaction with the closing of avenues for political, cultural, and linguistic expression. Moreover, it is not clear that economic development and reconstruction have occurred in a way to gain the support of the Tamils. There has been some substantial development in the Eastern Province in particular—the government had a development and reconstruction plan for the eastern region following the victory in 2006—but it seems little has been done to benefit the Tamil population. Following the LTTE defeat in the Eastern Province, Colombo launched the ‘‘Eastern Reawakening’’ (Nagenahira Navodaya) program of reconstruction and development for the devastated area.27 While traveling between Batticaloa and Trincomalee in June 2010, I saw that highways and bridges were undergoing major overhauls; wider and better surfaced highways were being built, as well as municipal buildings, clinics, and hospitals. But the locals remain skeptical. Some expressed concern that the government was immersed in an orgy of triumphalism; why was it necessary to spend so much money on massive celebrations? These elaborate victory displays were capped by a military parade along the main highway in Colombo, which I attended in June 2010. At the same time, many government and administrative positions remain in the hands of the Sinhalese and cronies of the government. With the overwhelming military and paramilitary presence guiding reconstruction projects, local businessmen have been effectively shut out from participation in favor of ‘‘outsiders.’’28 In the north, in particular, Tamils became increasingly embittered over the slow reintegration of tens of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) who ‘‘resided’’—more often against their will—in squalid and fetid camps; all the while the government’s promises to rectify the situation did not go far enough.29 Nonetheless, Colombo was extremely sensitive to this issue, judging by the focus it gives IDP rehabilitation and reintegration, and by discussions of its efforts in this arena at international forums and conferences. The Tamils were not reassured by the fact that the much-touted Presidential Task Force on Resettlement, Development and Security-Northern Province was chaired by Basil Rajapaksa, a younger sibling of the president, and consisted entirely of government members (of whom five were top-ranking military officers) including the secretary of defense and inspector general of police. There was no representation from the north. Yet the criticism was unfair to a considerable extent: the Joint Plan for Assistance-Northern Province 2011, undertaken in conjunction with the United Nations, showed that the government was

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making an effort to resolve the afflictions of the north, and that some of these efforts were based on the findings of the presidential task force. The larger dangers for Sri Lanka are represented by Tamils overseas in the Tamil diaspora, whose size ranges from 800,000 to 1,200,000 people living in the West. Diasporas result from voluntary or forced migration into two or more countries around the world.30 Most represent groups that have been forced from their homelands. Even if members succeed in their new homes, they retain a significant interest in what goes on back in their native land, particularly if there is a conflict involving their community. The Tamil diaspora, or most of it, will remain angry and divorced from the Sri Lankan state for a long time, if not forever. Moreover, the Tamils in the West are highly motivated and vengeful, though not yet well organized. They also have some political clout in their countries of residence. These Tamils have the capability to cause Sri Lanka no small amount of trouble. Remnants of the LTTE remain active outside Sri Lanka, and the transnational arms network is intact and can be resurrected should there emerge a concerted effort to reignite the armed struggle.31 There are regular reports of arrests of low-level LTTE sympathizers or activists on charges of terrorist activities. The most prominent of these incidents include the March 3, 2010, apprehension of six LTTE cadres suspected of fundraising for the LTTE. On April 27, 2010, seven suspected LTTE personnel were arrested in the Netherlands, and their computers, documents, DVDs, and 40,000 Euro were seized. The diaspora support seems to exceed that of the indigenous Tamil population under the control of the LTTE virtual state on the island nation itself. This is likely because Tamils in the diaspora did not have to face the brutality of the LTTE in its final months. The quest for revenge is remarkable, if one judges from the venomous comments on the vast number of blogs dedicated to Sri Lankan and Tamil issues. Tamils in the diaspora have continued their efforts to keep alive the concept of ‘‘Tamil Eelam.’’ Whether they adopt a peaceful strategy to develop international support for the idea of an independent state or seek to revitalize the military struggle remains to be seen. On June 8, 2010, hundreds of pro-LTTE activists, led by Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) leader V. Gopalswamy, and waving pictures of slain LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, protested President Rajapaksa’s official visit in Chennai, capital of Tamil Nadu.

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Indeed, the politics of Tamil Nadu in India have been consistently problematic for the past three decades as far as Colombo is concerned, and it has every justification to feel this way. New Delhi’s pandering to this large, powerful state would have to stop if Sri Lanka is to achieve peace for itself and among its ethnoreligious communities. The Sinhala community, a majority in Sri Lanka, continues to fear the Tamils, and has a minority complex in relation to the larger Tamil population in Tamil Nadu. Much in the way the LTTE’s extreme Tamil nationalism reinforced Sinhala Buddhist nationalism and vice versa, Tamil chauvinist mobilization in Tamil Nadu could continue to reinforce Sinhala chauvinism in Sri Lanka. It remains to be seen whether, in the post-LTTE era, Tamil Nadu and Delhi can shift their engagement beyond their narrow Tamil nationalist and security with development agendas.32 Despite the Tamils’ comprehensive defeat in the LTTE’s own homeland, diaspora elements and Tamil sympathizers continue to seek support abroad. The foreign activities of the Tamils and LTTE remnants overseas have greatly alarmed the Sri Lankan government, which is not short on paranoia when it comes to the international activities of the diaspora. Addressing the emergency regulation debate in parliament, Prime Minister D. M. Jayaratne, on June 8, 2009, stated that the LTTE was attempting to reestablish itself in the country, with the backing of its international network. He stressed the necessity of passing the emergency regulation to thwart these efforts and undermine the diaspora networks’ funding of the LTTE’s revival. Though the Tamil diaspora is still punch-drunk from the LTTE defeat, it remains a politically active and sophisticated force seeking to leverage Western sympathy and resources in support of the quest for Eelam. Yet it, too, is fractured. Various LTTE leaders in the United States and European countries have clustered into rival factions, each attempting to project itself as the sole representative of the Tamil diaspora and to secure access to the vast funds created by the LTTE. Indeed, soon after the devastating LTTE defeat and the death of its chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, the international head, Kumaran Pathmanathan (known as KP), along with the LTTE New York-based legal adviser Viswanathan Rudrakumaran, called for establishment of the Transitional Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE). The effort to create a government in exile received a major blow, however, when the Sri Lankan government ‘‘did an Oc¸alan’’ on KP.33

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In 1999 Turkish commandos and intelligence agents whisked Abdullah Oc¸alan, leader of the PKK terrorist organization, from his hideout in Nairobi back to Turkey to stand trial. Similarly, on August 5, 2009, KP was taken into custody in Kuala Lumpur by Malaysian police and Sri Lankan intelligence personnel. The former chief arms procurement agent of the LTTE was apparently visibly stunned by this turn of events. KP was brought to Colombo the day after his capture, was treated in a professional and courteous manner, and even met with the secretary of defense. KP protested vigorously, claiming he had only tenuous links with the LTTE; in fact, KP’s capture was hailed as a significant breakthrough because the senior Tiger operative was now the nominal chief of the remnants. From the moment he boarded the Sri Lankan plane taking him back home, he declared to his Sri Lankan captors that in recent years he had less to do with the LTTE’s overseas network than was assumed by the government and various intelligence agencies that had been shadowing this extraordinarily chameleonlike individual. KP claimed Sri Lankan intelligence had a detailed understanding of the workings of the Tamil diaspora and the LTTE’s once-sophisticated fund-raising activities, but he made clear in an interview that he had not been responsible for divulging this information after his capture. The government had learned about these activities earlier, when the army entered Viswamadhu and took possession of a considerable amount of data about overseas LTTE activities: ‘‘They have computers and data bases. They have charts of the people who gave money to the LTTE and the amounts and dates. They have copies of tax receipts. They know who the fund raisers in each country are. They know who and who are running LTTE funded businesses and properties. They even have all the visiting cards of people from overseas who visited the Wanni during the peace talks period.’’34 After KP’s arrest, the task of taking the TGTE effort forward was borne by Rudrakumaran alone. On May 17, 2010, Rudrakumaran disclosed in a press statement that the TGTE would hold its inaugural sessions in the United States in Philadelphia for on May 17–19, 2010, to coincide with the first year remembrance of the military defeat of the LTTE. The communique´ stated that the TGTE would continue its struggle until the Tamils attained their own homeland. Rudrakumaran, coordinator of the TGTE formation committee, was elected its interim chief executive, and a sevenmember Interim Executive Committee (IEC) was also formed.

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The TGTE meeting in Philadelphia was the result of a year-long effort by influential pro-LTTE elements of the global Tamil diaspora to create an organization representing more than a million Tamils of Sri Lankan origin who were dispersed in different parts of the world. The TGTE, in a sense, is a rebranded manifestation of the LTTE overseas structure. Like the LTTE, its ultimate goal is the creation of Tamil Eelam. Although it does not unambiguously endorse the LTTE, its commitment toward the LTTE was established clearly at the Philadelphia summit, where LTTE flags were in abundant display, despite the fact that the LTTE is a banned foreign terrorist organization in the United States. The establishment of the TGTE, however, has done little to stem the internecine conflicts within the Tamil diaspora, which came into the open following the demise of the separatist movement. If anything, these conflicts clearly underscore how difficult it will be for the overseas elements to create a united, disciplined, cohesive movement to pursue the armed struggle again. Although Rudrakumaran is frequently referred to in international media as the new leader of the LTTE, the reality is somewhat less clear. The overseas LTTE structure has been deeply divided since Prabhakaran’s death, and there have been several putative successor organizations: the TGTE (also known as the KP or Rudra faction), the Global Tamil Forum (GTF, also referred to as the Father S. J. Emmanuel faction), and the Tamil Eelam Peoples Assembly (TEPA. also known as the Makkal Peravai or Nediyavan faction). The struggle among these groups has resulted in a rise in extremist rhetoric and postures as each group tries to outdo the others in adherence to extreme nationalism, with the TGTE in particular becoming more and more hawkish. Furthermore, these diaspora organizations all suffer from a structural problem they will not be able to resolve any time soon. To be relevant to the Tamils, the Tamil independence movement must have a territorial presence in Sri Lanka. They cannot set up a separate state without the support of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Unless they are able to do so, the groups will end up in a situation almost analogous to the Palestinian quest for national liberation, which has been based almost everywhere in the Middle East but the original homeland of the Palestinians. Israel has proven very efficient in preventing the various fractured Palestinian movements from gaining traction among the remaining Palestinian population in Israel. Nevertheless, aspirations for an independent Tamil Eelam are alive, and extremist activity, while still marginal, persists.

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Conflict Unending? The shooting war in Sri Lanka finally ended in May 2009, but the conflict has not. Both the Tamil diaspora and the Sri Lankan government know this, which explains the immense flurry of activity on both sides in international forums, where they continue to wage a war of words. The moral advantage currently lies with the defeated side, the Tamil opposition; their ability to persuade the international community to put Sri Lanka in the dock, over the civilian casualties during the war—which Colombo refuses to acknowledge—has given them some encouragement. But while the GoSL may need to account for what happened on this front during Eelam War IV, both the West and the United Nations must realize that the longer the matter continues, the more likely it will become a greater obstacle to reconciliation. The Tamil diaspora is also caught in a strategic bind: If it chooses a military strategy to reignite the war, it will be forced into a strategy of terrorism— that is to say, a clear regression from the more sophisticated hybrid strategy of the LTTE. Why is this so? There is clearly no LTTE warmaking infrastructure left in the country; rebuilding it would take years and require extensive overseas sanctuaries. A purely terrorist strategy, which would target civilians and infrastructure, primarily in an urban setting, would entirely alienate the West, on whom the diaspora relies and in which it lives. A strategy of peaceful means to attain Eelam will have no chance of success either. No country or group of countries is going to put pressure on Colombo to give up a third of its territory and two-thirds of its coastline. It was a different matter when Sri Lanka was under military pressure at the turn of the century, as many people believed the LTTE was on the verge of statehood, even if its capacity to attain it was overestimated. Moral suasion will not persuade the outside world, but it will reinforce Sinhalese paranoia and xenophobic nationalism. The Sri Lankan government has not been an innocent victim in the postwar period. Much of the ongoing instability and political viciousness in the country stems from politicians’ failure to create a postconflict state and energetically promote a postconflict society. The final chapter of the war is thus yet to be written. This reality is an unfortunate one, since the country has pulled off an impressive military feat and has the potential to benefit from this victory.

NOTES

Introduction 1. Cited in Wijewardana, How the LTTE Lost the Eelam War, 1. 2. These are summarized in Mehta, Lost Victory. 3. Cited in Weaver and Chamberlain, ‘‘Sri Lanka Declares End to War with Tamil Tigers.’’ 4. Ibid. 5. Samaranayake, ‘‘Political Terrorism of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE),’’ 176. 6. Interview with Indian Defence Review, April 26, 2010. 7. The literature on how militaries change (innovate and adapt) during war and its aftermath is vast. Key works include Zisk, Engaging the Enemy; Kier, Imagining War; and Farrell and Terriff, eds., The Sources of Military Change. 8. On militaries learning how to do COIN, see Avant, Political Institutions and Military Change; Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife. 9. To date few studies have appeared in the West that acknowledge the Sri Lankan COIN campaign; for examples, see Smith, ‘‘Understanding Sri Lanka’s Defeat of the Tamil Tigers.’’ More recently, veteran war journalist Jon Lee Anderson in ‘‘Death of the Tiger’’ wrote a superb synopsis of the origins and evolution of the conflict. Though it has little analysis of the military operations, this is one of the most succinct and best short analyses. 10. Page, ‘‘Colombo Rewrites Counter-Insurgency Rulebook.’’ 11. Wijeyawickrema, ‘‘The End of Separatist Agenda in Sri Lanka.’’ 12. UN, Report of the Secretary General’s Panel. 13. It even financially sponsored a three-day seminar I attended in Colombo, ‘‘Defeating Terrorism: The Sri Lankan Experience,’’ May 31–June 3, 2011. 14. ‘‘Sri Lanka: Re-Charting U.S. Strategy After the War,’’ 1. 15. He interviewed VP and had written two well-known books on the movement as well as one on the final months of the war. 16. Reported in London Times, December 2009. 17. This is not true of Buddhism, which is found throughout Asia. 18. Jayatilleka, ‘‘Sri Lanka’s Separatist Conflict,’’ 214 (my emphasis). 19. Ibid. 20. Quoted in Kearney, The Politics of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), 164. 21. Woods, ‘‘The Ethical Challenges of Field Research in Conflict Zones,’’ 373. 22. This study is also based on a four-week visit to Sri Lanka, interviews with officials and military personnel, and a tour of some combat zones. I acquired a large

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stock of books on the history and politics of the country and the war—books difficult to acquire in the West—which aided me tremendously.

Chapter 1. The Sri Lankan War in Context 1. See Weiberg, ‘‘Friedensprozess ohne Ende—Am Ende ohne Frieden?’’ 1. 2. See Imtiyaz and Stavis, ‘‘Ethno-Political Conflict in Sri Lanka,’’ 135. 3. This section relies heavily on Fearon and Laitin, ‘‘Violence and Social Construction of Ethnic Identity.’’ 4. See Weiberg, ‘‘Sri Lanka: Zur Rolle des Sicherheitsdilemmas in ethnischen Konflikten’’; Matthews, ‘‘The Limits of International Engagement,’’579. 5. Bandarage, The Separatist Conflict in Sri Lanka, 4–5. 6. Imtiyaz and Stavis, ‘‘Ethno-Political Conflict in Sri Lanka,’’ 136–37. 7. Bandarage, The Separatist Conflict in Sri Lanka, 29. 8. For extensive discussion, see Grob-Fitzgibbon, ‘‘What Is Terrorism?’’; Leonard Weinberg, Pedazhur, and Hirsch-Hoeffler, ‘‘The Challenges of Conceptualizing Terrorism’’; Schmid, ‘‘Terrorism: The Definitional Problem.’’ 9. Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 41. 10. http://www.defence/lk/pps/waragainst.pdf; see also Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka, ‘‘The Terrorists’ War Against Sri Lanka.’’ 11. Hussein, ‘‘Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE),’’ 382. 12. Crossette, ‘‘Sri Lanka Wins a War and Diminishes Democracy.’’ 13. Kitson, Directing Operations, 49. 14. See Hashim, Small Wars. 15. Cited in Kilcullen, Counter-Insurgency, ix; see also Wilkinson, Terrorism Versus Democracy. The Correlates of War Project was started in 1963 by rising University of Michigan political scientist David Singer and colleagues. The goal of the project is systematic accumulation of scientific knowledge about war. Specifically, it has assembled a vast database on the incidence and extent of inter- and intrastate wars since 1816. 16. Frederick Butler, ‘‘Why Foreign Counterinsurgency Campaigns Fail,’’ 1. 17. Benbow, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 1; Olson, ‘‘Preface: Small Wars Considered,’’ 8; for a more detailed attempt to resolve this semantic confusion, see Hashim, Small Wars. 18. People often refer to guerrilla war or guerrilla warfare. The term, in fact, is tautological: guerra in Spanish means war; guerrilla means small/little war; thus the term guerrilla warfare technically translates as ‘‘small/little war war,’’ which does not make sense. 19. O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism. 20. U.S. Army/Marine Corps, U.S. Field Manual 3-24, 2. 21. On the concept of insurgent cause, see Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare, 10–16.

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22. I have profited immensely from the discussions in Duyvesteyn, ‘‘Non-State Actors and the Resort to Violence’’; Horowitz and Sharma, ‘‘Democracies Fighting Ethnic Insurgencies’’; see also Havoll, ‘‘COIN Revisited,’’ 7–8. 23. O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism, 24. 24. On this issue in the Sri Lankan conflict, see Mukarji, Sri Lanka: A Dangerous Interlude, xii–xiv. 25. O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism, 35. 26. von Clausewitz, On War, , 479–83. 27. Mao, On Guerrilla Warfare, t 46. 28. DeSilva-Ranasinghe, ‘‘Good Education—Sri Lankan Military Learns Insurgency Lessons.’’ 29. Pavey and Smith, ‘‘Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Security Sector Reform,’’ 192. 30. Mao, On Guerrilla Warfare, 113. 31. For a brief summary of the conversion of the Chinese Communist guerrillas into regular armed forces, see Rice, Wars of the Third Kind, 79–89. 32. See the following works by Frank Hoffman, ‘‘Hybrid Warfare and Other Challenges’’; ‘‘The (re) Emergence of Hybrid Conflicts’’; ‘‘Hybrid Threats.’’ 33. Hoffman, ‘‘Hybrid Warfare and Other Challenges,’’ 36. 34. U.S. Marine Corps, ‘‘Hybrid Warfare and Challengers,’’ 1. 35. McCormick, Horton, and Harrison, ‘‘Things Fall Apart,’’ 321. 36. Krause, ‘‘Playing for Breaks,’’ 49. 37. Max Weber, Economy and Society, 1111. 38. Kilcullen, Counterinsurgency, 1. 39. Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare, 6–7. 40. See Hashim, Small Wars. 41. Mack, ‘‘Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars: The Politics of Asymmetric Conflict,’’ 176. 42. Quoted in Butler, ‘‘Why Foreign Counterinsurgency Campaigns Fail,’’ 34–35. 43. This characterized the U.S. approach for much of the war in Vietnam and the first two years of the Iraq war. 44. The most quoted study examining COIN innovation by major powers is Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife. Contrary to popular perception in the West concerning Soviet lack of innovation for COIN warfare, see the refreshing study by Raffray, Afghanistan. 45. Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung, 77–80. 46. Kilcullen, Counterinsurgency, 1. 47. Ibid., 2. 48. Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare. 49. Ibid., 8. 50. Ibid., 50. 51. Ibid., 19.

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52. For a succinct and concise summary, see Crane, ‘‘Minting COIN.’’ 53. Cohen, ‘‘The Myth of a Kinder, Gentler War.’’ 54. Seratne, ‘‘The Security Establishment in Sri Lanka.’’ 55. Vijayasiri, ‘‘A Critical Analysis of the Sri Lankan Government’s Counterinsurgency Campaign.’’ 56. See, for example, the Filipino commentary by Ang, ‘‘Sri Lanka Offers Lessons to RP Peace Issues.’’ 57. ‘‘Learn from the Lankans.’’ 58. I owe this to lieutenant commander Daniel Jody, a student at the U.S. Naval War College during academic year 2010. 59. Quoted in ‘‘Army Entry into Kilinochchi Imminent!’’ 60. Baetjer, ‘‘An Alternative View,’’ 209–10. 61. Moyar, ‘‘Right Man at the Right Time,’’ 48. 62. ‘‘Friends like These.’’ 63. See Simpson, ‘‘The Perils of Third-Party Intervention,’’ iii; see also de Courre`ges, Germain, and Le Nen, Principes de contre-insurrection, xvi–xiv; Cailleteau, Guerres inutiles contre-insurrection, 101–29. 64. Though my analysis here is very simple, it is drawn from the seminal work of Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty and numerous spin-off works that used his framework. I have benefited from Gehlbach, ‘‘A Formal Model of Exit and Voice’’ and Osaghae, ‘‘Exiting from the State in Nigeria.’’ 65. See Tilly, ‘‘Reflections on the History of European State-Making.’’

Chapter 2. Background to War: State Formation and Identities in Conflict 1. See De Silva, A History of Sri Lanka, 1. 2. For the historical background in this chapter, I have relied enormously on De Silva, Reaping the Whirlwind, and Yogasundram, A Comprehensive History of Sri Lanka. 3. Kearney, ‘‘Ethnic Conflict and the Tamil Separatist Movement,’’ 898. 4. Guneratne, ‘‘The Making of a Historical Consciousness,’’ 47. 5. Also referred to as Karaivar and Karaiyar. 6. Wickramasinghe, Sri Lanka in the Modern Age, 10. 7. Perera, Kandy Fights the Portuguese, 3–5. 8. Quoted in ibid., 8–9. 9. Amato, ‘‘Tail of the Dragon.’’ 10. Wickramasinghe, Sri Lanka in the Modern Age, 21–22. 11. Globally acclaimed Canadian novelist Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient, is a Sri Lankan Burgher by origin. 12. On the Kandyan revolts of 1803–5, see De Silva, A History of Sri Lanka, 293–97. 13. On the rebellion of 1817–18, see ibid., 300–306; later there was another abortive rebellion in Kandy.

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14. Kearney, ‘‘Educational Expansion and Political Volatility in Sri Lanka,’’ 728–29. 15. For more details, see Rogers, ‘‘Social Mobility,’’ 587; Bandarage, The Separatist Conflict, 30. 16. Many Tamils who have lived for generations in the Sinhalese-dominated south have become ‘‘Sinhalized.’’ 17. De Silva, ‘‘Religion and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Sri Lanka,’’ 105. 18. Rogers, ‘‘Social Mobility,’’ 589. 19. Frost, ‘‘Wider Opportunities,’’ 943. 20. Ibid. 21. Wilson and Chandrakanthan, ‘‘Tamil Identity and Aspirations.’’ 22. Seneviratne, ‘‘Buddhist Monks and Ethnic Politics,’’15. 23. For an extensive analysis of Dharmapala’s thought, see Roberts, ‘‘For Humanity, for the Sinhalese.’’ 24. Seneviratne, The Work of Kings, 27. 25. See Dharmapala, Return to Righteousness, 482. 26. For more details on Walpola’s ideology, see Tambiah, Buddhism Betrayed? 22–29. 27. Peiris, ‘‘Rahula Hits Back,’’ also quoted in DeVotta and Stone, ‘‘Jathika Hela Urumaya,’’ 35. 28. Conversation with Western official in Colombo, June 2010. 29. Razeen, ‘‘Sri Lanka: The Political Economy of Failure,’’ 3. 30. Cited in Akhtar, ‘‘Ethnic Conflict,’’ 68, n. 40. 31. Brown, Contemporary Nationalism, 124. 32. Samarasinghe, ‘‘Ethnic Representation in Central Government Employment,’’ 177. 33. Corea, ‘‘One Hundred Years of Education in Ceylon,’’ 154. 34. Samarasinghe, ‘‘Ethnic Representation,’’ 176. 35. Ibid. 36. C. R. de Silva, ‘‘Sinhala-Tamil Ethnic Rivalry,’’ 127. 37. Ibid., 116. 38. Ibid., 126. 39. Ibid. 40. K. M. de Silva, ‘‘University Admissions and Ethnic Tensions,’’ 98. 41. K. M. de Silva, Managing Ethnic Tensions, 263. 42. Sivarajah, ‘‘The Rise of Militancy in Tamil Politics,’’ 130–31. 43. K. M. de Silva, ‘‘University Admissions and Ethnic Tensions,’’ 102–3. 44. Ibid. 45. Akhtar, ‘‘Ethnic Conflict,’’ 84–85; see also Committee for Rational Development, Sri Lanka, 3. 46. Tiruchelvam, ‘‘Ethnicity and Resource Allocation,’’ 186. 47. Tambiah, Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide, 56.

220

Notes to Pages 72–85

48. This section is based on the extensive details on this issue to be found in Pfaffenberger, ‘‘The Harsh Facts of Hydraulics’’; Shastri, ‘‘The Material Basis for Separatism.’’ 49. See Sunil Bastian, ‘‘The Politics of Land Reform and Land Settlement in Sri Lanka.’’ 50. The term ‘‘tank’’ should be explained. Sri Lanka is dotted with huge numbers of manmade lakes or reservoirs for collecting water. The word ‘‘tank’’ comes from the Portuguese ‘‘tanque,’’ or reservoir. For more details, see Bandura, ‘‘Village Tank Cascade System of Sri Lanka.’’ 51. See Peebles, ‘‘Colonization and Ethnic Conflict.’’ 52. Moore, The State and Peasant Politics, 96. 53. LTTE Peace Secretariat. ‘‘Demographic Changes in the Tamil Homeland,’’ 3. 54. For a good introduction to the critical issue of civil-military relations in Sri Lanka, see K. M. de Silva, ‘‘Sri Lanka: Political-Military Relations.’’ 55. Burger, ‘‘Policing a Communal Society,’’ 823–24. 56. K. M. de Silva, ‘‘The Police and Armed Services,’’ 351. 57. For fuller details of the ethnic and sectarian composition of the armed forces, see K. M. de Silva, ‘‘Sri Lanka: The Security Problems of a Small State.’’ 58. Tambiah, Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide, 15. 59. Ibid., 354. 60. Bailey, ‘‘Rampant Lions,’’ 22. 61. Burger, ‘‘Policing a Communal Society,’’ 825. 62. Razeen, ‘‘Sri Lanka: The Political Economy of Failure,’’ 1. 63. Ibid. 64. The JVP insurgency is not central to this analysis; however, it is important as a harbinger of the violence to come in Sri Lankan society. I have relied extensively on the following works on the JVP insurgency: Moore, ‘‘Thoroughly Modern Revolutionaries’’; Abeysekara, ‘‘The Saffron Army.’’ 65. For details of the insurrection and the range of casualties, see Halliday, ‘‘The 1971 Ceylonese Insurrection’’; Anandalingam and Abraham, ‘‘Left-Wing Politics and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka.’’ The most detailed study to date, which also includes an analysis of the later insurrection, is Samaranayake, Political Violence in Sri Lanka, 1972–1987. 66. Constitution of Sri Lanka (Ceylon), 4. 67. Vaddukoddai Resolution. 68. Amato, ‘‘Tail of the Dragon,’’ 17. 69. I have relied on the following comprehensive studies of the LTTE: Swamy, Tigers of Lanka; Swamy, Inside an Elusive Mind; Hellmann-Rajanayagam, The Tamil Tigers. 70. Pirabaharan [Prabhakaran], interview with Anita Pratap. All subsequent quotes in this chapter are from this source.

Notes to Pages 89–117

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Chapter 3. The Eelam Wars I–III Campaigns 1. See Vijayasiri, ‘‘A Critical Analysis of the Sri Lankan Government’s Counterinsurgency Campaign,’’ 16; Joshi, ‘‘On the Razor’s Edge,’’ 23. 2. Ranatunga, Adventurous Journey, 85. 3. Ibid. 4. Vijayasiri, ‘‘A Critical Analysis,’’ 17. 5. Ranatunga, Adventurous Journey; see also University Teachers for Human Rights, ‘‘Operation Liberation.’’ 6. Tamil commanders often went by one name or nom de guerre, often an alias. 7. For more details regarding the Indo-Lankan Accord, see Premadas and Samarasinghe, ‘‘Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Conflict’’; Marasinghe, ‘‘Ethnic Politics and Constitutional Reform.’’ 8. Hellmann-Rajanayagam, ‘‘Drawing in Treacle,’’ 63–64. 9. On this, see inter alia Tambiah, ‘‘Buddhism, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka,’’ 609–10. 10. I have relied heavily on the following for the overview of the deployment of Indian forces to Sri Lanka: Bhasin, India in Sri Lanka; Das and Gupta-Ray, Sri Lanka Misadventure; Rupesinghe, ‘‘Ethnic Conflicts in South Asia’’; Manoharan, ‘‘National Security Decision Making Structures in India’’; Premadas and Samarasinghe, ‘‘Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Conflict’’; Chari, ‘‘The IPKF Experience in Sri Lanka’’; Krishna, ‘‘India and Sri Lanka: A Fatal Convergence.’’ 11. For more details see Paul, La Question tamoule a` Sri Lanka, 159–94. 12. Tambiah, Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide, 2. 13. Biswas, ‘‘The Challenges of Conflict Management,’’ 53. 14. See Vijayasiri, ‘‘A Critical Analysis,’’ 19–20. 15. ‘‘Sri Lankan Army Regroups for New Offensive.’’ 16. Quoted in Little, ‘‘Religion and Ethnicity in Sri Lanka’s Civil War,’’ 52. 17. BBC Interview by LTTE Leader Mr. Velupillai Prabhakaran on the Collapse of the Peace Process—27 April 1995. 18. Athas, ‘‘Interview with General Dulawatte.’’ 19. Harris, ‘‘Tamil Tigers Intensify War.’’ 20. Harris, ‘‘Sri Lankan Military Pushed to the Limits,’’ 56. 21. Harris, ‘‘Tamil Tigers Intensify War.’’ 22. Saez, ‘‘Sri Lanka in 2000,’’ 116. 23. For extensive analysis of the 2000 battles, see Athas, ‘‘Fighting Planned in LTTE’s Year of War.’’ 24. Rotberg, ed., Creating Peace in Sri Lanka, 2. 25. Price, ‘‘Integrating ‘Return’ with ‘Recovery,’ ’’ 534. 26. Hassan, ‘‘Countering Violent Extremism: The Fate of the Tamil Tigers,’’ 8. 27. Marshall, ‘‘Sri Lanka: From Ceasefire to Conflict Transformation.’’ 28. Price, ‘‘Integrating ‘Return’ with ‘Recovery,’ ’’ 535.

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Notes to Pages 117–135

29. For discussions of the fruitless negotiations and an analysis of the ISGA, see Keerawella, ‘‘The LTTE Proposals for an Interim Self-Governing Authority.’’ 30. Gourevitch, ‘‘Tides of War.’’ 31. Meyer, ‘‘Defeating the Tigers Won’t Solve the Problem.’’ 32. Claims that Karuna had pulled out upward of 6,000 cadres, including children, were exaggerations; he did not have that many personnel under his control. For more on Karuna Aman’s background, see ‘‘Sanjaya,’’ ‘‘Karuna: From Tiger Commander to Non-Cabinet Minister.’’ 33. Karniol, ‘‘Tigers Counter Karuna.’’ 34. The sections describing Karuna’s battles with the LTTE are derived from Taraki Sivaram, ‘‘Why Karuna Ran Out of Steam’’; Raman, ‘‘The Seeds of Discontent.’’ 35. Subramanian, ‘‘Behind Karuna’s Revolt.’’ 36. Sloggett, ‘‘Maritime Security Challenges.’’ 37. ‘‘LTTE Chief V. Prabhakaran’s ‘Heroes Day’ Speech on November 27, 2004.’’ 38. Foreign Minister Kadirgamar was a Tamil marked as a ‘‘traitor’’ to his people by the LTTE. 39. See Tambiah, ‘‘Buddhism, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka’’; Roberts, Confrontations in Sri Lanka, 43–80. 40. Frydenlund, The Sangha. 41. For more detailed analysis of this Sinhala right-wing nationalism, see Kreuzer and Weiberg, ‘‘Framing Violence: Nation- and State-Building,’’ 18–26. 42. Hellmann-Rajanayagam, ‘‘Drawing in Treacle,’’ 86–90. 43. Much of this is, of course, nonsense; and it is nonsense on two levels. First, the terms ‘‘Aryan’’ and ‘‘Dravidian’’ refer to linguistic groups, not to peoples. Second, the Sinhalese and Tamils both come from India, and there has been considerable intermixing. 44. Ridge, ‘‘Buddhist Nationalism Behind Sri Lanka’s Violent Surge.’’ 45. Jeyaraj, ‘‘Relying on Stealth.’’ 46. Jayadeva Uyangoda, ‘‘From Negotiations to War.’’ 47. Sengupta, ‘‘Sri Lanka Government Gains Support of Buddhist Monks.’’ 48. Mehta, ‘‘Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Conflict,’’ 1. 49. Wijewardana, ‘‘How the LTTE Lost the Eelam War,’’ 3. 50. Dept. of National Planning, Mahinda Chintana, 31–32. 51. Amarasinghe and Kahandawaarachchi, ‘‘Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa.’’ 52. Richardson, Paradise Poisoned, 503. 53. See Gourevitch, ‘‘Tides of War.’’ 54. ‘‘LTTE Chief V. Prabhakaran’s ‘Heroes Day’ Speech.’’ 55. See ‘‘Sri Lanka’s Return to War: Limiting the Damage,’’ 2. 56. Sengupta, ‘‘In Sri Lanka, a Ceasefire Without Peace.’’ 57. Hellmann-Rajanayagam, ‘‘Drawing in Treacle,’’ 59–60.

Notes to Pages 135–163

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Chapter 4. Eelam War IV: A Military Analysis 1. C. Smith, ‘‘The LTTE: A National Liberation and Oppression Movement,’’ 101. 2. For more details see Ali, ‘‘Kattankuddy in Eastern Sri Lanka,’’ 183–94. 3. Ibid., 189–90. 4. Shastri, ‘‘Ending Ethnic Civil War,’’ 89. 5. Mayilvaganan, ‘‘Is It Endgame for LTTE?’’ 29. 6. Reddy, ‘‘Sri Lankan Army Captures Sampur.’’ 7. Hariharan, ‘‘Sri Lanka: Contradictions of a Military Agenda.’’ 8. I stopped there for a tea break with my driver in June 2010, and became the focus of considerable attention from the locals. Remnants of the fighting were evident in destroyed structures and bullet-marked and burned-out buildings. It is tough and physically draining to fight in such terrain. 9. Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence, Public Security, Law and Order, ‘‘Debrief of the Battle of Vakarai,’’ July 8, 2010. 10. Ferdinando, ‘‘The Road to Vakarai.’’ 11. Hariharan, ‘‘Sri Lanka: LTTE Strikes in South.’’ 12. I relied heavily on the following for analysis of the Thoppigala battle: ‘‘Special Forces Poised to Capture Thoppigala Jungle’’; Mendis, Assignment Peace in the Name of the Motherland; ‘‘LTTE to See a Bitter End in the Eastern Battle.’’ 13. Farrell, ‘‘Eastern Promise—Sri Lankan Troops Turn Tigers Back into Guerrillas.’’ 14. Goodhand, ‘‘Stabilising a Victor’s Peace?’’ 342. 15. Stokke, ‘‘Building the Tamil Eelam State.’’ 16. Weerakoon, ‘‘Sri Lanka Army Captured Vellankulam.’’ 17. Wijayapala, ‘‘Wanni Liberation Enters Decisive Phase.’’ 18. A. Perera, ‘‘Army Moves to Cut-Off Pooneryn.’’ 19. Weiss, The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka, 7. 20. On the Paranthan battle, see Hariharan, ‘‘Sri Lanka: Fall of Paranthan.’’ 21. A. Perera, ‘‘The Battle for Kilinochchi.’’ 22. http://www.kalachuvadu.com/issue-116/page47.asp. 23. This section is heavily drawn from University Teachers for Human Rights, ‘‘Let Them Speak.’’ 24. See Borger, ‘‘Sri Lanka Says Up to 5,000 Civilians Died in Tigers Battle.’’ 25. ‘‘Muhamalai Attack: LTTE’s Defeated Aim.’’ 26. ‘‘Doomsday at Hand for LTTE.’’ 27. See Fuard, ‘‘The Fall of Chalai and the Death Knell to the Sea Tigers.’’ 28. Fish, ‘‘Sri Lankan Navy Routs Sea Tiger Incursion.’’ 29. The best open source description is University Teachers for Human Rights, ‘‘Let Them Speak, Part II’’; see also Ferdinando, ‘‘How the War Was Won.’’ 30. Reddy, ‘‘Final Hours.’’

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Notes to Pages 163–172

31. One Sri Lankan source wrote that VP and some of the leadership were shot by a sniper named Priyantha; another story is that VP and the remaining leaders were shot by troops after surrender. There is even a story that a senior officer executed VP. 32. Open source literature is almost nonexistent on the SLAF compared to the ground forces and army. I have relied on the following for this brief analysis: Ferdinando, ‘‘RG on SLAF’s Pivotal Role in Eelam War IV’’; Warnes, ‘‘Taming the Tigers’’; Amarasinghe and Kahandawaarachchi, ‘‘The Man Who Commands the Sky, Air Marshal Roshan Goonetileke.’’ 33. In November 2010 the Sri Lankan armed forces conducted a serious joint exercise, Cormorant Strike, involving the three main branches in the SilavaturaiMannar region in the Northern Province. The primary purpose was to introduce officers to different levels of planning, command and control, and decision making in a joint environment. 34. For more details, see Amarasinghe and Kahandawaarachchi, ‘‘The Man Who Commands the Sky.’’ 35. ‘‘Help from Above Was Crucial in Eelam War IV.’’ 36. Hariharan, ‘‘Sri Lanka Armed Forces and the Dynamics of Change.’’ 37. Fish, ‘‘Sri Lanka Learns to Counter Sea Tigers’ Swarm Tactics,’’ 20. 38. J. Smith, ‘‘Maritime Interdiction in Sri Lanka’s Counterinsurgency,’’ 449. 39. Fish, ‘‘Sri Lanka Learns to Counter Sea Tigers’ Swarm Tactics.’’ 40. Fish, ‘‘Interview: Vice-Admiral Wasantha Karannagodas.’’ 41. Edirisinghe, ‘‘SL Navy Turns 58.’’ 42. Goldrick, Navies in Asia, 126. 43. Seneviratne, ‘‘The Man Behind the Naval Strategy.’’ 44. Goldrick, Navies in Asia, 126. 45. I have relied heavily on the following for the Sea Tigers: Murphy, ‘‘Maritime Threat’’; Ramachandran, ‘‘The Sea Tigers of Tamil Eelam.’’ 46. DeVotta, ‘‘The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam,’’ 1035. 47. Eudeline, ‘‘Aux origines du terrorisme maritime,’’ 78. 48. Jalaldeen, ‘‘Combined Operation Conducted by the Forces Brought Victory.’’ 49. Quoted in J. Smith, ‘‘Maritime Interdiction in Sri Lanka’s Counterinsurgency.’’ 50. Fish, ‘‘Sri Lanka Learns to Counter Sea Tigers’ Swarm Tactics.’’ 51. Murphy, ‘‘Maritime Threat.’’ 52. Chalk, ‘‘Tigers Evolve,’’ 53. Chalk, ‘‘Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s (LTTE) International Organization and Operations.’’ 54. Ibid. 55. Arquilla and Ronfeldt, Swarming and the Future of Conflict. 56. Athas, ‘‘LTTE Strikes at Sea.’’ 57. Ferdinando, ‘‘How SLN Achieved Tactical Edge over Sea Tigers.’’ 58. Murphy, ‘‘Maritime Threat.’’

Notes to Pages 171–188

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59. Ibid.; TamilNet, January 6, 2006. 60. Fish, ‘‘LTTE Sinks Sri Lankan Logistics Ship.’’ 61. BBC News, May 1, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6612663.stm 62. Sloggett, ‘‘Sri Lanka and an Insurgency Maneuvering in the Maritime Domain.’’ 63. Murphy, ‘‘Maritime Threat.’’ 64. TamilNet, February 5, 2008, http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid13& artid24549 65. Murphy, ‘‘Maritime Threat.’’ 66. www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname20090129_05, accessed July 12, 2010. 67. N. Smith, ‘‘Understanding Sri Lanka’s Defeat of the Tamil Tigers,’’ 43. 68. Murphy, ‘‘Maritime Threat.’’ 69. Edirinsinghe, ‘‘SL Navy’s Role in Eradicating International Maritime Terrorism.’’ 70. http://www.navy.lk/index/php?id-482. 71. Sriyananda, ‘‘Armed Forces Should Join Hands to Vanquish Common Enemy’’; Ferdinando, ‘‘The SLN Role in Subduing the Tigers’’; Wijayapala, ‘‘Navy Chief Assesses Navy’s Role.’’ 72. ‘‘The Man Behind the Naval Strategy—Vice-Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda.’’ 73. Sri Lankan naval officer quoted in J. Smith, ‘‘Maritime Interdiction in Counterinsurgency,’’ 55. 74. ‘‘Sri Lankan Navy.’’ 75. Wijayapala, ‘‘Navy Achieves Superior Firepower and Manoeuvrability.’’ 76. Ibid., 57. 77. Fish, ‘‘Sri Lanka Learns to Counter Sea Tigers’ Swarm Tactics.’’ 78. Murphy, ‘‘Maritime Threat.’’ 79. ‘‘Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa Salutes the War Heroes.’’ 80. Millett, Murray, and Watman, ‘‘The Effectiveness of Military Organizations,’’ 2. 81. For some discussion of these issues, see Marks, ‘‘State Response to Terrorism in Sri Lanka.’’ 82. Amarashinghe and Kahandawaarachchi, ‘‘Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa.’’ 83. Ibid. 84. See Hariharan, ‘‘Sri Lanka Armed Forces and the Dynamics of Change.’’ 85. ‘‘Man Behind the Country’s Defence Strategy’’; see also interview with secretary of defence, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Ministry of Defence, Colombo, June 7, 2010. 86. ‘‘Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s Testimony to the War Commission.’’ 87. Shashikumar, ‘‘Winning Wars: Political Will Is the Key—Defence Secretary.’’ 88. Ibid. 89. Weichong, ‘‘Military Defeat of the Tamil Tigers.’’ 90. Dias, ‘‘Close Ties with India Were Crucial for War Victory—Gota,’’ 1.

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Notes to Pages 188–196

91. J. Smith, ‘‘Maritime Interdiction in Sri Lanka’s Counterinsurgency,’’ 452. 92. Jeyaraj, ‘‘The ‘Intermestic’ Tamil Issue in Indo-Lanka Relations.’’ 93. For this section I relied heavily on interviews with six senior military officers and government officials in Sri Lanka in June 2010; and on DeSilva-Ranasinghe, ‘‘Strategic Analysis of Sri Lankan Military’s Counter-Insurgency Operations.’’ 94. DeSilva-Ranasinghe, ‘‘Sri Lanka’s Experience in Counter-Insurgency Warfare,’’ 42. 95. Subasinghe, ‘‘LTTE in Destructive End Game Combat,’’ 19. 96. DeSilva-Ranasinghe, ‘‘Sri Lanka’s Experience in Counter-Insurgency Warfare.’’ 97. See Mehta, ‘‘Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Conflict.’’ 98. Shashikumar, ‘‘Winning Wars: Political Will Is the Key—Defence Secretary.’’ 99. Quoted in Shashikumar,’’ Winning Wars: Political Will is the Key.’’ 100. Ibid. 101. See DeSilva-Ranasinghe, ‘‘Strategic Analysis of Sri Lankan Military’s Counter-Insurgency Operations,’’ 2. 102. See Jalal, ‘‘Think like a Guerilla.’’ 103. The following section is drawn from notes I took during the conference Defeating Terrorism—The Sri Lankan Experience, Colombo, June 2–3, 2011. 104. Conboy, ‘‘Sri Lanka’s Counter-Terrorism Commandos’’; De Silva-Ranasinghe, ‘‘ ‘Determined, Dared and Done’.’’ 105. Van de Voorde, ‘‘Sri Lankan Terrorism,’’ 182. 106. Pavey, ‘‘Les Kamikazes sri lankais.’’ 107. See Jalal, ‘‘Think like a Guerrilla.’’ 108. See Bloom, ‘‘Ethnic Conflict, State Terror and Suicide Bombing in Sri Lanka.’’ I have not discussed suicide bombing tactic in detail as it has been exhaustively done elsewhere, as in this extensive Bloom article. 109. Senadhira, ‘‘Suicide Bombings: The Case of Sri Lanka,’’ 32. 110. Jalaldeen, ‘‘Combined Operation Conducted by the Forces Brought Victory.’’ 111. See Haer, Banholzer, and Ertl, ‘‘Create Compliance and Cohesion’’; for a lengthy analysis that looks at this issue, see also Metelits, Inside Insurgency. 112. See Anderson, ‘‘Death of the Tiger.’’ 113. VP’s anger at and venom toward the Sinhalese comes out in the November 27, 2007, ‘‘Heroes Day Speech by LTTE Chief Velupillai Prabhakaran.’’ 114. See, for example, ‘‘Full Text of the Speech of V. Prabhakaran.’’ 115. Interviews with senior Sri Lankan officials and officers, Colombo and Vavuniya, June 2010. 116. Kadirgamar, ‘‘Sri Lanka’s Post-War Political Economy and the Question of Minorities,’’ 72. 117. ‘‘Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE),’’ http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/ countries/shrilanka/terroristoutfits/LTTE.HTM. 118. Raman, ‘‘Split in the LTTE.’’

Notes to Pages 196–208

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119. DeSilva-Ranasinghe, ‘‘Good Education—Sri Lankan Military Learns Insurgency Lessons.’’ 120. Hariharan, ‘‘Sri Lanka: How Strong Are the Tigers?’’ 121. Quoted in DeSilva-Ranasinghe, ‘‘The End of Sri Lanka’s Insurgency: Implications.’’ 122. Hogg, ‘‘Sri Lanka: Prospects for Reform and Reconciliation.’’ 123. See Meyer, ‘‘Defeating the Tigers Won’t Solve the Problem.’’ 124. See Wickramasinghe, ‘‘In Sri Lanka, the Triumph of Vulgar Patriotism,’’ 158. 125. S. W. R. Samarasinghe, ‘‘Sri Lanka: The Challenge of Postwar Peace Building, State Building, and Nation Building,’’ 437.

Chapter 5. Postwar Sri Lanka: Reconciliation or Triumphalism? 1. There has been little substantive writing on postwar Sri Lanka. This short concluding chapter is based largely on my observations and interviews in June 2010 and June 2011, newspaper articles, and short academic studies. For the more academic analyses, on which the account is heavily based, see Uyangoda, ‘‘Sri Lanka in 2009’’; Wickramasinghe, ‘‘In Sri Lanka, the Triumph of Vulgar Patriotism’’; ‘‘Putting the Raj in Rajapaksa’’; A. Perera, ‘‘The Long Reach of Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa Dynasty’’; Venugopal, ‘‘Victor’s Spoils’’; Schulz and Peiris, ‘‘Reconstruction Challenges in Sri Lanka’’; Sharma, ‘‘Politics in Sri Lanka: Changing Trends.’’ 2. Rajasingham, ‘‘One Year After Terrorism,’’ 690. 3. Venugopal, ‘‘Victor’s Spoils’’ 4. ‘‘Reconciliation in Sri Lanka: Harder Than Ever.’’ 5. Woost, ‘‘Articulations of Economy and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka.’’ 6. Uyangoda, ‘‘Sri Lanka post the LTTE.’’ 7. Meyer, ‘‘Defeating the Tigers Won’t Solve the Problem.’’ 8. Senanayake, ‘‘Sri Lanka’s Intractable Conflict.’’ 9. Reddy, ‘‘The War Is Over’’; see also the statement by Rajan Hoole of the respected and famous Jaffna-based University Teachers for Human Rights, which is mercilessly scathing toward the LTTE and its atrocious human rights record. Hoole warned: ‘‘At the moment, the people are very angry with the LTTE. But the grievances remain. They [Tamils] are worse than third-class citizens under a government pursuing a Sinhalese extremist agenda. That is where the source of future trouble lies. The leader might go, but there is room for a mythified LTTE to re-emerge with a larger base’’; cited in Patranobis, ‘‘What Led to the LTTE’s Defeat?’’ 10. Cited in. Hariharan, ‘‘Sri Lanka’s Diaspora Strategies.’’ 11. Kumar, ‘‘Militarisation of Sri Lanka and Its Infiltration into Higher Education.’’ 12. See Green, ‘‘Crackdown Provokes Fears for Sri Lanka’s Democracy.’’ 13. ‘‘Sri Lanka’s Army: In Bigger Barracks.’’ 14. Calvert, ‘‘Sri Lanka’s Stubborn War.’’

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Notes to Pages 208–212

15. For an extensive analysis of the breakdown in the relationship, see Jeyaraj, ‘‘Rajapakse Regime and the Fonseka Phenomenon.’’ 16. For a relatively early recognition of the importance of this issue, see Weiberg, ‘‘Der Konflikt in Sri Lanka.’’ 17. Rajasingham-Senanayake, ‘‘Is Post-War Sri Lanka Following the ‘Military Business Model’?’’ 18. Senaratne, ‘‘The Security Establishment in Sri Lanka,’’188. 19. For details see Schlutter, ‘‘Sri Lanka nach den Wahlen 2010,’’ 5. 20. The following observations are a mix of my own conclusions and interviews with Sri Lankans during my visit. 21. Ferdinando, ‘‘Post-LTTE Era: Reasons for a Bigger Navy.’’ 22. Smith, The Utility of Force. 23. Kadirgamar, ‘‘State Power, State Patronage and Elections in Sri Lanka,’’ 23. 24. Venugopal, ‘‘Victor’s Spoils,’’ 22. 25. DeSilva-Ranasinghe, ‘‘Tamil Perspectives on Post-War Sri Lanka, the LTTE and the Future,’’ 2. 26. For a similar assessment, see ‘‘Reconciliation in Sri Lanka: Harder than Ever,’’ 10. 27. Goodhand, ‘‘Stabilising a Victor’s Peace?’’ 342. 28. Ad hoc conversations with locals, Batticaloa, Kathiraveli, Trincomalee, Nilaveli, June 2010. 29. See ‘‘Sri Lanka: Post-War Progress Report,’’; Price, ‘‘Integrating ‘Return’ with ‘Recovery.’ ’’ 30. Radtke, ‘‘From Gifts to Taxes,’’ 12. 31. Clarke, ‘‘Conventionally Defeated but Not Eradicated.’’ 32. Kadirgamar and Pirani, ‘‘The Tragedy of Politics in Sri Lanka.’’ 33. In 1999 Turkish intelligence operatives, acting with the support of the Kenyan government, arrested PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in Nairobi. 34. ‘‘KP Speaks Out: An Interview with the Former Tiger Chief.’’

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Interviews Secretary of Defense Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, June 7, 2010 Chief of National Intelligence, General Kapila Henduvithana, June 9, 2010 General Kamal Gunaratne, Wanni Security Head Quarters Commander General Daya Ratnayake, Army Chief of Staff, Vavuniya, June 2010 Admiral (ret.) Wisantha Karannagoda, Battarmulle, Colombo, June 2010 Ambassador Nanda Godage, June 24, 2010 Former special forces and regular army mid-level officers who declined to be named, June 2010

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Name Index

Amirthalingam, Appapillai, 83 Anagarika Dharmapala, 61 Arunachalam, Ponnambalam, 64

Kitson, Frank, 25 Kobbekaduwa, Denzil, 100 Kotelewala, John, 74

Bandaranaike, Solomon Ridgeway, 66, 74, 77, 101 Balasingham, Anton, 84 Botheju, Vipul, 93

Mao Zedong, 29–31 Moon, Ban-Ki, 7 Moyar, Mark, 44 Munasinghe, Sarath, 106

Clausewitz, Carl von, 29 Cohen, Michael, 40

O’Neill, Bard, 26, 29

DeSilva-Ranasinghe, Sergei, 30 Devanampiya Tissa, 52 Dias, Neil, 103 Dixit, N. H., 94 Dulawatte, Rohan, 103 Fonseka, Sarath, 1 Gandhi, Rajiv, 35, 98–99 Galula, David, 27 Guevara, Ernesto ‘‘Che’’, 28 Handapangoda, Sarath, 93 Hewaviratana, Don David, 61 Ho Chi Minh, 27 Hobbes, Thomas, 26 Hoffman, Frank, 32 Hussein, Syed Rifaat, 24 Jayasundara, Sathis, 93 Jayawardene, J. R., 89, 94–95 Kamaratunga, Chandrika, 101–2, 108 Karunathalaka, P.A. 103 Katzenbach, Edward, 37 Kilcullen, David, 39

Pathmanathan, Salvarasa, 2 Pavey, Eleanor, 30 Peiris, Roshan, 62 Perera, Janaka, 103 Perera, Wasantha, 93 Prabhakaran, Vellupillai (VP), 1, 83–88, 97 Pratap, Anita, 84–87 Rahula, Sri Walpola, 62 Rajapaksa, Gotabhaya, 4–5, 93 Rajapaksa, Mahinda, 1, 6 Ranatunga, Cyril, 91–93, 97 Ratwatte, Anurudda, 104 Senanayake, Don Stephen, 74 Senanayake, Dudley, 65, 80 Sheehan, Neil, 6 Smith, Chris, 30 ‘‘Soosai,’’ 93 Tilly, Charles, 48 Tiruchelvam, Neelan, 71 Vann, John Paul, 6 Vo Nguyen Giap, 31 VP. See Prabhakaran, Vellupillai

262 Weeratunga, ‘‘Bull,’’ 91 Wickramaratne, Naradha, 93 Wickramaratne, Quintus, 100 Wickremesinghe, Ranil, 108

Name Index Wijeratne, Ranjan, 99 Wijeweera, Rohan, 78 Wimalaratne, Vijaya, 100

Subject Index

A Bright Shining Lie (Sheehan), 7 Adaptation, 5, 36 Afghanistan, 5, 45–46 Algeria, 28 All Ceylon Buddhist Congress (ACBC), 61 Alpha Commando Group, 142 Ampara, 135 American, 32, 39, 44 Anglo-Egyptian, 37 Aryan, Aryanism, 59, 125 Australia, 2 Asia, Asian, 2, 63, 77 Batticaloa (BCO), 122, 134–35, 140–42 Bhikkhus, 60 Britain, 50, 74 British, 2, 44, 50, 53, 56–62, 73; Royal Navy, 74 Buddhism, 51–52, 54, 60, 67, 80 Buddhists, 55–57, 60–62, 75, 80, 125; clergy, 60–61, 108; monks, 60; revivalism, 60 Burghers, 56, 64, 67 Burma, 54 Catholics. See Roman Catholicism Ceasefire Agreement (CFA), 115, 126, 133–34, 136–37 Ceylon, Ceylonese, 2, 50–59, 62–65, 67, 69, 74, 79 Ceylon Civil Service, 67 Ceylon Defence Force (CDF), 59, 73 Ceylon National Congress (CNC), 64 China, Chinese, 11, 33; Maoist, 27 Christians, 68, 125 COIN campaign, 7, 37–40, 45. See also Counterinsurgency Colebrooke-Cameron Commission, 57 Colombo, 4, 10–11, 58–59, 67, 71, 92, 94, 104, 108, 115, 121, 123, 126, 134 Colonialism, 21–22

Correlates of War Project, 26 Counterinsurgency, 1, 5–7, 11, 31, 34–35, 46. See also COIN Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (Galula), 39 Dakshina Naval Base, 140 Donoughmore Constitution, 64 Dravidian, 53 Diaspora, 24, 48, 118 Doha, 4 Dry Zone, 72 Dutch, 50, 53, 56 Dutch Reformed Church, 56 Eastern Province, 106, 116, 120, 122, 132–33, 137, 139, 142 Eelam War: I, 88–89; II, 98–99; III, 113, 132; IV, 8, 33, 133, 136, 144 Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF), 83 Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), 83 Elephant Pass, 109–11, 144, 148 European, 50 Federal Party (FP), 80, 120 Federalism, 117, 124 FM3-24. See U.S. Field Manual Forward Defense Line (FDL), 104, 142, 144 French, 36, 44 Front de Libe´ration Nationale (FLN), 28 Gajaba Regiment, 138 Gemunu Watch Infantry Regiment, 134, 141 GoSL (Government of Sri Lanka), 136 Goyigama caste, 52 Great Britain, 50 Guerrillas, guerrilla tactics, 29, 34, 43 Gulf of Mannar, 147 Gurunagar, 91

264

Subject Index

Hezbollah, 33 Hindus, 53, 55 Hinduism, 54 ‘‘humanitarian operation,’’ 8 Hybrid war, 32 India, Indians, 11, 21, 42–43, 74, 97, 125, 144; officials, 97; Peace-Keeping Force, 94; Tamils, 54, 66 Indian Ocean, 97 Indo-Aryans, 51 Indo-Lanka Accord, 96 Innovation, 5, 36 Insurgency, 25–28 Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA), 117 International Committee of the Red Cross. See Red Cross Iraq, 5, 39, 45 Irish War of National Liberation, 27 Israel, 6 Jaffna, 3, 59, 93, 96, 104, 133, 135, 143–44 Jaffna Peninsula, 58, 93, 106, 109, 111–12, 119, 143, 145–47 Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), 41, 78–79, 90, 96, 117–18, 124, 127, 130 Jatika Hela Urumaya (JHU), 124, 127, 130 Joint Operations Headquarters, 106 Kandy, Kandyan, 52, 55, 57, 60, 73 Kandyan Convention, 56 Karayanmullivaikal, 1 Karava (Karaiva) caste, 53, 82 Kelaniya University, 62 Kenya, 40 Kilinochchi, 8, 107, 143–45, 148–49 Koddiyar Bay, 134, 137 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 1, 7–10, 30–33, 42–47, 80–90, 99–136, 138–42, 144–62, 164–87, 189–201, 205–14; center of operations, 143 Long-range reconnaissance patrol (LRRP), 138 Mahavamsa, 51–52 Mahayana Buddhism, 51 Mahinda Chintana, 128 Malaysia, 40 Malaysian Communist Party, 40 Mankulam, 145

Mannar, 144, 147 Mannar-Vavuniya axis, 143 Mau Mau, 40 Mavil Aru anicut, 136 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), 115 Middle East, 33 Muhamalai-Nagar Kovil axis, 143–44 Mullaitivu, 8, 106–7, 110 Multi-barreled rocket launcher (MBRL), 9 Muslims, 54–55, 61, 125, 133, 137 Muttur, 135, 137 Nachchikuda, 145–46 Nandi Kadal, 1, 14 New Delhi, 98 No-Fire Zone, 8–9 Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 118 Northern Province, 132, 143 Norway, 115 Omanthai, 145 Omdurman, 37 Operation Jaya Sikuru, 119, 134, 145 Operation Rana Gosa, 108 Operation Riviresa, 105 Operation Thavalai, 147 Operation Thrivida Pahara, 105 Operation Vadamarachchi, 41 Operation Watershed, 136 Pakistan, 25, 42, 46 Palk Strait, 147 Paranthan, 148–49 Parichchankerni, 139 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), 33 People’s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), 83 Persian Gulf, 4 Pooneryn, 146–47 Pooneryn Defence Complex, 147 ‘‘population-centric,’’ 40 Portuguese, 50, 53–55 Post-tsunami reconstruction (P-TOMS), 129 Prevention of Terrorism Act (ACT), 48 Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War (Mao), 38 Ramadi, 40 Red Cross, 9, 10

Subject Index Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), 89 Roman Catholicism, 55–56 Royal Commission of Eastern Inquiry, 57 Russia, 11 Salagama (caste), 53 Sampur, 134, 136 Sea Tigers, 121, 140, 145; base, 145–46 Security Forces Headquarters-Jaffna (SFHQJ), 147 Sihadipa, 52 Silavathurai, 144 Sinhala, 64, 133–34; language, 51; Sinhala Only Language Act, 66 Sinhalese, 2–3, 10–13, 15–16, 22, 24, 41, 51–52, 57–58, 65, 66–72, 76–78, 133, 135; community, 3, 70; nationalists, 66, 70 Small wars, 26 Soulbury Constitution, 79 South Asia, 133 Soviet, 40 Special Task Force (STF), 140 Sri Lanka, 1–9, 11, 20, 24, 27, 50–51, 73, 76–79, 96, 132 Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), 66 Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), 115, 123, 137 Sri Lankan armed forces (SLKAF), 1, 3, 8, 10, 95, 121, 123, 132, 138–41, 144, 146, 147 Sri Lankan army (SLA): 1, 138–39, 141–42, 147 Sri Lankan navy (SLN), 94, 121, 137–38, 147 Sri Lankan: campaign, 6, 42–43, COIN model, 6; command, 140; government, 5, 8, 10, 23, 35, 43, 73, 115; military, 24, 30–31, 41–43, 73, 107, 132, 134, 136, 138, 144, 147; military supply lines, 147; officials, 6; security and intelligence, 90, 135; soldiers, 3; Suicide bombing, 4, 25, 34 Tamil, Tamils, 2–4, 9–16, 20–24, 35, 42, 47, 51–54, 57–59, 61, 63–83, 90–91, 136; diaspora, 15, 35, 132 Tamil New Tigers (TNT), 82 Tamil Student Movement, 70 Tamil Tigers, 10 Tamil Eelam, 15–16, 72, 133; Liberation Organization (TELO), 82–83 Tamil Nadu, 89–90, 144, 146–47

265

Tamil United Front (TUF), 80 Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), 80, 82–83, 120 Task forces, 144; Task Force 1 (58th Division), 144 Tel Afar, 40 Terrorism, 22, 28, 30–34 Thailand, 54, 115 Theravada Buddhism, 51 Thirunelveli, 3 Thoppigala (Baron’s Cap), 140–42 Tigers, 1, 43, 115, 117, 141 Total War, 41 Trincomalee, Trinco, 106, 133–37, 141 Tsunami, 122–23, 129 Turkey, 46 United Nations, 8–10, 11; agencies, 10; expert panel, 10; member nations, 11; report, 7–9; Security Council, 11 United National Party (UNP), 65, 80, 114 United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), 117 United States, 45 U.S. Central Command, 6 U.S. Field Manual 3-24: Counterinsurgency, 27, 39 U.S. Marine Corps Strategic Vision Group, 33 U.S. navy, 95 Vakarai, 138–39 Vaddokkodai resolution, 80–82 Vallipunam, 9 Vavuniya, 146 Vellalar, 82 Vellalars, 53 Vellankulam, 145 Vietcong, 33 Vietminh, 28 Vietnam, 27 Vijayabahu Infantry Regiment, 138 Wanni, 138, 141, 143, 147–48; region, 142–43; theater of operations, 146 Weli-Oya axis, 143 Welikanda, 138 Westminster Parliament, 65 Wet Zone, 72 World War I, 48, 74 World War II, 42

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe a great deal to a great many people in the lengthy preparation of this book. Many thanks go to the Naval War College for academically and financially supporting the initial project on which this book is based. Dr. Peter Dombrowski, head of the Strategic Research Department, was effusive in his support for the project, which was part of my research on Irregular Warfare during my time at the College. At NTU, I would like to thank Dean Barry Desker and Dr. Joseph Liow for encouraging me to finish the project and for providing a very congenial environment at RSIS for research. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Sri Lankan Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who gave me almost three hours of his time at his office. I owe thanks to many other people in Sri Lanka: Chief of National Intelligence General Kapila Henduvithana, Generals Kamal Gunaratne, Daya Ratnayake, Rear-Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda, Ambassador Nanda Godage, Inspector General of Police Dr. Mahinda Balasuriya, and countless mid- and junior ranking officers and officials of the Sri Lankan military and government who gave freely of their valuable time. I would like to extend my thanks to the staff of the U.S. Embassy in Colombo from the Ambassador to her staff, including the Military Attache´, all of whom facilitated my research time in Sri Lanka. I also want to thank Bill Finan, Alison Anderson, and the other staff members at Pennsylvania University Press for their support, encouragement, and work in making this a professional product. I appreciate their patience over the course of this project’s long-awaited completion Finally, my profoundest appreciation goes to my family, Shara and Nader, who made many sacrifices while I spent hours ensconced in my home office working on the manuscript instead of spending time with them.