Strategy, Tactics, Minus The “Blah! Blah! Blah!”

by – Chandi Sinnathurai, 29 March, 2007Countercurrents.org

THE SRI LANKAN Government (SLG) is shocked to the core. The aerial-attack on the Air Force Base by the Tamil Tigers’ Air Force (TAF) on Monday, 26th March has raised many concerns.

The Sri Lankan Armed Forces had intelligence concerning the build up of a Tamil Air Force for quite some years. They also did posses details of the exact location of Tigers’ air-strip with the benefit of the “communication and intelligence sharing” of the US satellites.  The Sri Lankan Air Force bombed the 1250metre Tiger runway. They even suggested that the Tiger aircrafts were nothing but dummies. Destroying the runway, they thought, have sorted the matter out.  

In January 2005 Military Analyst Iqbal Athas wrote in his Situation Report Column:

The Sunday Times (Situation Report - January 16, 2005) revealed how on Wednesday (January 12), an Israeli-built Searcher UAV spotted a light aircraft on the ground. It was on the newly-built airstrip east of Iranamadu irrigation tank. The next day, Thursday (January 13), the Searcher UAV was on a night sortie when its infrared cameras picked up thermal images of another light aircraft. [1] 

Nothing prepared the SLG for such a conventional air strike.  The target of this attack was to hit the Sri Lankan air force hangars of MIG25 and the Israeli Kafir supersonic bombers which had been used for indiscriminate bombing of thousands of Tamil civilians – women, children and men in the North and East.  The SLG however, reported that the Tigers missed the target.  News reports trickling from capital Colombo seems to suggest that not only the mission was accomplished “below the radar” but also the TAF air crafts safely reached the Tiger heart-land Vanni.

An assessment of the attack issued by the Institute for Topical Studies, South Asia Analysis Group [SAAG] observed among other things in its analysis, the following:

 

The TAF's air strike was well-planned and equally well-executed. It was a night operation taking advantage of the weak capability of the SLAF for night operations. It was a precision attack, which carefully avoided causing any casualty or damage in the international airport, which could have roused international ire. There were no civilian casualties----targeted or collateral. As a result, it would not be possible to characterise the attack as an act of terrorism. It was pure and simple a conventional air strike. [2] 

This attack adds a new dimension to the Eelam-Sri Lanka conflict.  The Tamil Tigers have now revealed their multi-dimensional capabilities.Tiger aerial attack has created shock and awe among the Sinhala polity.  It is perhaps, no longer just a rumour that, Colonel Soosai’s Sea Tigers [3] have submarine warfare capabilities. 

The strategy of the State was to portray the Tigers merely as a guerilla armed group and they were going to beat them back to the jungles in the next three years.  This they did to under play the “equal status” that was afforded to the Tiger Defacto state by the CFA. Under this agreement, in full view of the international community, demarcation lines were drawn between Tiger controlled territory and territory under Sri Lankan state. Some political observers saw the CFA as a provisional document, subtly “legalizing” the reality of the state-in-waiting. 

In the Tamil Street it is spoken that, this attack signals not only the beginning of the unfolding of new tactics and strategies. It must also indicate that this is the ending of all that is "Blah, blah" ─ frothy rhetoric, inflated with hot air. The Tigers have gained a spectacular victory psychologically.  This is crucial for the Tamils in the Diaspora in particular, especially when continuing to loose territory in the East.  However, the Tigers have refused to gloat on this news.  In fact, they have played it down just limiting to publishing only facts and figures of this operation.  They know only too well, there needs to be many more battles and struggles that has to be faced.

 5 years of Ceasefire Agreement [CFA] and multiple rounds of talks on CFA have ended up in smoke.  The intransigence of the Sri Lankan state has not helped.

The SLG sadly is interested ONLY in a military campaign.  Their strategy is to recapture the Tamil territories and win the hearts and minds of the Tamils of the East.  None can bludgeon and bomb and starve the people and expect “hearts and minds” to be warm. Iraq stares in the face, as a glaring example. Already fierce fighting is taking place in the East, in the Batticaloa district.  Over 153,000 civilians are internally displaced without food, medicine or protection – sheltering under trees and open spaces.  Already a conservative estimate of some 1500 civilians has perished and some 600 civilians have disappeared since January. 

People are quite rightly sceptical about any peace talks.  Previous talks have been fraught with subterfuge and duplicitous deals.  People want REAL peace that would translate into tangible reality and impact their lives for the better. They want jobs, food, education, development, security, honour, dignity, freedom of movement, restoration of civil liberties and democratic rights.  Thousands have lost their livelihoods. Tamils need not live under constant threat to their lives in their homelands.

Now what is the solution?  This perennial question raises the core of the problem. Tamils have been struggling for self-determination since 1976 - for over 30 years.  During the initial stages of peace talks in Thailand in September 2002, a theory was floated that the Tamil self-determination could be realised by internal self-determination.  That is, staying within a united Sri Lanka – possibly a federal arrangement.  Should that be not acceptable to the Sinhala state, Tamils will have no option but to fight for external self-determination.  Some saw this theorising only as a tactical manoeuvre. The state has never been agreeable to a federal solution since independence from Britain in 1948. Others thought, this posture hardly reflected the kernel rationale of Tamil liberation.  Many adherents felt, at its best it was a doctrinal deviation – a heresy if you will. At its worst, some rejected such move as a misleading distraction. Oslo was blamed for the wayward departure. This was NOT at any case, the original stance of the Tamil Resolution of 14 May 1976 [4a] upon which the struggle was builtand thousands of Tamil youth have poured their life as ‘sacred offering’ for freedom [4b].  

The wider semantic fields and political phonetics have to be explored in further depth, in this context, for the following much used words: Self-determination; freedom; liberation.  During the imperial Raj the Brits wanted the Indians to have their “freedom” ─ self-government (Swaraj) within the context of the Empire.  That was not necessarily seen as self-determination or freedom.  The primary reason was that, the English doubted the Indians could ever rule themselves. MK Gandhi at that juncture strived for dominion status.  The young blood within the movement however, vowed freedom means complete liberation from alien domination.  India at any rate was a complex colonial construct. 

The question is: Are the Tamils psychologically prepared to believe that they are self-sufficiently a nation and can effectively rule themselves? Now for the Tamils does self-determination mean emancipation? Will the principle of self-determination allow Tamils to determine their political future and destiny? In other words, will it allow Tamils to be no longer enslaved either by the tyranny of the majority or by the tyranny of a minority? Until such fundamental and simple questions are answered, all else will be, mere punditry and verbal gymnastics.  We will be simply running in circles. 

The ground reality nonetheless, has repeatedly proven that the Sri Lankan State is prepared for neither option.  They have not moved away from the posture of a unitary state and one single nation. Hence Talks were merely an eye wash, an international media-circus, a tactical time-bidding and a shambolic bungling.  Nothing more than a cosmetic exercise.

The results of the Oslo-inspired peace talks and its defunct CFA have led analysts to believe that the Tamils will be forced to opt for the latter option.  Any future dialogue, one would think, will have to first consider, reflect and determine from which premise one has to journey, in order to arrive at an honourable solution. If the premise is not agreed upon there and then, there will only be a dialogue of the deaf. Of course, there will be no longer any elbow room for Blah! Blah! Blah! 

The nascent state of Eelam released a statement soon after the attack on Monday: "The attack is not only pre-emptive but also to safeguard our people from indiscriminate bombing by the SLAF. Other Sri Lanka military installations will also be targets of our future attacks."

If one were to take the whole picture, the aerial attack opens a new vista. Put in perspective, it is only just one battle, significant though in its psychological impact. But there are many more to come. In the end, in order to achieve the goal, the War – political, psychological, diplomatic, conventional and otherwise - fighting in the air, land and the sea has to be won; both in the East and the North.   Tamil Tigers are aware that the liberation struggle is not a tea party. 

As for now, a false peace cannot be thrust upon the Tamils.

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Fr Chandi Sinnathurai is a peasant-priest.  He has written extensively on the Sri Lankan-Tamil Eelam conflict. He maintains a blog at: http://chandi.eponym.com/blog 

NOTES:

[1] http://lakdiva.org/suntimes/050123/columns/sitrep.html

[2] http://saag.org/%5Cpapers22%5Cpaper2185.html 

[3] http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan06/Sinnathurai07.htm

[4] a)The Vaddukodai Resolution clearly stated:"This convention resolves that restoration and reconstitution of the Free, Sovereign, SecularSocialistState of TAMIL EELAM based on the right of self determination inherent to every nation has become inevitable in order to safeguard the very existence of the Tamil Nation in this Country." 

  b) “And this Convention calls upon the Tamil Nation in general and the Tamil youth in particular to come forward to throw themselves fully in the sacred fight for freedom and to flinch not till the goal of a sovereign state of TAMIL EELAM is reached.”

Political Resolution unanimously adopted at the First National Convention of the Tamil United Liberation Front held at Pannakam (Vaddukoddai Constituency) on 14 May 1976 presided over by Mr. S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, Q.C, and M.P.