Sri
Lankan Government Intensifies Military Offensive Against LTTE
By Sarath Kumara
11 August 2006
World
Socialist Web
Despite
the opening of the Mavilaru irrigation sluice gate on Tuesday, the Sri
Lankan military has intensified its offensive against the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the eastern province, making clear that
the government has no intention of upholding the 2002 ceasefire.
President Mahinda Rajapakse
ordered the “limited” military operation on July 26, claiming
that it was necessary on “humanitarian grounds” to reopen
the sluice gate to provide water to thousands of farmers downstream.
The “water issue”, however, was simply a pretext for a military
offensive aimed at capturing LTTE territory and weakening its hold throughout
the East.
Over the past three weeks,
the military has seized the opportunity provided by the LTTE’s
closure of the sluice gate to bomb LTTE installations that are nowhere
near the disputed area. Last Sunday, the LTTE, after discussion with
Norwegian peace facilitators, offered to open the gate but the government
rejected the proposal. Military shelling prevented representatives of
the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) accompanying the LTTE to release
water.
On Tuesday, the LTTE announced
that it had opened the gate for humanitarian reasons. Later that evening,
the government disputed the claim and insisted that the release of water
was “to the credit of military”. By Wednesday, whoever was
responsible, water was flowing to farmers in the Serunuwara area.
SLMM officials expressed
the hope that the opening of the gate would ease tensions, but the opposite
has been the case. Some of the fiercest fighting has taken place in
the Mavilaru area over the past two days as the military attempts to
secure control of the gate. The seizure of the LTTE territory is an
open breach of the 2002 ceasefire agreement.
With water now flowing, the
government’s pretext for the military offensive has shifted. Defence
spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella declared: “Our concern is that
control of the water should be under the government. If it is under
the terrorists, as and when they want they can open and close it. We
don’t want any interruption in the water, and therefore the forces
are in and around and will be taking control.”
The Daily Mirror reported
today: “Military sources said that six soldiers were killed and
nearly 50 injured. The injured were evacuated to Kantale and Polonnaruwa
hospitals. Some soldiers were evacuated to Colombo due to their critical
condition.” A local hospital chief, D.G.M. Costa, told the AFP
news agency that his staff were treating the heaviest number of casualties
yet in the three-week-old conflict.
The LTTE has announced that
seven of its fighters are dead, while claiming to have killed 45 soldiers
and wounded another 120. It also accused the security forces of shelling
and strafing civilian areas, with 50 dead and 200 injured. The military
did not deny the claim, but accused the LTTE of “moving guns into
populated areas”. Like the Israelis in Lebanon or the US in Iraq,
the Sri Lankan army is using the “human shields” excuse
to justify the murder of innocent civilians.
The air force has continued
its bombing of LTTE targets far removed from Mavilaru. On Wednesday,
Israeli-built Kfir jets strafed Sampur, Muttur east and Verugal. According
to the LTTE, five people were killed in the Verugal air raids. Yesterday
further strafing took place in the same areas. These continuing attacks
underscore the government’s aim—to dislodge the LTTE from
key strategic positions throughout the East.
While President Rajapakse
continues to insist that he is not waging an aggressive war, his key
political ally—the Sinhala chauvinist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna
(JVP)—openly calls on the government to tear up the ceasefire
and destroy the LTTE militarily. In a statement to parliament on Tuesday,
JVP spokesman Wimal Weerawansa called on the military to eliminate the
LTTE from the Sampur area, saying its presence constituted a threat
to key military installations around Trincomalee harbour.
Weerawansa’s comments
reflect the sentiments of sections of the military that have been pressing
for a full-scale offensive against the LTTE in the East ever since a
major split in the LTTE’s ranks in 2004. The breakaway Karuna
group has been covertly operating alongside the army in provocative
attacks on the LTTE for the past nine months. The LTTE positions in
the Sampur region have been repeatedly identified as a prime objective.
Trincomalee is the major deep-water port on the eastern coast and an
essential link in supplying troops on the northern Jaffna peninsula.
The war is already spreading.
Last week the LTTE seized control of parts of the town of Muttur in
a bid to cut the army’s supply lines to the Mavilaru area. The
military responded with a devastating aerial and artillery assault that
killed scores of civilians and drove as many as 40,000 people from their
homes. Many of the refugees are sheltering in cramped conditions in
Kantalai without adequate food, accommodation or medical assistance.
On Tuesday, a car bomb rocked
the capital of Colombo. It appears that the LTTE was targetting Sankarapillai
Sivathasan, an official of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party—a
Tamil paramilitary organisation allied to the government and the military.
Sivathasan escaped serious injury, but two others, including a three-year-old
child, were killed. Another eight were injured.
In 2002, when the ceasefire
was signed, the major powers, as well as significant sections of the
corporate elite in Colombo, backed the peace process as a means of ending
the 20-year war that had become a barrier to their economic interests
in Sri Lanka and throughout the Indian subcontinent. Four years later,
the silence of the “international community”—the Bush
administration in particular—is a clear demonstration that the
major powers are tacitly supporting the Rajapakse government’s
military offensive.
Within Colombo, the entire
political and media establishment has fallen in behind the war drive.
Not only the open advocates of war such as the JVP but also what passes
for the “liberal” opposition in Sri Lankan ruling circles
has joined the chorus of militarism and communalism. The editorial in
yesterday’s Daily Mirror is a striking example of the latter.
The newspaper, which over the past four years has championed the “peace
process,” began by commending the military for its recent operations.
While plaintively calling
for peace talks, the editorial urged the government to learn the lessons
of Lebanon, declaring: “The human tragedy that Israel’s
incursion into Lebanon to eliminate Hezbollah terrorism is today causing
grave concern globally. The military might of Israel has so far failed
to achieve the objective. The network of terrorism is so widely spread
in this country today that when their acts are dealt with at one place
their misdeeds are perpetrated at another.
“Therefore, if the
government chooses to pursue an aggressive policy it has to be properly
equipped do so and the support of the widest possible sections of people
has to be obtained. It is indeed the duty of all concerned to lend their
support to such a course of action if there are no other avenues of
achieving the objective.” Far from opposing the war, as it might
previously have done, the Daily Mirror is openly supporting a return
to military conflict.
The ruling elites are closing
ranks behind a renewed drive to war in the midst of a deepening social
and economic crisis. As on every other occasion since independence in
1948, the ruling class is responding to growing opposition over deteriorating
living standards by whipping up communal sentiment in order to divide
the working class. Inevitably it will be working people who will be
compelled to sacrifice for a fratricidal war that has already cost the
lives of 65,000 people.