Despite
President’s Denials,
Sri Lankan Military Continues Offensive War
By Sarath Kumara
23 August 2006
World
Socialist Web
In a meeting on Monday with diplomats
from the US, the European Union, Norway and Japan, Sri Lankan President
Mahinda Rajapakse denied that his government was waging war against
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Repeating earlier comments
to the media, he claimed that the Sri Lankan military was only responding
to LTTE attacks and had not launched any offensive operations.
The diplomats represent the
co-chairs of the so-called Sri Lankan peace process, which has all but
collapsed, along with the 2002 ceasefire agreement, amid open fighting
over the last month. In a statement issued after the meeting, the president
rather absurdly declared that the government remained committed to the
truce and was awaiting the LTTE’s response for the resumption
of peace talks.
Rajapakse’s comments
are based on a series of lies. The president initiated the current fighting
when he ordered an offensive by 2,000 troops on July 26 to capture the
Mavilaru sluice gate inside LTTE territory. The government claimed that
the operation was a limited humanitarian operation, but the head of
the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Ulf Hendrickson, declared
that it was an obvious breach of the 2002 ceasefire.
The military used the Mavilaru
offensive as the pretext for bombing other key LTTE targets, provoking
retaliatory attacks that have continued to escalate. From August 11,
the LTTE launched attacks on army positions on the northern Jaffna peninsula.
Heavy fighting was reported last Friday at Muhamalai and Nagarkovil
along with LTTE artillery attacks on the key Palaly air base and military
complex. The northern portion of the peninsula held by government forces
is largely cut off by land and air.
The latest casualty lists
released yesterday by the military indicate the extent of the fighting.
According to the press statement, armed forces casualties from August
1 to 21 have been 159 dead and 452 injured. The military claims to have
killed around 600 LTTE fighters and wounded many more, but the figures
are likely to be inflated. Defence spokesmen continue to insist, for
instance, that scores of schoolgirls killed in a bombing attack last
week were “child soldiers”.
Significantly, none of the
powers represented at Monday’s meeting criticised Rajapakse. For
three weeks, as the military launched its offensive at Mavilaru, the
co-chairs maintained a complete silence, effectively giving the Sri
Lankan government a green light to proceed. The co-chairs issued a call
last week for an end to the conflict and a resumption of peace talks,
but, like meeting with the president, it appears to have been little
more than a formality.
In a statement issued after
the meeting, Rajapakse declared that his government would consider an
end to the fighting if LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran made an explicit commitment
to a “comprehensive and verifiable cessation of hostilities”.
The president immediately added the condition that “such a cessation
of hostilities should include explicit modalities of ensuring that the
Sampur area does not pose a military threat to the Trincomalee harbour
and its environs”.
The caveat amounts to a demand
that the 2002 ceasefire, which he claims to uphold, be rewritten to
strengthen the position of the Sri Lankan military. Since being narrowly
elected as president last November, Rajapakse, with the backing of his
Sinhala chauvinist allies, has provocatively been pressing for a renegotiation
of the truce. In the current fighting, the LTTE has used its Sampur
bases to threaten the port of Trincomalee—a key strategic facility
and lifeline to government troops in Jaffna.
Army commander Lieutenant
General Sarath Fonseka expressed the government’s real attitude
in comments to the right-wing Island newspaper. Fonseka, who was nearly
killed in an LTTE suicide bombing in April, declared: “It’s
only a matter of time before the LTTE is defeated.” Declaring
that “the army has nothing against Tamils,” he justified
the killing of schoolgirls at Puthukudiyirippu last week by saying they
were “child soldiers”. SLMM and UNICEF officials who visited
the site have refuted the claim.
Amid the open clashes with
the LTTE, the military and its paramilitary allies are continuing a
covert war of intimidation and terror against anyone deemed to be an
LTTE supporter. Since last November, Rajapakse has presided over a series
of provocative murders and escalating violence aimed at weakening the
LTTE and undermining the 2002 ceasefire.
On August 18, a group of
armed thugs attacked a warehouse connected to the pro-LTTE newspaper
Uthayan near Jaffna town. They tied up, blindfolded and threatened to
kill the guard, before setting fire to the building. The government-controlled
areas of the Jaffna peninsula have been under stringent security and
extensive curfews for nearly two weeks, pointing to the involvement
of the military in the attack. Four Uthayan employees have been murdered
this year.
On the morning of August
19, hundreds of soldiers stormed onto the Jaffna university campus and
arrested International Tamil Student Federation leader T. Paherathan.
They also broke into the student federation office and seized computers
and documents belonging to the union. The operation, the first of its
kind, continued until the early evening as troops broke down doors and
searched premises.
On the night of August 20,
unidentified gunmen shot and killed Sinnathamby Sivamaharajah, 68, a
former Tamil MP and managing director of the pro-LTTE Namathu Eelanadu.
Sivamaharajah has organised campaigns against the military’s continued
occupation of extensive high security zones that resulted in the expulsion
of thousands of residents from their homes and businesses. He was murdered
outside his home on the Jaffna peninsula near one of the zones.