The four year old ceasefire in Sri Lanka is tottering at thebrink of collapse as the special Norwegian Peace Envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer triesto convince both parties to pull back from mutual hard-line stances and returnto negotiations.
The week of July 31- August 6, 2006, saw the worst few days of violence with governmentforces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) engaged in full-blownconfrontations south of the eastern Trincomalee harbour. The trouble commencedon July 20 when civilians living in the government controlled Kallar areacomplained that water had been cut off from an irrigation canal that flowsthrough territory controlled by the Tigers.
The government accused the Tigers of deliberately closing down the sluice gatesat Mawilaru, denying water to 15,000 families and 30,000 acres of paddy land.The two sides exchanged at least two letters on sorting out the water mess, buteight days after the closure, government troops moved into the area to wrestcontrol of the sluice. Before the operation was launched, hardliners in Colombo,including Buddhist monks, tried to march to the sluice gates. They wereprevented by troops commanded by Maj. Gen. Nanda Mallwarachchi, who assured themthat water would be provided soon, and then came the military operation.
The operation to reach the sluice, however, has proved much more arduous thanfirst anticipated. Though the distance to the gates from the last governmentcontrolled point is about 5 kilometres, a week after the operation commenced thecanal still remained dry and bloody fighting continues.
Military sources said that the Tigers had put up stiff resistance and the openterrain itself made progress difficult. The advancing troops were provided withair cover and artillery fire as well and the latest reports said that two tankshad been moved into the theatre. In fact the Sri Lankan Air Force bombed targetsin Tiger areas in the northern and eastern parts of the island, including apolitical office and a suspected airstrip in an apparent attempt to put pressureon the Tigers.
The latter, on their part, opened up several other fronts. On August 1, 2006, 18soldiers were killed when the bus they were traveling in was caught in aClaymore mine attack on the access road to the Kallar canal. They were on theirway to bolster troop strength.
The same afternoon, a troop transporter with 800 soldiers on board was attackedby a flotilla of Tiger suicide boats numbering into the 20s as it wasapproaching the Trincomalee harbour. The troop carrier Jet Liner however escapedthe attack and reached the harbour safely. Naval crafts providing security forthe carrier sunk three Tiger boats and damaged another two. Thereafter, theTigers shelled the naval base close by from their positions south of theTrincomalee bay. Several 122 mm artillery shells fell on the camp and four navalratings were killed when the bus they were in caught fire. The exchange of firelasted for more than three hours.
In the early morning of August 2, 2006, the Army reported that its camps inKattaparichchan, Selvanagar and Mahindapura had come under attack. The camps lieat the border of Army controlled areas south of the Trincomalee harbour. TheTigers claimed that they were in control of the camps. Later on it transpiredthat the camps were intact, but that the Tigers had infiltrated the area andwere carrying out attacks.
Several hours after the assault on the camps, the coastal town of Muttur cameunder Tiger attack. Once again, both sides claimed that they were in command.The Tigers had been able to infiltrate into the town and occupied some governmentbuildings for some time. The government launched a full blooded assault toreclaim total control and artillery and multi-barrel launchers opened up fromthe northern side of the harbour. A main Tiger base in Sampur at the southernpart of the bay and other areas further east were targeted by a barrage ofshelling that continued for three days..
While the two sides fought for the control of the town, civilians fled inhordes. At least 10,000 have been made refugees by the fighting and aid agencieslike the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that hundreds hadbeen stranded on the roads leading from Muttur and were running low on food andwater. At least several hundred were trapped in the town itself. Fifteen diedwhen a shell landed in a school that they had sought shelter in and another 20were killed due to shell fire while fleeing the town according to ICRC. Theentire 24 kilometre stretch of road from Mahindapura to Muttur has suffereddamage due to shelling..
By August 4, when the fighting was at its worst, all aid agencies, including theICRC, pulled out due to security concerns. Even the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission(SLMM) was unable to get in. Its head, Ulf Henricsson, had to turn back the nextday as well, when he was warned that the road was full of explosives and therewas still the threat of shells. By this time the Army was claiming that it wasin control of the town and had killed more than 200 LTTE cadres. The Tigers alsoclaimed that they had killed more than 100 government troops. Independentverification of the figures was impossible due to lack of access.
The Tiger leadership in Trincomalee announced that it had withdrawn from Mutturvoluntarily by August 4 midnight after ‘achieving their objective’ ofdestroying selected military targets in the town. The LTTE political head, S.Ellilan, asserted that they had also taken into consideration the humanitarianplight of the people as well.
While the fighting was raging on, Henricsson had stated that the ceasefire hadin effect been rendered null and void in the areas of immediate conflict. TheLTTE had also given an assurance to the Norwegians that the sluice gates wouldbe opened on August 6, but when the SLMM went to monitor the opening of thegates, the area had come under mortar fire from the Army, and there is acontinuing delay on this.
That, however, is not the sum of the SLMM’s problems. Hanssen-Bauer is inKilinochchi to persuade the LTTE to drop a demand that all European Union (EU)nationals serving as monitors should be pulled out by end August. The LTTE’sdemand came in retaliation to the EU decision to impose a ban on them as aterrorist organisation. Already, the three EU nations in the SLMM, Sweden,Denmark and Finland, have declared that they would be pulling out monitors bymonth’s end, unless the LTTE changes its stance. This would deplete themonitoring staff to 20 from it current 57. Henricsson warned that changes in themonitoring mechanism could not be carried out by the August-end deadline, andunless the Tigers scale down their demand, the SLMM would be made dysfunctional.He also stated that no countries were lining up to take up monitoring duties inSri Lanka.
Hanssen Bauer is expected to spend two days in the LTTE political nerve centreKilinochchi on August 7-8, 2006, in his attempt to convince the Tigers. Sourcesindicate that he would impress on the LTTE that a hard-line stance would riskfurther intentional isolation. In fact, the Japanese have also hinted on a banif the present status quo continues.
However, there is little optimism regarding the success of these moves, andNorwegian Embassy officials at Colombo warned against expecting any miracles asHanssen Bauer prepared to leave for Tiger areas .
The peace process notwithstanding, war has returned to Sri Lanka.
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Amantha Perera Lecturer, Sri Lanka College of Journalism,Colombo. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South AsiaTerrorism Portal.
