The Tiger Calls The Shots

In the context of the heady display of power and self-confidence by VinayanamoorthiMuralitharan alias 'Colonel Karuna', the rebellious military wing leader of the Liberation Tigers of TamilEelam (LTTE) in the Eastern Province districts of Batticaloa and Ampara, throughout the month of March, whatappears amazing is not so much his failure to sustain his challenge to Prabhakaran's hegemony over the LTTE,but the speed at which he succumbed to the military onslaught launched by the Vanni high-command.

By the first week of April 2004 there were signs of an impending offensive against Karuna from the Vanni inthe form of an LTTE troops build-up along the northern border of Batticaloa District, and intensified 'SeaTiger' operations off the east coast. In addition, there were reports of infiltration of Batticaloa by LTTEkiller squads, and the assassination of several prominent civilian supporters of Karuna's revolt.

The offensive, when it commenced in the early hours of 9 April, came over both land andsea, and included an infiltration of small groups of LTTE cadres - the so-called 'pistol gangs' - into theGovernment-controlled areas of Batticaloa-Ampara for the purpose of curbing any civilian support for the rebelgroup. In the face of this multi-faceted offensive, by 15 April, the meagre resistance from the rebel groupappeared to have been crushed and Prabhakaran's authority had been fully re-established over the LTTE-controlledareas of the east.

Snippets of information from this area indicate that well over 50% of rebel fighters(which, according to Karuna himself, initially numbered well over 5,000) had realigned themselves withPrabhakaran and that, of the others, the large majority had, following their erstwhile leader's instructions,abandoned their arms and returned to their homes or gone into hiding. Several hundreds who had served at thehigher echelons of Karuna's forces are reported to have fled to Government-controlled areas, many of themending up in Colombo.

Prior to his departure Karuna is also said to have destroyed large stockpiles of arms andammunition and several military installations that were under his command. He was reported to have fled abroad- to India, according to some, and to Malaysia, according to others. Later reports claimed that he had enteredColombo and is in hiding in a predominantly Tamil residential locality in the southern part of the city.

The possible consequences of the Karuna revolt can be examined under three distinct but interrelated aspects -its impact on (i) the electoral politics of Sri Lanka in the context of the parliamentary elections and therelated responses and reactions of the main political forces of the country, (ii) the durability of theon-going ceasefire and the prospects for a resumption of peace negotiations between the Government of SriLanka and the LTTE, and (c) the strength of the LTTE.

For the Colombo Government, information on the outbreak of the revolt posed the dilemma that anything it didor failed to do could go wrong with regard both to preserving the ceasefire agreement with the LTTE, as wellas the electoral prospects of the two segments of the Government in fierce competition with each other intheir respective campaigns leading to the parliamentary elections of April 2, 2004.

For instance, while recognition of Karuna as de facto rebel leader ofBatticaloa-Ampara or even granting one of his lesser requests would constitute a breach of terms of theceasefire and was likely to evoke Prabhakaran's wrath, non-recognition of Karuna or a refusal of a requestfrom him could well result in violent retaliation by his loyalists in the Eastern Province and/or the chargefrom the Sinhalese ethno-nationalists of the craven subservience of the government in its dealings withPrabhakaran. Similarly, any step taken either by President Kumaratunga (leader of the United People's FreedomAlliance, UPFA), or by her political rival, then Prime Minister Wickremasinghe (leader of the United NationalFront, UNF) in relation to the changed scenario in the 'north-east' of the country could have had a decisiveimpact upon the extent of support they could mobilise from the Tamil community at the polls and, thus, thefinal outcome of the elections.

Over the past few months, probably in anticipation of a national poll, the LTTE high-command had engineeredthe formation of an 'Alliance' consisting of almost all Tamil political parties in mainstream politics underthe banner of Illankai Thamil Arasi Kachchi (ITAK, also known as the Tamil National Alliance, TNA). Atthe nomination of contestants, it was the LTTE head-office that selected the ITAK candidates for the electoraldistricts of the Northern and Eastern provinces.

The objective of these manoeuvres was that, if the LTTE could ensure the victory of itshandpicked candidates, it would have at least about 20 members in the new Parliament to serve as its puppets.In view of the fact that, under the prevailing system of 'proportional representation', neither the UPFA northe UNF could obtain anything more than a slender majority in the 225-member Parliament, the LTTE leadership,with about 22 members at its beck and call, could then have a significant say over the affairs of thecountry's legislature.

Though this strategy of the LTTE received a setback when Karuna ordered the ITAKcontestants in the Eastern Province to sever their links with the Vanni leadership, the volatile conditionscreated by the revolt had the effect of placing the entire electoral process of the northern province almostentirely under the control of the LTTE high-command, making it possible for it to rig the poll with recourseto violence, and for the ITAK to make a clean sweep in the north. Karuna's impact on the elections in theEastern Province, as it turned out, was ephemeral and, in any event, ITAK contestants elected from the eastalso came under the control of Prabhakaran after Karuna's collapse.

Soon after the polls, Prabhakaran summoned to his headquarters all ITAK members elected to the new Parliamentto dictate to them the courses of action they should follow, and, more specifically, order them to take upwith the new Government, as a matter of priority, the implementation of the LTTE blueprint for an interimadministration for the 'north-east' This, referred 'proposals for Interim Self-Governing Authority for theNorth-East' (ISGA), if implemented, would grant autocratic power to the LTTE leadership over the two provincesand, as many critics have pointed out, pave the way for total secession. Thus, the overall impact of theKaruna revolt on parliamentary politics of Sri Lanka is that it has contributed to an enhancement of thedirect influence of the LTTE on the affairs of the national legislature, virtually eliminating 'moderate'Tamil viewpoints from the political mainstreams, and making the 'politics of consensus' more elusive than everbefore.

The parliamentary configurations that have emerged from the elections of 2 April - the formation of a UPFAGovernment, which, however, does not command an absolute majority in the Legislature - have a vital bearing onthe prospects for peace and stability in Sri Lanka. A resumption of Government-LTTE negotiations would nowneed to overcome three formidable obstacles: the UPFA's rejection of the ISGA soon after its formal submissionby the LTTE in September 2003; the refusal of the UPFA to accept the LTTE as the sole representative of theTamils of Sri Lanka; and its electoral pledge to oppose the notion of a traditional Tamil homeland consistingof the entire Northern and Eastern provinces.

Those of the former UNF Government who figured at the forefront of negotiations with the LTTE (the then PrimeMinister Wickremasinghe and his close associates, ex-ministers G.L. Peiris and Milinda Moragoda) repeatedlyexpressed their belief that, at the negotiation session held at Oslo in December 2002, the LTTE delegates, ledby Anton Balasingham, accepted the idea that a federal system ensuring internal self-government to the'north-east' of Sri Lanka will satisfy the LTTE demands and will induce the LTTE to abandon its secessioniststruggle, and thus pave the way for permanent peace. Indeed, their entire negotiation strategy rested on thenotion that Prabhakaran himself had endorsed the acceptance of the 'federal option'.

In this context, Karuna's disclosures regarding the views of the LTTE leader on whattranspired at Oslo assumes crucial significance and, in fact, corresponds closely to a clarificationsfurnished by Anton Balasingham, the principal spokesmen for the LTTE outside Sri Lanka, on his leader'sstance, according to which the form of self-determination being pursued includes the right to secede and forman independent state (extracted from a widely reported statement by Balasingham at a press interview in Osloon December 5, 2003). The fact that Karuna's disclosures have not been refuted by the LTTE leadership has thusafforded an opportunity for future Government negotiators to abandon the prevailing illusion on the LTTEstandpoint, and to redefine their own negotiation stances in the light of the continuing adherence of the LTTEleader to the goal of secession.

Karuna's revolt could be seen as having had a mixed impact on the LTTE. It has exposed certain fallacies inthe basic beliefs which Tiger propagandists have been publicising the world over throughout the past fewdecades: first, that there is a single, indivisible homeland exclusive to Sri Lanka Tamils extending over theentire area covered by the Northern and Eastern provinces; and second, that the LTTE has a right to act as thesole political spokesman and representative of the Tamils of Sri Lanka. The revolt, while highlighting theweaknesses of the 'homeland' claim (which has, in fact, been thoroughly exposed in existing works ofresearch), has also demonstrated the superficiality of the assertion that the LTTE leadership in Vanni has apower monopoly over the entire Tamil community of Sri Lanka.

Yet another negative impact of the revolt on the LTTE is the loss of trained fighters, weaponry and militaryinstallations that accompanied Karuna's departure from his command area. According to journalist Iqbal Athas,the large caches of arms and ammunition destroyed on Karuna's orders during his retreat included mortarlaunchers and heavy artillery procured by the LTTE after the declaration of the December 2001 ceasefire.Likewise, according to press estimates, the number of deserters from the LTTE ranks following the collapse ofthe revolt could be as high as 2,000. Athas also notes that there is, in addition, the resonance of the revolton the Tamil diaspora, observed among the Tamil communities especially in France, Switzerland and Canada,which could result in an erosion of external support for the LTTE.

Substantial gains have, however, also accrued to the LTTE as a result of the collapse of the revolt. Therehas, for instance, been a definite enhancement of Prabhakaran's image as an invincible leader. Manyjournalists, including those opposed to the Tigers, have been ecstatic in their outpourings on the allegedbrilliance of Prabhakaran as military strategist in conducting his offensive against Karuna, ignoring thepathetic mismatch of overall strength represented by the revolt.

At a more tangible plane, the revolt has enabled Prabharakan to strengthen his grip on theTamil segment of Sri Lanka's population, and to control its politics more firmly than ever before byconverting its political leaders, barring a very few exceptions, into a group of lackeys that has no voice orwill of its own.

Even more importantly, the revolt has increased Prabhakaran'a capacity for brinkmanship inhis dealings with the Government of Sri Lanka. He is now aware that he could, with impunity, continue tocommit serious violations of the terms of the ceasefire, with hardly any response from Colombo except tokencomplaints lodged with the Norwegian-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission charged with implementing the ceasefire.

It has become increasingly evident that the Sri Lanka Government has abandoned its duty ofprotecting all citizens of the country, not only by denying the security sought by the rebels from the east insupposedly Government-controlled areas, but also by ignoring the LTTE killer squads that roam the streets ofColombo in search of Karuna loyalists hiding in the city. Emboldened by the Government's inability orunwillingness to exercise its authority even in Colombo, the LTTE has, over the past few days, been attemptingto extend its control over several strategically important localities in the Jaffna peninsula and in theEastern Province.

This could be the prelude to an LTTE attempt to re-take Jaffna. Prabhakaran has alsoannounced to the new Government that the establishment of an interim administration over the 'north-east',presumably one modelled on his ISGA proposals, would be an essential precondition for the resumption of peacenegotiations.

G. H. Peiris is Professor Emeritus, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Courtesy, theSouth Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal.