After months of fighting it appears that both the government and the LTTE are agreed to talks. The two sides are exploring dates that could be anytime between the last week of October and the earlier part of November. The venue is yet to be fixed, though the Tigers have indicated their agreement to meet in Oslo.

Even though both sides have consented to recommence talks, one can never be certain whether they will be held until they do materialise. And even then, the event could turn out to be a non-starter like the round in Oslo earlier this year. Under these circumstances all we can do is to discuss the reasons as to why both sides would want talks to begin and what factors would hinder them.

The reason behind the government agreeing to talk is not only the pressure placed on it by the international community. Nor is it because of compulsions springing from the LTTE - the rebel group - agreeing to sit at the table. The unpleasant truth is that the country is cash-strapped and hopes that the resumption of negotiations will give enough to confidence to the donors to be generous. Their generosity becomes doubly important because, not only has President Mashinda Rajapakse got to replenish the war chest but present a sunshine budget in November, in the event he is compelled to go for general elections soon.

The other issue that has been neatly concealed is that taking Sampur, gaining territory at Muhamalai and beating back LTTE attacks in the islets off Jaffna's north-western coast has come at a cost. The army is stretched to the limit at present in the operational areas. Those there now have been stuck for many months because troop turnarounds are impossible in the current climate. The Tigers knows this and also aware that in the event full-scale hostilities break out and they mount attacks at different points simultaneously, the army (and navy) will hard pressed to retaliate effectively. It is important therefore for both the political leadership and the military top brass to see that hostilities are confined to smaller operations and talks could help avert hostilities on a bigger scale.

For the LTTE however, the compulsions are different. After its tactical withdrawal from Sampur, the rebels realised that they had to resort to negotiations in the next phase. And the best way to do that was resuming negotiations and using it to berate the government on its human rights record and the atrocities it had committed in the past few months.

The Tigers are aware the international climate is ideal for this. Nearly every important human rights organisation, government, and even the United Nations have condemned Colombo for indiscriminate bombing and shelling of civilians in the Northeast, starving the people of Jaffna, condoning the acts of murder, arbitrary arrest, abduction and disappearances that reveal the hands of paramilitary personnel, the security forces and police.

The other issue the Tigers will bring up is related to the closure of the A9 by the government. This is not only a violation of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA). It is the first step in government's long-term military strategy to contain the LTTE. What is more, it is linked to the capture Sampur.

Though it is popularly believed that Sampur was captured by the army due to the fallout of the Mavilaru engagement, that is not so. Nor was it, as some believe, the outcome of a 'mistake' made by the LTTE shelling Trincomalee from its artillery positions in Sampur and thereby revealing their destructive power prematurely.

The government was aware that the army in Jaffna is without a supply route by land and has to depend on the sea. However, the Sea Tigers, with their current strength and aptitude, are in a position to pose a stiff challenge to any government shipping trying to pass through the territorial waters of northeastern Sri Lanka. This means that ships would have to be heavily escorted and every journey would be costly and fraught with tremendous risk.

Therefore, the government conceived a diabolical plan. It would keep up a continuous artillery barrage at Muhamalai and bomb places in northern Wanni close to Elephant Pass, which are in LTTE hands. The idea was represent Muhamalai and adjacent areas as points where military operations are taking place. That is exactly why Kfir jets bombed so-called LTTE artillery positions in Pooneryn when Norwegian special envoy, Jon Hanssen-Bauer was in Kilinochchi holding discussions with the LTTE.

On the pretext that Muhamalai is an operational area the government closed the A9. It knew that the closure meant intense deprivation of the people of Jaffna including starvation. Using that as a pretext, the government wanted to negotiate through the Norwegian facilitators to use the sea as a supply route. Once it was negotiated as a supply route for civilians, all shipping would be protected and the government could with impunity transport munitions to the army in Jaffna on the pretext supplies were being sent to civilians. If the LTTE attacked it, it would be construed as a violation of humanitarian law. The agreement would once and for all neutralise the Sea Tigers

Therefore, according to the government's master plan, the first step was neutralising the LTTE's artillery positions at Sampur and reducing the threat on Trincomalee, the second was to close Muhamalai for a fictitious reason and force humanitarian agencies to accept the sea as a civilian supply line for Jaffna.

The Tigers cottoned on to this move early. That is why they have insisted the A9 be opened and tried to persuade the international community to bring pressure on the government to do so. The rebels have also refused to give security guarantees to any shipping that plies in northeastern waters. The ICRC, which was requested by the government to carry supplies to Jaffna under its flag refused to do so because it was not given a security guarantee by the LTTE. And the Tigers would not give such guarantees precisely because the government had hatched this novel idea to feed and arm its forces in the north.

The significant point to be understood is that the reason people are starving in Jaffna is due to a diabolical plan by the government to deliberately keep A9 closed and use the sea as a route to covertly supply troops. In other words the government is committing an act that verges on genocide so that its troops could be supplied in the event hostilities on a big scale begin in the future.

The Tigers are hoping to use negotiations to see that the A9 is reopened. They are not unduly perturbed by the loss Sampur because they believe that if full-scale hostilities commence and they undertake multiple attacks simultaneously, the army would not have personnel or the capability to hold on to Sampur. Further, though Trincomalee harbour is no longer within the range of the LTTE's artillery, it can still attack government shipping from Chalai or any point in the Mullaitivu Sea. But for all this it has to ensure that the sea is legitimised as a civilian supply line.

India has rapped the government on the knuckles for human rights abuses and the humanitarian crisis in the Northeast. But it took a darn long time to do so. Indian PM Manmohan Singh had the opportunity of doing this at a direct meeting with Rajapakse in the middle of September, while the starvation in Jaffna was almost a month old and human rights violations had been going on from December last year.

The problem for New Delhi stems from being the guarantor and signatory of the Indo-Lanka Accord, which facilitated the merger of the North and East. It realises today that Jaffna is good as lost if the army is forced to withdraw. And the only way the army can remain in Jaffna is if it is supplied is by sea. This is why India supports the Sri Lankan Navy in the detection of shipping supposedly supplying the Tigers, and the physical protection it has accorded government vessels fleeing the Sea Tigers into international waters.

What is also interesting is that India continues to cultivate the anti-LTTE Tamil groups assiduously. This writer has said on numerous occasions in the past of how the EPDP, the Karuna group, EPRLF (V), PLOTE and the TULF's lone crusader - V. Anandasangari have been championed by India in an attempt to prop them up as the 'democratic' alternative to the LTTE in the Northeast. It is only coincidental that most of them play the role of paramilitary cadres to government forces and some of them have supported openly, (while others have remained silent) the moves extreme Sinhala nationalist parties to de-merge the Northeast.

Though posturing might be at the back of it, the Indian PM refusing an audience with the visiting TNA parliamentarians, but New Delhi's invitation to Anandasangari and the leaders of PLOTE and EPRLF (V) is a telling symbol: while rejecting MPs who were elected by the people of the Northeast because they openly support the LTTE, India embraces three individuals whose parties were trounced at the general elections of 2004 that was generally pronounced as fare and free.

The human rights crisis in Jaffna, especially the killings, is the result of the government's deliberate move to suppress a 'third voice' that of civil society, and civilian individuals from emerging. This is no accident; it is a well-known counterinsurgency tactic to suppress such voices by making civilians too scared to speak out. A similar terror was practiced in the South in the years 1987-1990 to suppress the JVP.

What is interesting to note is that while India and sections of the international community are supporting non-LTTE groups as the 'democratic alternative' to the LTTE, they have not taken steps to relieve the gag imposed on society by terror tactics of the military. The only way the democracy becomes credible is to take seriously the voice of the civilian population and the representatives they have elected to parliament. It appears that India and other sections of the international community do not think so. It is a costly mistake that only dims the prospect of any settlement.

Published: Oct 05, 2006 18:51:30 GMT

Source: Northeastern Monthly by: J. S. Tissainayagam
Date: 05 October 2006