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| Sunday, 1 August 2004 |
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LTTE stresses need to strengthen military machine Eastern Corridor by Rashomi Silva Amidst a wave of violence the LTTE last week reiterated the necessity of strengthening their military machine to gain a better footing at future talks. "We must achieve our political goals while maintaining our military strength as the success of talks critically depends on it," the LTTE Deputy Political Leader K. Semmannan was quoted as saying in the Tamilnet website. However when recent developments are taken into consideration, the inevitable question that arises is, if the LTTE (as they have openly admitted) is strengthening their militia only to gain their fair share at the talks why intimidate and assault opponents? Why this callous attitude towards human lives and why send suicide cadres to take the lives of rivals? This intensifying of the military machine however was apparently not well argued in the East when a senior military official described the "somewhat peaceful situation prevailing in the East now" as a "calm before the storm". The ongoing ceasefire gave an opportunity for the civilians to see how the Army would interact with them in a time of peace, and it helped to remove the idea that the Army was there only to bomb and fire. The security forces helped them in their day-to-day activities and managed to build up a good relationship with the civilians, he explained. "When clashes broke out within the LTTE, the civilians directly approached the Security Forces and talked to us about their concerns, and grievances but now we can again detect a change of behaviour of the people," he said. According to Army sources over 100 intelligence cadres arrived from Vanni in the East and were said to be moving freely in government-controlled Valachchenai and Batticaloa. "The cadres are unarmed. Therefore, we cannot take them to task," an official said insisting they were taking maximum precautions to prevent the eruption of troubles once again. "The LTTE might be able to sneak in a few cadres via jungle routes, but if they were to have a mega scale battle, they would want to move in heavy weapons and other arms, which needed to be transported through the Security Force-held Batticaloa-Ampara-Colombo highway. The task would be quite difficult", a senior military official explained. Be that as it may, life in the East continues to be tense and anxious. Karuna loyalists are anticipating the return of their leader to take the reins of the East while the LTTE maintains that Karuna supporters are traitors to the Tamil nation. The most important recent incident was a killing of a youth named Sivanayagam Pushpakumar. Pushpakumar's body with gun shot injuries was found in a small village named Kudapokunagama, in Welikanda, Polonnaruwa. A letter taken from the youth's body said that he was killed for treachery, Police source said. Appeal to deserters The LTTE in the wake of its failed attempts to win back the deserted cadres, last week re-launched a campaign to collect information about deserters. A similar attempt to gather information on the defectors ended up in failure due to lack of civilian support, sources from the East said. The LTTE's Batticaloa-Ampara leader Kaushalyan last week appealed to the families of the ex-LTTE members to urge their relatives to re-join the organisation. "They can be with the organisation if they wish to do so or else we will direct them to rehabilitation establishments", sources quoted Kaushalyan as saying. Intimidating journalists The alarming trend of intimidating Eastern-based journalists which reached its climax with the killing of journalist Nadesan continued last week when another journalist, S. L. Amaradasan was gunned and injured by suspected LTTE members in Arapattai in the cleared East. A supporter of the EPDP, the journalist was said to be contributing to a Colombo-based newspaper on a freelance basis. |
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