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War and Peace

The Defence Diary

by Ranga Jayasuriya

Throughout his meeting with new Norwegian peace envoy Jon Hanssen Bauer last week, the LTTE political commissar S.P.Thamilselvan complained, as he did many a time since Karuna's split. He charged the government had not disarmed the "paramilitary groups".

Hanssen Bauer who arrived here for a shuttle diplomacy between Colombo and Kilinochchi had to listen for a full two hours to Thamilselvan who lamented that the government had not fulfilled its obligations to disarm "para-military groups".

The LTTE political commissar also wanted a security guarantee from the government for the Tiger peace delegation, failing which, a sea plane ride from kilinochchi to the Maldives would be the only option, he said.

Hanssen Bauer, yet to experience the complexities of the Sri Lankan peace process, sounded hallow upon his return to Colombo. But, on Thursday, he along with Norwegian International Development Minister, Erik Solheim met President Mahinda Rajapakse and secured an assurance for a safe passage for the LTTE delegation.

The LTTE had a tradition of linking its participation in the peace process with other concessions it wanted to extract from the government.

The LTTE political commissar has now written to the SLMM, demanding a safe sea passage for the LTTE area commanders from the East to Kilinochchi to attend a meeting with the LTTE Wanni hierarchy.

Thamilselvan, writing after the Ministry of Defence turned down an earlier request for theatre to theatre air transfer of LTTE area commanders, has warned failure to give a safe passage, would force the Tigers to seek its own mode of sea transport, "aware that it could lead to a confrontation with the security forces". The Defence Ministry is yet to respond to the LTTE request which was conveyed to the peace secretariat on Friday through the SLMM.

More about the sea, the Navy has noted an increasing movement of LTTE boats off the Mullaitivu coast. The Navy has also rejected claims by the Trincomalee LTTE political chief Elilan that the Sea Tigers should be allowed to operate in the shallow sea off the Muttur coast. Ruling out the LTTE claim, the Navy referred to article 1.3 of the ceasefire agreement which says the security forces should continue to carry out duties to safeguard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country.

Meanwhile the Defence Secretary under instructions the President has revoked all recent transfers of senior army officers. Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse on Friday wrote to the Army Commander, Gen Sarath Fonseka, cancelling all recent transfers mandated by the Army Commander.

The President's instructions came in the wake of reports of early retirement of several senior military officials unhappy over the recent changes. Commando Officer Major General P.Chandrawansa who was the former Area Commander (Colombo) tendered his retirement papers after he was transferred to a logistical post in the Northern Command. Brigadier Rizvy Zacky, former Director Military Intelligence and Brigadier Rohan Jayasinghe, former Director Armed Corp have also tendered retirement papers.

Moving to the peace front, within hours after the Norwegian peace envoys enplaned to New Delhi, where they would brief the Indian government, three more killings were reported from the volatile East.

An LTTE supporter and the organiser of Pongu Tamil events Vanniasingham Vigneswaran was shot dead in Trincomalee and two homeguards V.Tahibu and B.A.Bawa, both attached to Karapola police station were gunned down in Kudapokuna, 12 miles from Welikanda.

Vigneswaran was expected to be nominated to the TNA national list slot vacated by the demise of MP Josep Pararajasingham.

The spiral of violence could only give excuses to the LTTE to boycott the next round of the ceasefire talks in Geneva. The Tigers have, indeed, been campaigning high demanding the disarmament of "para military" groups.

Soon after the reports of the killing of Vigneswaran, IGP Chandra Fernando flew to Trincomalee to over see the investigations and the government condemned the killing.

Last week, the out-going SLMM chief in an interview with the Sunday Observer said he had seen armed groups in the government controlled areas in the East and that " they told us we are Karuna's". The new head of the SLMM, Ulf Henricsson raised the issue last week when he met the Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse and new Peace Secretariat chief Dr.Palitha Kohona.

The insistence of the SLMM that the armed groups operate in the government controlled areas makes the government's denials in the issue less convincing in the international forum.

This requires the government to come out with a rationale explanation to deny the existence of such groups in the government controlled areas. The Security Forces had reiterated that the Karuna faction operates from the jungles in the uncleared areas and that they have nothing to do with the renegade Eastern rebels.

Strange enough, the SLMM which is generally slow in ruling on the ceasefire violations and has indeed manifested an obvious inability in concrete rulings on the ceasefire violations, this time has however acted in no uncertain terms to say of the existence of the "armed elements" in the government controlled areas. The ceasefire could have been in a better form had the SLMM shown that sort of strong will in ruling on the other violations of the ceasefire.

It was only a couple of week ago that the SLMM refrained from holding the Tigers responsible for the sinking of the Navy gunboat off the coast of Kalpitty despite all evidence that the attack bore all hallmarks of the Sea Tigers.

The SLMM has however refrain from linking these armed elements with the Security Forces. The security forces rule out any complicity with the Karuna faction and also they view any confrontation with them as equally counter productive. In a military perspective, they are equally aware of the importance of the Karuna faction in the event of the collapse of the ceasefire agreement.

The argument of the security forces about the LTTE's demand for the disarmament of the Karuna faction is that having failed to crush the Karuna loyalist in its surprise Good Friday offensive, the LTTE now wanted the security forces to neutralise them on behalf of the LTTE.

Arguments and counter arguments. This issue dominated the preparatory discussions for the next round of ceasefire talks.

Indeed, the peace process had a facelift with new faces last week- the week saw the advent of new Norwegian peace envoy Jon Hanssen Bauer, the new peace secretariat chief Dr. Palitha Kohona and the SLMM chief Ulf Henricsson.

This is, however not to suggest that the old one's were bad, albeit some sections in the South didn't like the former head of the scandinavian truce monitors.

The government has indicated that it needed to move into political discussions on democracy, pluralism and devolution of power.

But, given the signals from Kilinochchi, the LTTE is not prepared to move ahead, unless the issue of "para-military" groups is addressed.

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