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Army Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka questions the LTTE's commitment to the ceasefire agreement. Gen Fonseka says, the Tigers had been preparing for this for the last three years of the ceasefire, planning a military strategy similar to the LTTE's systematic take over of the Jaffna town in the mid eighties.

He says troops have been given instruction to shoot those who shoot at them. The Army Commander spoke to Sunday Observer staffer Ranga Jayasuriya on the current security situation.

Excerpt from the interview:

Q: The North-East is sliding back into violence. What are the Tigers up to?

A: I think that is what the LTTE was planning through out the last three years of the ceasefire - they could not operate in Jaffna before the ceasefire. We knew what they were planning was to penetrate Jaffna and smuggle weapons using the Ceasefire Agreement and to attack the security forces.

What they expected was to create a situation similar to that of in the mid 80's to get hold of the control of certain areas by obstructing the movement of troops in Jaffna and there by confining security forces to certain places. That is how they took control in Jaffna in 1985. But, they were proved unsuccessful this time as we decided to counter the situation.

That is what they did in the disguise of doing politics in Jaffna. Many LTTE cadres sneaked into Jaffna and having done so, once they killed S.P.Wijewardene they said, "we have withdrawn and no more are our people in Jaffna". But every body who came there are still in Jaffna.

The LTTE tries to give the impression that civilians are attacking the army.

If a civilian is trained and armed by the LTTE and sent to attack the Security Forces, he or she is no longer a civilian, but an LTTE cadre. How can he be a civilian?

Q: The nature of these attacks is that there is not an obvious perpetrator. Tigers deny their involvement. Do you have evidence to prove the LTTE involvement ?

A: Why... We already have evidence. One man was caught with a pistol when trying to shoot the soldiers. On two occasions, the attackers shot dead by the troops had LTTE identity cards.

We have no doubts about the LTTE involvement.

We have intelligence reports confirming the LTTE involvement and reports of weapon smuggling by the LTTE. No doubt about the LTTE involvement.

Q: How many civilians have been trained by the LTTE during the truce agreement?

We knew that around 2000 members of Maveerar families had been trained by the LTTE. About 15,000 of these people came to Jaffna after the ceasefire.

They are the people who go for training in Kilinochchi. They were trained and sent back to confront the security forces.

The LTTE wanted the government to disarm rival para- military groups. They wanted all other groups disarmed. Then why isn't the LTTE insisting on disarming these people unless they are with the LTTE.

The LTTE was not happy to see anybody else carrying arms. That is why the CFA says the government must disarm all paramilitary forces. If they (attackers) are not with the LTTE, they would have told the government, "there are civilians carrying weapons. Why don't you disarm them?"

Q: How many LTTE cadres penetrated Jaffna taking advantage of the ceasefire?

A: There is no limit. Any amount could have. Through the Muhamalai entry point, any number of LTTE cadres could have come. They were allowed to come to do politics.

But everybody knew they were engaged in violence. They killed civilian, EPRLF people, school principals. Anybody associating the army or police could have been killed.

Any number of LTTE cadres could have come, not to do politics, but to do these terrorist activities.

Q: Indeed, the LTTE was fighting a shadow war since the truce agreement. They began with Robert, they killed many Tamil politicians and also military intelligence personnel. What kind of counter insurgency tactics did you have to tackle this situation during the last three years?

A: We didn't have any counter tactics for the last three years. Of course, when I was the Jaffna commander I didn't allow the LTTE to do these things.

We were very strict on the LTTE when the LTEE wanted to go for violence, we told them, "do these things and we are going to take action."

At that time, the problem was not there, they killed one or two EPDP people. Other than that they could not do anything. but, after that the problem started.

During 2004 and 2005, they brought all these weapons, ammunition and explosives and did military training and people came in, a lot of activities took place during that period.

Q: The SLMM has said one way to calm down the tension is to have a low level dialogue between the army and the LTTE, which has been stopped for sometime...?

A: When I was Jaffna Commander, I wanted to have a low level dialogue with the LTTE. Then the LTTE from Kilinochchi ordered Ilamparithy (LTTE leader in Jaffna) not to have discussions with low level military officers, such as brigade commanders and COs. Only talks between Ilamparithy and myself was possible.

At that point, the SLMM didn't talk about a low level dialogue. Even before these problems arose, even during 2002 and 2003, no low level dialogue was held due to the LTTE position. Nor did SLMM request a low level dialogue.

However talks took place between military commanders and the LTTE Jaffna leaders and SLMM till the murder of SSP Wijewardene. But talks had no impact on the conduct of the LTTE; they didn't behave themselves. They continued to violate the ceasefire.

While talking with the security forces, the LTTE killed school principals, stormed police stations using students as a shield. At the meetings, they promise to respect the agreement and within hours after the meeting return to their violent tactics.

There was absolutely no use of such talks. Any one saying this - low level dialogue - either does not have knowledge about the LTTE's past conduct in Jaffna or is trying to give a wrong picture about the situation.

Q: The SLMM says that it can only give a ruling, but it can not implement them as they don't have a mandate to do so....?

A: If they can only make ruling and if such rulings are not respected by the perpetrators, then what is the use of them (SLMM) being here. They can only fill files with complaints, could say 3,000 or 4,000 violations have been reported.

Q: Do you think that the LTTE can rehabilitate themselves. Past experience suggest they can't....

A: During the past peace process, what the LTTE did every time was to improve their military capability.

When the army and the government tried to reciprocate, tried to accommodate them and stop military operations, they took advantage and improved their military capability.

When they see they are ready, they start attacking the army. They could pick various excuses... and could say a woman was raped in Punguduthivu, and there fore they attacked the Navy. Who are they to attack the Navy, even if somebody in the Navy had raped a woman, the LTTE has no right to attack the Navy.

The LTTE has agreed to the Ceasefire Agreement. The LTTE should at least have the decency to say," we are going to violate this agreement and start terrorist tactics".

With out doing so, they are attacking the security forces and putting the blame on the civilians.

In other words they are trying to say that Jaffna civilians are also terrorists. They are trying to give the impression that Tamil people have also become terrorists. But, we know that Jaffna people and ordinary Tamils are not interested in taking weapons, taking grenades, firing claymores. They all want peace.

Q: There had been several deadly claymore attacks on the security forces. Why could not the security forces stop this situation still?

A: By stopping our military operations for the past two and half years, we had given them the opportunity to gain a certain strength. They smuggled weapons, did ground work and prepared for this.

The army cannot revert to this situation overnight. Not that we are not responding to the threat. We are carrying out cordon and search operations, on tip offs have carried out raids at terrorist cells.

And you may have read reports, that Army would shoot, if anyone tries to lob a grenade. What happened in the past was that the troops hid, when the LTTE lobbed grenades at them. When a bunker is set on fire, the troops vacated the position. That trend has been put to an end. We will not stop our operations till we wipe out terrorism in Jaffna.

Q: In your inaugural press briefing you said the truce agreement had to be renegotiated. So how is it to be renegotiated, What kind of amendments are necessary?

A: We have sent a lot of proposals now. There are a large number of amendments required. We have already projected the proposals for the MoU.

For one example: the ceasefire agreement says the LTTE can do politics in Jaffna. But politics they do is to divide the country. separatist politics. In the constitution, the Sri Lankan Government can never agree with anybody to do separatist politics.

The ceasefire agreement has a lot of shortcomings. Even the boundaries of certain areas. We have our boundary on the Mannar- Vavuniya Road. there is a jungle behind it, Wilpattu jungle. Since the army does not have camps in the jungle, ten LTTE fellows have camped there and say that is an LTTE controlled area. All these things are not clarified in the agreement.

Even the Manirasakulam camp, is in the army controlled area.

Q: Another idea was to give the SLMM a kind of enforcing authority, so that they can enforce their ruling. How can this be done?

A: That should have been the SLMM mandate. If the SLMM says, there is a ruling and that one party is not respecting it, and that we should take some action for that, then obviously, there should be some authority.

Some other group like international community, who will take action against then. It can be military action or economic embargo or something.

Whatever action which has to be taken to stop violating the ceasefire agreement, has to be taken by somebody else.

We can't take action, if we are to take action, it would be like going to war. But there is no arrangement like that. There is an agreement. but anybody can violate as much as they want. According to the Ceasefire, the A-9 road was opened. No body has given permission to the LTTE to tax the people.

They opened the A-9 road, but they started levying a tax from the people. They came to Jaffna and started taking tax from people there. They say they are doing politics. Their politics is taking taxes from people. All these things should be streamlined in the ceasefire agreement.

I think the LTTE got the agreement drafted the way they wanted. We made a mistake by signing it.

Q: Some people say this is an undeclared war against the security forces..?

A: There is a ceasefire and the LTTE says, "we don't fight and we respect the ceasefire agreement. And while saying so, they are engaged in a war against the security forces, holding civilians responsible for such attacks. They attack and say we are not involved. If the Army did the same, they would realise, how cowardly an act it is. It is a cowardly act.

Q: You once said the Tigers might have an assessment of the Security Forces after the recent changes in the country's Defence establishment. What is your assessment of the LTTE?

I never believe that the LTTE can't be crushed militarily.

But due to certain past mistakes on our part, even when the LTTE was in a very bad situation, they could raise their head once again.

We have 120,000 personnel on the army and all what the LTTE got is 7,000 fighters, of which half of them are inexperienced.

The fact that the Tigers smuggled some weapons (during the ceasefire) does not mean that they can face the army. If we command the army in the right way, the LTTE can never face us militarily.

Q: The LTTE have adopted the tactic of attacking the security forces, using civilian as a shield...?

A: That is a basic terrorist tactic. If they want to distance the civilians from security forces, they try to attack using civilians as a shield, expecting when the troops retaliate, civilians will get hurt and that this would alienate the security forces from civilian.

Q: This is a delicate situation. The LTTE hasn't abrogated the ceasefire agreement, while they continue to attack the security forces. Obviously there is an intensified shadow war against the security forces. How does the army deal with this situation?

A: Yes. What we should do is not to do something just to overcome this problem. We have to look in to all the aspects of the major problem. peace talks have to start.

We are not keen to go to war, not because we can't fight the LTTE, but because, we also like to solve this problem without going to war. The President also has told very clearly that he is ready to talk and solve the problem. That is what we have to plan and we have to start talks.

To start talks, the LTTE must also stop violence,terrorist activities and create a peaceful environment. They talk about peace and at the same time attack the army, fire claymore mines, throw grenades.

I don't think there is a proper environment for that (negotiations). Peace talks will have to be there. And we have nothing against Tamil people the Sri Lanka army has always looked after Tamil people.

In Jaffna for so many years, before the LTTE came back to Jaffna with the peace talks, we had no problem with the Jaffna people. Their lives were more comfortable, food was cheap, cement was cheap, every thing else was cheap and the schools were functioning without any disturbance. They lost all those when the LTTE came back to peace talks.

The government has said it wants to talk. The army can't talk anyway. The army is there to maintain law and order. The government will talk and come to some settlement with the LTTE and will tell us what to do.

At the moment, the government and the army are all in agreement, that because they (LTTE) are attacking us, we have to counter attack, we can't allow our soldiers to become victims as the LTTE is resorting to terrorist activities under the cover of the ceasefire agreement.

The soldier has to maintain self respect, and do his job without getting killed. Therefore we have told the soldiers they have the right to shoot at the people who are shooting at them. So you can see, if you want to change the environment, the best thing is people who started this to stop this.

People who are giving LTTE cadres orders to shoot at the army should stop this. But, still we want to see whether they have weapons, claymores and other things in the Government controlled areas, not only stop this, they have to take all their weapons and other things out of government controlled areas.

Otherwise we will not stop, until we are satisfied and until weapons and claymores and all explosives have been captured and cleared by us.

We have given clear instructions to all the officers and soldiers that they can conduct operations to eliminate the people who are doing terrorist activities in the government controlled areas. There is no restriction on that and now they are doing it day and night.

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