By Ranga Jayasuriya
The forth Eelam war is becoming increasingly brutal and dirty. Sri Lanka is sliding back into violence that had been characteristic of the last two decades of its history.
After the failure of a long drawn out effort to seek peace through negotiations, the country is back to the square one.
It was only a week ago that the Tiger cadres massacred 47 civilians in the rural Uva and Deep Down South. A bus full of passengers was blown up in a claymore mine explosion and later the assassins shot dead the survivors at close range.
That is not the end of the story. Grisly scenes of death are becoming synonymous with the Sri Lankan life. More corpses turned up last week and strange enough some government officials wanted to suppress the news.
On Thursday (24), two Muslims in Kirikotuwewa, Kebithigollawa, who went to the jungle to round up their cattle, were the first to see the gruesome sight. They saw a hand jutting out from a marshland. Later, People looked in horror as police unearthed 16 decomposed bodies from two pits. Victims had not been identified as of Saturday. No complaints of the mass disappearance of civilians had been received in Anuradhapura, according to the police.
The bodies were buried 250 metres from the Horowpathana - Kebithigollewa Road, in the jungle.
The government’s Media Centre for National Security blamed the Tigers for the killings.
The MCNS said: “Police have found several bodies of youth dumped in a swamp at Kiriketuwewa on the Horoupathana - Kebithigollawa road by suspected LTTE terrorists this evening, January 24.
Police said the victims are believed to be a group of civilians who had gone searching for their cattle.
The victims were apparently hacked to death, the sources added,” the MCNS said.
An attempt to suppress the news
However, the flipside of the story is that the government tried to suppress the news of the discovery of two mass graves. The Director General of the Media Centre for National Security, Lakshman Hulugalla telephoned newspapers and told them not to publish the story. He said that the young men were killed by the LTTE and that the publication of the news could trigger an ethnic backlash. Hence, the request for the non publication of the story. Some newspapers, indeed, obliged while the others downplayed the story.
That was a peculiar request to make at the first place, what is more astonishing is the rationale behind it.
Only a week ago some 27 passengers were blown up in Buttala. But, the South didn’t erupt in an ethnic backlash. People in this country have acted with restrain in the face of the attempts to trigger communal backlash. This country has been through massacres, bombing and suicide killings perpetrated by the guerrillas, yet never did people go on rampage against fellow Tamils during the last twenty years. The Sri Lankan polity has reformed a lot since its ignominious experiment of the anti-Tamil pogrom in July 1983. However, the media wizards of the MCNS seemed to have thought otherwise. Later, the MCNS declared civilians, who went searching for their cattle, had been killed by the LTTE. However, the nature of the killings has raised more questions.
The victims were killed in execution style. Some were blindfolded and their hands tied to behind. Of the victims, 15 were male and the other was a female.
The developments in the immediate aftermath of the discovery indicated an attempt to downplay the incident. Culprits are at large and probably will never be brought to justice.
The bitter but stubborn truth in the country’s increasingly dirty war is that lines of engagement have become increasingly blurred.
However, the discovery of the two mass graves would like to add further strains on the government’s human rights record. This is not to suggest the culpability of the government’s security apparatus.
It can be the LTTE, or anyone else who is behind the killings. However it is the obligation of the government to probe the killings and bring culprits to justice. Attempts to downplay the killings could only backfire.
Meanwhile the autopsy of the victims was held in Anuradhapura yesterday.
The nation is witnessing a spate of violence, which was largely controlled during the first three years of the truce agreement.
Human rights and civil liberties are increasingly compromised - of course it is accepted that certain civil liberties could be curtailed under extraordinary circumstance, but it is also universally accepted that the right to life is an exception.
This government’s dilemma in fighting one of the most ruthless extremist movements in the world is well understood. Perhaps, the ranking of this government by most rights groups may not do justice to the precarious situation the government had been forced in. However, it must be said that certain highhanded actions and the over reliance on its hard-line allies have contributed to the government’s dilemma.
Forces advance
These developments are taking place as the security forces supported by five offensive divisions are gradually pushing into the Wanni heartland of the LTTE.
Two hours after dawn of Monday (21), Special Infantry troops of the 53 and 55 Divisions sneaked ahead of their forward defence localities in Muhamalai, Elithumattuwal and Nagar Kovil.
Under the cover of darkness, troops advanced cautiously on a land plagued with booby-traps and anti personnel mines. Extra precautionary measures had been taken to avoid mine fields, which had been identified in the reconnaissance missions. During the last major offensive ahead of the Northern defence lines on the eve of the Budget, a soldier, while taking up the assault positions, stepped on a Bangalore torpedo, which alerted the guerrillas.
This time around, when the troops assaulted the enemy positions, it took the LTTE cadres by total surprise.
Guerrillas seemed to have miscalculated the security forces action, said a senior military official.
The LTTE cadres who were manning the forward defence localities were of the impression that the attack was another remote assault. But it took only a matter of seconds for 27 heavily fortified bunkers of the LTTE to come under a heavy volume of fire by troops.
A military official said the primary defence line of the LTTE is sparsely manned. That is a tactic put in place in response to the regular attacks on the guerrilla defence line by Special Infantry Operation troops.
Twenty four bunkers were completely destroyed; this included four bunkers in Nagar Kovil, 12 bunkers on the East of A 9 Road and eight bunkers on the West of A9 Road.
The Army said at least 15 LTTE cadres were killed and 30 wounded. Two soldiers were killed and nine wounded in fighting. This included four soldiers classified as P 1 injuries and five soldiers, classified P 2 injuries.
As troops took over the bunkers, Tigers withdrew to their secondary defence line from where they fought back the advancing troops.
Holding ground has not been the intention of the recent military operations in the Northern theatre. The two main objectives of these missions were: (a) gradual annihilation of the man power of the enemy (b) Keeping the enemy occupied with defensive actions.
Thus, by five thirty in the morning, troops have returned to their original positions. They also recovered a 40 mm grenade launcher.
Indeed, bitter battles are yet to flare up. What troops are engaged now is the softening up of tiger positions through regular limited offensives.
According to the statistics given by the Defence Ministry, 636 LTTE cadres and 26 soldiers have been killed since the start of the new year.
However, these figures could not be verified independently.
What is, however, obvious is that the forth Eelam war is set to unfold with a greater ferocity in the coming months. Public should brace themselves for the inevitable.
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