MULLAITIVU: CLOSING TIME
The trick is to grasp the main needs of the present while being able to see into the future, with its problems and prospects, while being aware that the choices we make today, in the here and now, will determine the shape of tomorrow.
First things first: the Tigers have been almost completely overthrown and almost totally defeated, but not yet and not quite. The task is to stay focused and finish the job, resisting all external pressures from whichever quarter however exalted or powerful.
If the foot-soldiers of an army survive but not its General staff, it is almost impossible for it to continue to fight, but as long as a leader and his General staff survive, they can raise an army. Antonio Gramsci reminded us of this, with Napoleon Bonaparte as the classic example.
Velupillai Prabhakaran and his commanders are still alive, and as long as they remain so, they pose a deadly threat to the Sri Lankan state. The war can be said to have been won only when they are eliminated. That remains the task at hand.
The Tigers have a Plan A, B and C.
Plan A is to generate an international outcry which, together with Tamil Nadu pressure, will force a halt or slowdown of Sri Lankan armed forces operations, even if it does not result in their best-case scenario of a ceasefire and negotiations. The ludicrous but intentionally diversionary parallels with civilians in Gaza are best countered by reminding audiences that the Sri Lankan state is not preventing civilians from escaping the conflict zones, unlike the Israeli state which kept and keeps Gaza “an iron cage” or “open prison camp”, with its exits — barring the one controlled by Egypt — sealed off. Â
Plan B is a sustained slow-burn guerrilla struggle in the Mullaitivu jungles, combined with terrorism in the urban centers. That is the Taliban strategy. This has dubious prospects given that the Sri Lankan armed forces won’t take their eye off the ball as did the Americans, and in any case, there are no Tora Bora mountains and a porous land border for the Tigers to escape into and across. Â
Plan C, that of escape and re-entry, is best set out by the late Sri Lankanologist Prof Urmila Phadnis’ student Sudha Ramachandran writing in the Asian Times Online (Jan 27): Â ‘Pro-LTTE sections of the Tamil Diaspora are in favor of Prabhakaran moving overseas, so that he can revive the LTTE from outside the island and “then strike at the Sri Lankan government at a time of his choosing to free the Sri Lankan Tamil people again”. It is expatriate Tamils who funded the LTTE’s war for the past several decades, fueling Prabhakaran’s dreams of setting up an independent Tamil Eelam and ignoring his at-times brutal rule over the Tamils. And it is this community that he can count on now to provide him with sanctuary overseas’.
 Sudha Ramachandran’s essay also hints, albeit unintentionally, at the downside of handing Prabhakaran over to any other country’s jurisdiction in the unlikely event of capture: “…Prabhakaran has been captured alive before. That was in Chennai (then Madras) in 1982, when he, along with a leader of a rival militant group, was arrested for exchanging fire on a busy street. The Sri Lankan government pressed India for his extradition and India agreed. But then things changed. Mass rallies organized by P Nedumaran, a Tamil nationalist who continues to be Prabhakaran’s most loyal supporter in India, opposed the deportation to Sri Lanka on the grounds that the two would be tortured there. The pressure worked. India said Prabhakaran would be tried here and stayed the deportation. He never was tried. Prabhakaran was granted bail, which he eventually jumped and went on to wage a deadly separatist war against the Sri Lankan state.”Â
There is only one way to pre-empt these fallback options of the Tigers and their supporters, namely to crush all LTTE resistance, extirpate the LTTE’s leadership and annihilate its fighting cadre in the ongoing campaign in Mullaitivu and whatever un-liberated residue of Kilinochchi.
There are those such as the highly regarded General Kalkat who commanded the IPKF, who give credence to the guerrilla option. Talking to him, Kallol Battacherjee of The Week (India, Feb 1, 2009) retraces the important history of the decisive days in the IPKF-LTTE confrontation:
“Velupillai Prabhakaran was no mouse in October 1988. …The IPKF captured the land routes of the Tigers. Then they took Wanni, Jaffna and Kilinochchi. At Nitikaikulam, they cornered Prabhakaran. Sensing his end was near he turned tail and escaped through a 7km tunnel into a forest near Mullaiteevu. The Indian soldiers had it easy till then. But what followed was decisive, and still shapes India’s response to the Sri Lankan conflict. “The LTTE surprised the IPKF by booby trapping the forest near Mullaiteevu; they knew the terrain like the back of their palm and put up fierce resistance,” said IPKF commander Gen. (rtd) A.S. Kalkat. The Indian attack plan was to drive the Tigers from the forest, but Kalkat found that the forest was the Tigers’ best ally.”
What is Lt. Gen. Kalkat’s conclusion? “It is perhaps one of the most dangerous forests in the world and till the Sinhalese forces defeat the LTTE there, they cannot be called real victors,” Kalkat said. For him, the Sri Lankan campaign of 2008-09 is a copy of his campaign of the late 1980s. “The ultimate battle of the Sri Lankan army against the LTTE is yet to be fought”.Â
This much is true, but the conclusion he derives or seems to derive, that the outcome is still wide open and victory is uncertain for the Sri Lankan forces, is unwarranted. It is unwarranted because Gen Kalkat tells the truth about Nithikaikulam and the IPKF experience, but not the whole truth.
I know, because General Kalkat used to report up the chain of command to general Suneet Francis Rodriguez, the Chief of Staff of the Indian Army who was in overall command of the IPKF operation, and while the Nithikaikulam battle was on, EPRLF founder-leader K. Padmanabha, Suresh Premachandran (deputy leader) and I were in General Rodriguez’ office, with its maps and scale models of the terrain. I was, of course, using an assumed identity.
The top brass was gung-ho. The IPKF Para commandos were going in after Prabhakaran, braving the booby traps and the claymores, and may well have got him — except that politics intervened.
As several top Indian personalities including Shri JN Dixit have disclosed, at the same time the IPKF jawans and the Para commandos were risking their life and limb, the RAW was in negotiation with the LTTE’s representative in Madras, Kittu. Those talks seemingly bore fruit, if fruit it was, in the form of a package deal which permitted the LTTE to keep a specified number (300, if I remember rightly) of automatic weapons including M 16s for the personal protection of the leadership, while it came into the mainstream of the Accord. It is possible that Kittu negotiated in good faith, not knowing the real thinking of Prabhakaran who kept his cards very close to his chest. It is also likely that the RAW negotiator (in charge of the Sri Lanka operation and named as such by Lalith Athulathmadali) was already in the LTTE’s pocket or was in the process of being ‘turned’ by the Tigers-something that was suspected only after the Rajiv Gandhi assassination a few years later, though it should have been suspected after EPRLF leader Padmanabha’s murder in Chennai in 1990, the year before Rajiv was killed by the same LTTE cell.
RAW chief Anand Verma took the Kittu deal to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and won over some top officials eager to secure the Tamil Nadu vote. Not everyone was that gullible in New Delhi and with the decision making circle divided and in deliberation, a compromise was struck: General Kalkat was asked to draw up encirclement – in the event, involving 5,000 troops. This delay in pressing home the advantage with the elite Para Commandos permitted Prabhakaran to escape, dig in and turn the tables eventually on the IPKF. This he did, not merely militarily but politically and psychologically.
JR Jayewardene was still Sri Lanka’s President at the time. Mr. Verma even flew to Colombo to persuade President Jayewardene to endorse a ceasefire with the LTTE but failed in his effort, with JRJ insisting on the total decommissioning of weapons.
Even if the Ravana-esque villain of the Indian re-telling of the IPKF tale, namely Ranasinghe Premadasa, had not been born, the IPKF would have been pulled out, because that was a solemn campaign pledge made, in order to win Tamil Nadu, by VP Singh, who triumphed at the general election.
This is why the IPKF analogy does not hold, though the Tamil Diaspora and Indian analysts may find some comfort in the thought that Prabhakaran will do to the Sri Lankan armed forces what he did to the IPKF from his redoubt in the Mullaitivu jungles. The IPKF was not motivated, there was political dissent in its rear, the institutions of the state were at variance, the standard armament of the infantryman was the ridiculous SLR (the FN rifle) pitted against the Tigers’ Kalashnikovs and M-16s (mostly purchased with RAW funds or procured through its channels, bypassing the procurement red tape which ensnared the IPKF), and there was hardly any use of tactical airpower-except on October 10th 1987, in Chavakachcheri, courtesy of the Sri Lankan side, a strike that injured Prabhakaran.
Of central importance is also the main goal and objective of military strategy. The IPKF had a wholly erroneous goal of pushing the Tigers to the negotiating table. It wasn’t even sure if killing Prabhakaran should be an objective, and it certainly wasn’t one held to consistently. In a brilliant piece of deception, the LTTE fed the RAW who fed the IPKF the nonsense that LTTE deputy Gopalaswamy Mahendraraja alias Mahattaya was a deadlier foe; more anti-Indian because he was allegedly “Naxalite influenced”, and should be eliminated so his baleful influence on Prabhakaran was ended. Rajiv Gandhi was victim of this utterly erroneous reading.
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By contrast, this time the Sri Lankan government and state have political clarity and a unified will to win. This time, a gutsy Deputy Minister of Defense isn’t having to fight a war while recruitment is drying up due to a unilateral antiwar campaign (“Sudu Nelum”- White Lotus) spearheaded by a fellow Cabinet Minister. This time the Sri Lankan armed forces have a clear objective: the elimination of the LTTE as a fighting force. This is as it should be, for General Vo Nguyen Giap has said that the goal of all military strategy should be the annihilation of the living forces of the enemy. The IPKF ignored this dictum. Â
The Sri Lankan armed forces have none of the disadvantages and delusions the IPKF labored under. Therefore Prabhakaran cannot perform the same miracle of survival and recovery that he performed against the IPKF.
There is something to be wary of though. As the latest issue of Security Index, the premier Russia journal on international security, co-published by the Centre for Policy Studies, Moscow and the Centre Russe d’etudes Politiques, Geneva, says: “America’s serious mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan were not so much military as political, made well after the main stage of the military operation was over.” (Yuri Fedorov, ‘Black August or The Return of History’, Security Index, Winter 2008/9, p.95)Â
This then is the category of mistakes Sri Lanka must avoid, and be conscious of as the victorious end of the war draws closer like the red sail of an incoming ship on the horizon, to use Mao’s metaphor. These were the mistakes of the Bush administration, and with our own version of the Republican neoconservatives, cultural warriors and religious right-wingers who determined and distorted US perspectives forcing a deviation from Realism, it is the kind of mistake we could easily make. Unlike the USA we will have no Barack Obama to redeem us from their consequences.
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A passing glance at the LTTE mouthpiece tamilnet confirms what this article says. It seems now that they are resorting to this last recourse of political intervention. Their trump card is the Tamil Nadu political establishment and all LTTE media outlets are appealing to that constituency. As you say the government has to stay the course regardless of external pressures. Tamilnet for one is increasingly losing credibility in its ridiculous us of language. The latest nomenclature for the SLA: “Colombo abettors”. You could never hold the LTTE for a lack of creativity!
Torn apart by unrest, Tamil family longs for freedom
by Stephanie Nolen
http://transcurrents.com/tc/2009/01/torn_apart_by…
"The recruiters came back to their home, in a village 12 kilometres from Mullaitivu, three more times. His daughters were terrified, he said, and didn't want to go; their parents were equally afraid. So the Tigers turned up the pressure, taking Mr. T himself away for "questioning." They only held him for a day, he said, but their message had been effectively delivered: when he arrived back home, it was to find his three daughters arguing over whom should go, so that their father would not face incarceration or worse. They decided in the end to send the eldest, who was then nearly 18, because her educational background might get her a job as a medic, and perhaps some security away from the front lines."
Dayan,
What if Prabhakaran does escape and leave the country by whatever means and it takes months if not years to find him? I ask that question out of a singular concern. The competency of our military leadership – though little else of its other virtues and vices – have more or less been established. There is much doubt however – rational and well founded suspicions – about the competency and integrity of our political leadership to address the complex issues that will arise after the military operations.
If he does escape, we shall have to mount a diplomatic campaign for his arrest. More importantly, we shall have to be prepared to repel his return, while crushing any clandestine structure of support for a renewed insurgency.
"This time, a gutsy Deputy Minister of Defense isn’t having to fight a war while recruitment is drying up due to a unilateral antiwar campaign (”Sudu Nelum”- White Lotus) spearheaded by a fellow Cabinet Minister."
I'm still puzzled why Dayan is defending that corrupt, inept Anuruddha Ratwatte (promoted to General by niece Chandrika) who wasted thousands of soldiers in pointless frontal assaults and basically ruined the SLA. He hasn't given any response.
Anuruddha Ratwatte's chopper went down in enemy territory and he walked miles with the crew until they rached safety. even more valiant was the fact that when Jaffna was under seige after the Tigers took Elephant pass in 2000, Anurudha choppered in , landed under fire, and remained twenty one days in Jaffna rallying the troops. My point was however, to contrast his commitment with that of his Cabinet colleague, beloved of Colombo's civil society, who was running a unilateral peace campaign well after the Tigers had unilaterally recommenced the war in april 1995! No wonder the army didn't have enough recruits to hold onto the areas they liberated. This caused overstretch which permitted Prabhakaran's counteroffensive, rolling back the military gains. As for ineptitude, that was CBK's choice, Daluwatte, not Anuruddha.
Dayan, talk all you want about Che and Castro and dialectic struggles, but stay away from Sri Lankan military history until you learn something. Sudu Nelum was NOT the cause of low recruitment. Ratwatte's corrupt mismanagement of the MOD and total neglect of the soldiers and their families was the cause. Ratwatte's notion of tactics was large unit (ie. division-sized) maneuvers which he could take the credit for, but were ultimately unwieldy and did not seriously threaten the Tigers. It was RATWATTE who ordered Op. Watershed in August 1999 which completed the SLA's overstretch and gave the LTTE to conduct its infamous "Unceasing Waves III" counteroffensive.
Wijayapala, I wish you could have laid down your fatwah to me on military histrory to those generals who invited me for many years (between 2000 and this war) to lecture their men at every single military academy in Sri Lanka. You should especially have given it to those at the Special Warfare Centre at Fort Bragg who requested me as a lecturer in the joint training programmes of the US and Sri Lankan Special Forces ( for several years running). I have some cherished mementos and insignia presented on every occasion. Perhaps you should also tell it those at the SAIC in washington DC where I was one of 12 invited panellists with one other being a member of the US Joint chiefs of staff, at a session on the evolving strategic landscape of central and south asia.
Name-dropping won't help, Dayan. We both know how little the Americans know about Sri Lanka and it doesn't help for you to be 1st among equals. If the Americans really knew what a threat the LTTE posed to international security, they would have given a lot more help than what we received.
I still have the minutes of the “committee” I was on in the early ‘90s, which met at Army hqrs, chaired by Gen Wanasinghe and attended by Gen Waidyaratne, Brig Balagalle (MI), DIG Zerny Wijesooriya (NIB), Brig Devinda Kalupahana (at the time based in Vavuniya). When a seminar, starring JN Dixit, Gen Kalkat, G. Parthasarthy jr and ex-RAW Deputy Chief Chandrasekharan was convened in Delhi to assess the history of the conflict including the LTTE’s failure to re-capture Jaffna in 2000, the Sri Lankan side was Gen Gerry de Silva, Air Vice Marshal Harry Goonetilleke, K Godage and myself. When in 2005, Hon Kadirgamar sent a small team to Islamabad as interlocutors of the top Institutes of Strategic and security studies, Gen Gerry, K Godage and I were on it. When Sir Adam Roberts, the great British scholar of International Relations and War, visited Sri Lanka at Hon Kadirgamar’s invitation, the latter placed me on every panel with him. This is just to remind Wijepala, that unless he has proof to the contrary he simply does not have the credentials to suggest that I desist from writing on matters military!
We want to hear what you know, dayan, not who you know. That marks the difference between a serious academic and a slithering diplomat.
Don't be silly Wijepala, who I know and where I've known them is because of what I know and could bring to the table. And believe me I really have no time for this, since i do not know what your own credentials are , except that you have some axe to grind, which you are managing to do admirably well despite the chip on your shoulder.
"Rally the troops???" Give me a break- they had no respect for Ratwatte. The real heroes in the very bleak years of 2000-1 were Janaka Perera and Fonseka whom Ratwatte had sidelined out of jealousy and fear. Daluwatte was no Fonseka but he had a far better grasp of tactics- he was not a mere sergeant who had been promoted to colonel by Mrs. B and then to *general* (not even Fonseka had thus been elevated) by Chandrika. Whereas Ratwatte could only see victory in terms of grabbing territory, Daluwatte understood like Fonseka and Gotabhaya that the LTTE's forces had to be worn down by attrition (although Daluwatte did not develop the squad, platoon, and company as Fonseka did nor pursue the "indirect" approach). But it was Ratwatte who was running the show and he led Sri Lanka to defeat.
Nothing gets past the FACT that Anuruddha went up to Jaffna when it was under siege and stayed there for 21 days. As I noted in my articles at the time and in the years after, the LTTE offensive was blunted at Kilaly by a 7,000 strong joint force of Army and Navy men commanded by then Brig Sarath Fonseka. One of gentlemen mentioned by you, actually lined up CTB buses in Jaffna with the identities of each SLA unit adorning them, in order to retreat. He flew to Colombo to get the OK, but got a resounding NO from CBK, to her eternal credit, supported by Anuruddha, who volunteered to go up there. CBK insisted that the Service chiefs fly to Jaffna and help stabilize the situation. I am well aware of the respect the officer corps has for various personalities, in and out of uniform. Ranjan Wijeratne and Anuruddha Ratwatte are respected for their repeated visits to the camps and frontlines. As for tactics, the real hero of the CBK years (out of service by the Jaffna battle of 2000) was the man who started the downfall of the Tigers with his liberation of Jaffna, namely Gen. Gerry de Silva, who topped the foreign students’ batch at Sandhurst.
So what if Anuruddha went to Jaffna?? Visiting the front alone does not make one a great commander, believe it or not. You utterly neglected the point that **it was Anuruddha's rubbish strategy and dishonest management that led to the near-loss of Jaffna to begin with**- again: 1) territory vice attrition strategy 2) wasteful, large-scale frontal assaults on LTTE strongpoints resulting in mass casualties, and hence low morale and recruitment 3) utter neglect of the "home front" thus increasing the already-high desertion rate.
As for Gerry de Silva, you know that he was one of your dear old friend's Sivaram's informants, right?
Gerry was the Army Commander in 1995 and did not play a direct role in the liberation of Jaffna. That credit largely goes to Janaka Perera commanding the 53rd Division, who achieved success during Op. Thunderstrike & Riviresa whereas Op. Leap Forward (where Perera played no role) had failed. It is no coincidence that Janaka had been there for most of the greatest defeats of the LTTE after the 1st EPS battle (Weli Oya 1995, Jaffna 1995-6) as well as retrieving the situation (Jaffna 2000).
I have to say, despite your inadequate answers I have to praise you for not ducking the debate this time.
"Nothing gets past the FACT that Anuruddha went up to Jaffna:…"
Except for the FACTS that:
1) Anuruddha was the mastermind of the very poorly-conceived Op. Jayasikurui, that was characterized by linear, frontal tactics (along the A9 road) that allowed the Tigers to predict the govt's advance and prepare accordingly, leading to heavy casualties.
2) The soldiers' low morale was a result of poor training combined with negligence of the "home front," NOT Sudu Nelum as you claim (Gotabhaya had reversed this trend which went way back to Premadasa, if not earlier).
3) Heavy casualties + low morale = no recruitment, yet Anuruddha insisted on advancing, diverting troops from the east (and thus conceding the east to Karuna), and spreading the SLA thin to get crushed in Unceasing Waves III, eventually leading to the LTTE's invasion of Jaffna.
So you see Dayan, it was Anuruddha who paved the way for his own visit there in 2000.
It seems that you and/or the moderator had a problem with the revelation on Gerry's loose tongue.
Gerry de Silva was the Army Commander, not the OOC in 1995, meaning that he had no direct role in liberating Jaffna. The OOC in Jaffna was Daluwatte, but the real leader behind the victories of Thunderstrike and Riviresa was none other than Janaka Perera commanding the 53rd Division. The 51st and 52nd Divisions by contrast were led by Gerry's cronies (who had not commanded brigades before) and therefore did not accomplish much.
Gerry was previously the eastern commander from 1990-2, where he allowed his demoralized troops to commit atrocities against Tamil civilians and sustain Karuna's efforts. A year after Lucky Algama took command (in 1992, following the killing of Kobbekaduwa), Karuna and his men were forced out. So much for the boy wonder of Sandhurst who never achieved an actual victory.
"The task is to stay focused and finish the job, resisting all external pressures from whichever quarter however exalted or powerful."
It seems to me the exalted and powerful are very much behind this blinkered and British-esque 'Press ahead chaps' slaughter. Noone else in the world seems to give a damn, including the average person on the Colombo street. Let the little island of no international consequence (except righteously unto itself ) murder its 'lesser' people, motivated by their inbred nasty ethic hatred, what does it matter to the global market?
"Velupillai Prabhakaran and his commanders are still alive, and as long as they remain so, they pose a deadly threat to the Sri Lankan state."
Yeah if you say so. And others say so, over and over and over and over…
You sure its not just plain old autopilot scaremongering to negatively encourage people to agree with your argument, because you need people agreeing with you in order to satisfy your insecure ego? You do realise that these men are just human individuals, weak and flawed? And old…Saddam was nothing when they pulled him out from that hole.
Tupi, please… please.. please…
Ask uncle Prabha to release the hostages…
Then the onus of taking care of the weak and flawed people will be solely on uncle Mahinda and his aides with insecure egos and you could rightfully criticize them and hold them accountable for the outcome of the situation.
Very informative article and lots of new information atleast to me regarding RAW involvement.
The average man or woman in TamilNadu of which I am one DO NOT support the LTTE,maybe the politicians who have their own axe to grind and like to fish in muddied waters profess their love for tamil tigers. Please do not paint the whole tamil population as tiger sympathisers. Vaiko and Nedumaran are NOT our representatives.
Witness the fact that Vaiko and Jayalalitha are alliance partners, Vaiko spent some time in Jail charged with sedition laws under the regime of Jayalalitha ! Jayalalitha never lets go of a single occasion to proclaim her opposition to LTTE while VAIKO says that LTTE can never be defeated in war.Strange bedfellows.
Poor Karunanidhi seems to be caught in a cleft.Well that is the politicians for you.
What do the average Tamilian want? He is anguished at the sight of people treated as second class citizens living in tents with torn clothes and haunted eyes for no fault of theirs. They are caught between hostage taking LTTE and the victorious sinhalese celebrating the fall of the Tigers.
All we in TamilNadu want is fairplay . If Colonel Karuna whose hands are stained with Sinhalese blood can be rehabilitated then the same govt should not use the extermination of tigers as an excuse to whittle down the tamil population. Absence of Journalists, neutral observers do not hold good for the impartial behavior of the military.
TamilNadu influence is waning over the SriLankan affairs,otherwise the LTTE wouldn't have been cornered to a level unheard of since IPKF times atleast.
Finish the LTTE not the civilians who have no choice, let people who have different languages or customs at variance with the majority live in dignity and let them contribute to the nation. Remove the root cause of terrorism upon which vultures like tigers feed.
Extra-judicial killings, the massacre of relief workers whether by LTTE or by rogue soldiers, these are the carcasses upon which these jackals prey.
A sympathetic TamilNadu will be a strong partner to SriLankan ambitions. Now is the time for the SriLankan president to take some bold steps and redeem the honor of the nation.
p.s. You might like to take note of the fact that there were no protests in Tamilnadu over the Indian Cricket tour.
Kannan, we do not enjoy the plight of the Wanni Tamils any more than you do. The problem is that we don't have a choice- either we wipe out the LTTE, or Sri Lanka has no future. If we stop the war (like we did many times in the past, getting no thanks from India or TN), the LTTE will bounce back and then everything will start over again. This has been going on for 25+ years, and over that period the Tamil population has steadily deteriorated. This trend will only end when the LTTE is finished.
dayan, i note the comments from international press and MIA. __Its time, that people (like you) take these guys (foreign press) to task. we should as a government ask for the resignation of the editor who sent out unchecked data as to tarnish the image of Sri Lanka.____also, not the latest press relaes from the RAP artisit M.I.A. (using the oscar platform) – tp://transcurrents.com/tc/2009/01/mia_says_tamil_civilian_and_ta.html#more -__"And there's a genocide going on, and it's kind of — it's ironic that I am the only Tamil, and I've turned into the only voice for the Tamil people, the 20 percent minority in my country. And " "And basically since I fled till now, it's — there's been a systematic genocide which has quiet thing because no one knows where Sri Lanka is" ____you should ban such people as "person non grata" and never allow them to come to SL.
Groundviwes,
Dayan Jayathilaka got you! I saw it coming when I saw your inteview with him on Groundviews when he said that people were asking what he was doing with Groundviews. He had a plan for you. Since the interview he pblished two articles on behalf of the war mongering racist government. Well you too have to survive in these pressured and difficult times!
Sabes,
This is jejune scholarship.
Dayan has published a number of articles on this site since July 2008 and all of them have been pro-war. Groundviews is the ONLY website where a senior diplomat of the Rajapakse administration can be interrogated. Further, Dayan himself, unlike others in government and the foreign service today, is open to serious and sustained questioning on a range of issues, including the war, as can be seen by the long comment threads on any one of his articles here.
If we believe in and are to promote peace through peaceful means, we must continuously engage with and be prepared to accept the merits of counter-arguments. Sadly, the pro-peace movement and the pro-war movement in Sri Lanka operate in self-referential spheres. Dayan's articles are published here to break that trend. His sustained engagement with interlocutors on this site is appreciated also for this reason.
It also says something that someone so reviled on the web as a representative of a "war mongering racist government" is able to communicate his ideas better than you.
"Dayan himself, unlike others in government and the foreign service today, is open to serious and sustained questioning on a range of issues, including the war, as can be seen by the long comment threads on any one of his articles here."
Dayan's last comment above actually quite disproves that- he seems to have a better ability to talk about with whom he hobnobbed rather than backing up his statements with facts. He also made it quite clear that he "has no time" to engage with sustained questioning, such as defending his notion that Sudu Nelum, and not Ratwatte's incompetence, had ruined the war effort in the 1990s.
Anyway thanks for the opportunity to refute Dayan and not letting him get away with lies.
If Wijepala calls that a refutation he's entitled to it. I'd simply call it a contrary view; another version. Wijepala conveniently sidestepped the ( mercifully abortive) Jaffna 2000 evacuation effort of one of his heroes. He has set up a straw man, since I never asserted Aunuruddha's tactical or strategic competence, only his guts and political commitment to the war effort. The matter is best judged by a real professional (without an an axe to grind) like David Blacker, who not only maintains the best Lankan blog but is the sharpest, most literate and literary commentator/analyst of the military aspects of the war.