Introduction:
The killing of the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Velupillai Pirapaharan, has brought an end to a stage in the development of the Tamil National Liberation Struggle. There are many crucial lessons to be learned from this experience;- Lessons Paid in Blood! It is imperative that we learn from these lessons with a deep scientific perspective, if we are to charter the path of liberation for the people of Lanka. There is no space in this article to discuss the historical and political background which gave birth to the Tamil National Liberation Movement, including the demand for the right of national self-determination in the form of a separate state. Suffice it to say that this demand and this armed struggle was a result of the systematic, gross and intensifying discrimination and violent suppression of the oppressed Tamil nation by a Sinhala-Chauvinist, hegemonic Comprador Capitalist State.
The Rise of the LTTE:
This form of national subjugation  and state repression resulted in the birth of new generation of Tamil militants, bearing various political visions and ideologies, agendas- and buyers and backers. From the very beginning, the emergent new Tamil National Movement was dominated by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois class forces. Contention and rivalry for dominance was promoted by the various powers and agents vying for influence over the Tamil National Movement and over the politics of the country. In this deadly contention, the LTTE emerged as the most ruthless force, eliminating and subjugating all other organizations. The LTTE remained the only force that decided to carry out the mandate of the Tamil nation to achieve the right of national self-determination, in the form of a separate state, through an armed struggle against the state. During the 25 years of armed struggle, the LTTE achieved some spectacular military victories and gained ground politically. The LTTE had stood up to the state militarily on all fronts- guerilla warfare, positional warfare and conventional warfare. The LTTE had stood up to the combined might of both the Indian army and the Sri Lankan armed forces, when India deployed its army to help resolve the issue. The so-called Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) became the Indian People Killing Force. The LTTE won the respect of the world by its daring political will, and unrelenting military capacity to take on the Indian state and the 4th largest army in the world. The LTTE had established a de facto state in the North-East, operating their own ministries, banks, police, courts, tax collection etc. The LTTE even commanded its own shipping fleet. Although being banned in several key countries such as the USA, UK, France, Canada, Australia, India and Sri Lanka as one of the most ruthless terrorist organizations, the LTTE came to be recognized diplomatically as the leading force representing the Tamil cause by the world powers, and the Sri Lankan state. It was supported by literally millions of Tamils living abroad-both Sri Lankans, many of whom who have had to flee the country to seek refuge in other countries, and who had suffered irreparable loss to their loved one’s and their property, and also Tamils, and others, from other countries. It even built up its own rudimentary air force, with which it challenged the skies and dealt some deadly blows to the state.
New Military Doctrine:
Now the LTTE has been militarily liquidated and its leadership decimated by the State. In a most serious sense, the LTTE did not have a chance. The new regime led by President Mahinda Rajapakse, overhauled the whole political approach to the national question. It simply and categorically denied the Tamil national question by rejecting any claims to Tamil nationhood and statehood, and unequivocally asserted Sinhala-Buddhist supremacy as the ruling principle. The war against the LTTE was declared to be a patriotic war of national liberation. This reinvigorated and unequivocal official chauvinism injected life and soul to the predominantly Sinhala armed forces of the state, who believed that they were fighting and dying to save their motherland-equated as the exclusive home of the Sinhala-Buddhist nation- from the mortal threat of ‘separatist terrorism’. Based on this slogan, the broad majority of the Sinhala people, and others, were mobilized for the war effort. The majority swing was towards putting a final end to the ideology and politics of ‘separatist terrorism’. The new regime could sell this war agenda because it was in alliance with the most rabid chauvinist political parties,- the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) made up of Buddhist priests, and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramune (JVP), who claimed to be the ‘one and only, grade 01, purest of all Socialist parties’, – and with the Trotskyite Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and the revisionist Communist Party of Sri Lanka. The red banner was conjoined with Fascism. So the regime was blessed and the war sanctioned by both sides- extreme Sinhala Buddhist chauvinists and down right class collaborationist “Left” traitors. The highest religious authorities of the Buddhist priesthood ( Maha Sangha) invoked blessings on the armed forces of the state and sanctioned the new regime with a ‘messianic’ legitimacy. The war against the LTTE was dressed up as a continuation of the ‘historic’ wars of national liberation fought against the Dravidian invaders. Mahinda Rajapakse was dressed up as descending from the line of the heroic king Duttagamani, who had slain the Tamil ‘usurper’ Elara, in direct combat, and unified the Land and the ‘race’ under the banner of Sinhala Buddhism! The entire ideological apparatus of the state, including the media, schools, temples, and the state administrative machinery was unleashed with concerted fervor to whip up the war hysteria.
The Naked Terrorist Dictatorship of the Bourgeosie:
This new military doctrine was to be under-girded by a new and higher level of exercising the naked terrorist comprador/capitalist dictatorship of the ruling regime- and of the state. This policy was carried out with the doctrine of complicity. It allowed the armed forces and other paramilitary agents to act freely, knowing that they will not be held accountable by the state, the people, or by any of the double-edged international human rights institutions, commissions or councils. This was a policy of freeing up the reactionary repressive power of the state to wage an all-out, no-holds barred war against the declared ‘enemies of the state’ as traitors to the motherland. In essence, this was a policy of consolidating the parasitic, blood-soaked, Sinhala hegemonic, Comprador Capitalist Dictatorship. Tamil members of parliament were assassinated in broad daylight, some in high security zones of the state. Tamil humanitarian workers were assassinated. Tamil students were hunted and slain. Lawyers who appeared for “terrorists’ were listed on the web site of the Defense Ministry as traitors. Media institutions that did not toe the line were attacked by government ministers in broad daylight. Media personnel that differed, or refused to comply were beaten up or killed. Those who stood for a democratic political solution to the national question were all lumped together as traitors. The new military doctrine was formulated in terms of “ no concern for collateral damage”- whether it be the death and suppression of innocent civilians, the indignity and degradation of the people, the militarization of the social order, the death of human and democratic rights, the humanitarian catastrophe, or any other such ‘human’ concern. The international community of imperialist/ neo-colonial, reactionary powers and their various international human rights agencies, commissions and councils all complied with this policy, with the adequate doses of concern for human rights and humanitarian law, just to save their skin and legitimacy in the eyes of the world. Neither the degenerate politicians of Tamil Nadu, nor the billions of dollars of sympathy and support of the international Tamil Diaspora, nor the sophisticated international logistical network, nor even the national-democratic aspirations of the oppressed Tamil nation which had been temporarily concentrated in the LTTE, could withstand the new military doctrine, line and strategy of imperialism, as realized through the Sri Lankan State. The regime knew they had finally decisively cornered the LTTE politically, and was out to settle scores, once and for all, militarily.
Summing Up Experience:
The new regime summed up some two decades of military experience with the LTTE and adopted a new military doctrine, line and strategy. This new synthesis was not produced by some ‘genius’ in command of some local planning/strategizing laboratory. The new synthesis was a product of a collective effort between masters of mass death and destruction- masters of genocide- the CIA, MOSSAD, RAW and the Sri Lankan military. This cooperation resulted in modernizing the intelligence and espionage apparatus, along with a qualitative upgrading of hi-tech weapons of mass death and destruction, combined with precision targeting, including laser-targeted bombing, along with the use of incessant aerial bombardment as a form of terrorizing populations. The new doctrine combined elements of guerrilla warfare and positional warfare, tactics of deep penetration and surgical strikes at key military targets. The enemy was to be attacked and destroyed by a three-pronged policy of encirclement and destruction, piece by piece, by land, sea and air, until it is literally bled to death. Lessons had been learnt. This was to be a war of attrition and annihilation- as opposed to a war for territory. This represented a major paradigmatic shift. This involved a policy of terrorizing the masses into mute submission, silencing the media through terror, murder and intimidation, monopolizing access to information, forbidding any alternative or oppositional politics at the cost of being eliminated, through exercising the naked terrorist dictatorship of the comprador state – and the regime- without let or limitation.
The Line and Practice of the LTTE:
This article has so far discussed how the new regime took command, and that the LTTE had no chance against this combined international imperialist counter-insurgency strategy. However, the liquidation of the LTTE has to be principally analyzed in terms of its internal class basis, and the ideological, political, strategic and military line it applied. External forces and conditions can only act upon an internal basis. The fact is that the ideological, political and strategic-military line of the LTTE had a fatal vulnerability. You cannot fight and defeat a more powerful enemy on his own terms. The fact is that the state pitted all its physical-technological destructive force against the LTTE. It was far superior in manpower ( some 200,000 armed forces as against at most 20,000 ), it acquired hi-tech weaponry and commanded superiority on land, sea and air. It had the backing of world imperialism, and regional powers such as China, India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Thailand. Even though the LTTE displayed military superiority for a long time by applying principles of guerrilla warfare, which it combined with positional and even conventional warfare in a really creative way, ideologically and politically, it was fighting on the terrain of the enemy. Ideologically and politically, the LTTE remained trapped within the system, and paid the ultimate price. You have to wield philosophical, ideological and political superiority over the enemy, if you wish to maintain long-term strategic superiority, sustain military gains and advance towards victory. The success of a revolutionary struggle for liberation depends on its philosophical-ideological-theoretical basis.
Class Basis:
The ideology and politics of the LTTE had developed from a petit-bourgeois romantic perspective in its early formation in the period from 1976-1980, and transformed quickly into a bourgeois nationalist class perspective. At this stage, it combined both national bourgeois and comprador aspects. It did have some important anti-feudal, anti-caste orientation, but not about overthrowing or overhauling the prevailing feudal-colonial social order. Women were accorded respect and played a key role in the armed struggle, but this did not mean that women were liberated from the shackles of feudal oppression and patriarchy. It wanted to develop a rational, self-reliant national economy. However, in its principal aspect which defined its class essence, the LTTE transformed into a comprador bourgeois class that relied on imperialism and regional reactionary states to wage its struggle for national liberation, as opposed to mobilizing the masses to win genuine independence and democratic freedom.
Narrow Bourgeois Nationalism:
The LTTE never had an anti-imperialist internationalist perspective, which viewed its struggle in the context of the struggle of the people of the world for liberation. What originated as a demand for national self-determination of the Tamil-speaking people, to include both the oppressed Tamil nation in the North-East, and the Moslem and Hill Country Tamil nationality, was transformed exclusively into a struggle for national liberation of the oppressed Tamil nation. While the question of the Hill Country Tamil people was dropped, the Muslim nationality came to be targeted as enemies. Some 40,000 Muslim families – around 100,000 oppressed Moslem people- were forcibly evicted from the North on command by the LTTE. No doubt, external conditions played a role in this transformation. The state was trying to manipulate Muslim elements against the LTTE. The correct way to deal with this policy is to win over the broad oppressed Moslem masses into a common front of struggle, in order to expose and isolate the state.
Terrorism as a Policy:
The LTTE practiced an extreme form of terrorism against the civilian population, including slaughtering pregnant women and dashing babies. This line alienated them from the broad Sinhala, and Moslem masses, and sections of the Tamil masses as well. No doubt the state is the generative factor in the politics of terror, and had unleashed terror against the masses on a far more systematic and systemic level than the LTTE. It is true that the state had succeeded in mobilizing broad Sinhala masses against the Tamil National Movement and against the LTTE, and that the so-called “Left” had betrayed the Tamil national struggle and had become agents and enforcers of the state. Yet, it was not the case that the Sinhala people could not be influenced to sympathise and even support the Tamil national liberation struggle, if it also stood for the liberation of the oppressed Sinhala people. What ever the case, a liberation force cannot ever degenerate to the level of a fascist state. It cannot apply terror against the masses as a policy. The enemy cannot ever be the reason for your own degeneration. The transformation into an exclusively and extremely narrow Tamil nationalist comprador-capitalist liberation movement is principally due to the evolution of the internal class character of the LTTE.
Political Line:
The political line of the LTTE relied on the heroism of the dedicated elite vanguard, along with the destructive power of technology, than on unleashing the creative revolutionary energy of the masses. In fact, the need and capacity of the oppressed masses to overthrow their oppressors and their conditions of oppression and achieve genuine liberation were never mobilized. In fact, the historical initiative of the exploited and oppressed masses was effectively suppressed. Instead of mobilizing the masses, the LTTE relied on regional and imperialist powers to deliver liberation. They went into all kinds of deals with corrupt Tamil Nadu politicians and with the Norwegian facilitators, who were acting on behalf of the US. They also entered into deals with the Sri Lankan ruling class, and went to the extent of being bribed into making sure that the Opposition candidate would be defeated at the Presidential elections, paving the way for the victory of the current President – who later went all out to decimate them. The LTTE believed that at the crucial moment, India would intervene to suspend the war and force the Sri Lankan government to negotiate. They believed that the Tamil Nadu politicians would be able to pressurize New Delhi to intervene on their behalf. Yet, the Tamil Nadu politicians were only seeking to exploit the image of the LTTE to collect some votes, and New Delhi continued to provide diplomatic and military support to the Sri Lankan state to wage war. Pakistan and China joined in with generous support militarily, in a bid to off-set the growing strategic influence of the US and India in the Asian region. At the same time, the US made sure that they had a key hold on the Sri Lankan war effort to gain strategic control over the island. In the course of the war, the US ( and Israel) continued to supply advanced weaponry and equipment, provide combat training to the armed forces, provide advanced intelligence skills and equipment, and provided also the diplomatic-political support for this ‘war on terror’. During the course of the war, the US exploited the opportunity to enter into the “ Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement “ with the Sri Lankan state, whereby the US gained free access to all military facilities in the island-on land, sea and air. This is how the supra-patriotic regime waged war against the LTTE to defend the motherland.
Organizational Line:
The organizational line of the LTTE flowed from its bourgeois-nationalist ideological and political line. The LTTE was organized as a highly hierarchical military command center. This was a case of extreme bureaucratic centralism, where no internal – nor external- dissent was tolerated. The leader was elevated to a position of a god- a sun god, who was invincible, and whose wisdom was not to be questioned by ordinary mortals. The LTTE really did not develop a political party where there could be internal discussion and debate in forging a political-military line. In the end, when they were being encircled and suppressed through unceasing waves of assault on land, sea and air, the LTTE forced the civilian population of the Vanni to remain caught in the crossfire to provide them with a humanitarian shield- and shot and killed those who tried to escape to save their lives. The armed forces of the state, of course could not be bothered with civilian casualties and went ahead and deliberately bombarded this no-fire zone. The civilians literally were held hostage by both sides, and thousands were killed in the process- including the elderly, women and children. The state could get away with this type of genocidal warfare, because it claimed that the LTTE was preventing the civilian population from seeking safety by crossing over. It provided cream and credence to the claim that the state was forced to resort to extreme measures to ‘liberate the Tamil people from the fascist clutches of the LTTE’! In the end, for all the bravado of the elite vanguard saviors, for all the spectacular military victories scored, for all the immense sacrifices made, for all the creative imagination in waging war against a vastly superior force, the ideological-political-military line of the LTTE proved to be fatally vulnerable.
Conclusion:
If we do not view and analyse the world scientifically, then we cannot achieve success in transforming it. If we do not place the liberation of any particular country or nation in the context of the historical mission of emancipating humankind from the shackles of ignorance and slavery bound up with class society, then our lenses will be flawed, and history will teach us a bitter and cruel lesson-paid in the blood of the people. The essential lesson to be learnt from the blood that has been spilt is that only the path of proletarian revolution illuminated by the science of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, led by a vanguard Communist Party, in command of a people’s liberation army and leading a united front of all anti-feudal/ anti-imperialist forces, aimed at smashing the state power – the dictatorship of the Comprador-Bureaucratic Capitalist ruling class, in the context of advancing the world revolution, marching towards the dawn of a Communist world with the goal of emancipating humankind from the bondage of class society, can unleash the infinite initiative, creativity and daring of the masses in waging revolutionary struggle- including revolutionary class warfare- to finally defeat and bury the system of imperialism and achieve liberation.