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| Sri Lankan security forces rehearse for celebrations to mark their conquest of the eastern province, where 300,000 Tamils have been displaced by offensives. Photo TamilNet |
Sri Lanka’s hardline Sinhala government this week said it had cleared the Liberation Tigers from the island’s east and prepared for a major celebration while announcing plans to attack the LTTE’s stronghold in the north.
“To bring about permanent peace to this country, the government is dedicated to chase out the terrorists from the Northern Province,'' President Mahinda Rajapaksa vowed, hailing the conquest of the eastern province.
As this edition was going to print Wednesday, the Sinhala-nationalist government was preparing island wide ceremonies for Thursday to mark the province's capture, including a military parade of 700 personnel.
President Rajapakse, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, is to receive a 21-gun salute at Independence Square in the capital and review the parade and a fly past by Air Force jets.
During the celebrations, President Rajapakse will be formally informed of the capture by being presented with a parchment scroll by the head of the Army, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka.
The act mimics victory ceremonies held by Sinhala kings when they defeated Tamil enemies.
The government has also made elaborate arrangements to hold lectures at schools to inform students of the military gains in the east of the island, officials said.
But amid LTTE warnings of retaliation, there is widespread skepticism of the strategic value of the government’s captured of Thoppigala, the LTTE last bastion in the east,
This LTTE admitted its fighters had vacated Thoppigala, but warned a guerilla war was set to escalate in the east.
And as if to highlight the continuing volatility of the region, the government’s newly appointed top civil servant there was shot dead Tuesday.
The Chief Secretary of the Eastern Provincial Herath Abeyweera, a retired Sinhala army officer appointed by President Mahinda Rajapakse, was shot dead in his office in Trincomalee Tuesday by gunmen who escaped. Police blamed the LTTE.
President Rajapakse, whose elaborate victory celebrations are coming under criticism by Sinhala nationalists demanding he drive the Tigers from their northern stronghold said: "this assassination further strengthens our resolve not to give in to the forces of terror, but to proceed with our task of restoring freedom and democracy to the East, and all of Sri Lanka."
The Sri Lankan government said it would seek foreign aid to consolidate its grip in the key eastern
province, wrested from the Tigers after almost a year of military offensives which have driven 300,000 Tamils from their homes.
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| Sri Lanka Army commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka at an official ceremony last week. Photo SLA |
The LTTE says international aid sent to Sri Lanka is being used to boost the military.
Funds are spent on projects such as constructing roads in militarily strategic areas, Mr. S.P. Tamilselvan, head of the LTTE's political wing, told outgoing Norwegian Ambassador Hans Brattskar last week.
The Tamil people are disillusioned that the international donor group led by the U.S., the European Union, Japan and Norway is failing to ensure aid is used for humanitarian purposes, Mr. Tamilselvan added.
Last week the government announced it had finally captured Thoppigala, the last bastion of the Tigers in the eastern province which comprises the Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Amparai districts.
Tiger fighters melted away from Thoppigala, a mountainous jungle area they dominated for more than 13 years, LTTE spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiriyan told reporters from the north.
Tamil Tiger forces who remained in the east had gone into "guerrilla" mode, he said, adding that "winning the war was not about taking control of real estate."
"They are mentioning this as the end of the war in the east," Ilanthiriyan said. "But that is not the truth. We have the experience in guerrilla tactics. In fact, we have already changed our approach to guerrilla tactics."
In comments published in the Daily Mirror Illentheriyan said the Sri Lankan military could have moved into Thoppigala much earlier than it did as the Tigers had already withdrawn from the area after a change of strategy.
Former Air Marshall Harry Goonetilleke told the AP news agency that the seizure of Thoppigala was an important success for the military, but keeping it would not be easy.
"You can win a battle with 2,000 troops, but to hold it you need 10,000 minimum," he said.
President Mahinda Rajapakse hailed the victory and warned he would now smash the LTTE’s de-facto state in the island’s north.
He offered a tribute to soldiers who "captured the last stronghold of the terrorists located in Thoppigala."
The main opposition UNP meanwhile sneered at the claimed victory and asked whether the government facilitated the withdrawal of 800 LTTE cadres in the Thoppigala area.
“We did not see the LTTE manpower and heavy weapons being destroyed at large in the military operations,” senior UNP official Lakshman Kiriella said.
Earlier this month, a senior Indian officer who led operations against the Tigers during Delhi’s intervention in the island in the late eighties said the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) did conduct operations in the Thoppigala jungles, but made no attempt to occupy the area because it had no strategic significance.
“Thoppigala was a vast jungle area which did not lie on any major line of communication. It was basically a hide out for the LTTE. It had hospitals, prisons and training camps,” former area commander, Maj Gen Ashok Mehta told Hindustan Times.
“I have personally led operations to destroy these facilities. But we always came back to base, as there was no need to occupy the area. There was nothing to occupy!" he said.
The Hindustan Times quoted independent military observers as saying that the Sri Lankan military’s progress against the Tigers has been slow as there had been stiff resistance by the LTTE and the terrain has been difficult.
"If it is a walk over, why the did the Air Force pound the area on Wednesday and Thursday?" asked Iqbal Athas of The Sunday Times asked a day before the government announced it had cleared Thoppigala.
The Hindustan Times said Sri Lankan observers felt that the government’s insistence on taking Thoppigala was political rather than military.
Meanwhile, the head of the LTTE’s political wing, SP Tamilselvan said peace was "not possible" with President Rajapaksa and warned the war will escalate.
"Our targets would be in the future major military and economic structures of the government of Sri Lanka," he told the Reuters.
"They will be targets which help the government sustain its military operations and military rule. For instance (our) attack on the oil installations. That is one of the targets that will cripple the economy of Sri Lanka as well as the military capability of Sri Lanka, so such will be the tactic," he further said.
The US embassy in Colombo has issued a warning to US citizens to exercise caution in Sri Lanka.
“Americans should continue to avoid military installations, military convoys travelling on the roads, and where possible, government buildings and political rallies/events, as they have in the past been targets for LTTE attacks,” the embassy said.
Sri Lanka is to ask international donors to fund an ambitious reconstruction bid in the newly seized area of some 9,635 square kilometres (3,720 square miles), Public Administration Minister Karu Jayasuriya said.
Both Britain and Germany have frozen aid to Sri Lanka because of concerns about the regimes’ deteriorating rights record.
But the island's main financial backer, Japan, which accounts for two thirds of bilateral aid, has said that it will not link development assistance to human rights.
