{"id":90849,"date":"2013-06-09T13:56:25","date_gmt":"2013-06-09T08:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=90849"},"modified":"2013-06-24T23:09:54","modified_gmt":"2013-06-24T17:39:54","slug":"total-destruction-of-the-tamil-tigers-the-rare-victory-of-sri-lankas-long-war-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/total-destruction-of-the-tamil-tigers-the-rare-victory-of-sri-lankas-long-war-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Total Destruction Of The Tamil Tigers: The Rare Victory Of Sri Lanka\u2019s Long War"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Charles Sarvan<\/a><\/span> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Prof. Charles Sarvan<\/p><\/div>\n

Paul Moorcraft<\/a><\/span>, \u2018Total Destruction of the Tamil Tigers<\/em>: The Rare Victory of Sri Lanka\u2019s Long War<\/a><\/span>, UK, 2012.<\/p>\n

The author, a visiting professor of Journalism at Cardiff, has written several books on recent wars. This work (hereafter, TDTT) is short but contains a wealth of information and detail. Moorcraft has read on Sri Lanka, visited sites, and conducted interviews including with army commanders, the Permanent Secretary<\/a><\/span> (Defence), the President<\/a><\/span>, Kumaran Pathmanathan<\/a><\/span> (\u201cK.P.\u201d), Colonel Karuna<\/a><\/span> and others.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see beauty in victory is to rejoice in the killing of others\u201d (The \u2018Art of War\u2019<\/em> by Sun-tzu, BCE 380-316). Altering words from Gray\u2019s \u2018Elegy\u2019 (1751), one should not \u201cwade through slaughter\u201d to power and domination, shutting the gates of compassion on humanity. But TDTT is \u201cnot a moral tract\u201d (page xviii) and, therefore, it cannot be reproached for not dealing with issues such as ethics and human-rights. For example, when he says the government acted \u201ccorrectly\u201d (page 165) he means it in military and political (not in ethical or humane) terms. Objectively and dispassionately, Moorcraft records that the government and its army functioned like a steamroller (page 168) flattening everything before it. TDTT, therefore, is a Machiavellian work. \u201cMachiavellian\u201d is used here not pejoratively but neutrally. \u2018The Prince\u2019<\/em> (circa 1515) focuses on how power can be secured and retained: When and how should one be cruel? In politics, it is better to be feared than loved, and so on. (Cf. Kautilya<\/a><\/span>\u2019s \u2018The Arthashastra<\/em>\u2019 written over 1500 years ago.)<\/p>\n

With objective circumspection, Moorcraft reports, rarely adding his personal opinion. For example:<\/p>\n

Many Sri Lankans think the charges against General Fonseka<\/a><\/span> \u201cwere trumped up\u201d.<\/p>\n

Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter and Kofi Annan said that the persecution and disappearance of Sri Lankan \u201chuman rights activists, journalists and political opponents\u201d was horrific.<\/p>\n

International critics claimed that \u201cthe rights of the defeated Tamils in the north and east were being ignored\u201d, etc.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A very ugly war was waged in a geographically beautiful island. \u201cThe air force [\u2026] dropped leaflets telling civilians to seek shelter in places of worship. Jets bombed St Peter\u2019s and St Paul\u2019s Church at Navali\u201d (page 35). The author does not express an opinion as to whether this was deliberate or accidental. As with all modern conflicts (see Daniel Goldhagen\u2019s \u2018Worse Than War\u2019<\/em>, 2009) by far the greater number of those killed or wounded consists of civilians. Concentrating on the \u201cend\u201d, and indifferent to the impact on civilians of the \u201cmeans\u201d chosen, a \u201cGo to hell\u201d attitude (page 78) was adopted to internal and international humanitarian concerns. The foreign press was excluded, and \u201cthe government controlled much of the [local] press\u201d (page 85).<\/p>\n

In tracing events that led to conflict, Moorcraft (page 7) notes that to Tamils the early example and inspiration was Gandhi and his non-violent campaign (satyagrapha = the force of truth), and so Tamils tried \u201cperiods of mourning and fasts\u201d (page 15). There followed \u201cTamil suffering [in] 1958, 1961, 1974, 1977, 1979 and 1981, culminating in the horrific pogrom of 1983\u201d (page 90). All this leads to the book\u2019s title. The conclusion of the war was a \u201crare victory\u201d because in the modern period internal armed conflicts have been settled not on the battlefield but through negotiation. \u00a0That the Tigers could never be defeated militarily had become a \u201cmantra<\/em>\u201d, believed in by many \u2013 disastrously, by Prabhakaran himself. The sudden and total collapse of the Tigers was a surprise: \u201cvictory was far from certain [\u2026] even late into 2008\u201d (page 126), even though by the end of the war, government forces, including Civil Defence personnel were around 471,000 (page 77) while Tiger cadres were down to their hundreds. (With reference to Sri Lanka\u2019s heavy militarisation, army officers, when asked by the author to \u201cguesstimate\u201d the size of the UK armed forces, \u201call opined that it was much larger than theirs. They were stunned to discover that it was just over 100,000 and being reduced to 80,000: page 49.)<\/p>\n

Moorcraft impartially takes cognizance of both Tiger positives and negatives. In reading his observations one must bear in mind that he is also a senior instructor at the prestigious Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.<\/p>\n

On the positive side, he states that the Tigers were disciplined and effective. Prabhakarn<\/a><\/span> \u201cbuilt up probably the most effective and disciplined insurgent force to appear in the world since 1945\u201d (page 91). Towards the end of their campaign against the Tigers, the Indians had 160,000 soldiers (page 24), and their failure was \u201ca major humiliation for a power which had one of the world\u2019s largest armies\u201d (page 22). The \u201cattack-defence ratio is reckoned to be 3:1\u201d but during what is known as the Second Eelam War (1990-95), a maximum of 5,000 insurgents almost defeated a defending force of 10,000 (page 31). Small units of female Tigers are said to have driven away army units \u201cten times their size\u201d (page 37). Tiger boats were \u201ca triumph of ingenuity, often built in jungle workshops using off-the-shelf materials\u201d (page 97).\u00a0 The same can be said of the planes they assembled. Prabhakaran refused the offer to send his wife and two younger children to a safe western country (page 145), insisting they share the common lot. They were wiped out. Some will compare the last stand of the Tigers with that of the Spartan-led Battle of Thermopylae (BCE 480), \u201cexcept that the Greeks triumphed\u201d after their defeat (page 142). Within Tiger-controlled territory, the pernicious caste system did not exist; women feared no sexual molestation, were emancipated and free. Three paragraphs further down, I take up Moorcraft on Tiger negatives and errors.<\/p>\n

So why did they fail? In my article, \u201cA great military victory?\u2019 (25 October 2009), I suggested, inter alia<\/em>, the great numerical asymmetry, and the fact that the Tigers did not have a single jet fighter or helicopter. My specialisation was not history, much less military history: Moorcraft explores with expertise. (I thank him for his communication of 17 May 2013.) The \u2018case\u2019 he makes can be divided into (a) government attitude and conduct (already mentioned), (b) external factors, and most importantly (c) Tiger negatives and mistakes. These are not watertight but mutually influencing factors.<\/p>\n

There are also the elements of chance and Tiger failed attempts. The tsunami (26 December 2004) killed over 2,000 Tiger cadres (page 44). If the Tigers had succeeded in assassinating \u201cGotabaya and Mahinda Rajapaksa\u201d (page 165), or if they had succeeded in sinking the \u2018Jetliner\u2019 laden with over one thousand troops, then the war effort may [emphasised] have also been sunk.<\/p>\n

Where external relations are concerned, the government with great skill and care brought on board countries such as China, India and the US: no mean achievement when one considers that two of them see the third as a competitor, if not a potential threat. Indian support was most important; indeed, decisive: the Defence Secretary acknowledged to the author, \u201cUnless we had won the support of the Indian government, we couldn\u2019t have won this war\u201d (page 78). In contrast, the Tigers killed nearly 1,200 Indian soldiers (page 22) and assassinated Rajiv Gandhi on Indian soil. \u201c9\/11\u201d (11 September 2001) fundamentally changed attitudes to groups using violence as a means but, fatally, Prabhakaran did not grasp \u2018the wider picture\u2019 and immense significance of \u201c9\/11\u201d. Darwin (\u2018On the Origin of Species\u2019<\/em>, 1859) drew attention to the survival of the fittest – \u201cfitness\u201d includes adaptability. The world had changed but Prabhakaran didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Moorcraft succinctly states that the Tigers were the architects of their own downfall. Paulo Frere in his \u2018The Pedagogy of the Oppressed\u2019<\/em> (dedicated to the oppressed) says that in fighting oppression, one must be careful not to become like the oppressor \u2013 Nelson Mandela comes to mind – \u00a0but Tiger ferocity was unleashed even against the people they claimed to champion and defend. Sinhalese villagers were massacred and, as a part of \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d, Muslims living in Jaffna were ordered to quit (page 28): \u201cAt least 30,000 were driven out at just three hours\u2019 notice\u201d. (As elsewhere, I merely report from TDTT.) Prabhakaran built a Stalin-like cult of personality (page 167), one which brooked no divergence of opinion, let alone opposition. As with Napoleon and Hitler, early military success proved fatal. He had \u201chumbled a superpower\u201d, India (page 24), and so could take on the Sri Lankan army<\/a><\/span>. He \u201coverestimated his own resources and underestimated his new rivals, the Rajapaksas\u201d (page 168). If Prabhakaran had read \u2018Art of War<\/em>\u2019, he certainly did not profit by it. Self-confidence shaded into over-confidence. \u201cMahinda Rajapaksa won the November 2005 presidential election – in the closest margin in the country\u2019s history \u2013 partly because the LTTE<\/a><\/span> had ordered its people not to vote\u201d (page 109). It was one of Prabhakaran\u2019s \u201cbiggest strategic errors, perhaps on a par with killing Rajiv Gandhi\u201d. (General Carl von Clausewitz, author of the famous treatise \u2018On War\u2019<\/em>, in a less well-known work, \u2018The Campaign of 1812 in Russia\u2019<\/em>, notes that Napoleon\u2019s military defeat was due more to non-military miscalculations.) The assassination of President Premadasa<\/a><\/span>, 1993, was \u201canother strategic error\u201d (page 33) because Premadasa was \u201cprobably the most accommodating leader the LTTE was likely to face\u201d. (As with much else, I leave this assessment of President Premadasa to the reader.) Whatever the opinion Sri Lankans may have of\u00a0 Lakshman Kadirgamar<\/a><\/span>; whether it was indeed the Tigers or some other murky force which killed him, the Oxford-educated, suave and persuasive Foreign Minister was known and liked internationally, and his murder increased the \u201cinternational marginalization of the Tigers\u201d (page 45). It appears to me that many of these murders were prompted by the personal pique of Prabhakaran, rather than being based on careful, political, long-term calculation. \u00a0He was no chess-player weighing up different choices and their consequence – consequences both immediate and eventual. He may have been brilliant in tactics but seems to have been poor in strategy. Colonel Karuna who had led several successful attacks against the army broke away from Prabhakaran, taking \u201caround 5,000 to 6,000\u201d (page 42) of his fighters. Whatever his grievance, they should have been recognised, addressed and the Colonel retained within the fold. His departure and the information he was able to give the government were a severe blow to the Tigers, albeit unacknowledged by them. In summary, the \u201cLTTE\u2019s defeat was the result of cumulative internal and external forces\u201d (page 165).<\/p>\n

As I have written elsewhere, negative peace is merely the absence of war; positive peace, the presence of harmony. Should Prabakaran, as Moorcraft suggests, have settled for some form of devolution (page 167)? To answer that question, one must ask whether inclusion and equality were ever seriously and sincerely on offer. Under the majoritarian system obtaining in Sri Lanka, the main Sinhalese political parties appeal to the Sinhalese electorate; and the parties being prime enemies of each other (page 40), they misrepresent and sabotage any attempt at a just political settlement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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