In the final weeks of the war, the LTTE continued to aggressively conscript civilians who were given crash training and assigned to scratch units at the frontline. For instance, in a now public April 2009 report, Rajan Hoole, who heads the dissident Tamil University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) and who is known for his criticism of both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE, pointed to conversations with civilians who fled LTTE controlled territory.
‘The LTTE has recently started the practice of sending out teams of 6 cadres with instructions for each team to return with 30 conscripts,’ Hoole wrote. ‘If they fail they are reportedly subject to heavy and often lethal punishment.’
However, the LTTE’s efforts were in vain. After bitter fighting on May 16 and 17, the last civilians were extracted from the combat zone, leaving 400 hardcore LTTE leaders and fighters exposed. By the morning of May 19, the LTTE lay defeated and its leaders eliminated, bringing a decisive end to the nearly three decade long Sri Lankan civil war. The Army’s final operation involved 4 weeks of heavy fighting and the loss of over 500 soldiers.
The evidence revealed by the LTTE’s own former sympathisers indicates the lengths the group was willing to go to and the difficulties facing conventional militaries confronting a fanatical adversary that conducts itself with impunity. Under such circumstances it’s unrealistic to believe civilian casualties can be avoided. Indeed, the very success of the Army in extracting more than 280,000 civilians from the combat zone from January to May 2009, despite this effort contributing to it suffering heavy casualties in process, is an indication of the complexity of conducting military operations in an environment where an enemy is willing use civilians as a key element of its military strategy.
Civilian casualties are, of course, tragic. But the endgame of Sri Lanka’s civil war requires a much more in-depth and nuanced understanding of the dilemmas that faced the Army before any conclusions can be drawn.
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Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka
I would prefer to go by a study made by a top professional who is non Sri Lankan. I refer readers to the Manekshaw paper No 22, of the Land warfare Studies Centre, Delhi, authored by Gen Ashok Mehta. It pretty much confirms Sergei de Silva Ranasinghe’s essay in your journal. So does last week’s article in The Hindu by Col Hariharan, formerly of Indian military intelligence. None of these non-Sri Lankan military studies bear out tales of large scale, intentional killings of civilians, i.e. atrocities, war crimes etc.
shan
Great analysis Sergie, unlike the Tamil diaspora backed reports this gives an in depth analysis of what really happened.
Rajah
shan wrote:
“Great analysis Sergie, unlike the Tamil diaspora backed reports this gives an in depth analysis of what really happened.”
If this is what really happened, why are the Sri-Lankan Government rejecting international calls for an independent inquiry? What are they afraid of? Why should the world believe “Ranasinghe”, a Sinhalese in the payroll of the Sri-Lankan Government, over what the Tamil Diaspora or independent groups say?
If this is what really happened, then let an independent inquiry prove it and that’s that. End of story. It would be lights out for anyone saying otherwise. Instead, analysis by Ranasinghe, Gunaratne, and other Government backed people is not going to prove anything. It becomes a he-said she-said scenario.