KAMALIKA PIERIS

Scratch below the surface of any civil war and there is usually a foreign sponsor to be found, said   analysts. Almost all civil wars have an external dimension. In virtually every case of  political violence within  a third world country,  it is usually  a foreign government that  has  helped to fund, arm, train or otherwise aid and assist  in the conflict, said  P.B. Hayner.

 Super powers instigate conflicts in target states to promote their interests, observed TIME. Super powers   create or use a disaffected group to destabilize countries they are interested in. These groups are encouraged to engage in terrorism. Terrorism is the perfect tool to exert pressure upon government.  It provides the perfect cover for hidden agendas. Terrorists exist because they are armed and supported by powerful foreign countries. Terrorism is not meant to be defeated, analysts observed.

 James Petras observed that when the US is not able to control a country and install a client government inside it, it finances and promotes separatist organizations which emphasis ethnic, religious, regional divisions.    Petras noted that from the 1970s USA started to finance and direct such groups inside countries which were not doing what USA wanted.

US has infiltrated, invaded, bombed, and destroyed several countries. They dropped Agent Orange on Vietnam. There were US-promoted separatist movements in at least three Latin American countries, Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela. CIA trained and funded the Contras of Nicaragua.  USA helped Bosnia, Macedonia and Kosovo in the Yugoslavia break up. Europe, USA and UK supported the Libyan rebels with military hardware. This was illegal.  

The Eelam war was supported, trained and funded, directly or indirectly, by external powers, observed Tamara Kunanayagam. ‘There was foreign interference, an invisible force seen only by a few discerning individuals,’ said Sunanda Mahendra. The intelligentsia in Sri Lanka    only realized that there was western involvement in the Eelam War, when they saw the biased presentation on BBC, Al Jazeera and CNN when the LTTE war ended, announced critics.

Jayantha Dhanapala giving evidence before the   Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation (LLRC) Commission in 2010 said that that the Commission should examine the roleof those members of the international community who have intervened in the war. States which encourage terrorism, by nurturing the terrorists groups, letting them have HQs there, do fundraising, and helped with weapons, should be held responsible. I wish to draw attention to the way in which terrorist groups are given sanctuary, are harbored, and are supplied with arms and training by some countries, he said.  We know that in our case this happened. I don’t want to name the countries. Countries who have allowed their financial procedures and systems to be used for buying arms and ammunition should also be held responsible, concluded Dhanapala.

It is generally held that the external influence” in the Eelam wars is the United States of America. The hidden enemy in the Eelam war was the imperialist superpowers that have already caused havoc in Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, said a commentator.

US has always been interested in Sri Lanka‘s strategic position in the Indian Ocean, specially the deep water harbor in Trincomalee which can hold the whole of the US 7^th Fleet.  ‘Trincomalee is Sri Lanka’s most valuable asset. The depth of the harbor is such that nuclear submarines are able to dive low within the inner harbor to effectively avoid radar detection.  Any power that controlled this harbor had a great advantage from a naval and strategic perspective. During the period of sailing ships Trincomalee harbor the harbor could ensure the safety of a whole fleet during monsoon and a fleet so protected was in a position to dominate the Bay of Bengal and the eastern sea, said Romesh Somasundaram.

USA admits that it is deeply interested in Sri Lanka.  Sri Lanka is a key piece, said US in 2010.All of China’s and Japan’s energy resource from the Persian Gulf transits Sri Lanka  and the island has the potential to control or impede the free flow these resources to China. Half the world’s container traffic passes through Sri Lanka and the island has the potential to block this as well.  The US has a competing interest with India and China in securing this maritime route.

Sri Lanka’s position in a strategic location in the Indian Ocean, and its critical ports with access to global maritime lanes and trading routes plays a pivotal role in a free and open Indo-Pacific architecture and reinforce the necessity for the United States to build constructive relationships with Sri Lanka, said Julie Jiyoon Chung, America’s  current ambassador to Sri Lanka.

The Eelam war was actually a war with America. It was not a direct war like that between USA and Vietnam.  It was a war between Sri Lanka and a proxy of America, observed analysts. If the LTTE had succeeded, US would have gained control of two thirds of Sri Lanka’s coast line, enabling them to secure Persian Gulf energy resources to Japan, interfere with the flow of resources to China.

The Eelam war seems to have been planned by the US way back in the 1970s.  In 1977, or thereabouts, at a cocktail party, in Manila, an American had boasted to Sri Lanka‘s Ambassador, Oliver Perera, that soon there would be an armed rebellion by Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Once the Eelam war started, US watched its progress carefully.  It showed concern at the end of Eelam war 3 (1995-2002). In 2002 the US Pacific Command team was   invited by Ranil Wickremasinghe to examine the strengths and weakness of the armed forces. Given access to the Sri Lanka army in this manner, US prepared a top secret report on the Sri Lanka armed forces.

The US report said that the major strength of the army was its impressive soldiers, who endure tremendous hardships while maintaining a fighting spirit. It is this that has prevented more drastic defeats.

The report said the SLAF was not capable of fighting the LTTE. It lacked equipment needed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.  But it had competent and committed officers and men. Also the air force did not have a comprehensive air operational plan.  US pointed out that the MiG 27 s and C-130s had been bought at the expense of other critical sectors.

 Obviously the US underestimated the SLAFs trust in its jet squadrons, said commentators later on. Regardless of the US assessment, the SLAF continued to enhance its capability to launch operations by jets. The US failed to see that a powerful strike force was needed to take targets though the development of ISR capability (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance).

The west did their utmost to prevent us from winning the war. They would have succeeded if not for Russia and China, observed diplomat K Godage. Bushmaster guns purchased from USA by Sri Lanka could not be used because USA refused to provide the ammunition. The Leahy Amendment would not allow it. Leahy Amendment stopped the U.S. from providing military assistance to foreign armies that violated human rights. Spares for Bell 412 helicopters were withheld for the same reason, said Palitha Kohona.

A victory for Sri Lanka was an outcome to be avoided said Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State during Eelam war IV. She wanted the final offensive to stop, and the government return to the negotiating table and work out a political solution. This showed that the US was “leading from behind”, observed Dayan Jayatilleke. USA threatened to withhold the promised 1. 9 million loan unless a ceasefire was declared and foreign intervention was allowed, reported Shamindra Ferdinando.

US wanted to weaken Sri Lanka economically.  Wikileaks cables showed that Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, had intervened and stopped a critical stand-by loan from IMF just two weeks before the LTTE was defeated.

Sri Lanka’s application in April 2009, for a US$1.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund met with US resistance. ‘We have raised questions about the IMF loan at this time. We think it is not an appropriate time to consider that until there is a resolution of the conflict,’ said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

However, the US did help in the defeat of the LTTE. The almost complete destruction of the LTTE shipping fleet was possible due to advanced technical intelligence and satellite data provided by US Pacific command to the Sri Lanka Navy. President Rajapakse publicly thanked the US for helping Sri Lanka Navy destroy some of the LTTE floating warehouses. They had provided the intelligence. Sri Lanka received initial leads from the US and Australia, with some assistance from Indian navy for that operation, said Rohan Gunaratne.

But, though the US helped to weaken the LTTE militarily, it was not prepared to allow a complete military defeat of the LTTE, observed Dayan Jayatilleka. The west did not want the total annihilation of the LTTE. They wanted LTTE to remain a viable fighting unit in Sri Lanka and keep the country in destabilized state. LTTE was their tool said critics. The US wanted to keep the LTTE alive politically and possibly militarily, agreed India.

US Ambassador Robert O Blake had wanted to bring an advanced US mission to Sri Lanka to see if it was possible to get LTTE to surrender to American troops, failing which, US wanted the LTTE to surrender to a third party. Sri Lanka insisted that LTTE must surrender to Sri Lanka and not to a third party.  Weerawansa said the west had asked Prabhakaran to lay down arms to a third party because if he was arrested he would tell the government how the west had helped him with the war.

USA had wanted President Rajapakse to offer a general amnesty to the LTTE. This coincided with the unilateral ceasefire declared by the LTTE when they found they were losing. President Rajapakse refused. The government could not offer an amnesty, he said. Even if the top leaders surrendered the government would go ahead with legal proceedings against them for crimes committed.

It was also too late for the LTTE to negotiate a deal with the government.   President said that he would not accept Prabhakaran as party to any future settlement. Nothing could be more ridiculous than allowing LTTE to take part in negotiations when it had lost its fighting capability.

When US saw that the government of Sri Lanka was winning the war, it was keen on getting the LTTE leaders out of Sri Lanka before the war ended. Mark Salter reported that there was a secret meeting in Kuala Lumpur between Ambassador Tore Hattrem and chief LTTE representative Kumaran Pathmanathan ‘KP.’ The date is not given. The meeting was attended by Jon Westborg and Tomas Stangeland on the Norwegian side and V. Rudrakumaran and Jay Maheswaran on the LTTE side.   Pathmanathan was working out a plan to get the LTTE leadership away to another country, possibly Eritrea, South Africa or East Timor. 

In February 2009, after the fall of Mullaitivu in January certain outside forces were making plans to invade Sri Lanka to save LTTE leaderships, said the media. Wikileaks showed that the US had planned to pick LTTE leadership up from the Mullaitivu beach and take them away.

Then about two months before the final battle at Nanthikadal lagoon, USA had offered to evacuate the top LTTE leaders and their families.  There were secret negotiations to take away Prabhakaran, Sea tiger wing leader, Soosai, intelligence wing leader Pottu Amman and their families, numbering over 100. 

US ambassador Blake tried to take Prabhakaran out through an operation by the US Marines based in Hawaii, said K.  Godage.  The US Pacific command sent a team of experts at the height of the war to explore way and mean of carrying out an organized evacuation of the top leadership. A high-level team of the United States Pacific Command (US PACOM) from their headquarters in Hawaii is now in Colombo for this purpose said the media. 

An aircraft from Hawaii carrying US experts touched down at BIA following a dispute over formalities regarding landing rights. Sri Lanka was told of its arrival only after it was airborne, continued the media. Michael Roberts met a senior SLAF officer who had been in SLAF HQ when US officers in civilian clothes visited the SLAF HQ in Colombo in 2009. He thought it was April but could not be certain.

USA also tried to save Prabhakaran by offering to send a ship to evacuate the civilians used by the LTTE as human shield. The US ambassador said that one of their ships was nearby and sought the permission of the President to enter Sri Lankan waters. President Mahinda Rajapaksa said No. It was obvious that the real purpose was to rescue Prabhakaran.

There was also a media report which said that the Sri Lanka navy had seized and brought in an enemy vessel captured in an unprecedented operation, details of which cannot be disclosed. This vessel may have been involved in a last ditch attempt to evacuate LTTE leader Prabhakaran, since a light helicopter could have been sent from the vessel to pick him up (Island 22.12.09 p 1).

 Lastly, Kumaran Pathmanathan (KP) has stated in an interview with an Indian newspaper, that around May 16 or 17, 2009, the UN and a western government had asked if LTTE leaders were ready to leave the country and if so they could send a ship to go somewhere.  Prabhakaran had been convinced that he would be rescued, even at the last minute. Prabhakaran and his group were huddled together at Vellamullivaikal in the Nanthikadal lagoon, waiting to be rescued, when the army accidentally killed them.

When it became clear that the government was going to win the war, the western powers wanted President Rajapakse to stop the war. The pressure exerted on President Rajapakse was enormous. We were hounded and intimidated by the US to stop the war, said Godage. The Rajapakse government did not give in.  

There were appeals made to the Sri Lankan Government to “pause” hostilities during the final stages of the conflict. When Kilinochchi fell in January 2009 USA, UK, Norway and France, followed by India and Japan met Rajapaksa. These countries were trying to save the badly cornered LTTE.

  Later, there was a joint visit to Sri Lanka by Foreign Secretaries from the U.K. and France, Milliband and Kouchner, respectively. They met President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the Foreign Minister, Bogollagama.There were heated exchanges.Milliband had said that he had received reports that army was killing civilians.

  Gotabaya Rajapaksa did not hide his feelings in an interview with visiting correspondent of Daily Telegraph. He launched an angry verbal attack on Milliband, complaining about his interruptions.  Why should he interfere? A leader must listen to the people of his own country not the foreign minister of the UK.  

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon sent his chief of staff, Nambiar to meet the President.  UN wanted an immediate ceasefire. USA wanted a meeting between the UN representative and Prabhakaran as well. Representatives of UN, UNDP, ICRC together with the ambassadors for USA, India and European Union met the Foreign Minister. The fact that all these appeals were made to the Government and none to the LTTE convinced the Government that all these efforts were to save the LTTE leadership. (Continued)