CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

Govt. had no other option, says Kohona

by Namini Wijedasa

The government insisted yesterday that, whether or not their military operation had been successful, they had been driven to use force in Mavilaru because they had no any other option.

When told that the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, among others, had described the government’s military action as unnecessary, chief of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process Palith Kohona replied: "I disagree because I was in the midst of negotiations with the LTTE, through SLMM."

"We came to a standstill. SLMM at one point said they had nothing more to offer... that they had run out of options to bring the two sides together."

Kohona said that when the LTTE put forward its first demand for a water tower in Paddalipuram, "we agreed to it within 30 minutes". "We were then told that Kilinochchi had agreed to release the water.... but no water was released," Kohona said. "SLMM indicated at the time that there may be a gap in communication between Kilinochchi and Elilan."

"The negotiations continued through SLMM, with Ulf Henricsson himself getting involved," he said. "On Saturday, a letter was read to me by the assistant government agent of Trincomalee in which four LTTE demands were mentioned. We agreed to them, too, in principle, but no water flowed."
"The whole issue, then, was about the paddy cultivation dying," he stressed. "We couldn't wait indefinitely to get water."

Meanwhile, air strikes had not been designed to open sluice gates, said a senior defence source, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The strikes were conducted to deter the induction of auxiliaries by the LTTE."

Keheliya Rambukwella, defence spokesman, said the government had acted fast because it was a ‘water issue’. "With any other matter, we could have talked a few more days or weeks... or held discussions indefinitely without a time frame. But crops were dying and people were suffering without water. Their livelihoods were at stake."

When it was pointed out that, despite several days of fighting, the government has still not managed to open the Mavilaru sluice gates, Rambukwella replied: "As a responsible government, we had to make an attempt. It’s not that we have been unsuccessful. Troops have secured the west bank and soon they will reach the eastern bank, restore water and establish themselves."

Rambukwella accused the LTTE of pushing Sri Lanka towards war. "They forced this on us," he reiterated, pointing out that the Tigers had even staged claymore attacks on bowsers transporting water to civilians.

About Muttur, Rambukwella said that government troops could have flushed the LTTE out sooner but had to proceed cautiously due to high civilian presence. "Muttur is completely under government control now," he stressed.

TamilNet reported yesterday that fighting had ceased between the army and LTTE in Trincomalee, allowing humanitarian agencies to resume food supplies. "Initial reports from Muttur said the LTTE fighters returned to their positions Friday," the pro-Tiger website said.

The Reuters news agency also quoted a LTTE source as saying the Tigers had halted an offensive on Muttur and were pulling back to their original positions. "The offensive operation in Muttur has stopped and the LTTE is going back to its former position in our own territory," Reuters quotes the source as saying on condition of anonymity. "It was a limited operation and we are doing this on humanitarian grounds."

Another senior government source felt that the Tigers’ real objective had been to capture Muttur. "Mavilaru was the bait," he said, asking to remain unnamed. "No elected government could have tolerated what the LTTE did in terms of closing down the sluice gate."

"The Tigers wanted to control Muttur and dominate Trincomalee which is the lynchpin of supplies to Jaffna," he continued. "However, they also got their nose bloodied in Muttur because they started the offensive and couldn’t hold the area."

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