To talk or not to talk...

The Island Editorial Courtesy The Island 15-08-2006

The Tigers are vehemently denying that they offered to talk peace while the battles were raging in the Jaffna peninsula. But the SLMM insists that they made a verbal offer and promised to get back only to renege on the promise later. Now the question: Who is telling us the truth?

The SLMM has no reason to utter a falsehood. Why should it fabricate anything? BBC has speculated that LTTE, having gone on the offensive in the North, might have wanted to project itself as the good guy by making such an offer. However it looks as if the LTTE made that offer prematurely and if everything had gone well, as planned, it would have gone the whole hog and written to the SLMM offering to talk peace unconditionally.

The debacle that the LTTE suffered at Mawilaru dealt a severe blow to its morale. It was the first major battle that the outfit had fought since the signing of the CFA and it was also the first test of strength in what has turned out to be the war that Prabhakaran promised last November. The LTTE captured the Mawilaru anicut not to let go of it, under any circumstances. When the going got tough, it made an incursion into Muttur as a diversionary tactic but there, too, it had to withdraw vis-`E0-vis a mammoth military onslaught which it couldn’t withstand.

Those two battles demonstrated the weakness of the LTTE in the Eastern sector. The LTTE cannot be unaware that the military is eyeing Sampur, which poses a direct threat to the Trincomalee harbour, on which depends the lifeline of the Northern troops. So, naturally the only alternative the LTTE had was to open a front where it was strong—the North and to try to make up for the loss in the East and to shift the focus of the military from the East to the North so that Sampur would be safe.

A protracted battle, however, is not in the LTTE’s favour at a time when it has overstretched itself making itself vulnerable at many places. It may have sought to launch a couple of surgical strikes, expand its territory in the North, and then talk peace to get a breather to consolidate itself in the newly gained terrain. When it took on the military on Friday, it was overconfident that achieving its objective was only a few hours away. Hence, its offer to the SLMM in advance to talk peace but to be on safe side it saw to it that the SLMM would be without any proof of its offer. Its plan went awry when the military put up resistance and rolled back its offensive in a manner that was least expected. So, the LTTE had to go back on its promise to ‘get back to the SLMM.’ While getting bogged down in a battle once again, the LTTE is not in a position to admit that it ever offered to talk peace.

The LTTE has, it should be recalled, promised its final war and collected a great deal of funds for that purpose. How can it offer to talk peace without any battle field gain to flaunt by way of an achievement to give an impetus to its fund raising campaign? The LTTE is also heavily dependent on the so-called auxiliaries (civilians who have been forced to undergo a brief military training) and many of them are being held against their will. If there are any signs of the LTTE being weakened militarily, mass desertions will be inevitable. That is the last thing that the LTTE wants.

That the LTTE has, in a bid to boost the morale of its cadres and make up for the loss in the East, bitten off more than it can chew is obvious. It cannot cope with the large number of injured cadres as well as the civilians caught in the cross fire in the areas under its control. The Kilinochchi hospital is overflowing with casualties, according to the LTTE and a few more days of fighting will leave the outfit without any place to accommodate its wounded combatants. It must be fully convinced that, unlike in 2000, it is facing a determined military and its soft underbelly is badly exposed to the armed forces in the East. Yesterday’s claymore mine attack on the Pakistani High Commissioner’s motorcade is bound to land the LTTE in hot water internationally in a bigger way. It is a sign of its desperation, having made a number of miscalculations at the battle front. It is obviously in need of a breather.

But, for Prabhakaran, who has promised ‘final war’, to talk peace or not to talk peace is the question.