EXPERTS SAY LTTE AIR POWER LACKED ANY VALUE IN WAR IN REPLY TO UNP EDITOR ‘S NOTION ATTACHING MUCH IMPORTANCE TO IT

By Walter Jayawardhana

In a Radio Australia interview experts disagreed with an extremely pro-UNP newspaper editor who said the Tamil Tigers air wing brought ominous signs for the security forces and they said opposing the editor’s views that the air operations of the Tigers lacked any tactical advantage for them.

Experts disagreed with Lasantha Wickremetunga, the editor of the pro-UNP Sunday Leader in an interview with Radio Australia who said the air wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has fundamentally altered the conflict in Sri Lanka and it is the greatest challenge the government has to face.

Wickremetuna, a confidante of UNP and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and a member of his kitchen cabinet said in the interview that the, “use of airpower by the LTTE has fundamentally altered the conflict ” and “what the government had before was supremacy over the air but now the LTTE has gone into that area as well.”

He said the very fact the Tiger planes could fly 250 kilometers and get back safely are ominous signs for the security forces. He said the tactic is not likely to send the government in Colombo back to negotiations.

But Jane’s Defense Asia correspondence disagreed with the pro-UNP editor in the same interview. He said the air wing operations of the Tamil Tigers lack any tactical advantage and merely aimed at psychological step up.

He said , “The indication suggests the Tigers are under heavy pressure on two fronts the first is the unprecedented split in the Tiger organization and there’ve been ongoing conflict since then and the second has been the election of a hard-line government in Colombo that has taken a much less consolatory approach. So the application of airpower doesn't give them a tactical advantage so a fair guess is that it's aimed at a psychological step up.”

Jane’s Defence Asia correspondent Robert Carneil further said at a time when they have been suffering military setbacks on the ground and disruption to their fundraising in Europe and the United States the Tigers may be using the planes to mount a show of force.

The presenter of the radio program Bill Bainbridge said analysts say the military worth of the planes is negligible and their real value may be in bolstering their claims to legitimacy by adding an air wing to the guerilla army and small navy they already possess.

Lasantha Wickrematunga further said, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE, has been smuggling in parts for the light aircraft for the past decade.
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“There have been reports since 1998 that the LTTE has been acquiring airpower, that they have been building airstrips intelligence available at the moment is that they have been smuggling various parts of the light aircraft at various stages so there had been constant reports that they had been acquiring this air power but the first display was when they went and attacked the air force base a couple of weeks back”, he said.

International Defense analyst Paul Beaver further said in the radio program that It's dead easy to get hold of such planes.” You could buy one of the aero planes at any airfield in Europe or North America you can get it dismantled and crated there's no export control on it.”

Bainbridge said the LTTE is reported to have relied on their wide network of international supporters and their network of merchant ships to smuggle in the aircraft, then assemble them in the jungle and rig them with a small payload of bombs. He said that suggests the acquisition of this fledgling air force only makes the prospect of peace even more distant in Sri Lanka.