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Prabhakaran versus Chandrika: A fight to the finish

By our Defence Correspondent
The armed forces and the LTTE are continuing their titanic battle at Elephant Pass, with no signs of a reprieve for either side (CENSORED)

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has made it very clear that she is now pursuing a (CENSORED) solution to the conflict with all her efforts at restarting negotiations having failed.

In response LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran unleashed a wave of suicide bomber attacks in Colombo and continued to send wave after wave of cadres at the army’s defence lines in Paranthan and Elephant Pass trying to drive government forces out of the Jaffna Peninsula.

The president got tough this week first in her three-hour television address to the nation, and then on Friday when she ordered sweeps of predominantly Tamil neighbourhoods in Colombo in the wake of the Flower Road bombing. The enforcement of a curfew that disrupted life in the capital city for a day clearly showed her get-tough attitude.

We cannot give our readers any details of the fierce fighting in the Elephant Pass sector, due to the ongoing censorship, except to say that fighting has raged almost continuously for more than six week now.

This shows that LTTE’s resolve to drive the army out of the area. Elephant Pass, located at the foot of the Jaffna Peninsula, holds the key to the entire region (CENSORED).

The capture of Elephant Pass would therefore mean the most crushing defeat on the army by far in the 18-year history of the war.

The Tigers are well aware that time is running out for them. They gambled by launching the attack during the Northeast monsoon rains, knowing that the weather prevented close support to the army by both the air force’s planes and helicopters. In addition, the choppy seas have shut off the north from reinforcements by sea, although air force transport planes continue to pour in troops and weapons to Palaly from where they join battle by road.

The monsoon rains are expected to end in the last week of January or in early February, which means that the Tigers still have about a month, and the soldiers will have to hold off the attacks during that time.

Although Prabhakaran has refused to start peace talks with the President, it is possible that failure to capture Elephant Pass will force him to change his strategy and go back to the negotiating table.

However, once the monsoon ends, and if Elephant Pass is still standing, it will be back to square one, as far as military strategy is concerned. It is (CENSORED) time during the President’s term, which ends only in six years time.

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In Colombo, the spate of Black Tiger attacks has caused much alarm, (CENSORED). The last attack on Flower Road, appears to have been aimed at assassinating any member of the Cabinet, and appears to indicate that the LTTE has many more Black Tigers already in the city.

In the past, Black Tigers were rare commodities in Colombo, and were used very selectively and only against top targets. But the Flower Road blast shows that Black Tigers are being used against low priority targets such as killing any member of the Cabinet.

The spate of attacks at Town Hall, Ja-Ela and Flower Road, ended a long lull in suicide bombings in Colombo. The last one was the assassination of TULF leader Dr. NeelanTiruchelvam at Rosmead Place five months ago. Before that, intelligence officials had scored a string of successes and kept the suicide squads out of the city. But it is clear that the Black Tigers are back (CENSORED).

Meanwhile, most senior and junior officers in all three armed forces are anxiously awaiting the President’s decision regarding the requests for extensions of service by the second and third most senior officers in the navy.

The President has repeatedly said that extensions will be granted only if an officer has performed exceptionally well in relation to his peers or cannot be replaced at the present time. But Rear Admiral Daya Sandagiri, who is the Chief of Staff and Rear Admiral Terrence Sundaram, who is the Commander of the Eastern Area, have requested her to extend their periods in the rank of rear admiral, on what many in the forces see as purely personal grounds.

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The only exception to the general rule on extensions is in the case of the commander of each service, since it has been found that changing commanders too frequently is disruptive to the war effort. Recently Army Chief, Lieutenant General Srilal Weerasooriya was given an extension (CENSORED).

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Both returned last month after completing prestigious staff courses abroad, which were to prepare them for more senior posts. Rear Admiral Amaraweera was in the United Kingdom at the Royal College of Defence Studios, while Rear Admiral Wijewickrema was at the National Defence College in New Delhi.

(CENSORED). In the past three years, this situation had been rectified, and the fate of the two rear admirals is being watched keenly from all quarters.

The navy’s situation is of special interest to the army, (CENSORED).

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