by Our Defence Correspondent
Exactly one year ago, the Sri Lanka army launched an operation which it said would capture large areas of the Wanni and open a road to Jaffna.

Today, after 365 days of fighting which have left more than one thousand soldiers dead and four thousand wounded, troops of Operation Jaya Sikuru (Certain Victory) have been able to capture only two thirds of the Jaffna-Kandy road.

What is worse, the soldiers have been unable to move forward at all since January, and are stuck outside the town of Mankulam, with little hope of breaking through in the near future.

Operation Jaya Sikuru is the longest and bloodiest of the 16-year-old war.

It is also one of the longest offensives in the history of warfare.

'What is happening in the north with Jaya Sikuru?' is a question which journalists are asked by ordinary people practically every day. The fact is that most people are unable to comprehend why a single operation should or could take so long.

The communiques issued by the Operational Headquarters of the Ministry of Defence, saying daily that 'the operation continues,' only makes things worse in the eyes of the public.

So what has gone wrong with Jaya Sikuru?

The fact of the matter is that the army made a major blunder in planning the operation.

The top brass and Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte believed that if the air force, police and navy could provide enough ground troops to hold on to areas along the road which were captured by the army, that the army would have enough manpower to push through to Kilinochchi.

Unfortunately, the army did not have enough soldiers for this operation, the way it was planned.

The navy and air force, and to a lesser extent the police and the Special Task Force, have provided the manpower that the government wanted them to. These four forces hold more than half of the area which was captured by the soldiers in the last year.

The top brass also blundered in thinking that the LTTE would adopt the same defensive strategy that was its undoing in Operation Rivi Resa in Jaffna in 1995 and 1996.

During that earlier campaign, the LTTE resisted the army's advance tooth and nail in the countryside. This resulted in heavy casualties on both sides during the initial phase.

The road between Palali and Jaffna town also contained smaller towns such as Neerveli, in which the LTTE had built huge military complexes which it absolutely had to defend.

Many of its cadres were lost in this way, fighting holding actions while other cadres dismantled the structures and machinery and carried them away.

The LTTE, numerically far inferior to the army, was thus unable to muster enough cadres to defend Jaffna, the most crucial town.

The army's divisions, although badly hit by casualties themselves, still had enough soldiers to carry on and take the rest of Jaffna. This was especially made possible by the shifting of more than twenty thousand troops from the eastern province to the north.

But for Jaya Sikuru, the Tigers did not fight for vast empty spaces between the towns. Instead, they have fought in thick jungles, raining mortars on the advancing soldiers.

This has decimated the ranks of the army, which does not have any more reserves to replace the soldiers who are killed and wounded.

The crucial question now is: Can the army continue with Operation Jaya Sikuru, and complete it?

The answer, at this stage, is a qualified yes.

The army can do the job, provided that it gets the manpower to do so. Its own estimate to the defence ministry is that with another fifteen thousand soldiers, it can complete the operation for certain.

The question is, where are these soldiers to come from?

The navy, air force and STF have exhausted their supplies of riflemen. They simply can't provide very many more people to fight on land, especially since vast areas of the north, east and Colombo have already been handed over to them by the army, so that more soldiers can go to Jaya Sikuru.

The police, although having more numbers than the air force and navy, just don't have the quality of personnel needed to hold large areas of the Wanni. In most of the major LTTE attacks in this area, many policemen have been found to have fled very quickly, unlike their counterparts in the air force, navy and STF.

The amnesties given for army deserters to return are nothing but a fool's dream. Although a few thousand deserters have returned, the number is nothing like the fifteen thousand that are needed.

Although the number of deserters is a little over fifteen thousand, it is ridiculous to expect more than about five thousand to return, the reason being that the others have found themselves jobs somewhere else, or have turned to crime and found that it pays more than fighting in the Wanni.

The answer therefore, lies in conscription. As we reported extensively in these columns last week, the government has been considering the matter very carefully for months now. Although no firm decision has been taken that it is to be started, all top brass and senior defence officials have admitted in principle that it is necessary. No-one within the defence establishment has opposed the move.

So why the delay in starting conscription?

The reason is the forthcoming Provincial Council elections, due sometime in the next three or four months, unless postponed through emergency powers.

The government is fully aware of the fact that any move to draft people into the army by force would be met by massive voter discontent. So for now, top officials are denying plans of conscription, as did army chief Lt. Gen. Rohan Daluwatte last Friday.

A decision on how to implement conscription will be taken only after the PC polls.

So what does this mean for Operation Jaya Sikuru? Without a massive influx of manpower, the operation will stay as it is, making little headway, until conscription begins. Even then, it will be at least six months before people can be selected and trained to become soldiers.

Thus, there is no end in sight to this operation. A year of bad planning by the defence ministry and army headquarters has led to an impasse. Only when the army manages to send a massive number of soldiers to Mankulam, by whatever means, will the operation succeed.