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April: The uneasy calm before the storm

by our Defence Correspondent
As the hoopla over the elections in five provincial councils dies down, security forces remain at the highest level of alert across the country, expecting a major LTTE attack any day.

Army intelligence had warned that the Tigers were likely to stage an attack on election day, or a few days before that, but this did not materialize, and many in key positions in the forces breathed a sigh of relief.

But the long silence of the LTTE is seen as being ominous by the armed forces, and a sign that the Tigers are gathering forces for an attack somewhere. There have been no major attacks since September, but April has traditionally been a month of major attacks by the LTTE.

At the same time, the LTTE has not lost a significant number of cadres either, since the army's offensives in Oddusudan and the western side of the Wanni have met with no resistance from the Tigers.

However, the LTTE has been weakened to such an extent by continuous warfare for three years before the lull, and cannot launch a series of attacks on the battlefield. Instead, it is expected to launch one or two very strong assaults with concentrated forces.

Colombo is always a target, of course, and authorities are extremely vigilant on movement of vehicles these days. The key units guarding Colombo are well aware of the fact that it has been more than a year since the last major bombing in the city.

Election days in the last few years have seen the LTTE striking targets in the north, notably at the 1994 General Election in August, and the Presidential Election in November the same year, where in both cases warships were sunk in harbors. The attacks were not of huge strategic significance, but served as a violent reminder that no matter whichever political party won, it would still have to consider the LTTE as the main force to reckon with.

The LTTE leaders would have been watching the results of the provincial council polls quite keenly, since their fortunes have waxed and waned over the last two decades according to the changes who held the reigns of power in the country.

If the UNP had defeated the PA, the LTTE could expect that next year's general election and perhaps even the presidential election, would go the same way, and the central government would change. A new government would surely have embarked on a different approach to the war, and the army would have changed strategy. Perhaps a new government would even reopen peace talks.

But the victories of the PA in all five provinces by very small margins, and the accompanying rise of hardline Sinhalese parties, is expected to distract the government from the war in the north. Political leaders are far more likely to be wheeler dealing in Colombo to forge new alliances, and will have little time to focus on the northeast. The hardline parties are not likely to look favourably on talks with the LTTE either.

Thus, the series of long drawn out Wanni offensives are likely to continue. The end of the war will remain distant, but the LTTE cannot be happy since it has been losing ground for the last three years, although agonizingly slowly.

Changes in government have always been good for the LTTE.

In 1977, J. R. Jayewardene's UNP regime paid little attention to the needs of the north, and gave impetus to the slow growth of the fledgling LTTE. The disastrous ethnic riots of 1983, which many believe was planned and executed by top UNP leaders, sent hundreds of thousands of Tamils fleeing from Colombo, and thousands of new recruits into the arms of the Tigers.

The advent of President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1989 saw the Indian Peacekeeping Force being packed off home, and the opening of peace talks. The LTTE used the 13-month ceasefire to rearm, reorganize, and gather more recruits, making it a formidable military machine by the time it treacherously went back to war in June of l99O.

With the success of Lt. General Denzil Kobbekaduwa on the battlefield in 1991, the political situation changed, since he was linked to the SLFP. His death is still a mystery, with many accusing the UNP leadership of the time of assassinating him.

His death brought about a stalemate in the war for more than a year, with few major attacks on either side, and no change in the amount of ground held by the army and the LTTE.

The assassination of Premadasa in 1993, and the rise of the ethnically uncompromising President D. B. Wijetunga, who once outraged minority leaders by saying that the minorities should be like vines around the trunk of the Sinhala tree, brought on more than a year of fresh LTTE attacks in the northeast.

Wijetunga's exit and Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's rise to the country's leadership again changed the LTTE's fortunes. Peace talks were ushered in again, with a l00-day ceasefire.

Once again, the LTTE rearmed and strengthened itself, before going back to war, devastating army camps in the northeast.

But with President Kumaratunga feeling bitterly betrayed by this turn of events, the LTTE's strategy has backfired, and it is extremely difficult to see the PA having any kind of talks with the LTTE again. Instead, it continues with the military option, urged on by its Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte, a former military man himself, who obviously sees himself as a sort of conquering general.

Some of the major LTTE attacks in the month of April:

1992
Apr. 10: Bomb explodes in bus in Ampara district killing 25 civilians.

Apr. 10: Car bomb kills 11 civilians in Maharagama.

Apr. 29: Muslim villagers hack to death 74 Tamils after LTTE massacres 56 Muslims in Polonnaruwa district.

1993
Apr. 23: Lalith Athulathmudali, former Minister of National Security, and leader of the Democratic United National Front shot dead while addressing an election rally in Colombo. Government blames LTTE

May 1: President Ranasinghe Premadasa assassinated by LTTE suicide bomber at May day rally in Colombo.

1994
Apr. 9: LTTE sets off five bombs targeting tourists in five-star hotels in Colombo, killing one bomber in a premature explosion and wounding three people.

1995
Apr. 18: LTTE break off ceasefire and peace talks.

Apr. 19: LTTE blows up two navy gunboats in Trincomalee, 14 sailors and four Tiger frogmen are killed.

Apr. 23: LTTE overruns Kaddumuruvikulam army camp. 28 soldiers, 14 Tigers are killed.

Apr. 28: LTTE shoots down air force Avro transport over Palali with surface-to-air missile. 38 military personnel are killed.

Apr. 29: LTTE shoots down another air force Avro transport over Palali with missiles. 49 soldiers, three journalists are killed.

1996
April 5: LTTE ambushes an STF patrol at Pulukunawa in Ampara district, killing 18 and losing 1 cadre.

April 12: LTTE attacks Colombo harbour, damaging three cargo ships. Nine Tigers, including six divers, are killed and two LTTE boats destroyed.

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