Sri Lanka and the Defeat of the LTTE , livre ebook

Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd - de Silva K M

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

161 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

In this comprehensive and authoritative study of terrorism in Sri Lanka, K.M. de Silva turns the spotlight on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and its role in Sri Lanka’s upheavals over the last few decades. While tracing the emergence of this separatist group and the events that led to its recent collapse, de Silva also seeks to explore the complex relationship between the so-called moderates in Sri Lankan Tamil politics and the Tamil terrorist groups. What emerges is a layered portrait of the dynamics of Sri Lanka’s political system. Extensively researched and loaded with perceptive insights, Sri Lanka and the Defeat of the LTTE is the most wide-ranging analysis so far on the LTTE and its violent legacy.

Informations

Publié par	Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd
Date de parution	01 octobre 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9788184757118
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

K.M. de SILVA
Sri Lanka and the Defeat of the LTTE

PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Acronyms
Maps
Introduction
Sri Lanka: The Travails of a South Asian Democracy
Separatism and Terrorism in South Asia and Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka s Prolonged Ethnic Conflict: Negotiating a Settlement
Mediation and the Indian Intervention
Sowing the Wind
Sri Lanka: From Demilitarization to Militarization
Appraisals of the Conflict
University Admissions Policy
Language Policy
State Sector Employment
The Defeat of the LTTE
A Weak Government and a Resurgent LTTE
The LTTE s Last Phase: No War No Peace
The Collapse of the LTTE
After the Defeat of the LTTE
The Challenges of Militarization: 1986-2011
After the Rout of the LTTE: Reconciliation and Reconstruction
The Passage to Reconciliation
Reconstruction
Conclusion
Notes
Select Bibliography
Acknowledegements
Copyright Page
PENGUIN BOOKS
SRI LANKA AND THE DEFEAT OF THE LTTE
K.M. de Silva held the chair of Sri Lanka History from 1969 to 1995 at the University of Ceylon, later the University of Peradeniya. He was foundation director and executive director of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo/Kandy, 1982-2008.
Among his several books are A History of Sri Lanka , Managing Ethnic Tensions in Multi-Ethnic Societies: Sri Lanka, 1880-1985 and Regional Powers and Small State Security: India and Sri Lanka, 1977-1990 . He has edited two volumes of the Sri Lanka: British Documents on the End of Empire series, Conflict and Violence in South Asia: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and Pursuit of Peace in Sri Lanka: Past Failures and Future Prospects . He also wrote Reaping the Whirlwind: Ethnic Politics, Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka .
for Chandra and Ravi (Rajiv) and for Anne, Marisa, Sohan and Sanjay
Acronyms
ADB
Asian Development Bank
CFA
Cease Fire Agreement
CWC
Ceylon Workers Congress
DK
Dravida Kazhagam
DMK
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
EBP
Eksath Bhikkhu Peramuna
EPDP
Eelam People s Democratic Party
EPRLF
Eelam People s Revolutionary Liberation Front
EROS
Eelam Revolutionary Organization of Students
EU
European Union
FACT
Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils
FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
FP
Federal Party
GCE (A/L)
General Certificate of Education (Advanced Level)
GNP
Gross National Product
HSZs
High Security Zones
HUM
The Hizbul Mujahideen
IFT
International Federation of Tamils
IPKF
Indian Peace Keeping Force
ISI
Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate
ITAK
Ilankai Thamil Arasi Kachchi
JHU
Jathika Hela Urumaya
JKLF
Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front
JVP
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna
LSSP
Lanka Sama Samaja Party
LTTE
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
MEP
Mahajana Eksath Peramuna
MoU
Memorandum of Understanding
NCHE
National Council of Higher Education
NCP
North-Central provinces
NCPC
North-Central provincial council
NUA
National Unity Alliance
PA
People s Alliance
PLOTE
People s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam
P-TOMS
Post-Tsunami Operations Management Structure
RAW
Research and Analysis Wing
SAARC
South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation
SEAC
South East Asia Command
SLFP
Sri Lanka Freedom Party
SLMC
Sri Lanka Muslim Congress
SLMM
Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission
STF
Special Task Force
TC
Tamil Congress
TELO
Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization
TMVP
Tamileela Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal
TNA
Tamil National Alliance
TUF
Tamil United Front
TULF
Tamil United Liberation Front
UF
United Front
UGC
University Grants Commission
UNF
United National Front
UNP
United National Party
UPFA
United People s Freedom Alliance
WTA
World Tamil Association
WTM
World Tamil Movement
Sri Lanka: Provinces, Administrative Districts and Main Cities

Sri Lanka and Southern India

Army Operations in Western Vanni (May-December, 2008)

Final Battlefield (January-May, 2009)
Introduction
This volume is a sequel to my Reaping the Whirlwind: Ethnic Conflict, Ethnic Politics in Sri Lanka, published by Penguin India in 1998. At the time I completed writing Reaping the Whirlwind in the late 1990s, I did not believe that we would see a decisive defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as early as 2009 despite the fact that I was aware of the rout of the LTTE at the hands of General Cyril Ranatunga s newly reconstituted Sri Lankan security services in May 1987. On that occasion, the LTTE and its leadership had fled in disarray, with its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and some of his close associates in the leadership ranks moving desperately by sea from the Jaffna peninsula to hideouts in Tamil Nadu provided by the regional government there. Having defeated the LTTE forces on that occasion in the Vadamarachchi campaign, General Cyril Ranatunga had planned to move into Jaffna town, its suburbs and to other locations close by in order to destroy the LTTE s administrative structures there. He had been prevented from doing so by the intervention of the Indian government who warned President J.R. Jayewardene that it would not accept this projected entry of the Sri Lankan forces into the town of Jaffna and its environs. 1 The excuse it had given President Jayewardene was that such a move into Jaffna and its neighbourhood would be resisted by the Tamils and that the inevitable efforts to overcome this resistance would lead to a bloodbath. 2 The Indian government s concern about such a bloodbath had been on account of the inevitable outburst of protests to New Delhi by the regional government in Tamil Nadu and by Tamil agitators there and elsewhere. This had been something that New Delhi was acutely concerned about. New Delhi thus succeeded in persuading President Jayewardene to get General Ranatunga to desist from his proposed campaign of crushing the LTTE in Jaffna town and its suburbs as he had earlier done on the battlefield in the Vadamarachchi area. The Indian intervention on that occasion had saved the LTTE who lived to fight another day. As this present volume would show, it took the Sri Lankan armed services twenty-two more years before they could complete what General Ranatunga had started in May 1987. Ranatunga s successful campaign had been halted abruptly before it reached the conclusion he had in mind. Those of us who knew what had happened were disappointed at the consequences of this Indian intervention but always felt that the LTTE could be defeated militarily and that a military defeat would halt their terrorist attacks in the country. That was something we had in mind whenever we were told in later years by defeatist academics, defeatist politicians and defeatist generals that the campaign against the LTTE was an unwinnable war . Those claims that the LTTE could not be defeated became more frequent in the 1990s and well into 2000 and beyond, every time the LTTE inflicted a defeat on the Sri Lankan forces or escaped defeat at the hands of the Sri Lankan army. General Ranatunga s Vadamarachchi campaign was one of the forgotten episodes of the struggle against the LTTE, forgotten by the politicians in Sri Lanka, including heads of government.
After a brief spell in public service outside the army after 1986-87, General Ranatunga 3 retired to live the life of a gentleman-farmer on the block of land he had inherited in Mawanella, near Kegalle, on the road from Colombo to Kandy. To visitors there, especially those whom he trusted to be discreet, he would talk of the Vadamarachchi campaign and how he had Prabhakaran and the LTTE on the run and how the Indians had prevented him from completing the campaign he had embarked upon. In retirement, he carefully collected the papers that would form part of the Memoirs he would publish in 2009. He had kept a record of the events of the Vadamarachchi campaign even when the official memories of it had become dim indeed, as politicians and soldiers kept telling themselves and others that the campaign against the LTTE was a futile struggle, an unwinnable war. General Sarath Fonseka who led the Sri Lankan forces to an overwhelming victory in the years 2006 to 2009 had been a lieutenant colonel in the Vadamarachchi campaign. He remembered how the LTTE had been routed on that occasion and was confident it could be done again. And indeed, the Sri Lankan armed forces did it again in 2009.
Written at a time when the LTTE was clearly on the verge of another-perhaps a decisive-defeat 4 , this present work of mine begins with reflections on Sri Lanka s episodes of political violence as part of the larger issue of political violence in post-Independence South Asia, a larger theme on which not much has been written about. For many years Sri Lanka had been one of the principal trouble spots of South Asia, and the LTTE, who were in battle in the 1970s and 1980s with Sri Lankans and their governments, were both a formidable separatist force and, more to the point, became, in time, one of the most fearsome terrorist groups in the world. The most appropriate comparison with the Sri Lankan situation in the wider South Asian scene seemed to be with separatism in India, especially in Jammu and Kashmir. I have left Pakistan out of this exercise of comparison of types of political violence. True, Pakistan today is not merely one of the principal trouble spots of South Asia but also home to violent terrorist groups. But there was no Pakistani attempt to influence the terrorist struggle in Sri Lanka except in the sense that it was one of the sources of weaponry for the Sri Lankan governments in the struggle against the separatist, terrorist forces in the island.
One of the themes this present book seeks to explore is the complex relationship between the so-called moderates in Sri Lankan Tamil politics and the Tamil terrorist groups, especially the LTTE. The separatist programmes of the Tamil terrorist group, the LTTE, had sprung from the separatism of the Tamil United Libera