Lalin’s Column: Hawkers of their souls

Many recent books, documents and statements have exposed people in very high places who have sold their souls during the 25 years of conflict in Sri Lanka. The incredulous thing is that nothing further has been done by the state to deal with the perpetrators, some of whom hold public office, strut around the country, get on public stages and even write books on the conflict to cover up their perfidy.

The documents/books etc that are examined here are those of Maj Gen Ashok Mehta, (Eelam War IV) Wiki leaks, Prof (Ms)Asoka Bandarage’s excellent book ‘ The Separatist Conflict in SL’and the statement made by Retired Senior Superintendent of Police(SSP) Tassie Seneviratne to the LLRC in January 2011.

Mehta’s snide revelations Maj Gen (retd) A Mehta, D Jayatileke’s dragooned to be quoted at intellectual joints favourite Indian army officer has in his paper on Eelam War IV given Ganges like flowing reasons for SL not being able to defeat the LTTE for 25-30 years. Mehta has however not listed and conveniently and totally ignored India’s turgid role as a former patron/God Father of the LTTE.

This can be excused coming from a retired officer comfortably ensconced in distant Delhi and buried by multiple mega corruption allegations involving government ministers, Commonwealth games officials and court-martials of three(3) Lt Gens (one a decorated Ranger qualified officer, another a designated deputy army chief of staff and the other the Military Secretary) amongst 41 other Indian army officers.

Two of the Generals are allegedly involved in a land scam while the third is accused of playing out soldiers’ rations. The part played by Gen Sunderaji and Indira Gandhi, both involved in the sprawling Bofors scandal about which details are finally emerging, has also not been mentioned although they were seriously involved in the SL terrorist conflict.

Stunning, startling and shocking revelations In order to support his theories about why it took the SL forces so long to defeat the LTTE, Mehta has after worming himself into their confidence made a startling revelation that two(2) Army Commanders and one Air Force Commander had told him that ‘our soldiers do not know how to fight’. In addition there is an even more startling allegation that one ‘Chief’ had ‘privately admitted that the SLA (Army) was a funk army’. While it is not unknown that there were disgraceful Army/Air Force Commanders (three Generals were responsible for treacherously gifting weapons to the LTTE in 19888/9), who was the ‘chief’ Mehta refers to? Was it a JOC or CDS? One of the above three ‘Generals’ was also such a ‘chief’. Some of them made their defeatist agendas known to the media. What is of concern is that they shamelessly put their views across to a foreigner who had been in SL with the ‘invading by invitation’ IPKF. These ‘admissions’ must rank high above other shocking and disgraceful acts of senior officers which also happened.

No action taken What Mehta wrote is in the public domain but notice of it has not been taken by the SL government, the Attorney General, the Armed Forces HQs or even by the LLRC as yet. These are serious omissions which if not responded to, would severely demoralise the nation and the forces in particular. It will also lead to the belief that the state is unconcerned due to other distracting priorities. These lapses must not be allowed to go by default as it would fester with time. It could also be thought that those who betray the country by word or deed could do so with impunity. Justice must be for all. The names of at least three (3) Generals, one dead, all who were involved in gifting weapons to the LTTE, may spring to mind as the betrayers.

Thank you Gen Mehta Mehta by breaching the confidence of SL Officers who disgracefully and naively confided in him has fortunately for SL exposed the defeatists and traitors who continue to prosper. They must be dealt with in an exemplary manner.

IPKF Revenge Mehta may be getting his own back on SL for bowling over India’s protége’ the fascist LTTE that trounced the IPKF he served in. Mehta and a few others who were writing leagues away from the action went into raptures in attempting to ridiculously compare the conflict in SL’s jungles, especially to WW2 episodes in Europe. They were fervently praying for a severe setback to the SL forces as the selection of quotes showed.

Bumming the West They ignored the successful war fought by the British XIV Army against the Japanese in the jungles of Burma during that same war. The fact that FM Slim’s war in Burma may have been more relevant was purposely ignored by the above as they believed pathetically that the Great Gods of the West would be impressed. It was not just to the display their ‘knowledge’ however screwed it was. They wanted revenge. They were also in mental tandem with four opposition MPs, one of whom is an unrepentant and devious racist. Naming them is superfluous as they have all been exposed.

Muhumalai /Dunkirk? The sneak retreat of a few hundred LTTE cadres by boat from Muhumalai in the Jaffna peninsula in 2009 was compared to the British Expeditionary Force and French (337,000 soldiers in all) withdrawal from Dunkirk. There was also no blitzkrieg of 89 infantry and 15 Panzer and motorised divisions supported by 2,500 strike aircraft of the Germans. Hundreds of civilians helped to bring the BEF back from France in small private boats to buttress the Navy’s (RN) effort. No civilians helped the LTTE ‘sea wing’ at all, and thereby hang a tale.

Kilinochchi/Stalingrad? The battle for Kilinochchi when it started was compared to the winter battle for Stalingrad (1942-3). At Stalingrad Paulus’ German Sixth Army finally surrendered to the Russian Chuikov’s Sixty Second army under Zhukov in February 1943.There were 111,000 prisoners. In the greatest attack the Germans launched to take Stalingrad on 14 October 1942 there were five tank and two infantry divisions, masses of artillery and 2,000 air sorties launched by the Luftwaffe. On 10 January 42 the Russians opened up with 7,000 guns, ‘the largest concentration of artillery in history’ to break the resistance of the Germans. The temperature was minus 30 degrees outside.

Where did these ‘military correspondents’ with Stalingrad on their eye lashes see snow in Killinochchi if nothing else? Prabakaran had by then admitted he could not meet the SL juggernaut and appealed to the Norwegians to mount an international rescue effort. Norway tried desperately. The LTTE did not fight long for Kilinochchi. They scooted.

Mullativu/Ardennes A desperate LTTE counter attack of a few hundred cadres in Mullativu which is close to the sea was compared to the onslaught in the winter (Operation Autumn Mist) of two Panzer Armies consisting of nine divisions (Manteufel) and one Parachute Army (two divisions commanded by Dietrich) in the WW2 Ardennes forest battle in December 1944. It sought to punch a gap between the First (Hodges) and Third (Patton) US Armies of Bradley’s Twelfth Army Group. The defeat of the Germans cost them 100,000 KIA, WIA or captured with 800 tanks and 1,000 aircraft destroyed. The expected snowfall (international intervention) promised by the Norwegians to stop the Army did not occur even at Nandikadal to save the sweating LTTE. Mehta compares it to the ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ in Gallipoli even though horses much less ‘guns to the right and guns to the left of them’ were absent. Such were the flights of fancy of the initiated to titillate the uninitiated ‘local yokels’.

EPS/Dien Bien Phu Mehta joined others in also seeing similarities between the EPS battle which the SL Army lost, to Dien Bein Phu in Vietnam. This was imagination running riot in the desert like the scrub and sand of the former. The latter had jungle covered hills dominating low ground -an inverted tortoise shell. The Viets were on the high ground with one division of artillery looking down on the French. Who compares a terrorist struggle with an anti colonial war except someone whose sympathies are blinkered to put it very mildly? Other comparisons would be odious. The French fought to the last.

Scoffing Mehta did not forget to scoff at what he believed was a SL Army prediction that the LTTE would commit mass suicide when cornered or jump into the sea. That was not made by the Army but a retired officer hoping to pre empt an attempt at heroism which would be remembered in history like that of the Israelis at Masada. For Mehta to seriously believe that the army even considered such an end may have been because the sudden end of the LTTE blew his professional mind away.

Wiki leaks The recent Wiki leaks exposures indicted foreign governments and officials, (Solheim, Westborg) and the SLMM commanders with suborning SL’s national security. Several former high officials in the then SL Government from political ‘chiefs’ and highly placed civil servants who collaborated with the LTTE were also exposed. The charges against the foreigners range from misleading the government of SL, passing on secret information to the LTTE to prevent detection of one of its ships carrying arms, covering up an LTTE attack on the SLN by conjuring up/inventing a diversionary third force (for international consumption) and a host of other acts that the Attorney General and even the JVP (the so called alleged ‘third force’) should respond to. The acts of omission and commission of the SL officials range from placing a terrorist organization on a equal footing with the state, allowing the LTTE to fly a plane into SL without aviation, immigration or customs clearance and permitting it to fly out after over flying strategic areas like the Trincomalie harbour, collaborating with the LTTE’s war aims while a CFA was in progress, gifting them highly sophisticated communication equipment and signing agreements with the LTTE(SLMC and CWC) to betraying the LRRPs which had taken a fearful toll of the LTTE. All this was in addition to gifting weapons and ammo to the LTTE in 1988.

Prof Asoka Bandarage In her book Prof Bandarage states amongst very many things of great import that by signing an agreement with the LTTE certain former state leaders breached the Prevention of Terrorism act. She pre empted Wiki leaks by nearly one year in her exposures. Is the law blind in its (in) action and not only in its judgement?

Massacre of 600 policemen in the East SSP Tassie Seneviratne rekindled the details of the shocking massacre of the 600 policemen in the East. They were ordered by the state to surrender under bogus conditions which were accepted under the stupid, lunatic belief in LTTE assurances that they would not be harmed. History will record this tragedy for eternity. So would the response of the state be recorded? There has been not been even a police inquiry to date. The next of kin have waited 22 years for redress. Those responsible for allowing this massacre must be dealt with as much as those who committed it. Without exception.

Army losses The debacles of the army at Pooneryn, Mullativu, Mankulam and Elephant Pass et al have only been perfunctorily inquired into (Courts of Inquiry). Courts martial should have followed. In the gifting of weapons and ammo to the LTTE, the serving General should have been court-martialled while the two retired Generals should have been tried by the civil courts. Instead the state farcically but with calculated intent promoted the lot pre 2005. Why? On retirement it gave them first class state jobs locally including in the Defence Ministry and even posted some of the most guilty as envoys abroad.

Envoi If this disgraceful and ridiculous state of affairs is not reversed those who have borne the cost of war will be dishonoured and forgotten. Their helpless relatives will believe they died in vain and will not forgive those responsible. Not only individuals but also groups up to battalions and Brigades have been court martialled in other armies for offences in relation to the enemy.

What makes the SL state so indifferent and for 22 years to do its duty by those who sacrificed their lives in the armed forces and the police? Much must be done to restore the belief and confidence of the public. Those responsible for negligence, breach of duties, compromising national security and ridiculing the armed forces must be made to face the consequences. Lest we forget.

- Asian Tribune -