Time for resettlement in East as LTTE loses grip

POLITICS: The victories of the Security Forces in the East has become a contentious point with certain sections of the political establishment. First, it was the LTTE which cast aspersions on the victories recorded by the Security Forces in the East.

This is understandable as it is they who were at the receiving end and could not tolerate defeats of the magnitude inflicted by the Security Forces depriving them of large extent of areas tactically important for their operations and losing larger number of cadres and weapons including big guns.

Segments of the southern polity wittingly or unwittingly have become part and parcel of this campaign of the LTTE to belittle the victories of the Forces in the East and to give the impression that LTTE threat still exists in the Eastern theatre.

Therefore, it has now become a practice to question the successes of the Security Forces in the aftermath of every isolated incident in the East specially in the Batticaloa region.

But, those who raise questions about the authenticity of the victory of the Security Force in Vakarai, using these isolated incidents to buttress their claims have become blind to the fact that they have become part and parcel of the LTTE campaign.

The initial scepticism about Vakarai was witnessed when the Chief Priest of Santhiveli Pilleyar Kovil who blessed President Mahinda Rajapaksa during his visit to Vakarai was assassinated by the LTTE.

The grains of suspicion among the people was chiefly due to their lack of knowledge on the geographical location of Vakarai and Santhiveli areas and about the LTTE presence in the Batticaloa district.

Apparently, the impression that the Eastern province has been fully liberated from the LTTE threat also contributed to people who had second thoughts of about the Security Forces’ victories in the East.

The little knowledge they had about the area prompted them to come to the conclusion that LTTE threat was still there in the Vakarai area as they thought that the Hindu Priest was living in Vakarai area and was killed at the hand of the LTTE in the Vakarai area itself.

But, this wrong impression has been promptly clarified by the Government that the Hindu priest was from Santhiveli area which can be easily penetrated by the LTTE cadres from Thoppigala jungles and Kokkadicholai areas where LTTE cadres are still operating freely.

The second instance, for the people’s misgivings was when claymore mines exploded in Vantharamoolai close to the Eastern University and Ottamvadi town targeting Security Forces and Police personnel.

The Police and Security Forces investigations have now revealed that the LTTE had detonated these claymore mines with the support of the Muslims in the area.

Now it is apparent that the LTTE have been reduced to the level of having to use the Muslim community in the Batticaloa district to unleash their terror acts against the Security Forces and the Police. This is by offering financial assistance to the people to act as their cats paw.

Considering the capabilities of the LTTE, this is not at all surprising. One can only appreciate its resourcefulness in cultivating many Sinhalese from the South to unleash terror acts against their own community.

The fact remains that the LTTE still operates in the Batticaloa district as the district has not been fully cleared of the LTTE presence.

The LTTE cadres who fled Vakarai and Kathirveli areas have moved to Thoppigala, Tharavikulam, Karadiyanaru, Pallakadu and Kokkadicholai areas which are located south of Batticaloa and linked to the cleared areas through the Black Bridge in Chenkaladi to the Batticaloa-Polonnaruwa A-15 road and via Padiruppu bridge to the Ampara Batticaloa A-4 route.

Therefore, the main concern of the Security Forces at this point is clearing the Chenkaladi-Maha Oya Road that goes through uncleared areas and to capture the Karadiyanaru LTTE bases which are considered to be the Intelligence base of the LTTE, confining the LTTE cadres only to Thoppigala jungles in Batticaloa.

But the presence of the LTTE threats in Thoppigala and Karadiyanaru area is no way an impediment for the resettlement of the displaced people in Kathirveli, Vakarai in the Batticaloa district and Sampur and Ichalamapaththu areas in the Trincoamlee district.

The maps very clearly indicate that only few patches of land area are under LTTE controlled in the Batticaloa and Trincomalee districts and their presence in Trincomalee district is negligible after the limited operation conducted by the Security Forces to flush out LTTE threats from Peraru jungles in the North of Thiriyaya area.

The aim of the Security Forces is to flush out the LTTE in the East completely, cutting off its links in the East with the Wanni.

The Peraru jungle is the only path used by the LTTE for its links with the Wanni cadres.

It is now clear that the LTTE leadership in Peraru jungle too are fleeing to Mullaitivu and Kilinochchci areas due to limited military operations carried out recently to flush out terrorist threats from the area.

The same process witnessed in Vakarai is now being repeated in the Peraru jungles too according to two LTTE cadres surrendered to the Security Forces, South of Thiriyaya a few days back.

These two cadres have revealed that only few cadres from Batticaloa remain in the LTTE bases in the Peraru jungles and that the Wanni Tiger cadres have already abandoned their bases.

A trend now is developing among Batticaloa cadres either to surrender to the Security Forces or to join with the Karuna faction as they no longer have faith in the Wanni LTTE leadership as Wanni leadership has totally neglected the needs of the Batticaloa cadres.

The other factor is that Security Forces have not abandoned any of the newly liberated areas after flushing out the LTTE. The Defence Ministry has taken steps either to hand over those newly liberated areas to the Police or the Special Task Force guaranteeing the security of the people living there.

Hence there is no need to panic about the security of the newly liberated areas as the Security Forces have given a clear guarantee that these areas were free of LTTE threats for any organisation to engage in any development programme.

But it is very strange that there are no International Non Government organisations who are willing to join with the Government efforts to restore infrastructure facilities in these newly liberated areas.

Despite having free access to Echchalampattu area, which is in dire need of drinking water facilities, no NGO is now interested in working there to provide drinking water facilities to the people, to facilitate the resettlement process.

The lack of drinking water facilities was the root cause for the closure of Mavilaru anicut in June last year compelling the Security Forces to go on the offensive against the LTTE to restore water supply for more than 30,000 civilians.

This question has figured when the Consultative Committee on Humanitarian Assistance met at the Defence Ministry this week under the Chairmanship of Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe to discuss the resettlement process in the cleared areas in the East.

The Consultative Committee on Humanitarian Assistance which is held fortnightly under the Chairmanship of Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe is represented by Secretary Defence, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Commissioner General of Essential Services Secretaries to the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Nation Building and Estate Infrastructure Development, Ministry of Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services, Ministry of Health and Nutrition, SCOPP, Chairman of the Co-Chairs and Ambassadors to the USA heads of UN agencies and NGO representatives.

It was only Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe who wanted to discuss the resettlement process in the Vakarai area. The rest representing the UN NGOs and other leading NGO only focused on matters hindering their operations in the East.

Those NGOs who constantly agitated against the Government for not sending enough food stocks to the people when the LTTE was using them as human shields are now not uttering a single word about the plight of the people when they had been resettled in their original villages.

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa who was present at this meeting told the NGO representatives that they can make use of the opportunity given by the Government to construct houses, roads, to have drinking water projects in Vakarai and the Kathirveli area.

He also gave his assurance that not a single LTTE cadre will be allowed to penetrate these areas while also assuring them no Karuna faction cadre will be allowed to operate in the area if there is any threat posed to their operation in Vakarai and Kathirveli areas.

The Defence Secretary explained that these NGOs can develop Vakarai and Kathirveli areas as model villages so that they could erase the bad reputation they have earned locally as being Tiger supporters.

The role of the NGOs in Sri Lanka should not be aimed at promoting terrorism but to convince the people that they have another alternative apart from the LTTE organisation.

The unwillingness of the NGOs to work in the liberated areas shows that either they do not want normality to return to the East or they have been threatened by the LTTE not to engage in any development activities in the East.

The LTTE very clearly understands that if the Government succeeded in providing basic infrastructure facilities to the people in Vakarai, Kathirveli and Sampur area they would lose complete control over the Tamil population in the East.

On the other hand if the Eastern province undergo a rapid development process with the support of the international community and INGOs the LTTE would face difficulties in keeping even the Wanni population under their control, under such circumstances.

The LTTE would have used the indirect mortar fire on the visiting Ambassadors to Batticaloa area last week with the sole intention of blocking the international community and the NGOs extending their support towards the Government effort to develop the newly liberated areas.

Therefore, it is now clear the LTTE is making all these desperate attempt using many ‘indirect hands’ to sabotage the development activities in the East as it would be suicidal for their existence as a terror group.

The LTTE, at this stage is more concerned about keeping at least the handful of people living in the Wanni under their control as they are very certain it won’t take long for the Security Forces take control of Wanni region as well.

However, the Government has succeeded in accelerating the resettlement of more than 16,000 people in Vakarai restoring electricity facilities and other infrastructure facilities.

Therefore, what has to be highlighted is that any attempt made by any individual to hamper the Government efforts to develop the East would definitely end up in sabotaging the process of defeating terrorism.