Dien Bien Phu and the end of LTTE
Lalin Fernando
Sri Lanka’s newspaper ‘war’ correspondents and a few retired military
souls reporting on the 30 year counter terrorist conflict were wont to
induce a veneer of military sophistication to their ‘front line’ news as
well as their egos by comparisons with famous battles not simply in any
war but in World Wars. So Somme, Stalingrad, Gallipolli, Dunkirk,
Berlin, Dresden, Hiroshima were visited with great vigour if not
desperation.
One however went as far as hoping against hope during the
Killinochchi battle to refer to Dien Bien Phu. In that battle the North
Vietnamese guerrillas (Vietminh) under Giap defeated General Navarre’s
French forces on May 7, 1954. After the rout of the LTTE in Killinochchi,
no further mention of that battle was made (as usual).
Vietnamese
In the Dien Bien Phu battle the French forces decided to occupy a
valley surrounded by hills and invite the Vietnamese to attack, fully
and foolishly believing that the latter could not bring any heavy
weapons to bear in that terrain.
Many civilians have made a harrowing journey from LTTE
captivity. |
It turned out to be that the Vietnamese, who later prevailed over the
Americans as well, did. They carried their artillery guns in sections
over tracks in the jungles and over hills. Having re assembled them,
they surprised and later routed the French by out gunning and out
fighting them.
Ironically the ongoing struggle on the stretch of Puthukkudiyiruppu (PK)
land declared a No Fire Zone by the Sri Lanka Forces is where the LTTE
decided to make their last stand, unashamedly using Tamil civilians as
human shields. It was probably the most cowardly act in history
especially for a organization that proclaimed it was a racist liberation
movement.
Civilians
They built earth works to block both the Army entering and the
civilians from breaking out. This battle was beginning to look not like
that battle in Vietnam but for the LTTE more like Diyen Bayen (Biyen)
Choo or simply in English if you get my meaning a P(ee) into the water
in fear.
The LTTE chose this ground for their final battle after the fall of
their defences in PK. They are today confined to 14 square kms of land
bounded by the sea on the East and the Nanthi Kadal lagoon on the West
with Army pincers reaching in from the North and South and army
penetrations from West to East cutting the NFZ area held by the LTTE in
two and reaching out north and south to link up.
SLN wolf patrols in the West lie in wait just off the coast as the
SLAF covers the area with UAVs, photographing the scene including the
LTTE inhumanly shooting the fleeing Tamil civilians.
What of the LTTE defence manned by its remaining 200 cadres? It rests
on the self imposed restriction of the Sri Lanka forces not to use their
heavy weaponry or planes in order to protect the Tamil civilians amongst
whom the LTTE are intermingled. It has also built 20 foot earth walls
(bunds), laid out anti personnel mines prolifically and has possibly
well concealed traps of deep holes in the ground to stop the advancing
troops.
Anti personnel mines
Suddenly Forces greater than any power of any guns burst out on April
20 and 21, 2009. The 75,000 trapped, press ganged, wounded, hounded,
starved, shot at, petrified Tamil civilians began their trek away from
the LTTE as they had done when the LTTE approached Jaffna in 2000.
Here they had also to brave the anti personnel mines laid
treacherously and deviously by the LTTE.
They did that and smashed the myth perfidiously propagated by the
Tamil Diaspora, the international community and media that the civilians
were staying with the LTTE in the NFZ of their own free will, because of
their fear of the Sri Lanka Forces.
The civilians however appear ironically to be saying to their self
appointed guardians simply”Let my people go”. Was this the Exodus of the
chosen people whose heaven was to be Eelam but in the opposite
direction?
If so what of the infamous brain washed Diaspora that from the safety
and comfort of Western capitals fought unwashed and unclean with ‘sips’
of water for the LTTE’s survival?
Not even one of them tried to come over to Sri Lanka and fight “for
the ashes of their fathers and the temple of their Gods” as one other
military writer grandiosely quoted of the response of the LTTE at PK.
Another one (military) even quoted Churchill’s “we will not surrender”,
but for the fascist LTTE.
Now that the human shield is beginning to melt will the LTTE fight or
surrender? Who cares? They are now doomed to the fate they chose when
they accepted suicide as a carefully planned but deadly propaganda. Pass
the cyanide Praba that’s all you ever had to give the ‘boys’ and
‘girls’.
Conflict
Those who selfishly held their moral fire when the LTTE was rampaging
in the North and East, killing indiscriminatingly and demolishing all
attempts at arriving at a peaceful solution to the conflict, should now
hang their heads in shame. They are the ones who are responsible for the
suffering of nearly 250,000 Tamil civilians. No amount of demos in the
West will erase their shame.
The best way they can salve their conscience will be by contributing
to ameliorate the suffering of the IDPs together with the thousands of
Sinhalese (Buddhists and Christians - let grave diggers know) and
Muslims who are already massively engaged in the Vanni.
Will the thunder if not the monsoons of May 7, 2009, 55 years on from
Dien Bien Phu dampen the scribes of war too? |