I never underestimated the LTTE – President
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N. Ram |
N. Ram (NR): Mr. President, when you were elected in 2005 what was
your expectation of this conflict? This is what you said in your 2005
Presidential Election manifesto, Mahinda Chintana:
“The freedom of our country is supreme. I will not permit any
separatism. I will also not permit anyone to destroy democracy in our
country...I will respect all ethnic and religious identities, refrain
from using force against anyone, and build a new society that protects
individuals and social freedoms.” In that policy statement, you also
projected the “fundamental platform” of your initiatives as “an
undivided country, a national consensus, and an honourable peace.”
So what was your real expectation when you assumed the office of
President? You had no plan, it appears, to go on an offensive.
President: I was very clear about terrorism. I didn’t want to
suppress the Tamils’ feelings. But I was very clear about the terrorism
from the start. That’s why as soon as I knew that I was going to win, I
invited Gota [his brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa]. I said to him: “You can’t
go. You wait here.” That’s why I selected as commanders of the Armed
Forces people who would get ready to do that.
Then I sent the message to the LTTE: “Come, we will have talks,
discuss.” I was trying to negotiate. I was very practical. I said: “You
can get anything you want. But why don’t you all contest this, have
elections?
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President
Mahinda Rajapaksa |
Now you are people who have weapons in your hands. Ask the people to
select. Have elections for the Provincial Council. Then we will
negotiate. I can negotiate with an elected group. But with a man with
weapons, I can’t negotiate.” The biggest mistake he [Prabhakaran] made
was this. He said I was a practical man, a pragmatic man.
Lalith Weeratunga (Secretary to the President; LW): The President was
appointed on the November 19 [2005] when he made his inaugural speech,
where he invited this man. Then on the November 27 came Prabhakaran’s
Mahavir speech, in which he said the President was a pragmatic,
practical man [the LTTE supremo announced that his organization would
“wait and observe” the new President’s approach to the peace process
“for some time” because “President Rajapaksa is considered a realist,
committed to pragmatic politics”].
When he said that, the President said in a speech: “I am willing to
walk that last mile.” Then on December 5, they attacked 13 innocent
soldiers who were taking meals to their comrades and they were without
weapons. That is how it started.
President: Even then I didn’t do anything. But then I knew what was
going on. Then only I started my defence, I would say. Then Gota said we
would have to increase the strength of the Army. All that was planned by
them [the professionals]. I said: “What do you want? Get ready.” But I
went behind them [the LTTE] pleading. But I knew people were getting
worked up in the South. Then I warned the LTTE: “Don’t do this. Don’t
push me to the wall.”
LW: Then you sent me to talk to one of their leaders.
President: I sent him. I sent Jeyaraj [Jeyaraj Fernandopulle].
LW: In 2006, I went through many checkpoints without being checked.
The President said: “Just go. Don’t identify yourself.” Later he told
them: “I sent someone. You people couldn’t even find out who it was.”
President: I pulled up the Defence people, saying: “If I can send a
man there, what is your security?” I told them after several months: “He
[Lalith Weeratunga] is the man who went there. Do you know that?”
LW: To that extent he went.
NR: To see the weaknesses?
LW: No, to negotiate.
President: To negotiate and see the weaknesses also! Then I sent
Jeyaraj. He told them some home truths in Sinhala, which they
understood. “You will be killed [if they continued along this path].”
NR: Then came the Mavil Aru incident.
President: That was the time they gave me the green light!
NR: But you were well prepared by then, August 2006?
President: Yes. But before that, they tried to kill the Army
Commander.
LW: In April 2006, when they tried to assassinate the Army Commander,
the President said - this was in the next room - “as a deterrent, just
one round of bombing, then stop it.”
President: Yes, I said: “Just go once.” We were very careful. We did
our best to find a way out through talks.
LW: There was a whole series of negotiations, in Geneva and
elsewhere. They [the Tigers] didn’t even want to talk.
President: So these military operations did not come without
negotiation or without any reason. But from the start, I was getting
ready for that [the military operations]. I knew - because I had the
experience, you see. We knew that they would never lay down arms and
start negotiating.
LW: In this connection, let me tell you about the President’s
interesting conversation with Solheim [Eric Solheim]. I was there, it
was about March 2006. Solheim came to see The President after he became
President, and said, in the midst of other things: “Prabhakaran is a
military genius. I have seen him in action,” and this and that. The
President said: “He is from the jungles of the North. I am from the
jungles of the South. Let’s see who will win!” It was very prophetic.
Later the President met Minister Solheim in New York and reminded him
of their conversation on the “military genius,” the jungles of the North
and South, and who would win. The East had by that time, in 2007, been
cleared and the President said: “Now see what’s going to happen in the
North. The same.”
NR: When did you first get an idea that the Tigers were vulnerable,
that they were hollow in some sense, that you could hit deep?
No underestimation
President: From the beginning I had the feeling that if you gave the
Forces proper instructions and whatever they wanted, our people could
defeat them. Because I always had the feeling that what they [the LTTE]
were showing was not the reality. But in a way, we were wrong. They had
numbers, they had weapons.
They would have attacked not just Sri Lanka, they would have attacked
South India. The weapons they had accumulated could not have been just
for Sri Lanka! The amount of weapons our Armed Forces are discovering is
unbelievable. And I knew when our intelligence was saying: “They have
only 15,000 fighters,” I knew it was not that number. I was not
depending on one source. I knew that the LTTE had more than that. One
thing I never did was to underestimate the LTTE.
NR: So you say they were the most ruthless and most powerful
terrorist organization in the world.
President: Yes, the most ruthless and richest terrorist organization
in the world. And well equipped, well trained.
LTTE’s final strategy?
NR: What do you think was their final strategy? Prabhakaran holed out
with all the LTTE leaders and their families in that small space, that
sliver of coastal land. It shocked the world. But what were they
expecting? D.B.S. Jeyaraj, who writes for us, has a theory that they
wanted to do a daring counter-attack.
President: I think what they wanted was to escape. In the final
phase, they were waiting for somebody to come and take them away.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t have gone there. Because they had the Sea Tiger
base: that was the only place where they could bring a ship very close -
even a submarine. They selected the best place for them: on one side the
sea, then the lagoon, and there was a small strip.
But then it was not they who actually selected the place: they
‘selected’ it but the Armed Forces made them go there. The No-Fire Zones
were all announced by the Armed Forces. After Kilinochchi, they were
saying: “No-Fire Zones, so go there.” So all of them [the LTTE leaders
and fighters] went there.
These were not areas demarcated by the U.N. or somebody else; they
were demarcated by our Armed Forces. The whole thing was planned by our
Forces to corner them. The Army was advancing from North to South, South
to North, on all sides. So I would say they got cornered by our
strategies.
LW: Kilinochchi was captured on January 01, 2009. And the whole
operation was over on May 19. So there was ample time [for them to get
away].
Conduct of Armed Forces
President: Yes, I can’t understand why they had to fight a
conventional war. Prabhakaran could have gone underground. If I was the
leader of the LTTE, I would have gone underground and I would have been
in the jungles - fighting a guerrilla fight. They couldn’t do that now
because we, our Army, mastered the jungles. They were much better than
the LTTE in this [mode of warfare]. Thanks to the Special Forces, the
Long-Range Forces, and the small groups, the group of eight. That worked
very well. And I salute our Forces for their discipline.
LW: For example, there was not a single instance where the Army was
found to be wanting in its conduct towards women.
President: That girl, when she surrendered - they were deciding,
there were six or seven [LTTE women fighters] - she says in her
statement: finally, two or three ate cyanide and killed themselves; and
then two or three girls said, “all right, we will see whether we will be
raped, whether we will kill ourselves or be killed by rape, we will take
this risk.” The schoolteacher, this educated girl, surrendered.
Nothing happened. She can’t believe this. She was paid by the
Government for fighting us! By the way, we are now going to get all the
Government Servants [from the Northern areas that used to be controlled
by the LTTE] and I am going to tell them: “Forget your past. You work
there in these organizations, you can’t just wait there. We are paying
you.” Now teachers must go and teach and others must go to their posts
and work.
And the money that they [the Tamil civilians fleeing the LTTE]
deposited: on the first day it was Rs. 450 million together in the two
banks, People’s Bank and the Bank of Ceylon. And considerable quantities
of gold. The Army has become a very disciplined force.
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