Reflections on the end of the conflict
[Final weeks of endgame]
* Suicide bombers infiltrated civilian camps
* Conscripted civilians
* Used a human shield
* Shot at civilians who attempted fleeing
A year ago the Government officially declared victory over the LTTE
in one of the most extraordinary counter-insurgency campaigns in recent
times. The endgame of the conflict, particularly from January to May
2009, saw the bloodiest fighting, often with the presence of tens of
thousands of civilians that the LTTE desperately used to fend off its
inevitable defeat. Since then, new evidence has become public that
offers further insights into the final months of the country’s
secessionist civil war.
One year later, leaving behind the tragic memories. Picture by
Rukmal Gamage |
Fierce combat
For decades, the jungle-laden Mullaitivu District, served as the
LTTE’s main stronghold. However, under significant military pressure
from the Army during the final stages of the conflict, the LTTE
conducted a fighting retreat towards its last bastion astride the
Mullaitivu coastline.
As it did so, the LTTE used all means at its disposal to inflict
casualties to delay, halt or even push back the Army’s advance. For
example, the LTTE constructed a series of embankments between two and
three metres high, also known as earth bunds, which proved to be
formidable defensive obstacles. Assault troops also encountered
camouflaged LTTE armour plated bunkers.
According to an Army officer from the time: ‘You don’t know where
they are, and you can’t even see them until your right on them...The
first you know is when you are wounded in the leg. All we can do is to
fire towards the sound, throw grenades and send off RPGs in the general
direction.’
In addition, frontline infantry often confronted elaborately laid
LTTE minefields that required field engineers equipped with Bangalore
torpedoes to clear pathways. Similarly, the LTTE cleverly utilized booby
traps made of discarded rubbish and metal that were tied to hidden
explosive caches dispersed over a wide area that when triggered caused
multiple and devastating explosions.
Each passing month saw increasingly fierce combat. Reports suggested
that the Army absorbed anywhere between 10 and 20 fatalities per
day-sometimes more-while the Army claims that the LTTE suffered average
losses ranging from 25 to 40 combatants per day. Due to high levels of
attrition and the need to augment its depleted conventional formations,
the LTTE had little choice than to continue to rely heavily on forced
recruitment of civilians, a practice that it revived full-scale in late
2007.
Child soldiers
To ensure a ready supply of civilians, the LTTE adopted a series of
coercive measures such as that reported in one newspaper which quoted a
14-year-old female child soldier saying the LTTE had warned her that her
family would be punished if she didn’t join. Indeed, the Army confirmed
that an increasing number of conscripts were seen at the frontline,
notably child soldiers. ‘It’s like looking at your own child. Quite
large numbers [of the LTTE fighters killed or captured] are under 16,’
one Army Brigadier told the Telegraph. ‘They grab them from their
parents and [when] they try to pull them back they [the parents] get
shot.
These children have dog tags and cyanide capsules.’ Indeed, it was
later revealed, according to a daily, that in the final months of the
war the LTTE planned to carry out a massive offensive against the Army
with 300 suicide bombers, but was forced to cancel it as many suicide
bombers were either killed in action or deserted to the
Government-controlled territory.
The incidence of civilian casualties was low prior to the
commencement of the Mullaitivu campaign, as combat was essentially
between two conventional armies in the field, and civilian
concentrations were situated far from the fighting.
However, as the territory controlled by the LTTE rapidly contracted,
the density of trapped civilians increased rapidly, meaning civilians
were often being caught in the crossfire. In an effort to provide safe
passage from the combat zone, the Government declared two limited
ceasefires, which saw civilian safe zones created at Vishvamadu and
Oddusudan. However, such measures were doomed to failure when the LTTE
rejected them and chose not to offer any alternative locations.
According to journalist DBS Jeyaraj: ‘The Government had...declared
two limited ceasefires. But the LTTE imposed further restrictions and
the number of civilians coming out dropped during ceasefire days...the
LTTE exploited the ceasefire in February to mount a effective counter
strike...The April ceasefire was used to construct several new
“trench-cum-bund” defences.’
Meanwhile, the LTTE positioned its artillery and mortar assets near
or amidst civilian concentrations, tactics confirmed by a range of media
outlets including Reuters India in February 2009, which quoted a 74-year
old Catholic nun as claiming: ‘The LTTE fired from close to civilians.
We had objected, but that didn’t work.’
Out of desperation, thousands of civilians defied the LTTE edict,
forbidding any civilians from leaving LTTE-controlled territory, and
attempted to escape under cover of darkness and brave crossfire from
running battles, LTTE-laid minefields and LTTE fire targeting escaping
civilians.
Fleeing Tiger grip
At a press conference in Colombo last July, Dr. Shanmugaraja, a
former LTTE physician who surrendered in the final weeks of the war,
said: ‘Many civilians were killed and wounded as the LTTE opened fire at
them when they tried to flee from the Tiger’s grip...Their strategy was
to keep the civilians around them and survive.’
In addition, there’s ample evidence to suggest that civilians in LTTE-controlled
territory were integrated into the LTTE military-logistical system and
war effort. For example, Sri Lankan-Australian scholar Michael Roberts,
an expert on Sri Lankan politics and anthropology, wrote in his article,
Dilemma’s at War’s End: ‘All young people seem to have been inducted as
auxiliaries. As they lost territory, the LTTE also used heavy machinery
and marshalled labour to build ditches and embankments...a task that
clearly involved massive logistical operations.’
Clear and diverse purpose
In fact, the presence of more than 280,000 civilians in LTTE-controlled
territory served a clear and diverse purpose, which was highlighted in
their use as military labour to build fortifications; porters shuttling
food, ammunition and supplies to frontline LTTE units; of manpower to
augment the LTTE’s military strength; human shields that gave the LTTE
significant bargaining power with the international community to call
for a permanent ceasefire; and the maintenance of its supply lines.
In effect, the LTTE depended indirectly almost entirely on regular
Government convoys to areas under enemy control for food, medicine and
essential items-an extraordinary situation. Another former LTTE
physician, Dr. Vardharaja, elaborated on this exploiting of civilians by
the LTTE to ensure supplies kept coming in, when he said: ‘The problem
was that the LTTE took medicine from us to treat their injured. They
asked us to tell the media that we don’t have medicine.
There was as a shortage of medicine because LTTE took the whole
stock.’ By mid-April 2009, the Army had successfully repulsed all LTTE
counterattacks and finally cornered the group on a sliver of territory
along the coast, 13 kilometres long and just three kilometres wide. The
LTTE decided to stage its last stand in its coastal stronghold with an
estimated 240,000 civilians still present, leaving the Army facing an
unprecedented difficulty of capturing the last patch of land while
ensuring civilians’ safety.
Misplaced criticism
It is this reality that underscores how misplaced the international
criticism of the military’s conduct in the final stages of the civil war
was. Suicide bombers infiltrated and detonated their suicide jackets,
killing 17 civilians and injuring 200.
The LTTE shrewdly used tents, make-shift shelters and bunkers to
conceal snipers, machine gun nests and artillery/mortar emplacements,
which were often merged with civilian dwellings.
Given this, assault troops had no choice but to systematically clear
tens of thousands of tents, makeshift shelters, bunkers and trenches,
which left them exposed to LTTE ambushes laid inside tents, makeshift
shelters or subterranean bunkers.
In the final weeks of the war, the LTTE continued to aggressively
conscript civilians who were given crash training and assigned to
scratch units at the frontline.
However, the LTTE’s efforts were in vain. After bitter fighting on
May 16 and 17, the last civilians were extracted from the combat zone,
leaving 400 hardcore LTTE leaders and fighters exposed.
By the morning of May 19, the LTTE lay defeated and its leaders
eliminated, bringing a decisive end to the nearly three decade long Sri
Lankan civil war. The Army’s final operation involved four weeks of
heavy fighting and the loss of over 500 soldiers.
The evidence revealed by the LTTE’s own former sympathisers indicates
the lengths the group was willing to go to and the difficulties facing
conventional militaries confronting a fanatical adversary that conducts
itself with impunity.
Under such circumstances it’s unrealistic to believe civilian
casualties can be avoided. Indeed, the very success of the Army in
extracting more than 280,000 civilians from the combat zone from January
to May 2009, despite this effort contributing to it suffering heavy
casualties in process, is an indication of the complexity of conducting
military operations in an environment where an enemy is willing use
civilians as a key element of its military strategy.
Civilian casualties are, of course, tragic. But the endgame of Sri
Lanka’s civil war requires a much more in-depth and nuanced
understanding of the dilemmas that faced the Army before any conclusions
can be drawn. |