Lanka Citizen

A friendly advice to Ranil

Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe has invited us citizens to write to him; I have no doubt that he would have received thousands of letters and a selected few of them may be submitted to him for his information. I am therefore sending this to the newspapers as I feel many of your readers would bring this to his attention.

Ranil must be made aware that ‘gratitude’ is not in the makeup of Prabhakaran, he does not know the meaning of the word. This may be because he is in blinkers and his tunnel vision makes him only see one thing and that is his separate state of Eelam for his people, who have, according to him, been brutalized and suppressed by the racist Sinhalese. He seeks to rid every Sinhalese from his Eelam or at least from the Jaffna peninsula and the British carved Northern Province. As we are all aware to make his Eelam viable he seeks to indulge in a land grab and annex the Eastern Province which was till 1815 a part of the Kandyan Kingdom with its strategic Trincomalee harbour.

You must know that whatever you may do to appease Prabhakaran, or even if you save his life, he would not think twice about having you assassinated. Just think, no one did more for him than President Premadasa. He sent away the IPKF which had cornered him and confined him to a small area of Mullaitivu; they would have finished off the job only if the government had withdrawn the Concurrent List in the 13th Amendment and made a reality of the devolution contemplated in that Amendment to the Constitution; The Tamils of Tamil Nadu would have been appeased that the grievances of their Tamil brethren had been addressed and equality secured for them, justifying the intervention and the loss of life in this country. Yes, Prabhakaran was indeed saved by Premadasa.

Premadasa also had Mathywathani and their two children brought from Norway; he united Prabhakaran with his family.Neville Jayaweera then Ambassador in Sweden would tell you of how he accomplished that. That was not all, the Indians will tell you of the hundreds of thousands of US Dollars worth of arms that were gifted to the LTTE. You may perhaps have known of that. Was the LTTE grateful? NO, they considered us to be suckers.

The naive President, even after he was tricked by the LTTE into agreeing to surrender the east and the 640 policemen, who the LTTE murdered in cold blood after they had surrendered on his orders executed through the then IG, (Premadasa could have called for an international inquiry, but the man was not interested) and the attack on the Palaly Airport when his Foreign Minister had a narrow escape, he wanted to sue for peace once again, I wonder what Prabhakaran would have had to say to that? Anyway what form did their gratitude for what he did for them take? They assassinated him by activating a sleeper whom they had kept in readiness in a LTTE funded kiosk in front of his residence. So Mr. Wickremesinghe, have the police run a check on all those who have infiltrated your establishment over the past ten years including the Sinhalese and others.

Besides President Pemadasa we had another naïve and starry-eyed inexperienced politician who had empathy with the under-dog. She was of course Chandrika Kumaratunga. It must be said to her credit that she was the only Sinhala politician who sincerely believed that the genuine grievances of the Tamil people must be addressed.

The starry-eyed liberal having manned the barricades in the student revolt in Paris, arrived here 20 years after the ethnic problem had first erupted and had now been transformed into war. Most unfortunately, because of the politicization of our institutions and her own attitude, she had no access to what had happened before she took office; she did not have access to files, I wonder whether she studied the intelligence reports or clipping files. I doubt as to whether she was given a comprehensive report on Prabhakaran, his local organization and his international network. The clueless people who were appointed by her to high office and the unstructured manner in which she set about her work did not make her task easier. Her so-called negotiators were hopeless misfits, the strategy of dealing with the LTTE was utterly amateurish.

They did not know the organization they were dealing with and had not done their home-work either. She did not bring in the international community, not even India and the LTTE lost its patience and attempted to assassinate her to make way for you the second time around.

There was nothing she could achieve on the peace front though she did most sincerely try by introducing legislation to meet the grievances of the Tamil people to enable them to live in dignity, security and to decide on their own destiny in areas inhabited by them.

Legislation was brought in 1995, 1997 and finally in August 2000 all of which you successfully sabotaged. You must surely be embarrassed at what you allowed to happen that day when your President and mine, whether we like her or not, was referred to in unprintable language and one of your louts burned the Bill in the House. The LTTE has not forgotten your contribution to the Tamil cause during that period.

In the period before you won the Parliamentary election, your critics state that you delivered the Vanni to the LTTE in order to embarrass her. When you became Premier the LTTE was, with the help of the Norwegians, able to extract the maximum possible concessions from your government starting with the CFA.
Today, the LTTE is at least five times stronger than they were at the time of the Ceasefire; they have annihilated our Intelligence Corps with impunity.

The LTTE were able to obtain advanced communication equipment. We do not here wish to go into all that happened but do you even for a moment think that Prabhakaran is grateful for what he has received. The policy of appeasement which you and some of your ‘gentle’ officials followed naively, did not appease the LTTE neither did it win any friendships it only strengthened the LTTE. My information is that they laugh when asked whether they are grateful for the ‘assistance’ they received. They have no respect for those who helped them, they only scorn the fools.

Now you both are friends and appear to have joined hand to defeat a ‘common enemy’. But the country is more important to us. The only favour the LTTE has done ever is also done in their own interest. They know very well that if they endorse your candidature you would be finished but make no mistake they will demand the payoff.

So what should you do not only to protect yourself but also this country? This country cannot afford another political assassination. You should immediately on assuming office, (if you win the election of course), undertake working visits to India and the US. And request of the two governments the following:-

(1) The two governments should jointly and severally issue a final warning to the LTTE that if any harm comes to you or they indulge in one single assassination of a political leader, they would be held responsible whatever they may say.

(2) The US to station an Aircraft Carrier in the Trincomalee harbour as a warning to the LTTE. India would not join for political reasons, but they would not object for they now have a strategic partnership agreement with the US.

This would not only ensure your own security and that of your senior Ministers but would also ensure a just settlement of the conflict.

That my friend, ‘Singhe’ is your only insurance against assassination for their demands would exceed what you can deliver and we know the form their punishment takes.

Good luck to you. (H.E.W.)

http://www.dailymirror.lk/2005/11/07/opinion.asp

By Ron Moreau

The election’s two front runners, both Sinhalese Buddhists, present sharply differing visions. Current Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse is the more charismatic candidate, but his platform is more modest. He wants to proceed cautiously on the peace front, looking only to renegotiate a shaky ceasefire that ended major combat in 2002. He is skeptical of proposals to grant sweeping autonomy to the Tamil-dominated north and east as the price for peace. Before re-entering peace talks with the Tigers, he wants the Sinhalese Buddhist majority in the south, which makes up about 75 percent of the population, to reach a consensus negotiating position—a process that could take months, if not years. Rajapakse is also more of a populist economically. He opposes further privatization of state assets, and talks about hiring more civil servants to solve the problem of unemployed high-school graduates.

His opponent, Ranil Wickremesinghe, successfully negotiated the 2002 ceasefire and began Norwegian-brokered peace talks with the LTTE while he was prime minister between 2001 and 2004. He’s a colorless campaigner, but his proposals are ambitious: an economic liberal whom one Western diplomat in Colombo calls a “neo-Thatcherite,” he favors the privatization of ailing state companies. Most important, he strongly believes in a rapid return to talks with the Tigers and advocates a federalist solution—devolving substantial self-governing powers to the Tamil-dominated strongholds. In a recent campaign appearance he promised to negotiate a “permanent peace” with the LTTE in two to three years. Responding to such talk, Rajapakse’s economic adviser, Ajith Cabraal, says Wickremesinghe “would give anything and everything to achieve peace.”

After years of war, so would many Sri Lankans. (Recent polls show Wickremesinghe with a slight lead.) The country desperately needs to upgrade its roads and seaports, and to exponentially increase agricultural and manufactured exports. Peace would allow the defense budget to be slashed, freeing up funds for development and education. Outsourcing is a potential growth area. The one bright spot is the garment industry, which continues to attract high-end contracts from companies like the Gap and Victoria’s Secret. The industry has become the nation’s leading foreign-exchange earner, with $2.5 billion in exports last year, and is the main reason the economy will grow by over 5 percent this year. “Sri Lanka has enormous potential,” says U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Lunstead.

Courtesy Newsweek International

These analysts don’t seem to see the contradictions in the LTTE behaviour. The LTTE says one thing officially and indicates the opposite in the way they criticize the two candidates. They have by all means suggested to the ordinary Tamils that the LTTE prefers Ranil to win, and that is to whom the ordinary Tamils who are in fear of the LTTE is going to vote, if they go to vote. All pro LTTE websites including the Tamil Net very clearly show this “unofficial” stand of the LTTE. The two Catholic Bishops in the East have announced that the demands not to vote are not from the LTTE and that the Tamil people should get out and vote. Does this apply only to the East? What about the North and the Vanni?

Here is one fear story from the Sunday Island Defence Correspondent.

Is Sri Lanka once again on the brink of war, no matter who wins the Presidency on November 17?

……the aggressive stance and clear preparations for war on the part of the LTTE have got some parts of the intelligence-gathering community wondering whether this is a possibility, according to Army sources.

The manner in which the LTTE has deliberately not taken a clear stance on supporting either of the presidential candidates, is a grave cause for concern. In the past, the LTTE has exhorted voters in the Northeast to cast their ballots for the UNP, if the Tigers’ ally the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) was not running in the polls. But this time, contrary to all expectations, the Tigers have not been supporting the Wickremasinghe campaign. The fact that they are allowing Tamil voters in the Northeast the choice of deciding on whom to vote for, seems ominous simply due to the fact that the LTTE has never allowed freedom of expression, or even freedom of thought. It appears as though the outcome of the election does not matter to the LTTE and its plans do not hinge on who the victor will be.

Conventional wisdom among analysts in Colombo says that a victory by the UNP candidate would help to preserve the status quo. Yet, there is no hard evidence on the ground in the Northeast to support this. Indeed, this assumption that the Tigers are ready to continue the ceasefire under a UNP regime may be a fatal mistake.

In contrast to the LTTE, the armed forces have never been weaker, in terms of readiness of soldiers to take on the LTTE. Much of the senior leadership of all three armed services is also suspect in terms of decisiveness and the ability to take responsibility for battles without the backing of political leaders.

The fact is that the LTTE has now spent nearly four years at peace. Although the Ceasefire Agreement was signed only in March 2002, the LTTE began its unilateral ceasefire on Christmas Day of 2001, shortly after Ranil Wickremasinghe became Prime Minister. The armed forces, although officially at war for another three months, also did not undertake any major offensive operations, and thus the ceasefire became a reality on the ground even though it was not to become official until March 2002.

This period of 46 months is by far the longest time that the LTTE has observed a truce. The earlier longest truce was in 1989/90 which lasted only 13 months. The ceasefire of 1994/95 lasted less than six months. Simply put, it is not in the nature of the LTTE to observe a truce, unless it is forced to do so, usually by global events.

One of the most significant factors in persuading the LTTE to observe the ceasefire was the aggressive stance of US President George W. Bush over the last several years since the September 11 attacks in the US. Bush showed a particular liking for invading other countries, actually doing so in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq, and making open threats towards North Korea, Iraq and Syria. However, Bush’s overseas adventures have become bogged down with more than 2,000 American soldiers having died in Iraq where an open revolt has been growing ever stronger. In Afghanistan too, US troops continue to fight the Taleban, which shows no indication of letting up.

With US public support for foreign ventures waning, and with Bush’s domestic popularity being at an all-time low due to political scandals in the White House and the pitiful response of the US Federal Government in the Hurricane Katrina disaster, it is unlikely that Bush would play a significant role in a war in yet another country, especially one such as Sri Lanka, where ground conditions are far tougher due to the abundant jungles, than the open deserts of Iraq and the bare mountains of Afghanistan. In other words, the Tigers may believe that the time is ripe, locally and globally, for them to go back to war and seize the land they call Eelam, once and for all. Indeed, LTTE senior cadres have been warning their fighters that they should prepare for war again, promising that this time it would be the final solution to the Northeast war.

This week, naval patrols once again detected an LTTE boat movement on the high seas, indicating that the Tigers are rapidly moving in arms and ammunition to the Northeast from foreign countries. Five LTTE boats were seized 60 miles off Sangammankanda which is south of the Trincomalee area. Interestingly, only one boat was manned by one cadre, and four boats also had no engines. This indicates that the shipment that the boats were awaiting included outboard motors, which would have been attached within minutes to the boats. The cadre is now in custody.

This column exclusively reported previously that the Tigers were using the area between Muttur and Batticaloa to land cargo, with naval and air patrols concentrating on the more northern area between Trincomalee and Jaffna, especially the Mullaittivu coast. We repeatedly warned that the navy’s preoccupation with the Mullaittivu area was allowing the Tigers free access to the east coast. Intelligence has confirmed that the Tigers have received 11 shipments of arms during the last two years, a frightening rate of a shipload every two months at least. Since each shipload can carry enough ammunition for the LTTE to carry on fighting for at least three months, it is clear that the Tigers are now more than ready for a long, protracted campaign. Two weeks ago we broke the news of yet another shipment having arrived, which was later confirmed by the navy.

The LTTE has never been stronger militarily, in number of cadres, training, and number of Black Tiger suicide bombers and Pistol Group cadres in attack positions in Colombo and towns in the Northeast such as Trincomalee, Jaffna and Batticaloa. The Air Wing is also now ready for war, with at least four aircraft operational. As exclusively reported by this column, one of these aircraft is a twin-engined one, although the Air Force Commander publicly scoffed at the notion. But then, the Air Force had previously refused to accept the reality that the Air Wing was in the air, until one of its own surveillance drones brought back a TV movie of one of the Tiger planes. Even then, the Air Force preferred to believe that it was just one aircraft until a second different one was sighted. Once again, the threat from them was belittled by the Air Force, but now intelligence has warned that the Air Tigers possess not two but four aircraft. The Air Force has done little to prepare for the possibility of these aircraft being used in war, preferring to blindly believe that they are not a significant threat.

The President herself appears quite disinterested in matters of such national importance. But with only a few more days to go in her presidency, that is not only natural, but quite logical. After the many controversies that swirled around her throughout this year, she is finally bowing out gracefully from the presidency, if not from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. This allows the next president a free hand in running the country, ensuring a smooth transition as far as she is concerned.

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse is clearly not at all interested in the looming danger. Preoccupied with his political campaign, and squabbling with the President and his running mate Anura Bandaranaike, the PM has held no meetings with any senior officers of the armed forces, except when he happened to be campaigning in an area close to or in the Northeast. Even then, he did not discuss any strategic matters with them.

One of the major problems is the deep distrust of the PM towards the Chief of Defence Staff, and the Commanders of the Army, Navy and Air Force. All these top officers were appointed by the President during her tenure as Minister of Defence. But what made matters worse is the fact that each has been perceived as being quite close to her, and have quite easily received extensions of service.

Again, the Mahinda camp was extremely angry at the manner in which the top brass failed to liaise properly with the PM during the first three days of the Tsunami disaster rescue operations, when the President was still in London and the Premier was in charge.

UNP candidate Ranil Wickremasinghe has also not paid much heed to the possibility of the Tigers returning to hostilities, even if he is elected. There is a blind faith in the UNP camp that the LTTE is ready to accept the status quo and continue with the present ceasefire agreement, should Wickremasinghe become president.

There is no indication that the LTTE is preparing to strike before the election, which could be an indication that there is still a distinct possibility that the Tigers may yet stay away from war until the political situation in Colombo is settled, in order to see what the new government’s policies are towards the Tigers.

http://www.island.lk/2005/11/06/defence.html

Making a popular image of Ranil is Prof Shroeder’s job, the two Asian superpowers are backing the two candidates, adds the Times

One of the chief advisers of his [Ranil’s] campaign is a German academic Prof. Shroeder, whose services have been obtained by party chairman Malik Samarawickrama through a German Foundation.

According to the Shroeder Doctrine - who has produced a single sheet campaign plan, the UNP candidate must show compassion, kiss-babies, press-the-flesh, give a glass of milk, roll out the goodies, and keep it simple. He must match Mahinda Rajapakse’s populist approach in equal measure, spending one week with the youth, one week with farmers etc., and keep the final week to deal with the ethnic issue.

But time is now running out as we get closer to the wire. His party machinery is still stuck, as the Colombo-centric operatives manning his campaign refuse to see what’s happening (or not happening) in the hinterland. He would have had no problem in winning if he was to face Rajapakse and the SLFP machinery, but with the JVP youth out in their numbers, in rain and sunshine, at day and in the night, the UNP campaign seems to have placed over-reliance on their US dollars 5 Million (Rs. 500 Million) advertising campaign to get their message across to the voters.

Several party-heavyweights have been sidelined in the process, and new bucks pushed to the forefront to ensure a Wickremesinghe victory, as speculation emerges about geo-strategic play by the Asian superpowers, and as to who is backing which candidate in the race for the presidency.

Courtesy Sunday Times, Political Column