Courtesy: Asia Times (Link www.atimes.com)

Excerpts:

When India was about to sign the peace accord with Sri Lanka, on July 29, 1987, it selected nearly 500 exiled militants, who were resident in the Tamil Nadu state, except those from the LTTE, to be given refresher courses in arms, in a remote area in the state of Uttrapradesh, in North India. Also, according to the accord, India took with them the remainder of the exiled militant groups in Tamil Nadu, to surrender their arms and take part in the envisaged democratic political process.

These included the Eelam People Revolutionary Left Front (EPRLF), the People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO) and Eelam National Democratic Liberation Front (ENDLF). The ENDLF was popularly known as "Three Stars", indicating the three ethnic communities living in the traditional Tamil homeland, and it was a breakaway group of PLOTE, formed under the tripartite leadership of "Paranthan Rajan" alias Gnanasegeram, Eeswaran and Douglas Devananda formerly of the EPRLF. Later, Eeswaran was removed and Douglas Devenanda left to form the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) with the blessing of Ranasinghe Premadasa, who had succeeded J R Jayewardene as the second elected president of Sri Lanka.

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But as the crisis dragged on, violent clashes began between September 30 and October 4 between the LTTE and Sinhalese residents in the Trincomalee district. At least 18 people were killed and 5,000 left homeless. As the clashes mounted, the Sri Lankan government accused the Indian army of doing nothing to protect Sinhalese civilians. Colombo threatened to send the IPKF packing if it could not bring the Trincomalee district under control.

The Sri Lankan Navy on October 2 apprehended 17 LTTE men traveling in a boat off the coast of Point Pedro. The navy disarmed them, took off their necklaces with cyanide capsules and took them to Palaly, where the Sri Lankan Army and the IPKF had their bases. It unfolded that two of the men were prize catches - Pulendran, the regional commander of the LTTE for Trincomalee and Kumarappah, the regional commander of the LTTE for Jaffna. The Sri Lankan government had earlier offered 1 million rupees each of the two Tamil militants.

The Sri Lankan government alleged that the 17 militants were acting in breach of the accord by transporting arms from Tamil Nadu, and also in breach of Sri Lankan immigration formalities. The government insisted that the militants be brought to Colombo for questioning.

The news spread like a wildfire and the LTTE screamed "foul", saying the arrests were a violation of the accord under which all militants had been granted amnesty. In reply, the government said that the amnesty only pertained to the pre-accord period and that the 17 armed men were in violation of the accord. The LTTE rightly pointed out that the September 28 agreement signed by it with India allowed the Tigers to retain their weapons.

President J R Jayewardene spoke to the nation on the state television, Rupavahini, for two successive days, explaining first that the 17 LTTE militants detained at Palaly were smugglers, and that they were not covered by the accord. He told the nation that the detainees had been caught on the high seas while in the act of smuggling arms from Tamil Nadu. It was a significant lapse on the part of the Sri Lankan government not to exhibit the alleged arms and ammunition seized.

The LTTE said that the militants were traveling in a slow fishing trawler from Jaffna to Tamil Nadu to bring back office equipment and furniture from their Tamil Nadu office. They also claimed that they had requested the IPKF high command to assist them in transporting the equipment, but the IPKF had ignored their request. They further stated that only Pulendran and Kumarappah, the regional LTTE commanders, were armed, according to agreement, as an act of self-defense.

Lalith Athulathmudali, the Sri Lankan National Security Minister, when contacted by journalists, said that the 17 would be transported to Colombo and made to pose before television cameras and then be released.

The LTTE appealed to the Indian government to prevent their men from being transported to Colombo. Depinder Singh flew to Colombo to urge the president not to move the militants to Colombo. Jayewardene refused to relent. Indian High Commissioner Dixit dashed to Colombo from Delhi to prevail on the president, but he was adamant. In the meantime, the LTTE's second in command Mahattaya, alias Mahendrarajah, was granted permission to meet the detainees at the Palaly base.

Depinder Singh in his book The IPKF in Sri Lanka, described the situation as follows, "Caught in a cleft, as it were, I flew to Colombo and saw General Ranatunge and the president to explain the LTTE's position and apprehensions and seek release of the prisoners. Apart from obtaining assurance that the prisoners would not be tortured, or shown on TV, I could make little headway. In my meeting with the president, he asked what was the strength of the Indian Army and the Southern Command and why a large army with such a proud record had not been able to bring the LTTE to heel. He added that he was under great pressure from all political parties including his own to withdraw the IPKF. I replied that our endeavor to resolve the problem peacefully as, otherwise, we would be back to the pre-July 1987 position. I also added that, since we were refining our tactics and, hopefully, better control would ensue. This appeared to satisfy the president; it certainly cheered him up. Nirrupon Sen, the First Secretary of our High Commission, [the High Commissioner was away] remarked that my use of the word 'refine' had impressed the president. Though I had been unsuccessful in my mission of preventing the SLAF [Sri Lankan Armed Forces] taking the LTTE prisoners to Colombo, we tried one more shot which was to get New Delhi to recall Mani Dixit, who was enjoying some well earned leave to speak to the president. Mani rejoined on October 4, 1987 and met the president who, unfortunately, remained adamant. Back in Jaffna, meanwhile, Mahataya had sought and secured permission to visit the prisoners who were then located in Palaly, I am convinced that during this visit he distributed cyanide capsules as the prisoners had been thoroughly searched earlier and could not have come to be in possession of cyanide through any other sources." - pages 82-83

The diplomacy of Jayewardene and the Sri Lankan government prevailed. Until the last moment, the IPKF was confident that the LTTE detainees would not be allowed to leave Jaffna. The IPKF threatened to block with armored cars any Sri Lankan plane intending to fly the prisoners to Colombo on October 5. By 4:30 in the afternoon, IPKF received instructions from New Delhi to abandon all efforts and allow events to take their own course.

"Mr Pirabakaran was furious when he was informed of the final decision. He felt he was obliged to fulfill the last wishes of his cadres in custody. Mr Pirabakaran and his commanders each took off his cyanide capsule and hung it around Bala and Mahataya's neck with instructions to deliver it to the captured cadres. Garlanded with cyanide capsules, Bala and Mahataya reluctantly and hesitantly visited the cadres on the decisive day of their transfer." Will to Freedom by Adele Balasingham, page 139

When people heard of the arrangements to take the detainees to Colombo they flocked in thousands in front of the Palaly base, demanding to see the detainees, without success.

The Sri Lankan government, in demanding that the detainees be flown to Colombo, ignored the advice and appeals of the IPKF, as well as strongly worded warnings of communal disharmony if anything happened to the detained militants. The government had its own designs of getting the IPKF involved in a confrontation with the domineering LTTE in the near future, and persisted in transporting the militants.

When Sri Lankan soldiers moved to the take the militants to Colombo, IPKF soldiers stood by as passive on-ookers. But on the tarmac, on October 5 at about 5:30 in the evening, those 17 LTTErs swallowed cyanide capsules and 12 of them died instantly, including Pulendran and Kumarappah, and three died later in the IPKF hospital at Palaly.

The incident was a turning point in the Indo-Sri Lankan peace accord, as anticipated by the Sri Lankan government. The death of the Tamil militants resulted in scenarios never anticipated by the Indian government. India was reduced to a pawn in the cleverly manipulated move of the wily president of Sri Lanka, who began to dictate the pace of events and by which New Delhi eventually became the scapegoat of the century.

"The LTTE's reaction was swift and savage," was how it was described by Depinder Singh as LTTE militants took retaliatory steps to avenge the deaths of their colleagues, with many casualties. The IPKF went on maximum alert, but the accord of peace was turning into a discord of antagonism.

"On October 6, 1987, the Chief of the Army Staff General Sunderji flew into Palaly where he was briefed about the situation. It was apparent that the political decision to employ force against LTTE was already taken. However, he was en route to Colombo, where the Defense Minister K C Pant was proceeding the same evening for a meeting with the Sri Lankan president. Having met the latter on October 4, I had no doubt about the riot act he would read out to compel the IPKF to use force. My recommendation to General Sundarji was that we must not go in for the hard option because, if we did, we would be stuck in insurgency situation for the next 20 years. I was admonished not to adopt a defeatist attitude to which my reply was that I was not being defeatist, merely realistic. The chief then flew off to Colombo. I am not privy to what transpired there, but next day, HQ IPKF received direct instructions, in clear, from the chief in Colombo to use force against the LTTE." The IPKF in Sri Lanka By Lieutenant-General Depinder Singh, Page 84

General Krishnaswamy Sunderji, the Indian Army's Chief of Staff, rejected the realistic advice given to him by Depinder Singh. Comparing Sundarji's style and approach in Sri Lanka with Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, the Chief of Staff of the Indian Army in 1971, India Today in its May 15, 1988 issue alleged, "Sri Lanka was another case of Sundarji's style of rushing into things too fast with an eye to impress the political leadership."

India Today magazine has alleged that Sundarji's hawkish posture and his desire to please the political leadership made him rush into the decision to use force against the LTTE against the situation report and advice given to him by the IPKF leadership.

"General Sunderji ordered the commencement of what is known as 'Operation Pawan' on October 6, 1987." Assignment Colombo by J N Dixit, page 212

The IPKF came to broker peace and order in the country, now it had become the party for escalating violence. The IPKF launched several demonstrative raids in the Jaffna Peninsula following Sunderji's order.

On October 8, the IPKF raided the printing presses and offices of the pro-LTTE regional Tamil dailies Eelamurasu and Murasoli, and arrested journalists and workers. They also raided the office of Eelanadu, the pioneer regional Tamil daily, arrested journalists and closed down the paper. They also raided transmission facilities, such as the television station Nitharsanam and the radio station of the LTTE, rendering them ineffective.

"To keep the Tamil public in the dark concerning their military maneuvers and to suppress local and international criticism of possible military excess and atrocities of war, the Indian army launched sudden and swift operations against the free media in Jaffna in the early hours of the morning of October 10 [The author has made a mistake with the date], just a few hours after the major military onslaught. The printing presses of Eelamurasu, Murasoli were blasted with explosives and the journalists were arrested. Audio and television stations were attacked and all transmission facilities rendered ineffective. The world's largest democracy carried out the heinous crime of striking down the very instrument of democracy, the media of the people of Jaffna, to stifle their freedom of opinion and expression." The Will to Freedom by Adele Balasingham, page 143

"The IPKF units launched attacks against the media and television centers of the LTTE in Jaffna between October 7 and 11 and also started taking direct control of the Jaffna Peninsula. The operation, however, commenced somewhat disastrously. The IPKF's plans to capture the entire leadership of the LTTE, including Prabakaran, from their headquarters in the Jaffna University grounds ended in a shambles." Assignment Colombo by J N Dixit, page 213

The IPKF imposed a curfew in the peninsula, followed by helicopter gunship patrolling the region. At the beginning, the people of Jaffna thought the Indians who had came to protect the Tamils would be friendly and helpful, and they did not take the imposition of the curfew seriously. It began to dawn on them the seriousness of the Indian army when helicopter-gunship began to pound artillery shells and fire at those who violated the curfew.

On October 9, exchanges of fire between the Indian army and the Tamil militants took place and by that time reports also emerged that the Indian army had arrested more than 131 Tamil militants, along with their weapons, ammunition, explosives and communication equipment. In the afternoon, according to available reports, the LTTE militants attacked a post of the Madras regiment, at Tellipalai, with mortars and small arms. Again on the same afternoon, it was alleged that LTTE militants ambushed a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy in the same area, killing four CRPF men.

The Indian government, which announced on October 7 that it would "use the strongest measures to deal with all those who seek to undermine the implementation of the Indo-Sri Lankan agreement", awaited the IPKF to take on the LTTE. Krishna Chandra Pant, the Indian Defense Minister, declared that the LTTE would no longer be accommodated. President Jayewardene revoked the amnesty given to the LTTE, outlawed the group and announced a reward on 1 million rupees on the head of V Prabakaran. Pant was told by Jayewardene, firmly, to incapacitate the LTTE without further delay.

On October 9, the military offensive code named Operaion Pawan (Wind) against the LTTE to wrest control of Jaffna was launched. New Delhi had taken a political decision to pin down the LTTE to safeguard the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord.

The IPKF planned to capture Jaffna town, dividing the area of operation into two sectors. The area north of Elephant Pass was called the Jaffna sector and the contingency plan was put under the 54th Infantry Division, and the remainder was called the Trincomalee sector, under the 36th Infantry Division.

The IPKF estimated the strength of the LTTE at around 1,500 in the Jaffna peninsula. This figure was later increased to 2,500 by the militant group's urgent reinforcement arrangements. About 75 percent of the militants were armed with AK47 and G3 automatic rifles, light and medium machine guns, mortars and rocket launchers. The IPKF anticipated that approaches to Jaffna would be heavily defended by the LTTE in successive defense tiers, as these had been prepared against the Sri Lankan Army.

Dipender Singh writes that the reason in selecting to take Jaffna was follows, "It was selected because Jaffna had come to symbolize LTTE power and authority and one that had withstood all efforts made by the SLAF to capture it. Furthermore, the LTTE were urban guerillas and it was in this town that they had their headquarters, training facilities, munitions making factories and caches of arms and ammunition. It was necessary, therefore, to wrest control of this symbol to bring the LTTE back into the mainstream." The IPKF in Sri Lanka, page 90

The fight to take the Jaffna city was launched on October 10 and continued up to October 25. According to Dipender Singh, the casualty figures during the period of October 11 to November 30 1987 were as follows:

IPKF: killed - 17 officers, 26 junior commissioned officers and 276 ordinary soldiers; wounded - 53 officers, 67 junior commissioned officers and 919 ordinary soldiers; LTTE: killed 1,100.

The IPKF Overall Force Commander failed to give any details of causalities sustained by non-combatants. According to reports from various citizen committees in the region as well as from local human rights groups, more than 1,000 civilians were killed in the campaign to take the control of Jaffna. In eastern Sri Lanka, Tamils as well as Muslims were alleged to be victims of indiscriminate or reprisal killings by both sides, as well as rapes.

The IPKF operation in Sri Lanka turned out to be one of the biggest Indian diplomatic and military debacles ever. Billions of dollars in taxpayers' money was wasted in an adventurist experiment. To date, successive Indian governments have failed to appoint an impartial inquiry commission into the Sri Lankan fiasco.

The IPKF captured Jaffna Peninsula, which led the entire North and Eastern provinces degenerating into shambles. The entire Tamil region fell under Indian occupation. More than 2 million Tamils were internally displaced. Jaffna was without an administration as the administrators, the LTTE, had fled to outlying forest areas in the Vanni region, where they set up camps, regrouping and preparing for guerilla warfare.

The war-weary Tamils of Jaffna gradually moved from churches, Hindu temples and school buildings back to their houses, but they were disappointed to see their houses raised or ruined due to artillery fire. In areas such as Chunnakam, Mallakam, Uduvil, Manipay, Maruthanamadam and Inuvil, more than 100 civilian bodies were found by the Chunnakam Citizen Committee, of which this writer was a member. The deaths were widely attributed to the IPKF.

When the IPKF decided to launch its campaign against the LTTE in Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M G Ramachandran was in a hospital in Baltimore, in the United States, undergoing treatment. M G Ramachandran, the matinee idol turned political leader, had all along supported the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka. According to Sachi Sri Kantha in his book, MGR Movies Revisited and other essays, MGR viewed the young Tamil rebels (especially the LTTE and its leader Prabakaran) as fighting for a worthy cause against oppression. When the LTTE was labeled as "The private army of Mr M G Ramachandran the present Chief Minister of Madras" MGR retorted strongly, as reported in Time magazine (May 11, 1987), "Tamil groups are spearheading the fight against the fascist action of the Jayewardene regime and they should be congratulated and helped." This view has to be interpreted from the perspective of M G R's life-long philosophy of "fighting the evil forces". For four decades, M G R preached for the downtrodden Tamil masses via Tamil movie screens, a simple philosophical theme - "fight for your rights".

"The Eelam issue also provided a psychological tonic to M G R in his last years in his legendary career. It gave an opportunity to contribute to the history of his land of birth. It is well known that displaced individuals keep affectionate spots of their land of their birth, and this affection reaches a climax when they near the end of their lives. M G R was a displaced individual and fate had it that he was moved to Tamil Nadu as a toddler from Kandy [in Sri Lanka], the place of his birth. Though he earned fame in Tamil Nadu, M G R was treated as an outsider in the political arena. Thus an active role in the Eelam issue would have given M G R a psychological uplift to influence the history of his land of birth. It can be asserted that other ranking Indian politicians would not bother to engage themselves with Eelam issues as M G R was, since they do not possess, the 'birth identity' M G R had with Sri Lanka." - pages 9-10

K Mohandas, in his book M G R: The Man and the Myth, wrote, "Though officially I did not have anything to do with the accord, and whatever might be its terms or fate, I was closely following the developments. I felt that the induction of IPKF was a wrong step fraught with grave consequences to the image of India and the morale of the Indian Army. There were naturally wide protests from all Tamil Nadu political parties, except sections of the TNCC(I) and the AIADMK. I got a call one night from M G R undergoing medical tests at Brooklyn Hospital, USA. He asked me to update him on the political developments with particular reference to the Sri Lankan Tamil issue. I, after gently reminding him that I was no longer the intelligence chief and therefore had no access to classified information, gave him my opinion as a layman that the induction of the IPKF was a blunder which should immediately be rectified. He said something which was inaudible, but he sounded very weak and tired." - pages 163-164

Again as a continuation of the above telephone conversation, Attar Chand in his book M G R: My Blood Brother, reflected the sentiments of the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu as follows:

"The July 29, 1987, agreement between Rajiv Gandhi and the Sri Lankan President Jayewardene received only a lukewarm endorsement from M G R. He appeared to have been disappointed with the turn of events in Jaffna after the agreement began to be implemented. Available reports suggest that he was bitter at the way IPKF was put in the situation of fighting and killing cadres of the LTTE, and he had expressed himself strongly in a letter to Rajiv Gandhi from Baltimore, where he was convalescing. The prime minister had to send a special emissary from Vancouver to Baltimore to explain the government's stand and also persuade M G R to be more emphatic in his support for the agreement." - page 104

A P Venkateswaran, a reputed senior diplomat and formerly the secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of India, who was sacked by Rajiv Gandhi, made the announcement of his sacking in a televised news conference in a most undiplomatic and unconventional way, in February 1987. In an interview with Asia Week dated March 4, 1988, he said as follows:
Question: Should India have gone into Sri Lanka?

Venkateswaran: I think it was a mistake in the manner we did it, without careful evaluation and working out the full package of devolution of powers for autonomy to the Tamil provinces. It is also important that the Tamil leadership be associated with the accord. In today's context, the individual cannot decide for people without their consent. Now we have the sorry spectacle of both Sinhalese and Tamils fiercely opposed to the accord.

Question: Was India's military action against Tamils warranted?

Venkateswaran: The purpose of a peacekeeping force is not to take sides with one or other of the opposing groups, but to separate them, so as to avoid a conflict. However, today we have the IPKF waging a full-scale offensive against the very group which it was ostensibly sent to protect. It is ironic that the causalities among the civilian population in the Northern and Eastern provinces have been higher, as a result of this offensive, than the announced causalities of either the IPKF or the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Question: How else can insurgency be curbed?

Venkateswaran: Historically speaking, there is no instance of insurgency being quelled by armed action of security forces, except in the case of the communist insurgency in Malaysia. But the situation as well as the circumstances there were very different from what prevails in the Tamil areas.

Question: Should India halt the operation?

Venkateswaran: We have blotted our copybook badly both politically and militarily. It will take decades to remove the bitterness which has been created by our military action in the Tamil provinces. Let us hope that this bitterness will not spill over to Tamils in our own country. It is high time that the effort at armed suppression of those opposed to the accord ceases and political process be restored. All along we have been pronouncing on the futility of attempting a military solution to the problem and have consistently advocated a political solution. It will behoove us to follow the advice we have been offering.

Question: What are the long-term implications of the Indian action in Sri Lanka?

Venkateswaran: We have sown seeds of bitterness for decades even among the people of Tamil ethnic stock in Sri Lanka. Sooner or later the Indian forces will have to withdraw whether peace is restored or not. One can say definitely that when this happens, we will have left Sri Lanka in worse mess than we have went in.

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For additional views please read a series of articles "India's Vietnam."