By P.K. Balachandran, IANS
Colombo : Most Sri Lankans believe that 2008 will be a year of war but predictions of the outcome vary.
With both the government and the Tamil Tigers preparing to take on one another in the island’s north, some believe the rebels will be defeated and lasting peace will dawn. Yet others foresee a prolonged, low intensity war of attrition with no victor.
“Full-scale war is on the cards in the north after the monsoon ends in mid-January. Both sides are preparing for it,” Muttukrishna Saravananthan, an economist with the Point Pedro Institute of Development, told IANS.
“What we see clearly is the military track, not the peace track,” said John Gunaratne, former deputy director general of the Sri Lankan government’s peace secretariat.
In recent months, both President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Liberation tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) chief Velupillai Prabhakaran have talked only of war and a fight to the finish.
Rajapaksa said Dec 26 that he would not “bow to terrorism” and that a political solution was not possible without first militarily defeating the LTTE.
Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has called for the scrapping of the Norway-sponsored 2002 ceasefire pact.
“It’s a joke,” he told the government-run Daily News Saturday. He has made no bones about the mission to eliminate the leadership of the LTTE.
In November, the head of the LTTE’s political wing, S.P. Tamilselvan, was killed in an air raid. Subsequently, the government claimed to have inflicted wounds on Prabhakaran himself in another air bombing. The LTTE has denied this.
Prabhakaran has been no less belligerent. In his annual Heroes’ Day address Nov 27, he said it would be naïve to go for talks.
“Thousands of our fighters are standing ready to fight with determination for our just goal of freedom and we will overcome the hurdles before us and liberate our motherland,” he said.
Both sides are beefing up their arsenals. The government has reportedly got F7 fighters and 3D radars from China. Weapons are also likely to be bought from Russia, Ukraine and the Czech Republic. India and US are to supply “defensive equipment” like radars. Pakistan has announced a $31 million arms sales package.
The current defence budget is Sri Lankan Rs.169 billion (about $1.5 billion). “That could go up to Rs.200 billion by year end,” Saravananthan said.
The LTTE too is acquiring sophisticated weapons. The Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) reported that during its raid on Kilinochchi Dec 26, the LTTE fired anti-aircraft guns, which means that the SLAF may face new challenges in 2008.
Lakbima News reported Dec 23 that the Tigers had acquired HOLOsight Target Acquisition Systems, triggering inquiries from the US military.
However, Sri Lankans are divided — on ethnic lines – over the military capabilities of the two sides.
A recent survey by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) found that while 88 percent of the majority Sinhalese community believed that the government was militarily strong, 67 percent of the minority Tamils did not think so. Nearly half the Sinhalese felt that the LTTE was weak, but 53 percent of Tamils did not think so.
Dayan Jayatilleke, Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, has said that 2008 will be a “year of victory” as Sri Lanka is at a “rare moment in history” in which it enjoys a “favourable confluence of factors”.
According to Saravananthan, a victory for the government is possible if it exploits the current weakness of the LTTE.
“Our information is that morale among the lower-level cadres of the LTTE is weak,” he said, while cautioning that the LTTE would fight to the last man in defending its heartland of Wanni, a sprawling region that includes the northern district of Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi as well as parts of Vavuniya and Mannar districts.
K. Srikantha, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP, believes that the army’s bid to take Wanni would fail.
“Just as the LTTE cannot take Jaffna, the armed forces cannot take Wanni because both are entrenched,” he said.
Gunaratne expects a stalemate. “In military matters, people tend to underestimate the other side. What I foresee is a long drawn out, low intensity war of attrition,” he said.
An estimated 70,000 people have died in the Tamil separatist conflict since 1983.