SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 4, No. 33, February 27, 2006

SRI LANKA

A Temporary Reprieve
Guest Writer: Amantha Perera
Lecturer, Sri Lanka College of Journalism, Colombo

Nineteen million Sri Lankans heaved a collective sigh of relief when the new Mahinda Rajapakse Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) agreed to hold another round of talks in Geneva between April 19 and 21, at their meeting at the same location after a three-year hiatus. Despite a four-year ceasefire, (it was signed on February 22, 2002, four years to the day when last week’s talks commenced), talks have been stalled since April 2003, when the Tigers pulled out after being shut out at a donors’ meeting in the US.

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A little over a month before the latest round of talks, violence, especially in the north east had pushed the truce to its brink. Claymore mine attacks became rampant, targeting the armed forces. The Sri Lanka Navy became one of the main targets when its craft came under repeated attacks in the north eastern and north western waters. In one of the major hits, 13 sailors died and the Israeli built Dvora attack craft, in which they were patrolling the north eastern waters off Trincomalee, was sunk on January 7, in what the Navy now suspects to be an attack launched by an LTTE suicide cadre.

The fresh wave of attacks commenced on December 4, 2005, a week after LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran warned, in his annual Heroes’ Day speech, that the Tigers would ‘have no option’ but to return to hostilities if President Rajapakse failed to come up with a viable power devolution proposal. Rajapakse had been sworn in just seven days before the speech, after winning the tightly contested election by a slim 140,000 votes, that too with the help of hard-line parties in the south, who oppose wide power-sharing with the Tigers.

The Tigers, however, denied any role in December-January attacks and responsibility was claimed by a shadowy front organisation calling itself the Tamil Resurgence Force (TRF). The TRF claimed, in a number of letters, including one to the truce monitors, that it consisted of ‘armed civilians’ inside Government-controlled areas, on the ready to attack the security forces. Significantly, the Tigers imparted basic military training to civilians in areas under their rule before the attacks commenced.

Government forces, however, clearly blamed the attacks on the Tigers and their active supporters, claiming the cover of civilians. In the ensuing violence, 120 persons, including 80 service and police personnel and scores of civilians, have died. In one particularly ugly incident, five Tamil youth were killed in Trincomalee in execution style just five days before the Navy gunboat was blown up. Thirteen members of the Sri Lanka police have been taken in for questioning on suspicion for the attack.

More than 16,000 people have fled Government areas to Tiger-controlled territory, and the northern Jaffna Peninsula, which is under the Government, once again looked like a garrison town.

Only international pressure – the Americans made a not-so-veiled threat in Colombo that they would assist the Government in the event that hostilities erupted again – and doggedness on the part of the Norwegian peace brokers salvaged the situation and reopened negotiations. However, when the two sides were making last minute preparations for talks in Geneva, Norwegian Special Peace Envoy Erik Solheim cautioned against entertaining high expectations. His anxiety was partly influenced by the violence of the last two months, as also by the fissures that had erupted between the two sides since they last met. In fact, other than the Norwegians, only three of the 2003 representatives had made it back to negotiating table. Consecutive Government changes in Colombo guaranteed that the entire Government delegation was new. From the Tigers’ side, only chief negotiator Anton Balasingham, Political Wing Head S.P. Tamilselvan and Balasingham’s wife, Adele, who acts as a secretary at talks, remained. Crucially, one of their former co-negotiators, Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan alias Karuna, had broken ranks in early 2004 and launched a rebellion against Prabhakaran’s leadership in the eastern parts of Sri Lanka. The Karuna rebellion constitutes a serious headache for the Tigers, and was one of its main complaints at the Geneva talks.

The Government side had its own list of grievances, the most prominent of which was the August 2005 assassination of former Foreign Minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, blamed on the Tigers.

The talks got off to a rough start, with the two sides bickering over who should have first claim on the floor, and over talking to the Press. Both sides came to Geneva pushing widely divergent agendas. The Government wanted the truce agreement, signed by the 2002 Government under the stewardship of a political opponent, amended. The Tigers had the disarming of the Karuna faction on the top of their list.

In his opening remarks, Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, the head of the Government delegation, declared: “Our delegation affirms and emphasizes the position of the Government of Sri Lanka that the Ceasefire Agreement entered into between the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe and Mr. V. Prabhakaran, the leader of the LTTE, on 22nd February 2002 is contrary to our Constitution and law.” He added further that the LTTE had taken “undue and unfair advantage of the ceasefire to strengthen its military capability”. Balasingham countered in his opening statement with the argument: “I should say that it is the truce agreement that has helped to avert the outbreak of an all-out war and created the present environment where both the parties could engage in dialogue.”

At times the talks appeared to be little more than a trading of charges. De Silva listed 3,519 cases of ceasefire violations by the Tigers and a further 5,368 cases of under-aged combatants in Tiger ranks. Balasingham said that 28,830 house-owners had been forcibly evicted and 13,000 acres of farm land taken over by the Army to establish High Security Zones in Jaffna. The only point of apparent convergence was that the truce agreement was the only way to pursue a negotiated settlement. At the end of the two-day meeting, the Norwegians released a short statement seeped in diplomatic jargon, but with few specifics:

The Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE are committed to taking measures to ensure that there will be no intimidation, acts of violence, abductions or killings.

The LTTE is committed to taking all necessary measures to ensure that there will be no acts of violence against the security forces and police. The Government of Sri Lanka is committed to taking all necessary measures in accordance with the Ceasefire Agreement to ensure that no armed group or person other than Government security forces will carry arms or conduct armed operations.

Both sides hailed the outcome of the talks as a victory for their respective delegations, and the Norwegians declared that the result had exceeded their expectations.

Finally, however, everything will boil down to the manner in which the agreements arrived at in Geneva will be implemented on the ground back in Sri Lanka. In the past, both parties have been reluctant to carry out recommendations made by the truce monitors, and there is no indication that there has been any radical change of attitude.

Further, even while the Geneva talks were on, Karuna warned that he expected the Government forces not to move on his loyalists who operate in the east, his former base. In any case, there are influential allies of the Rajapakse administration who feel that the Karuna factor is one of the biggest cards the Government has up its sleeve.

Nevertheless, at least for the time being, Sri Lanka has won a temporary deferment of war, and can breathe relatively easily, till the next round of talks pushes up the stakes again

INDIA

Chhattisgarh: Populist Follies, Confounded State
Saji Cherian
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

Chhattisgarh has witnessed a recent spurt in Maoist related violence, with the native tribals and security force (SF) personnel bearing the brunt. In year 2005, Chhattisgarh displaced Bihar and Jharkhand in terms of the scale of Maoist violence, coming second only to Andhra Pradesh. SF casualties were, in fact, the highest among Maoist affected States (48 SF personnel were killed in Chhattisgarh compared to 21 in Andhra Pradesh, 29 in Bihar and 27 in Jharkhand, Institute for Conflict Management data). Although, the increase of SF fatalities in 2005 has been alarming and has been attributed by official sources to increasing combing operations carried out in the districts of Kanker, Dantewada and Bastar, the deaths of tribals have primarily been due to the ill-conceived anti-Maoist Salwa Judum (literally, ‘purification hunt’; euphemistically referred to as ‘peace campaign’). At least 43 persons have already been killed by the Maoists in January-February 2006 in the State.

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Salwa Judum was launched by Mahendra Karma, Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly, in June 2005, in the Dantewada district. Apart from holding relatively large meetings, releasing anti-Maoist posters and pamphlets and maintaining vigils at the local level, the campaign also targeted tribals who were considered Maoist supporters. The exercise has resulted in widespread Maoist retribution against tribals associated with the campaign. Chhattisgarh Home Minister Ramvichar Netam disclosed, on December 21, 2005, that “as many as 90 villagers associated with salwa judum have been killed by Maoist rebels so far in Bastar.”

In the most recent incident, on February 26, two persons were killed and 25 injured when Maoists raided a Government-run relief camp in Dantewada district. According to district police chief Praveer Das, “Close to 200 rebels armed with self-loading rifles stormed the relief camp at Munder village in Dantewada and killed two refugees on the spot.” Earlier, on January 29, in a similar raid on a ‘relief camp’ at Gangalur in the Dantewada District, eight civilians and three Maoists were killed; 12 tribals and five Special Police Officers, who were local youths recruited by police on fixed honorarium to work as conduits between the villagers and police, were also injured. Ironically, a campaign that was supposed to have rid the area of Maoist presence has managed to transform tribals into refugees in their own land. Nearly 30,000 tribals have been living in 16 Government relief camps since June 2005 after Maoists threatened to kill them for participating in Salwa Judum. Other major incidents in which these threats have been translated into action include:

• July 16, 2005: Seven villagers and two Maoists are killed when over 250 Maoists attacked the Kutru, Ambeli, Pharsgaon, Uskapatnam, Badekarkeli and Chhotekarkeli villages.

• July 28: Maoists attacked the Karemarka and Muder villages and killed seven tribals.

• December 30: A group of nearly 50 Maoists raided Gorna village in Dantewada district and killed two villagers.

Even as the tribals continue to suffer such reprisal attacks, there is no respite for the SFs, as the Maoists continue to wield enormous influence over vast areas of the State. Home Minister Netam stated, on February 20, 2006, that eight Revenue Districts and four Police Districts were affected. As such, the SFs have come under repeated attacks from the Maoists, including the following major incidents:

• May 23, 2005: Five police personnel were killed during a landmine explosion triggered by Maoists near Jhangla village in the Dantewada District.

• June 1, 2005: Assistant Commander of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), R. K. Mishra, and five other CRPF personnel were killed when the Maoists ambushed a CRPF combing party near Injaram in Dantewada.

• September 3, 2005: 22 CRPF and two State Police personnel were killed in a landmine explosion triggered by the CPI-Maoist near Padeda village in Dantewada.

• February 6, 2006: Ten Nagaland Armed Police personnel were killed and eight others injured when a landmine was exploded by the Maoists near a forest in Dantewada.

• February 9, 2006: Eight Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel were killed and several others injured when a large group of Maoists attacked the National Mineral Development Corporation store in the Hirauli area of Dantewada.

Apart from attacks in rural areas, apprehensions of Maoist subversion in urban areas have also been raised. On January 22, 2006, the Additional Chief Secretary of the State, B.K.S. Ray, warned that “the Naxalites could hit the urban areas and even target jails”.

With an increasing death toll, the state has deployed 14 battalion of SF personnel (six CRPF, one Nagaland Police and seven Chhattisgarh Special Armed Forces). Despite such heavy deployment, however, the policy to counter the Maoists remains skewed and amateurish, with the administration continuing to harp on the Salwa Judum. On February 23, following a meeting with police officers of Chhattisgarh, Special Secretary of Union Home Ministry, A. K. Mitra, stated, “the meeting discussed about the Salwa Judum or peace campaign being carried out in Dantewada District of Chhattisgarh and decided to encourage resentment among the people where ever possible against the Maoists.” Senior Police sources added further, “it has been decided to spread the Salwa Judum campaign in other infested states.”

However, local reports from the areas witnessing the campaign have been disturbing, with analysts questioning the policy of state support to a vigilante movement that exposes large numbers of civilians to unacceptable risk. According to a former Director General of Police, Dr. K S Subramanian, “While official sources maintain that the campaign, led by a local legislator, is hugely successful with the tribal people joining it in large numbers, local enquiries revealed a different picture. In the name of Salwa Judum, the tribal people are being forced to join a far from spontaneous mobilisation… Hundreds have been killed on both sides. A large area of land remains uncultivated; tribal people who are meant to work on the land have deserted the villages and are living under open skies and are starving. A vast amount of corruption has crept in as a result of this misconceived campaign with the ruling party spending huge amounts on it.”

A further example of administrative confusion has been visible in the deployment of Forces. On February 16, 2006, 172 commandos of the National Security Guard (NSG), led by a Brigadier, were sent in to assist the Nagaland Armed Police, CISF and CRPF in operations against the Maoists. The administration has apparently failed to learn the lessons of a similar deployment in the state of Bihar following the Jehanabad prison attack on November 13, 2005. Commenting on the subsequent withdrawal of the NSG from Bihar, Inspector General of NSG, P.K. Thakur, had stated: “We called back our Force after a week because the Bihar police failed to get any concrete information on Maoists and our men could not be stationed on one assignment for long.” Thakur said the NSG is a commando unit and is only effective if they have pinpoint information. “We cannot do police work of gathering information and carrying out checks… It was an unknown terrain for us and the state police should have had better intelligence to get a breakthrough in the jailbreak incident.”

Even as the Chhattisgarh Government is actively considering declaring Dantewada District a ‘disturbed area’ under the Disturbed Areas (Special Courts) Act, 1976; training and appointing former Maoists as Special Police Officers; and formulating legislations like the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Bill that reportedly aims to take action against ‘publishing and telecasting news or photographs relating to Maoist activities’, evidence of confusion and conflicting state responses remains overwhelming.

In the meanwhile, little attention has been paid to fundamentals, particularly the relative lack of preparedness of the Police Force in terms of equipment, arms, communications, transport and facilities, and the abysmal performance of institutions of civil governance in Maoist-affected areas. Nor has there been a focus on the support structures of the Maoist groups, their financial operations, augmentation of arms supplies, and linkages across State borders. Campaigns like Salwa Judum attempt to transfer the state’s responsibility for security to general public, inflicting untold miseries on the hapless common folk of Chhattisgarh in what are some of the most backward and impoverished areas of the country.