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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 10 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part10.htm
The period from July 1983 to October 1986, until the Battle at
Mannar where LTTE leader Victor became a martyr for the cause, has
to be labeled as a period of civil unrest, followed by civil strife.
War is defined as, ‘an armed conflict between nations or states; the
science of military operations’.
Now, let me show why the civil war began during Pirabhakaran’s
sole-leadership of Eelam Tamils, and not when Amirthalingam was
the nominal leader in July 1983, or when there were competing
claimants for leadership among the Tamil militants, between August
1983 and end of 1986.
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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 10 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part10.htm
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asked the Consul General to find out the names of the militants
whom they were asking for release. Then as soon as I placed
the phone down, I got a call from G.Parthasarthy from Delhi
repeating the same request.
“I rang up MGR and took his permission to take up this matter. I
immediately proceeded to office calling all my principal officers
to come to the office. As soon as I reached the office, I got a call
from the US Consul General revealing the names of the militants
whose release the kidnappers had wanted. My officers
immediately said that they were from the EPRLF. So the hunt
began to find out whether there are any important EPRLF
fellows in Madras. After about 24 hours, we got 3 or 4 of them
sleeping in a house. There were also two women who were
released. The catch was very important. Among the people we
caught were one Mr.Padmanabha who was later massacred by
LTTE. Then, two, Vardharaja Perumal, the subsequent Chief
Minister installed by the IPKF in East Sri Lanka, and three,
General Douglas, self-styled, who was the chief of militant wing
of the EPRLF. I asked my officers to take the three to a five star
hotel. It was about 2.00 am with a lot of security, the officers
started questioning. But upto 6.00 am, they did not budge.
“So I went there with two commandos with loaded revolver. I
made the three fellows stand. I placed my revolver on the table
and made the commandos aim with their AK-47 at them. There
was silence for two minutes. I looked at them straight and said:
‘It is your people who have made ransom demand on Allens. I
will not allow you to open your mouth. Whatever happens to
Allens will happen to you three right in this room’. After five
minutes, General Douglas said that he would speak to his people
in Jaffna to release Allens. I said, ‘Mind you, nothing in return,
no gold; no release of their comrades’. General Douglas
contacted Jaffna and got the release of Mr and Mrs Allen and,
within four hours, Mr and Mrs Allen were released at the
residence of Bishop of Jaffna with their eyes blindfolded.” [Jain
Commission Report, vol.5, chapter 18]
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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 10 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part10.htm
“For two weeks the violence had spread through Sri Lanka’s
northern province, a bloody tit for tat of ambush and attack,
pitting government forces against insurgents fighting for
independence for the country’s predominantly Hindu Tamil
minority. Roads lay deserted, banks and offices were shuttered,
and shops opened for only a few hours each day. By the time a
measure of calm had been restored last week, at least 150
people had lost their lives, including 25 government troops - the
last worst bloodletting in Sri Lanka since July 1983, when
hundreds died in communal clashes between the majority
Sinhalese and the Tamils. Said a Western diplomat in Colombo:
‘This is the first sustained and significant challenge to the
government’s authority in a year’.
“...The violence reached a climax early last week when troops
rampaged in Mannar, about 50 miles southeast of Jaffna, in
retaliation for a Tiger ambush in which ten military men were
said to have died. By the time the soldiers’ destructive fury was
spent, 123 shops had been burned and five Mannar residents lay
dead... Minister Athulathmudali insists that the government
would never permit a backlash by the Sinhalese. ‘That would be
disastrous’, he said last week, as the government offered
compensation and help in rebuilding Mannar. But reconciliation
will be difficult, if not impossible. Even President Jayewardene
admits gloomily that there now exists ’a virtually unbridgeable
gap’.”
This commentary also stated that the links EPRLF had to PLO
around that time would have been one of the reasons for Israeli
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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 10 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part10.htm
Then, it took another two years for LTTE to qualify as the authentic
Eelam army in the Sri Lankan civil war.
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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 10 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part10.htm
who was serving as an advisor to the army] who visited the camp
3 days later, was in for a shock. For the first time since the
ethnic conflict turned into a full-scale confrontation after July
1983, the Sri Lankans realised how sophisticated the enemy
was.” [Tigers of Lanka, 1996, p.141]
A competition for the Eelam Tamil leadership among the five militant
factions sprang up in 1985. The competing parties were, TELO,
LTTE, PLOTE, EPRLF and EROS. The leaders of each of these five
factions satisfied Licklider’s first criterion for civil war leadership.
Also, they established their influence among segments of the Eelam
Tamil population, thus satisfying Licklider’s second criterion of
‘multiple sovereignty’. However the leadership skills of
Pirabhakaran’s competitors (as demonstrated for instance, by
EPRLF’s kidnapping episode of Allens in 1984, or the slavery of
TELO to India’s intelligence-wallahs, or the secretive cult-like
dealings of PLOTE) left much to be desired, though this was hardly
visible to the general public in 1985.
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Five months later, the Nation weekly of New York carried an analysis
by Richard Greenberg, with the caption, ‘Sri Lanka Lurches toward
Civil War’ (November 30, 1985). Among the named sources, it
carried the comments of V.Balakumar (the leader of EROS),
B.Deogupillai (the Bishop of Jaffna) and A.S.Balasingham (the
spokesman for the LTTE), in addition to the then National Security
Minister Lalith Athulathmudali. The published comments of these
four were as follows:
Balakumar: “The Sri Lankan security forces have been our best
recruiter.”
Rev.Deogupillai: “Many people are afraid of the boys, but they are
even more afraid of the army.”
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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 10 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part10.htm
Pirabhakaran, who was living in Madras, was not cited (probably not
interviewed) by Greenberg. But, I wish to quote in full one paragraph
which (after the passage of nearly 15 years) proves the unbelievable
organizing skill of Pirabhakaran.
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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 10 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part10.htm
as follows:
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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 10 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part10.htm
1986 October 12: fierce gun battle in Mannar, killing 28 army men,
and LTTE losing one of its leaders, Victor, who led the 1985
retaliatory raid on Anuradhapura.
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