Self-Determination Movements After Kosovo

Kosovo’s independence from Serbia was accepted by powerful western states. The Sri Lanka government was quick to disapprove Kosovo’s independence. Many Sri Lankans either fear or welcome Kosovo’s independence based on their own personal interests. What is certain to follow is that various ethnic groups fighting violently for cessation from internal conflicts or civil wars may attempt to use Kosovo as an international example to justify that cessation.

The key to Kosovo’s Independence is the International Community (Western Super Powers’) desire to move away from the region after military interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, the peacekeeping missions and the hundreds of millions of dollars given annually in economic aid since 1999.

However, the legal framework that may enable self-determination and the practical situations connected therein must also be analyzed in depth to obtain a better understanding of the principle and its relevance to Sri Lanka.

The Right to Self Determination

Many groups that identify themselves as minorities have invoked the “right to self-determination” in their demands for autonomy or cessation. They have resorted to violence to pursue these aims. The international community may accept cessation if it guarantees to cease violence, however, in many cases, there is no such guarantee.

Self-determination and cessation are confusing concepts. The failure to define exactly who is entitled to claim a right to self-determination is unclear (whether it is a group, a people, or a nation—and what exactly the right confers).

Achieving self-determination through peaceful means has been accepted by the International Community with Kosovo being the case and point. But when self-determination has been achieved militarily, the international community has generally been reluctant to reverse the gain.

The claim has also been made that too much focus on self-determination can be dangerous. An over-generous acceptance of self-determination could lead to fragmentation and the rise of intolerance, because it would no longer be necessary to coexist peacefully.

Self-determination was officially recognized and sanctioned after 1945, in the United Nations Charter. However, this applied only to existing states and not to ethnic/national groups. It was accepted as a right after the 1960 UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Peoples, when applied for purposes of decolonization. Here also self-determination applied to territories and not to ethnic/national groups.

Measures taken after the 1970s to combine the ideas of minority rights and decolonization to justify self-determination as a right to independent statehood for every distinctive ethnic group was heavily criticized for helping to fuel violence characterizing various independence movements by ethnic groups. But some experts have argued for self-determination since they believe that groups held against their will in “artificial, arbitrary, and accidental” international state boundaries can be freed by it.

The emergence of such movements is based on Western ideas of democracy and human rights. But the west also insists on the inviolability of existing borders. The threat of self-determination movements must also be measured as a global threat when considering the fault lines that exist within large countries like China and Russia, which could spin the world into global chaos.

Recent studies indicate that the right to self-determination must be separated from the right to cessation and the establishment of independent statehood, with the understanding that there are intermediate categories short of statehood that can address a minority group’s interests and aspirations, such as power-sharing etc.

Human rights violations are easy to condemn but the dilemma is whether they justify a group’s cessation from the state. The very propagation of the idea of human rights intensifies demands for greater recognition among minority groups that invoke claims of human rights violations to support their demands for self-determination.

In either case, Sri Lanka government must not underestimate the possibility of cessation, although remote it may seem. The present international Human Rights lobby against the state, the failure of the propaganda machine of the state to represent itself, the inability of the state to control embarrassing activities of profit-motivated sources within the state etc could all potentially increase the chances of cessation by the LTTE.

On the other hand, India's hands-off policy towards the government's multi-pronged assault on LTTE to destroy it militarily and politically through the reinforcement of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution indicate the International Community is not seriously interested in LTTE aspirations for cessation. The IC seems to have made way for the regional power to act on its own discretion in Sri Lanka and, unfortunately for the LTTE, the neighbour is under the influence of Sonia Gandhi, who may have a personal score to settle with the Tigers.

Transformer Blasted in Putlam

An electricity transformer providing electricity to civilians in Putlam Sinnapaduwa (Mangalaeliya-Mundalama) area was blown off at 2am today. The attack comes in the wake of intelligence reports of increasing LTTE activities in Putlam.

Putlam Eluwankulam, Udappuwa etc areas can easily be infiltrated by the LTTE via the sea. Putlam District MP D.M. Dassanayake was also killed in a suspected LTTE claymore attack several weeks ago.

Prabha's Photographer Dead. SLA Attacks LTTE in Mannar

A pro-LTTE website has today announced that a personal 'photographer' for LTTE Leader Velupillai Pripaharan has died. The 'photographer' has been promoted to the military rank of 'Lt. Colonel' and the supposedly civilian honour of Mamanithar concurred on him.

Sri Lanka Military Intelligence believe the Tiger had died of injuries sustained either on the LTTE 'Heroes-Day' bombing of an LTTE hideout last November or in the February 6th bombing of Thiruweiaru, in the general area north-west of Iranamadu Tank. The LTTE initially claimed that only civilians were killed in the attack. The SLAF also attacked an LTTE Sea Tiger training base last Thursday morning. The attack was the result of a successful coordination between Naval Intelligence and the Sri Lanka Air Force.

The Sri Lanka Army's Task Force I managed to eliminate four LTTE 'Lt. Colonels' within the space of four days last week, including the LTTE's Mannar District 'Operations Commander' Lt. Col' Jeyakanthan from the LTTE's elite Charles Anthony regiment. These attacks were made at Madhu, Palampiddi and Mannar North areas. Another LTTE regional commander 'Lt. Col' Karunaharan was killed in Weli Oya when his double cab got caught in an LRRP ambush. Local newspapers and some web-based sites copying them had mistaken this attack for an earlier attack on the LTTE's Weli Oya leader 'Lt. Col' Kumaran. Kumaran was attacked by LRRP six months ago and is now paralyzed.

Meanwhile trops from Task Force I are engaged in successful operations ahead of their positions in Mannar, Vavuniya and Weli Oya with minimum casualties to troops. Troops from 58 Division led a three-pronged assault north-west of Giant Tank this morning. Soldiers were able to capture an LTTE bunker-line in Uylankulam and overrun another at Pallaikuli and Parappakandal. Six bodies of Tigers, mostly female, were recovered along with a few assault rifles at Parappakandal. 5 bodies were recovered from Uylankulam.

The fact that troops are not given any deadlines for these operations have made planning and execution of limited, yet high-yielding assaults a daily occurrence.

In the meantime, police SIS has claimed it uncovered a plot to infiltrate the Presidential Palace and assassinate President Rajapakse, Minister Keheliya etc. While some SLA sources were suspicious of these claims, highly placed sources confirmed that there is evidence to suggest that the findings of the SIS was true to a great extent. These sources, however claimed that LTTE may have many such teams working independent of each other for the same objective and that SIS has their work cutout for them in the coming months.

Prabha's Pet Regiment Hit, 3 Charles Anthony Lt. Colonels Killed

The Sri Lanka Air Force struck a severe blow to the LTTE last morning. A swarm of jets that scattered into the skies headed towards an LTTE base situated North East of Vishvamadukulam. Their target was the LTTE leader Velupillai Pripaharan's most trustworthy unit, the "Ratha Regiment". The Tigers were not expecting the attack.

The base, appropriately titled by SLA Military Intelligence as 'Ratha Base' was home to this young regiment, which the Tiger Leader has grown to trust over Imran Pandian Regiment in recent months. Deployed almost entirely on Anti-Aircraft duties, the Ratha Regiment was added to the LTTE less than 4 years ago. The Unit usually moves around with Pripaharan with the hopes of acting as a deterrence against SLAF jet bombers.

Military Intelligence sources believe the base was housing a significantly large number of cadres and assets, including powerful AA Batteries and Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs) at the time of the attack. Exact damages caused to the Tigers is yet unclear.

Meanwhile troops from the 57 Division lying in ambush in Vilattikulam in the general area east of Madhu on Wednesday engaged an LTTE troop movement in three coordinated ambushes. As two ambush teams cut the tigers down, the remaining cadres retreated straight into the third ambush team.

After all the fighting was done and the Tigers had retreated with their dead cadres only did the SLA realize the devastation they had caused. To their amazement, the Tigers admitted over the radio that it had lost 3 'Lieutenant Colonels' from its elite Charles Anthony Regiment in this single attack. The rank of 'Lt. Col.' is the second highest rank in the LTTE.

Trincomalee under new LTTE Guerrilla Threat

A group of 20 LTTE cadres who appeared last 12th in a resettled Muslim village east of Peraru Jungles robbed a large stock of dry rations and hauled them back in a tractor as the Sri Lanka Navy and Police detachment at Kallampattu in Kuchchaveli turned a blind eye.

The Tigers who are starving without food inside the Peraru Jungle, came in a tractor with its lights turned off around 7.20pm and went straight into three local boutiques at Vadarikulam Muslim village. 10 cadres surrounded one boutique while five others went to another. One lone Tiger took rations from the third. Two boutiques belonged to two Muslim women from the resettled village constructed by AHEAD NGO with CORDAID NGO funding. The other was owned by a Muslim man.

The Tigers then handed over thousand rupee notes to the boutique owners. One got Rs. 15,000 total, the other Rs. 10,000 and the third got Rs.1000 total. When villagers, who were earlier summoned to a meeting by the Kuchaveli Police to warn against this group of Tiger who, intelligence reports had indicated, had entered the Peraru East jungle, complained of the Tiger Team, the Police had handed over the case to the Navy detachment. The Navy, which withdraws its road picketing after 6pm, refrained from engaging the Tigers.

The Tigers are at least 70 guerrillas strong in this area and have apparently been starving without food for quite some time. They were forced to move from place to place by Navy Special Forces (SBS). The rations taken away by them were mostly canned food, rice, lentils and sugar. The boutique owners, in their statements to the Police have claimed that the Tigers paid only half the value of the goods taken away. If this is true, how three small local boutiques in this village had such large stocks remains to be seen. The manner in which the Tigers had walked straight into the shops suggest they had done their homework before 'shopping'.

This is a familiar pattern we have observed for many years in the East under Paduman and Karuna. The Muslim villages, which act as a buffer between government and LTTE dominated areas were frequented by Tigers for supplies. It was almost a small economy by its own merit in many sch villages. This allowed former LTTE Eastern leaders like Paduman and Karuna to maintain a small group of men, 'living off the land' for sustained guerrilla offensives, attacks in the south and to provide logistical support for small troop movements from Mulaithivu to Yala.

The combined failure of the security establishment in the area has already strained the relationship between the Police and the Navy. Trincomalee, like Colombo, has a special security forces coordinator to quell emergencies. But his powers are limited to the Town and Gravets area only.

The Vadarikulam village is only 2km from Kuchchaveli town. It is situated along the border of Thiriyaya and Kuchchaveli. Kuchchaveli is only 30km by road to Trincomalee Town. Along jungle routes, it is much closer. The Peraru Jungle is criss-crossed by gravel and cart roads built by NEIAP (North Eastern Irrigation and Agricultural Project) during the Cease-fire. These routes are now enabling the Tigers to move in large numbers in tractors and other basic off-road vehicles. Earlier this month, the Tigers were ambushed in Peraru West and North sectors. Now they have crept into Peraru East, which is ominous to Sinhala villages like Gomarankadawela and Thiriyaya for example.

Meanwhile the Special Task Force, after a series of failures to locate Tigers in Kanjikudiaru, have yesterday discovered an LTTE weapons dump inside Kanchanakudah jungle, north of Tsunami devastated Komari village situated along the Akkaraipattu-Potuvil road. The Tigers maintained a large base in the interior of Akkaraipattu at Pavattai before the east was 'cleared'. The cache of arms recovered included close to 100,000 rounds of T-56 ammunition and 4 25kg Claymore Mines.

Heavy Trappings and the Days of the Sniper

Army Intelligence officers in Vavuniya are disgusted by the inaction of the Directorate of Military Intelligence when one if its officers was wrongfully accused of disappearing 76 civilians in the area by Vavuniya Magistrate M. Ilanchelian recently.

The MI officers claim they have no support from their seniors when the Magistrate summons them and blasts them in person, without any charges presented in a court of law or evidence presented against them. They are also disgusted with some members of the Police Crime Branch in Vavuniya for placing the blame entirely on them, even when assassinations are done by the LTTE Pistol Gang. The 'naming and shaming' of individual officers openly is a severe blow to Military Intelligence personnel and risks their personal safety while also discouraging young officers from fulfilling their counter insurgency duties in future.

Meanwhile, a hartal declared by the LTTE in Vavuniya was disrupted by members of PLOTE, under the leadership of 'PLOTE Soori'. The paramilitary organization had padlocked all shops that did not open on its orders on the day of the LTTE hartal.

The Sri Lanka Army, investigating yesterday's artillery strike on Thaladi St. Sebastian's Roman Catholic Church have identified that an informant had directed the strike when soldiers were engaged in a shramadana campaign to clean and whitewash the Church premises ahead of the forthcoming church feast. All artillery shells fired at the church had come from Northwest of Giant Tank (Parappakadaththan, an unliberated area) 16-18 kilometers from Thaladi. No civilians or clergy were injured in the attack. The Army claims it overheard LTTE communications indicating that 13 of its cadres were killed in the counter attack.

Meanwhile, troops moving ahead of their FDL in Weli Oya last Monday captured a LTTE bunker-line comprising 12 bunkers at Kiriibbanwela. Over a dozen Tigers were killed in the attack. SLA also suffered heavy casualties during the charge, when booby traps fixed from unexploded ordnance were detonated near the line. One officer and 9 men were killed in this attack and another 15 were injured, some seriously. SLA gained the upper-hand in an attack on an LTTE bunker-line at Kokkuthuduwai on the same day.

The advance into Adampan has been delayed due to manual clearance of mines and booby traps by Army Engineers. The 800m stretch from Pallaikuli to Adampan is heavily mined and troops now dug in are taking steps to remove the trappings systematically. The Parappakandal and Vannakulam areas in Mannar is also heavy with Tiger and SLA sniper and counter-sniper teams. Tigers are targeting troops removing dead Tigers and also Army Engineers removing booby traps while Army Snipers are hunting down LTTE snipers. On Monday and today, SLA snipers killed 7 Tigers in this area alone.

MiCLiC, FMC, LCS etc.

Minefields and trappings are fast becoming a hindrance to troops engaged in operations in Vanni. Suitable mine clearing systems must be chosen and put to effective use, thereby saving valuable lives and the need to train more men at great costs. The following is a selection of some of the best methods available to counter that threat.

Flail Mine Clearers

Clearing mines using flail or a fast spinning drum of chains is a popular method in mine clearing operations. First tested in Cambodia and designed by the Japanese, HYDREMA 910 MVC is one of the best Flail Mine Clearers. The HYDREMA 910 MCV can successfully clear AP mines and clear a path through both rough and soft ground. The rotating flail detonates mines by cutting through them or ponding on them. These vehicles can also go on auto-pilot.

HYDREMA 910 MCV

The downside to this method is the vulnerability of the vehicle in open warfare and exposure to high-pressure mines that can blow-up the vehicle. Hence it is used in post-conflict settings only (HYDREMA Article).

Mine Breaching Technology

Mine Breaching is a more effective system useful in combat settings. The objective of this method is to blast a path clear of mines. The traditional Bangalore Torpedoes, invented at the turn of the 20th Century, has limited potential. It is also an accident waiting to happen. (see video)

MiCLiC LCS, USMC

MiCLiC (Mine Clearing Line Charge) systems of the US Army can clear a 10m wide, 100m long stretch of cleared battlefield in seconds. It is battle-proven (Iraq) against insurgent forces with over 30 years of active duty under the Marine Corp. The downside is the price of this equipment (MiCLiC Video).

The Python (Giant Viper) system of the British Army is also battle-proven. It can create a 7m wide, 230m long range of clearance. (See Giant Viper Video)

The Python LCS

The Chinese equivalents are, by far the most accessible and affordable. The T-74 (Variant of T-762 chasis) is a copy of the MiCLiC. It is hardly battle-proven, yet worth a closer look. It clears a path 3-6m wide and 80-100m long (T-74 Article).

T-74 LCS mounted on Armoured Bulldozer

An alternative to the larger LCSs are the man-portable LCSs like the British Army RAMBS II. The israeli Military Industries offers perhaps the simplest such system available anywhere. It is the POMINS II system (Portable Mine Neutralisation System). This man-portable system can be operated by two men to clear a 50cm wide, 50m long path through, especially AP minefields. (POMINS-IMI)

POMINS II