The unwanted peacekeepers

Three images from the post-IPKF days remain etched forever in my mind. The first one is of a long, dark and unkempt high ceilinged corridor, a large number of rooms opening into it on either side and a cemented path outside, the walls pockmarked with gun shots, but the more compelling sight is of blood splattered on the walls, lots of it, slightly yellowed by the passage of three years. As you look at the walls, kept undisturbed as they became a bloody canvas that fateful day in 1987, the force of the tragedy strikes you hard, very hard indeed. For, while to the Tamils of Jaffna this was the darkest deed by the Indians, to an Indian it was a tragedy of good intentions led astray by a combination of uncomprehended geopolitical factors and the inadequacy of a political leadership.

The second image is that of two huge volumes of documents on the alleged torture of Tamils in North-East Sri Lanka by the IPKF soldiers, complete with eye-witness accounts, photographs of the victims and detailed accounts of the incidents. The volumes were kept with a great deal of care in the office of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Jaffna. In those days, there was no electricity in Jaffna Peninsula. The secretary to the Vice-Chancellor helpfully lighted a candle to enable this correspondent to pore over the "indictments of Indian soldiers for human rights violations committed on the Tamils in the north-east."

The third image is of the then President Ranasinghe Premadasa angrily turning down the Sri Lankan war veterans' proposal for putting up a monument to the memory of those l,165 Indian soldiers who laid down their lives during October 1987-March 1990 in their task of establishing peace and normalcy in the deeply troubled country.

IPKF experience

Writing in The Hindu, he said, "In 1987, the IPKF went to relieve the Sri Lankan Army in the north and allow it to deal with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in the south. It did succeed in stabilizing the Jayewardene government in a crisis situation. It should have stopped there and withdrawn. But it went on to become the effective administration in the North-Eastern Province. This meant that the LTTE, from an Indian protege, became its principal enemy. Sinhalese chauvinism eventually forced its ouster with the Sri Lankan government providing military aid to the LTTE, its erstwhile foe and soon to become once more the main enemy."

Thirteen years after the IPKF went into the operation, it is easy to see how doomed to fail it was from the beginning. 

The only positive sign was the Tamil civilian population's clear desire for peace; the popular support for the implementation of the Accord to the extent of the role assigned to the IPKF was clearly discernible. But equally exposed was the LTTE's total rejection of what was unfolding, beginning with the exercise to disarm its members. 

V. Gopalaswamy, then a DMK Member of Parliament was warned by Prabhakaran that by sending the IPKF India had stepped into a quagmire and would rue the day. It speaks somewhat of the IPKF's inadequacy to handle the situation that even frank displays of the LTTE's extreme displeasure with the surrender of arms (which was in any case reduced to a mockery by the surrender of mostly obsolete weapons) escaped its attention. At least, formally speaking, its officers were satisfied with the surrender of arms by the LTTE. How they missed the implications of the wilfully botched surrender of arms is not yet fully explained, for the unpalatable truth was apparent to other Indian government agencies. After all, the very first leaflets asking for the withdrawal of the IPKF were distributed in Jaffna within the first two weeks of its arrival.

Strangely enough, the IPKF also failed to pay heed to growing indications of the LTTE getting ready for war; reports filtered in of fairly substantive consignments of weapons arriving by ship which were by all accounts ignored. 

More significantly, the LTTE manoeuvred events in a manner that began to draw the IPKF into complex law and order situations, almost making it a partisan which eminently suited the main Tamil militant group's gameplan which was to discredit and weaken the authority of the Indian Army. Sometimes, the LTTE found it expedient to accuse the IPKF of siding with the other Tamil groups at its expense; at other times, the Indians would be accused of helping the Sri Lankan police and harassing the Tamils.

The situation grew more complicated with the other Tamil groups trying to utilise the peace interregnum offered by the presence of the IPKF to further their interests since this attracted immediate LTTE protests and retribution at times. Jockeying for positions in the proposed interim administration for the North-Eastern Province as a precursor to the elected autonomous council after the elections, the TELO, EPRLF, PLOTE and ENDLF, being on the receiving end from the LTTE, sought to utilise the developing situation to their advantage. Thus, the internecine intra-Tamil groups fighting began, complicating the IPKF's agenda and drawing it inexorably into the volatile and highly unpredictable militant politics, carried on more by guns than by rhetorics.

By early September 1987, the situation had turned so bad that tension was running high and major intra-Tamil group clashes had begun. 

The LTTE warned the civilian population in the north-east not to co-operate with the IPKF; the Colombo-based media voiced the demand that since the Indians had clearly failed in performing the task of restoring peace and normalcy, they should go back.

All this while, as is well known, the IPKF had succeeded eminently in restoring normalcy to a great extent by reviving the Colombo-Jaffna rail link, buses were plying all over the north-east; even Tamils who had lost their property to the usurping Sinhalese got them back. Justice was once again visible and accessible, a significant improvement in the situation. 

It was, therefore, little wonder that the Tamil civilian population was glad that the Indians were there.

Destroying the trust

The LTTE undertook two major tasks at this stage. On 13 September 1987, it carried out a massacre of its rival militant groups in Batticaloa, killing 70 of them in one sweep and sending the survivors running helter skelter into IPKF and Sri Lankan Army camps in the east. This was followed up by a sustained highpitched propaganda of how the IPKF was acting on behalf of the Sri Lankan government and against the interests of the Tamils. It was clearly building the case for branding the Indians as agents of Colombo and anti-Tamil and thus render them eventually ineffective in restoring full normalcy in the north-east.

The second move was the fast-unto-death by the LTTE political leader for Jaffna Amirthalingam Dhileepan (25), an Eelam fanatic and a highly capable organiser. The fast was undertaken near the Kandaswamy temple at Nallur, Jaffna, where long after his death the occasion was turned into the most significant annual event in the LTTE calender, the Heroes' Week.

The fast was in support of five demands that the LTTE placed, including one calling for an immediate end to the Sinhalese colonization of Tamil-majority areas. The astonishing extent of the inadequacy in the geopolitical education of the IPKF was revealed when the Indians failed to appreciate the significance of the Tamil demand to halt the Sinhalese colonization of Tamil areas. It was this absence of an appreciation of the importance of certain geopolitical factors for the Tamil community, born of the lack of an education that should have been imparted at least to the IPKF officers, that often prevented the Indians from reacting to developments correctly and in good time. For example, they failed to attach any significance to Dhileepan's hunger strike, assuming that this was a typical political gimmick as was common in India. If this reading is correct, then one could only pity the unpreparedness of the Indian force for the job that the Accord had thrust upon it.

Events then caught up fast with the IPKF. As Dhileepan's condition grew serious, the LTTE orchestrated popular anti-Indian campaigns which, as was its intention, developed soon into violent and provocative demonstrations. By clever manipulations and manoeuvres, helped no doubt by the repeated failure of the Indians to read the writing on the wall (still secure as they were with their knowledge of the behaviour pattern of protest movements by Indian political parties), the comfortable and, at times, happy relationship that had grown between the IPKF and the civilian population was being converted into one of mistrust, suspicion and, finally, outright hatred and hostility. The first killing of a Tamil took place around this time when a mob attacked a camp in Mannar district, north Sri Lanka.

The Broken Palmyrah writes, "Emotional crowds at road junctions were once more in vogue. These were the same crowds that welcomed with tears the Indian Red Cross team less than three months before. Jaffna had been rendered even more unprincipled and volatile by liberation politics, but to call the crowds anti-Indian would have been a misrepresentation. India was still the holy mother.

The people were an angry child hitting and screaming at the mother to have its way, the LTTE instigated crowds to humiliate the Indian Army. At Manthikai crowds of women threw stones at the Indian Army. Personal insults were flung at Indian soldiers, like stroking the beard of a Sikh soldier and calling him a half-beedi (the indigenous short cigarette-author) man. The Indian soldiers were highly restrained."

The sagacity of the LTTE in building the multi-pronged pressure on the IPKF soon began to pay dividends. Since the whole thrust of the initiative was to bargain for an unassailable role in the proposed interim administration, much of the trophy was already in when the Indian government agreed to raise the number of LTTE representatives in the 12-member interim council from the original two (which would be the strength of the TULF and EROS as well) to seven at one stroke.

This was not all. While the original scheme envisaged one nominee each from the PLOTE, TELO, EPRLF and ENDLF and two from the Muslim community, the revised plan not only gave the chairman's post to the LTTE (thus, making its representation in effect as high as eight out of the 12 members) but cut out the other militant groups completely, giving two seats each to the TULF and the Muslims.

Prabha's letter

Several accounts agree that their premature self-congratulation was on the basis of a note that Prabhakaran wrote to High Commissioner Dixit which read, "I wish to inform you that the Central Committee of the LTTE has agreed to your suggestion regarding the composition of the proposed interim administration." Through this readjustment of the composition of the proposed council, the Indian government not only discriminated against the other Tamil groups except the TULF but also reneged on its solemn assurance to them about an equal representation in the council. To that extent, apart from being manipulated by the LTTE, it also acted in a manner to exacerbate intra-group rivalry. After all, the EPRLF had begun at this stage to send clear signals of its formidable popularity in the east, which was far stronger than the LTTE's.

Dhileepan died on 26 September l987, becoming on his death one of the most powerful LTTE icons, and the revamped plan for the provisional council was agreed upon two days later. The LTTE submitted fifteen names of nominees for the council, from which President Jayewardene chose Municipal Commissioner, Jaffna, C. V. K. Sivagnanam for the chairmanship discarding the LTTE choice Additional Government Agent, Trincomalee, N. Pathmanathan. The latter was an exceptional officer who had undergone two years of imprisonment under the Prevention of Terrorism Act without ever being charged of any criminal act. The LTTE let it be known that it felt that it had been betrayed badly by both the Sri Lankan and Indian governments.

On 2 October 1987, Sinhalese-Tamil clashes broke out followed by Sinhalese mob attacks on the IPKF in Trincomalee. Colombo accused the IPKF of deliberately failing to protect the Sinhalese and threatened to pack it off to India.

On 5 October 1987, the Sri Lankan Navy intercepted an 'LTTE boat carrying 17 rebels including leaders Kumarappa and Pulendran. They were disarmed and divested of their cyanide capsules. They were brought to the Air Force base at Palaly, where both the IPKF and Sri Lankan Army were based. The LTTE immediately got into its act, crying hoarse that the arrests were in violation of the Indo- Sri Lanka Accord which had granted amnesty to all the militants.

Colombo rejected this, arguing that the amnesty was valid in the pre-Accord period and that the militants were armed when they were arrested. The LTTE argued back that the 28 September agreement with the lndian government had allowed the retention of personal weapons to its cadre.

It was obvious that Colombo had decided to teach the LTTE and the IPKF a lesson. President Jayewardene appeared on the state-owned television to allege that the militants were apprehended when they were returning from Madras with arms. The LTTE demanded from the IPKF steps to ensure that the arrested militants were not taken to Colombo but the situation remained unresolved with the Sri Lankan government insisting that they must be taken to the capital. When the IPKF sought to intercede with the government, President Jayewardene shot back, asking for an explanation for the Indian force's obvious failure to discipline the LTTE.

The crisis continued with the LTTE organising protest demonstrations at Palaly where the militants were being held. On 4 October 1987 Mahattaya, who had been allowed to meet them, smuggled in cyanide capsules for them. 

As the situation continued to worsen with Colombo insisting that the prisoners be put on the next plane and the IPKF trying to stop their despatch and demonstrating Tamils becoming vociferous and volatile, the seventeen men quietly exhibited the cyanide capsules they had been passed on, indicating their readiness to take the extreme step if the government insisted on taking them to Colombo.

To its credit, the IPKF went to great lengths to ensure that the rebels were not taken to Colombo; it even threatened to block the passage of the Air Force plane by armoured cars. The Sri Lankan Army officer asked for instructions from Colombo which remained as firm as before: bring the prisoners. 

The risk of the desperate men biting into their cyanide capsules was common knowledge and all medical arrangements were kept ready for such an eventuality. The rebels bit into the capsules the moment they realised that they were after all being marched off to the waiting plane. 

They were rushed immediately to the IPKF hospital but 12 died while five lived. Among the dead were Kumarappa and Pulendran, two senior leaders. According to a well-regarded Tamil analyst, "The stubbornness and a lack of concern for the consequences (of forcing the detainees to go to Colombo ignoring the IPKF's resistance) on Colombo's part, suggests that a section of the Sri Lankan authorities was using the opportunity to trip the IPKF into a military confrontation with the LTTE."

With the deaths and with prospects of a reconciliation melting away, the IPKF saga entered a totally unintended but inevitable period. The manner of the deaths left the LTTE literally baying for revenge, which was also swift in coming. 

Generals Depinder Singh and Harkirat Singh of the IPKF undertook a last-minute peace bid and realized the futility of the exercise when they arrived at the Jaffna University campus to see weapons publicly displayed and all-round preparations for a war in evidence. 

Prabhakaran had gone underground and the senior most leader present Mahattaya rejected the peace offer out of hand. As the crisis grew, the visiting Indian Defence Minister K. C. Pant and President Jayewardene announced in Colombo the end of the special considerations extended to the LTTE. 

The beginnings

The Indian force still did not want to get embroiled in what would certainly be a protracted guerrilla warfare on a terrain chosen by the enemy and with a population which had turned hostile but, as all accounts suggest, the Indian government decided that tough action was necessary to save the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord.

Sensing his advantage, President Jayewardene pressed for a quick and effective punitive action by the IPKF against the rebels. 

Or else, New Delhi was told that the IPKF need not prolong its stay in Sri Lanka. At the most crucial moment since its arrival, therefore, the IPKF found that it was being asked to jump headlong into an operation it was not adequately prepared for but the time constraint was supreme and it had no choice but to go ahead and do the job.

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