Situation Report

Angry Karuna attacks govt: Who blundered?

Morning routine for Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna whilst he remained in the "protective custody" of the Army was to read The Sunday Times. Here he reads the Situation Report. INSET: The new look Karuna.

Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, better known as Karuna, now a household name, is no longer within the shores of Sri Lanka. He seems to have found the safety of his new environment to wax eloquent on his woes, both old and new. That is only with his wife and the three children around him whilst his loyalists are being hunted down in the East.

All this time his campaign has been against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and its leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, his mentor. In the wake of a massive onslaught by LTTE troops, beginning April 9, this year, Karuna chose not to engage the Wanni cadres. Instead he disbanded a powerful guerrilla military machine he personally built in the Batticaloa district.

The strength there stood at a mere 1500 on or before February 22, 2002, the day the United National Front (UNF) Government signed a Ceasefire Agreement with the LTTE. He had raised it to over 6,500. The numbers included child soldiers but Karuna was not worried. He also joined the LTTE as a child soldier at the age of 16.

After dismantling the military machine he built, Karuna destroyed some of the heavy weaponry, shut down LTTE "police stations" and "courts" that had sprung up during the ceasefire. Some UNF leaders, including then Cabinet Minister Rajitha Senaratne, made vociferous claims such "institutions" had existed even before the ceasefire. That failed to hide the truth and caused great embarrassment to the most obliging UNF under whose tenure they were established.

Karuna and a few confidantes beat a hasty retreat to Colombo. That was with the help of his close buddy, former UNF Parliamentarian, Ali Zahir Mowlana. They spent four nights in the luxury of the JAIC Hilton off Union Place. This apartment hotel, the only one in Sri Lanka, is across the road from Visumpaya (former Acland House), now the residence of Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapakse. They were to seek safe haven in a foreign country with the help of Mr. Mowlana, whom Karuna has now publicly admitted, is known to him since school days. Instead all of them ended up in the "protective custody" of the Army. There they were for over14 weeks since April 16. As exclusively revealed in The Sunday Times (Situation Report) last week, Karuna is no longer in the hands of the Army. Neither is his wife nor their three children. They have all departed from Sri Lanka to another country.

If more than 14 weeks of "protective custody" for Karuna and his inner circle saw a bitter campaign of physical and verbal assaults on the LTTE, things seem to have gone worse. No longer enjoying the hospitality and protection of the Army, Karuna has decided it was time to open out against many others. That is from foreign soil.

In his new found sanctuary, Karuna may not have armed guards. Nor the assault rifles, machine guns or grenades with which he once smothered the armed forces and later his erstwhile comrades-in-arms. Instead he is now armed with a mobile phone equipped with international roaming facility. With that new weapon he has targeted, besides the LTTE, everyone else he has had something to do - the UPFA Government, the Sri Lankan armed forces, the Norwegian facilitators and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM). If he could not berate them whilst in Army custody, he has taken the full liberty now to level serious charges.

That is through "bare it all" interviews he had given the Bangkok based aisantribune (http: www. asiantribune.com), a website that has been espousing his cause since he broke away from the LTTE. Even whilst they remained in the custody of the Army somewhere in the outskirts of the City of Colombo, Karuna's one time English translator turned spokesman Banu Avaliyan alias Varathan maintained contact with this website through his mobile phone.

He once sparked off a controversy after claiming that Karuna, contrary to reports, had not fled Sri Lanka. Soon after the BBC's Tamil Osai (Tamil service) broadcast the report, he issued a denial. He claimed he had not spoken to the website in question. However, it later transpired he was compelled to issue the denial after admitting privately that he had embarrassed his hosts, the Army.

Karuna's phone bills no doubt would be high whether he spoke from his new secret location to asiantribune staff either in London or in Bangkok for what is billed as his "first person testimony." But money does not matter for the renegade leader for he parted ways with enough to open a bank, not an account. Four instalments of this "testimony" have already appeared in the website.

In the first dated August 10, Karuna was asked by asiantribune "how it was possible for the troops from Wanni to have come in large numbers and crossed the Verugal River, about 78 kilometres north of Batticaloa, and advanced towards Vakarai, in the early hours of the morning of Good Friday, on 09 April 2004?"

Karuna's reply: "That was an intriguing development which is still, not clear. We have suspicion that this would not have happened without the assistance and connivance of the Government of Sri Lanka. Transporting the armed forces via sea from Jaffna would not have been possible, without the tacit cooperation of the Sri Lanka Navy. Also Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission manned by the Scandinavian Monitors too must have been directed simply to ignore the troop's movement. We suspect that a big amount of money would have changed hands, as far as the Sri Lankan Navy was concerned to allow the sea transport of the cadres from Wanni to Vakarai without commotion and disruption.

"When I came to know through our intelligence sources that Prabhakaran is making arrangements to send a big battalion of soldiers from Wanni via sea, to attack us, I immediately brought this matter to the notice of the Sri Lanka Government, Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission and to the Government of Norway.

"I pointed out that it was against the Ceasefire Agreement to move a large group of forces - fully armed and arms and ammunition from non-cleared area to a cleared area, for a military campaign against us by the military cadres belonging to Prabhakaran.

"But the Government of Norway purposely ignored my contentions and also ordered the Scandinavian Monitors to ignore my complaint. Therefore, with the connivance and cooperation of the Government of Norway and the Government of Sri Lanka, Prabhakaran was able to move a large posse of combatants and high powered arms and ammunition to attack us………….."

Karuna's public accusations places the UPFA Government in an embarrassing predicament. Firstly he accuses them of assisting and conniving with the LTTE in the Good Friday (April 09) offensive against his loyalists. Secondly he says the Sri Lanka Navy co-operated in the movement of Wanni cadres via sea from Jaffna for what he suspects is a "big amount of money." This was whilst the SLMM ignored it.

Nothing could be more insulting for the Sri Lanka Navy than to be accused of taking cash bribes from their arch enemy. Early last year, when the Navy successfully intercepted LTTE cargo vessels attempting to smuggle military hardware through the eastern coast, the LTTE accused the Navy of trying to sabotage the Ceasefire Agreement. In fact, the Navy was singled out for criticism on a number of issues.

The Commander of the Navy, Vice Admiral Daya Sandagiri fiercely resisted a bitter LTTE campaign to seek legitimacy for their sea going arm, the Sea Tigers. A proposal to legitimise them as a "de facto" entity was made by none other than the former Head of the SLMM, retired Norwegian General Tryggve Teleffsen. The Norwegian facilitators maintained a stoic silence over this proposal. If accepted, it would have meant a sovereign nation had two navies. Karuna was then a member of the LTTE peace negotiating team who vigorously backed this SLMM proposal. Now it is this same Karuna who is accusing the Navy of falling for big money and for collusion with the LTTE and SLMM.

Another charge by Karuna is that the Governments of Norway and Sri Lanka collaborated with Mr Prabhakaran "to move a large posse of combatants and high powered arms and ammunitions" to attack cadres loyal to him. Are these accusations true? If such sinister collaboration indeed existed, would it not have been possible for the UPFA Government to have physically turned over Karuna to the LTTE? After all, he, his confidantes and later his family were all in Army custody for more than 14 long weeks. They were fed, protected and their needs including medical requirements were looked after. Why then is he making such wild allegations knowing too well that they are false and misleading?

One could say he is angry because he is a frustrated man, one who feels badly let down or betrayed. But the timing of the accusations and the interview itself - just when the UPFA Government is making desperate efforts to revive peace talks - is significant enough. He wants to muddy the environment by causing embarrassment all-round. That seemed a way of punishing those who did not help him. In effect he is giving a two fold warning to the Tamil community: do not trust the LTTE in the North and the UPFA Government in the South.

This is where the woeful inadequacies of those responsible for the country's defence establishment are clearly highlighted. If President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga took over the defence portfolio from the UNF Government on November 4, last year, to prevent a "rapid deterioration" of the country's national security interests, neither effective preventive measures have been put in place nor have competent persons been tasked to arrest such a trend. Hence the deeper nuances or the goings on behind the Karuna episode have been lost on those who are accountable.

Karuna, for some hitherto unexplained reason, believed he had the full backing of the armed forces when he massed his renegade cadres to take on the LTTE. He claims he was assured of support including the presence of naval craft in the eastern shores to prevent a sea borne landing by Wanni cadres. This was whilst he mounted assaults on them. When he learnt that the eastern seas were swarming with Sea Tigers he decided to call off a confrontation, dismantle the military machine he built and beat a hasty retreat.

For obvious reasons some sensitive details relating to this particular episode are being left out. Officially there was neither any assurance of armed forces support to Karuna nor a Navy back up. The UPFA Government wanted to stay neutral. There was a time when Karuna made soundings whether troops loyal to him could join the armed forces en masse. These suggestions were rejected outright for fears of offending the LTTE and thus placing the peace talks in peril.

When Karuna fled Batticaloa, things took a different turn. By his own admission during the "first person testimony" Karuna's friend Ali Zahir Mowlana, who brought him down to Colombo, was contacted by Ramesh (LTTE's military commander for Batticaloa-Ampara districts). The latter had requested Mr. Mowlana to persuade Karuna to leave the country with family and friends. "I was told that Ramesh also conveyed Prabhakaran's request to Ali Zahir Mowlana to arrange him to send me to a foreign country," Karuna said. Having related this, he asks the interviewer "Who are they to dictate terms to me?"

The message from the LTTE leader made clear they wanted to settle the issue peacefully and avoid a bloody confrontation.Such a confrontation, they feared, would diminish their influence and military strength in the Batticaloa-Ampara districts. When that did not happen, their fears were proved right. They have lost total military control there and are now waging a violent campaign to restore it.

Instead of travelling abroad, Karuna and party later ended up in the "protective custody" of the Army. With that a new chapter had begun. This is where bureaucrats bungled and politicians prevaricated. Karuna, now in custody, and his die hard loyalists in the Batticaloa-Ampara districts launched a violent crack down on the Wanni cadres. They were attacked, kidnapped or killed using the vast quantities of small arms and ammunition they had acquired during the ceasefire.

Despite this development, in private, during top level security conferences, including sessions of the National Security Council, bureaucrats and politicians whispered that an excellent opportunity had been missed. Karuna, after all, should have been helped, they lamented. Such help, clinically done, would have no doubt been to the advantage of the armed forces, some argued. They said such an advantage translated into a political gain for the UPFA.

But there was no plan and no strategy of any sort. There was only a school of thought among bureaucrats and politicians alike that confrontations between rival LTTE factions in the east were not their problem. Not as long as it did not occur in the security forces controlled areas. Hence they wanted to continue with business as usual.

If that amounted to a tacit nod that the violent crack down by the Karuna faction could go on unimpeded in the uncontrolled areas, it was not to be. Things did not work out the way bureaucrats and politicians expected. Whilst Karuna and party were in Army custody, loyal cadres carried out their violent campaign first in controlled and later extended it to uncontrolled areas. As the violence exacerbated, that it caused deep embarrassment to the UPFA leadership is no secret. This is how the LTTE came to accuse the Government and its armed forces of backing Karuna's violent campaign.

This cycle of violence has now changed. It is the LTTE cadres who are now hunting members of the Karuna faction and gunning them down, as revealed in The Sunday Times (Situation Report) last week. These attacks continue causing death and injuries to many in the Batticaloa and Ampara districts.

Only when things were known to be getting out of hand did Karuna come under pressure to restrain his cadres from resorting to violence. It was too late. Senior armed forces officials were aghast there was no proper monitoring of any developments. They were equally aghast there had been no proper plan or strategy to gain any military or political advantage for them or the Government. Heightening their concern was the lack of preparedness on the part of the armed forces to meet a contingency. But they were helpless.

Things had just been allowed to drift. So much so, Karuna's actions had caused the UPFA Government irreparable damage. In trying to respond to the resultant situation, they had further eroded their credibility. Damage control measures like outright denials only made matters worse. The LTTE had learnt from their own intelligence channels, on some occasions after infiltrating their agents into the Karuna caucus, that the Government's claims were incorrect.

If Karuna and his close allies were provided "protective custody," there was no LTTE demand for their return. But the Government's other actions, like denials of his custody, not only caused suspicions but led to the LTTE determining there was collusion by them with the Karuna faction over the violent campaign. The LTTE was incensed. And now the same thing appears to have happened to Karuna who, paradoxical enough, is accusing the Government of collusion with the LTTE, Norway and the SLMM. He is also accusing the Navy, a security arm of the state, of falling for LTTE money. Is this not a clear example of the pathetic state of the Sri Lanka defence establishment? If it had impaired national security interests, has it also not impeded the peace process? Though the local media gave publicity to the asiantribune interviews, embarrassing enough, the Government has not been able to respond with denials.

Karuna's frustrations grew as he remained in the hands of the Army. Contributing to this were many events that eventually isolated him. In June, Nilavini (Charlie Akka), head of the women's military wing in Batticaloa and known to be his girl friend parted company. She walked away together with Premini (head of the district Political Wing), Lavanya and Theen Tamil, both senior commanders in the women's military wing.

The Tamilnet website which reported the event added: "Nilavini said on 13th June, Karuna had told her that he was going abroad with his family and left the safe house the same day in a SLA vehicle. She said that following Karuna's departure she made a call to a relative in Batticaloa and escaped to the East with his help. She said her escape was possible because SLA security at the safe house was lax after the renegade commander's departure."

The Sunday Times learnt parting of the ways came for Nilavini and three others after they sought and obtained permission from the Army. This was on the grounds that each of them had relatives in two towns in the North Central Province. They had said they could live there in safety. Instead after leaving from Army custody, they had telephoned the LTTE and gone straight to them in Batticaloa. Nilavini's claim that Karuna left them because he was going abroad was wrong.

In fact Karuna's wife Chandrasekeram Vidyapathi, better known as Neera and their three children arrived from Bangalore in South India. They joined him after he made contact with them. Since accommodation was limited, the family had to be moved out to another location. Days after she re joined her husband, Neera learnt she and her children had a timely escape from a LTTE hit squad. They had gone searching for her at the house in Bangalore where they stayed.

If this was bad enough, another confidant, Varathan, his translator cum spokesman who fled with Karuna and confidantes to Colombo, fell out over a dispute. He took off to Singapore and is said to be in another country now. From there he had established e-mail contact with Tamil media in Colombo and has been castigating Karuna. Reports also speak of his making approaches to the LTTE.

Karuna no doubt is a disappointed man. He remains isolated only with his wife and children in foreign soil. He strongly feels that the south let him down or even betrayed him. He is not altogether wrong. He sure has cause for disappointment on some matters though they cannot be spelt out. He told his interviewer "I am a Tiger and I will never eat grass even when I am famished." But he certainly has eaten humble pie since his woes began.

The mishandling, or the lack of handling of the Karuna affair, has opened up two fronts for the UPFA Government - one from the LTTE which is casting doubts over the future of the peace process. The other is from Karuna himself. Whoever is responsible, be it bureaucrats or politicians, or both; have placed the nation's future in peril. In a nation where there is no accountability one may forget such events. But the devastating damage it causes is inevitable.

Whether it is psychological warfare or not, LTTE leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, sent a message to Sri Lankans and the outside world last week - he is continuing to make his military machine much stronger whilst talking peace. The latest occasion is
the "passing out parade" of a Special RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) Force unit at "at the Tigers Military Training College" in the Wanni.

The Tamilnet website quoted Mr. Prabhakaran as saying "I created the LTTE RPG force when I realised that armour was going to be a key component of Operation Jaya Sikurui. Our RPG units were very successful in fighting enemy armour."

There is little doubt Mr. Prabhakaran and the LTTE are learning from the past experience. What of the defence establishment in Sri Lanka? Are they learning to keep the armed forces in a state of preparedness? Their continued failure would only mean having to give into more demands as recent events have revealed. Has this not forced the Government to initiate measures, like duty free concessions for car imports, to please the LTTE to return to the negotiating table?

The answer came only last Friday when the LTTE Political Wing leader, S.P. Tamilselvan declared, an Interim Self Governing Authority is a sine qua non. What next?

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