Rajpal's Column

4th October 1998

Lounge suits and battle fatigues

By Rajpal Abeynayake

Minister Ratwatte in Mankulam: A 'tactical reversal,' not a setback; in an "unwinnable war"

Who was the most successful wartime leader of all time? There would be little argument that in remembered history, this would be Winston Spencer Churchill, Britain's legendary World War II political sensation.

So, what did Churchill tell the British people in the throes of Hitler's onslaught? Did he say, for instance, that 95 per cent of the war was over?

From what is remembered from history, Churchill marshalled his people, and then told them that he had nothing to offer "but blood toil tears and sweat." He did not say that Prabhakaran's, sorry Hitler's, back was broken, or that he would finish off Hitler and his henchmen given "another three months,''

Modern warfare, the experts say, is fought on two fronts. One is the warfront — the other, the bloody theatre of international propaganda and hyperbole.

Though the fact that propaganda is war would be true by all approximations, no war is won exclusively in the lounges of the United Nations, or on the airwaves of BBC or CNN.

Though wars can be fought in proxy at these plush, pulsating alternate locations, wars indubitably and in the final analysis, have to be won where they began, in the mud and the trenches of the inglorious battlefield.

In that context, the prevarication that now goes on in the 'war reporting' of the state war machine is both funny and counter productive.

For example, Brigadier Tennekoon (we do not quite expect him to speak the Churchillian speak) claimed at the last press briefing after the recent Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi battles that "the Kilinochchi defeat was NOT a setback for the forces." Asked what it was then, he said it was 'only a reversal.' (Asked also to explain the semantic difference between reversal and setback as he understood it, he said he wouldn't be able to say that.)

Dramatically, as it happened this week, the 97 per cent war turned out to be a reversal in which the government struggled to cover the loss of over 1000 troops. State spokespeople who try to gloss over the figures added to the confusion, which further fuelled the rumour mills.

It is quaint that information doctors of the state are unable to believe that their attempts at fudging the figures become instantly counter productive.

Attempts to rationalise real losses also amounts to a charade that whittles away the government's credibility. The fact is that the government lost Kilinochchi, which is closer to the Jaffna peninsula than Mankulam, which was captured. This cannot be a tactical reversal. It was a tactical comeuppance for the LTTE, which seems to have won the "propaganda war" of this battle anyway.

So why not call it what it is?

The Deputy Minister of Defence, in his avuncular mode, spoke to representatives of newspapers individually when the government re-imposed censorship several months back.

At this meeting he told this newspaper's representative that "The Sunday Times is very unpopular among the troops." He was at his cigar chomping best, though he doesn't in fact chomp the real cigar.

The Deputy Minister contends that The Sunday Times is unpopular among the troops because it gives a story of the war that's unfairly pessimistic.

In contrast, the government paints a picture of the war that glows in pink. It's a lovely war – which was 97 per cent finished, at last assessment.

Then comes this matter of the "tactical reversal." On the propaganda front, the government's sanguine assessment lies shattered, so shattered that anything it has to say again on the status of the war is generally not believed, either nationally or internationally. (Even if it were to be the truth.)

So, in one fell stroke, the government loses both the propaganda and the physical battles.

BBC has referred to the latest situation, and deduced that this is an "unwinnable war" for both sides, which would be a fair assessment given the recent history of this conflict.

Yet, the state deludes itself by laying its bets on finishing the war in the near future. Or, the state figures, the LTTE can be emasculated into a manageable foe.

But, with the casualty figures as they are, the LTTE doesn't seem to be anymore manageable than it was a few years ago. Though this reality keeps hitting the government on the head it doesn't appear that the top echelons of government want to come to terms with the fact.

That explains a great deal of the government's current positions, including the stand on censorship. As far as censorship goes the government is conformable in the idea that it will be a passing temporary phenomenon. General Ratwatte and his military kitchen cabinet are firmly rooted in the view that censorship is a necessary evil that is an imperative until the "rest of the war is finished off.''

But the rest of the war is never finished off. When the LTTE strikes back, as they did last week, the government loses on two fronts.

But losing the propaganda war with the stigma of censorship on its back has got to be the worse case.

Commentary

Editorial/Opinion Contents