For 16 days the calm held in Batticaloa after the much talked about local government elections. It was shattered last week on March 26, when a claymore mine exploded in the Koralaipaththu Division, north west of Batticaloa town.

Two police officers on a motor cycle were killed in the Kanchirankuda area, west of former Tiger administrative hub, Kokkadicholai around 9.30 a.m. The claymore had been placed on low ground on the side of the road, hidden in the undergrowth on the side of the main link road connecting Vavunathivu and Kokkadicholai. It had been triggered by a remote control. Government military agencies said that the two officers were part of a cordon operation and the blast had also injured four more policemen, including two from the STF, and three civilians.

A Japanese national travelling to inspect a water project in the area was behind the police party when the explosion took place. He escaped uninjured. However the timing, the location and the presence of the Japanese aid official raises several concerns.

The area where the blast took place is part of the Koralaipaththu Division. Not only was it part of the nine local bodies that elected the Pillayan led TMVP overwhelmingly to the councils, it is also where the largest number of persons were resettled in Batticaloa last year.

Single largest

Between last March and now over 104,000 people from 31,400 families have been resettled in the Batticaloa District. Over 27,000 of them returned to the Vavunathivu Division, the single largest resettlement figure for a division. Most of them fled in March 2007 when government forces launched attacks into the area to dislodge the Tigers. This was following the shelling of the Weber Stadium on February 28, 2007 as helicopters carrying several Western diplomats, including the ambassadors of the US, Italy and Germany, and Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe, landed there.

Despite the mass resettlement drive, areas like Vavunathivu and Vaharai have hardly recovered from over a decade and half of war and at least 12 years under Tiger rule.

There is hardly any public transport to talk of, the roads are mere dirt tracks and get flooded after a heavy shower.  The houses are either temporary shelters with tin roofs or still bear the pot marks of fighting. It is the same with schools.

The mainstays of the local economy have been fishing and agriculture, and farmers in Vavunathivu told The Sunday Leader early this month that the last harvest was one of the better ones in recent history. "There was no war and the paddy prices were good," Vannasingham Mahalingam from Vavunathivu told The Sunday Leader, "but look at the roads, the hospital or the school." And his faced turned dark.

Access regulated

One of the main projects that has got off the ground in the area is a massive water project and the rehabilitation of the Unnichchi tank, the latter  - a Japanese funded project.

Relief agencies have been concerned about security and access restrictions into the newly resettled areas. Access has eased in the past three months and all areas in Batticaloa have been open to agencies that have received the government's green light for projects in the areas.

Security authorities have also opened up the newly resettled areas gradually. Even now there is still lingering criticism that work related to security issues has been held back and only projects directly linked with development of the area are allowed.

Access allowed to outsiders is still regulated. Wherever the line of control stood last year, separating government areas from those held by the Tigers, today there stands a government check post that checks on those going in and out, like at the old bridge just past the airbase west of Batti or at Black Bridge, Chenkaladi. The press has also not had free access into the areas at its will. There have been visits arranged by non-governmental organisations and those for media personnel approved by government military authorities.

The March 10 elections gave the media unrestricted access into the newly resettled areas for the first time.

Special IDs

Civilians who have returned to their former homes after the ouster of the Tigers did so only after registration. All of them were issued with special identity cards by the Presidential Secretariat. It is this white identity card that is used as a pass to move in and out of the newly resettled areas.

The election was seen as a major victory for the government's efforts to bring normalcy back to the areas. And it was obvious that with the return of local governing bodies the government wanted to kick start localised development work.

In fact President Mahinda Rajapakse gave each council Rs. 2.5 million for projects.

The chances of the Tigers regaining these areas is very remote - there are no large number of cadres operating together, no heavy weapons, no senior cadres operating in the Batticaloa district to talk of, and also a lack of facsimile communication, movement and command/control structures.

All this however does not negate the ability to carry out guerilla type strikes as well as hit and run attacks, like the one carried out last week. The Tigers were in control of areas like Vavunathivu and Vaharai for over 12 years till they were dislodged last year.

Ultimate victims

If similar attacks continue, foreign funded projects would be slow to get off, outside interaction would be even more slow and the newly resettled areas would remain like an open fish bowl regulated at entry/exit points.

The ultimate victims will be the civilians who will have to wait even longer for jobs, schools, dispensaries, passable transport and all things else that are mundanely routine elsewhere.

Further north along the eastern coast, there were more new developments - that was with the sinking of a naval Dvora fast attack craft on March 22 early morning. The Colombo Class III type craft built by Colombo Dockyard bearing Serial No. 438 according to the Defence Ministry sank around 2 a.m. soon after an underwater explosion ruptured its hull.

The craft can be mounted with canons and machine guns, and can carry a crew of 16. Six crew members were later rescued by another craft which was on patrol and heeded the distress call sent out by P 438 before the crew abandoned it. The commanding officer of the Dvora was among those rescued.

The Ministry said that the mystery blast was either due to a sea mine or a new underwater weapon developed by the Tigers.

Suicide attack

The Tigers however said that the craft was sunk soon after being rammed by suicide craft. They gave the names of three Sea Tigers - two females and one male who had died in the attack as Niranjani, Kaninila and Anpumaran

But the government's claim that the survivors did not report any Sea Tiger activity before P 438 was sunk or confrontations had led to much speculation as to what type of weapon may have been used. There have been suggestions of a human torpedo used by the Tigers and at least one pro-Tiger website said  that Sri Lankan intelligence should look at the possibility of   Sea Tigers possessing  submarine capability - something that they have been known to have tried to develop.

The Tigers are known to possess underwater magnetic mines as well as floating types. They have also used suicide cadres swimming under stationary naval craft and planting explosives - the best known occasion being during the late night of April 18, 1995, and the next day morning when two naval craft were attacked in the Trincomalee harbour. Explosives had been planted under them by suicide cadres later identified by the Tigers as - Kathiravan, Thanigaimaran, Mathusha and Santha. The attack not only sank the two boats but had the same effect on the Chandrika Kumaratunga administration's peace efforts with the Tigers.

Days before the March 22 sea battle, ground clashes were reported from the Nayaru area, and just three days after the sinking of the Dvora, on March 25 early morning, naval craft on patrol in the same sea area confronted a flotilla of Sea Tigers and the navy later said that one craft was disabled.

On alert

The navy has been on alert in the seas south of Mulaithivu and Nayaru. Ships supplying Jaffna sail close by, though they sail in deep seas and at least one had fled to Indian territorial waters when threatened by Sea Tigers. The navy is also tasked with thwarting Tiger gun running as well as smuggling cadres into the Peraru jungles, north of Trincomalee.

There has been speculation that small numbers of cadres are being rotated in the east and south eastern areas to carry out disruptive attacks.

Clashes were also reported from the FDLs right through last week in Mannar, Vavuniya, Welioya and Muhamalai, Jaffna.

The week before had been slow due to the rains and the subsequent flooding. But fighting commenced once again during the weekend of March 22 and 23. Air raids that were restricted between March 17 and 21, have also been stepped up.

Intense

Tiger targets were bombed in Visvamadhu and Pooneryn on March 26 and 27.

Mi-24 helicopter gunships also returned to action in the Mannar front straffing Tiger positions ahead of troops.

Civilians in Mannar said that fighting has been intense in the last week with continuous shell and artillery fire. Government troops have found the going slow due to soggy ground conditions, the thickly grown terrain, booby traps and Tiger tactics of moving out when bunkers are threatened.