Govt. kills 5000 Tigers but the war goes on

By Ranjith Jayasundera

For all intents and purposes, the military - according to Defence Ministry figures and claims - has cleaned up the map, and killed the Army Commander's benchmark of 5,000 LTTE cadres between January 1, and the moment this newspaper was printed.

As of last Friday, the statistics maintained by The Sunday Leader of LTTE cadres claimed killed by the Defence Ministry's official claims, was 4,698. Given the Rajapakse administration's war on media, we have exercised much caution in maintaining these statistics.

A copy is saved of every article referred to, as is a link to the article's unique identity number on the Defence Ministry website's archive, along with the number claimed killed. In situations where swathes of LTTE cadres are claimed "killed or wounded," we are careful to count less than half the number as killed.

The many instances referring to "ferocious" battles where the military had inflicted "massive casualties" - but no concrete numbers - were omitted entirely. The effects of air strikes too were omitted entirely as the air force has allowed that it is extremely difficultto independently verify the number killed on the ground after an air strike.

It would not be prudent to use the LTTE figures for those killed by air strikes either, as the terrorist group is known for highlighting air strikes on military installations as fabricated, targeted attacks on anything from farmers to accountants to kindergarten teachers.

And thus we have a number from the Defence Ministry - that cannot be independently verified - of 4,698 LTTE cadres killed in land and sea action. Theoretically, 302 should be remaining, skulking in the Wanni jungles.

Kept track

However, we have also kept track of the number of air strikes announced by the air force this year on "identified terrorist targets." Eighty four, separate, aerial bombing raids have been announced this year, most involving more than one aircraft.

Given that at least four bombs are dropped on each target - and they don't come cheap: the cheapest of reliable 'dumb' bombs costing in the region of Rs.100,000 each - from a value for money perspective if no other, it would be sensible to expect that at least four LTTE cadres are killed in each of these "massive" strikes on "LTTE installations."

It is not much to ask that a single military operation costing in the region of Rs.400,000 to several million rupees in their ordinance costs alone - leave alone pricey aviation fuel and aircraft maintenance costs - take out at least four terrorists.

Thus with at least 5,000 terrorists having been killed by the Defence Ministry's own numbers, we are back to square one wondering why the government is asking the country to brace itself for an ever more, stringent war footing.

For all practical purposes, going by Defence Ministry statistics alone the war should therefore be now over with at least 5000 Tigers killed between January 1 to date. But is it? And if not, how come? Surely the Defence Ministry that has identified media persons who challenge their word on the war as traitors would not have been lying to the very people who are funding the war? That after all would be treason, would it not? 

Reality

The reality is that although Army Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka claimed bombastically that the war would be over by August with the killing of 3000 Tigers, and then by the end of the year, the advances of the military - most likely due to tactical and strategic sensibilities - have been conservative.

The military has advanced, by its own estimates, as deep as 10 or more kilometres on the northwestern Mannar front, and has captured an area of 50 square kilometres in the road-less jungles atop northeast Weli-Oya.

The area captured is effectively less than one third that was controlled by the Tigers six months ago. Although this was no mean feat for the soldiers on the front line, who have valiantly accomplished the tasks before them at great peril - hundreds of soldiers have died in battle this year - the arm chair map-meddlers who play with their toy soldiers at the Defence Ministry who cook up their politically opportunistic estimates need to be exposed.

It would be almost delightful to hear the excuses of the people who believed the government when it claimed mid-last year that the LTTE strength was a mere 5,000, also believed in December 2007 (after 2,800 Tigers had been killed) that their actual strength was 3,000, and then later believed again in February that the true number was 5,000 cadres remaining and that the war would be over by August. What do they have to say now?

Even more stunning than the ever multiplying number of Tigers in the Defence Ministry books, are the sardonic claims from the government's freshest batch of ministers (the February 2007 edition) made in defence of this administration's arms dealing bonanza.

UNP Defector Minister Rajitha Senaratne was the latest to cry in their defence when he defended the formation of Lanka Logistics and Technologies Limited, claiming that it prevented arms dealers from "making commissions of up to 35%" and passing on details of arms deals to the LTTE.

Vouchsafe to the public

Since Senaratne seems to know much about the percentages of commissions made by arms dealers, he will also do well to vouchsafe to the public who these arms dealers are and from whom they collected these mammoth commissions.

Not only does the good Minister not propose that any legal action be taken against people whom he is effectively accusing of spying for the Tigers, but he is also saying - straight faced at that - that Lanka Logistics has stopped the practice of commissions in defence procurement. That assertion we will leave for another time to deal with provided some mysterious patriotic group who loves those handling the war does not get to us first as prayed for by the Defence Ministry website.

It was just a day before the company was formed that the government inked a scandalous deal to buy old MiG bombers at what was said to be a highly inflated price, in a deal supervised by another Rajapakse relative, our Ambassador to Russia and Ukraine, Udayanga Weeratunga. That matter we will of course deal with in court when the opportunity presents itself soon.

Just two weeks ago, The Sunday Leader exclusively bared details of how another procurement materialised via an offer from Lanka Logistics, which resulted in the purchase of over Rs.200 million worth of sonar equipment for guarding the Colombo harbour, with a documented, mysterious, price increase of over 57%, which the Navy Commander kept denying until he was blue in the face.

Conflict of interest?

Vice Admiral Karannagoda, who is also a director of Lanka Logistics and Technologies Limited - spell conflict of interest, anyone? - not only denied knowledge about the price increase to us, but also maliciously misquoted an accredited British diplomat and told tall tales about Ports Authority Chairman Saliya Wickremasooriya and another accredited British defence supplier.

In fact at his request we kept out specific aspects of the investigation because in his view it would have compromised national security.

Given the great depths to which The Sunday Leader had to go to uncover the details of this scandalous deal, as so much is hidden in the annals of the Defence Ministry's and Lanka Logistics' files, no doubt on grounds on national security, we leave it to the readers to draw on their imagination and reach their own conclusions on the matters adverted to by Senaratne.

It is through Lanka Logistics also, that Janes reported in March that Sri Lanka was planning to buy five MiG-29 interceptor fighters from Russia to counter the LTTE aircraft. The MiG-29 sells at approximately US$ 15 million each, and so five would cost an astounding Rs.8.25 billion.

Whether such aircraft are the right choice for taking down the primitive LTTE's propeller planes - and whether buying five is pushing the envelope - a 10 year old could deduce with simple math but since raising such issues according to the Defence Ministry 'bible' tantamount to treachery, we will again leave it to our readers to draw their own conclusions.

Impossible to intercept

The LTTE aircraft travel at a maximum speed of 262 kilometres per hour. The minimum speed that a MiG-29 can sensibly travel at without stalling is about 2600 kilometres per hour, thus making it almost impossible to intercept the much slower propeller aircraft from behind. Besides, given what was paid for the MiG-27 purchase, how much we pay for each MiG-29 remains to be seen.

Such extravagant and wasteful purchasing by the Defence Ministry on its virtually blank cheque book should indicate, if nothing else, that they too expect that this conflict will continue for some time, regardless of what they tell the public for the purpose of winning a vote here or there.

That the war has taken its toll thus far on Sri Lanka is a known fact, yet a recent study published in the esteemed British Medical Journal last Thursday, indicates that the age old estimates of 60 something thousand killed in the war up to 2002 are far from accurate. The independent study, performed by the University of Washington and Harvard Medical School, indicates that at least 215,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka's war up until 2002.

The estimate may be as high as 338,000 killed taking into account various factors that may have led to under-reporting, and only includes those killed directly due to violence in the conflict. The study is careful to point out that their survey's inability "to capture families with no survivors is another source of downward bias" and that their estimates are thus conservative.

Time running out

This begs the questions of how many people have really been killed in Sri Lanka's war between the most recent hostilities from 2006 to date, as the study shows that most estimates that rely on "affected parties" such as the government and LTTE will show significant bias from both sides.

As to when the government will come to its senses, and come clean with the truth on its own war efforts is anyone's guess, but it is clear that time is running out if Sri Lanka is to have any hopes of lasting peace.