04-16-2004, 02:06 PM
<span style='color:red'><b>Why Karuna ran: Story of showmanship and suckers</b>
[size=9]Apr 16, 2004, 04:18 [By Tharaki]</span>
Why did Karuna fall so quickly and so ignominiously? Sections of the Colombo and international media that were swept off their feet by forty long days of his remarkable showmanship are obviously chagrined. So the nagging question uppermost in the minds of assorted Sinhala nationalists and sober scribes who were equally dazzled by the renegade commander's theatre is: Why did he give up and run as fast as he did?
First we should ask what gave him the confidence to raise the flag of revolt against the ruthless military machine of Velupillai Prabhakaran? Certainly, Karuna knew that the weaponry in his possession was no match for the heavy artillery guns and mortars in the Vanni. His ammunition supplies were limited. The military high command in Vanni had unlimited supplies and the means to bring in more. The sophisticated and modernized command and control systems of the LTTE were also based in the North. He was not familiar with the development of these systems in the last two years, though he had heard of them through his colleagues. Karuna was also aware that new weapon systems had been acquired by the LTTE in the Vanni.
Yet he was so confident that he could hold his own in the Batticaloa-Amparai districts. He believed that the geography of the East and provisions of the ceasefire agreement between Colombo and the LTTE were in his favour militarily. The areas that he controlled in the East were completely isolated from the Vanni by large wedges of land completely dominated by the Sri Lankan armed forces, from Weli Oya to Seruwila. There was absolutely no way for the LTTE to transport its heavy weapons, ammunition and troops overland to prepare and mount even a limited challenge to his authority in the Batticaloa district.
He was also sure that under the provisions of the ceasefire agreement the Tigers could not transport whole battalions without negotiating with the Peace Secretariat and the military; and that sans artillery or heavy mortars, things could not get worse than a prolonged period of standoff and skirmishes confined to the Vakarai region even if the LTTE were to mass a battalion or two on the Northern banks of the Verugal river.
The capacity of the Sea Tigers, as far as Karuna was aware at the time, was not adequate to transport the big guns and mortars and tons of shells safely along the coast in violation of the cease-fire agreement. He assumed on the basis of his experience that the Sea Tigers were not in a position to do more than two or three runs to the east coast with military hardware and troops without alerting the Sri Lanka Navy.
The Tigers had another handicap that suited him. They had only one geographically limited piece of land - sandwiched between Poomarathadichenai in Seruwila and Mavadichenai on the northern banks of the Verugal River to mass troops and military supplies to launch and sustain any offensive into the northern corner of the Batticaloa district. The area could be supplied only by sea and the choppy waters off its coast are not easy on vessels unloading military cargo.
Secondly, even if the Tigers succeeded in crossing the Verugal River and infiltrating the Vakarai region, it was not possible for them, according to Karuna's calculations, to cross the Valaichenai-Polannaruwa Road (A 11) without confronting the Sri Lanka army. The A 11 is the Main Supply Route to the Batticaloa district and hence highly secured by the military. The Tharavai-Vadamunai region (Thoppigala jungles) is not accessible to the Tigers by sea. The Eastern side of the region is bounded by a lagoon. The coastal areas beyond this are controlled by the military. Hence Karuna had good reason to believe that the LTTE could enter his stronghold neither by sea nor through the Vakarai region in sufficient numbers and with adequate weaponry plus supplies.
Also, Karuna organized his defences in Vakarai in several layers. Fallback positions and regrouping areas were well planned and established. In fact Karuna had boasted to a foreign journalist who was patently awed by the renegade commander's cool style that the LTTE leadership didn't know the art of defence warfare. So there he was sipping orange juice, having breakfast while chatting to media men as the cameras clicked away, seemingly unfazed by the military might of the Vanni.
While the Good Friday edition of the Island newspaper which carried an extensive interview with Karuna was coming off the press, a barrage of 120 mm mortars from beyond the northern banks of the Verugal hit all the defence layers of Karuna's troops in the northern part of the Vakarai region. The barrage was not intended to kill but to shock, awe and disorient the defenders. Amidst the thick rain of mortar shells, the command and control centre of Karuna's elder brother Reggie who was in overall charge of the defences of Vakarai was captured by a team of LTTE special forces.
Reggie who was at his temporary residence in Kathiraveli, rattled and shell-shocked, took to his heels when he found that the command and control centres of the Vinothan, Visalahan-2 and Anbarasi military units had gone silent.
Three LTTE Special Forces teams had taken these command centres by complete surprise and knocked them out of action before the barrage stopped.
Commanders of the female fighting unit Anbarasi called Savithri and the Vinothan unit called Barathiraj were seriously wounded.
Another Special Forces team ambushed the vehicle in which Jeyam was travelling deep behind the battle lines. Jeyam was the leader of the embryonic Sea Tiger unit that Karuna had established at Kathiraveli.
Meanwhile, troops of the Jeyanthan Regiment, the LTTE's elite infantry formation known for the fierce battles it fought against Operation. Jaya Sikurui, moved into
Karuna's forces were 'boxed in' by the Jeyanthan Regiment before daybreak. On Saturday morning leaders of the LTTE's political division from Batticaloa, who had opposed Karuna and had gone to the Vanni, moved into the box with megaphones calling on Karuna's troops to gather at particular points close to the beach. By noon more than 300 gave themselves up with their weapons.
The overall commander of the operations was Karuna's former deputy Thambirajah Ramesh. (He was promoted to the rank of colonel this week) Meanwhile, Karuna sent reinforcements under Jim Kelly Thaaththa and Rabert in a bid to stop the advance of the Jeyanthan regiment. On Saturday night LTTE's Special Forces struck behind the lines cutting off key supply routes for Karuna's forces in Vakarai. During the day LTTE's Psychological Operations unit that functions under its national intelligence division had started dialogues on the futility of internecine war.
Therefore, two counterattacks organized by Reggie and Rabert late Saturday night fizzled out under the impact of Special Forces manoeuvres and psychological operations. On Sunday morning Karuna's forces abandoned Vakarai in disarray and retreated to the Tharavai-Vadamunai region (Thoppigala).
In a move that the LTTE saw as one intended to protect Karuna, the Sri Lanka army said it was deploying more troops on the A 11 to prevent any major crossing by the LTTE in pursuit of Karuna's troops. In the meantime an LTTE group led by Janarthan, the commander of the military wing in the Amparai district who had been abroad for medical treatment during Karuna's revolt, arrived Sunday night in an area near Thirukkovil, 76 kilometres South of Batticaloa.
A Psy-Ops team and Kuyilinban, head of the LTTE's political division for Amparai district, accompanied Janarthan. They established radio contact with the LTTE's large Kanjikudichcha Aru base. After more than 24 hours of continuous discussions, arguments, counter-arguments, coaxing, persuasion etc., all the unit leaders there agreed to rejoin the LTTE. Not a shot was fired. It was a psychological operations victory.
A group of Tigers led by Karuna's former military intelligence chief, Ramanan, who had entered the southern parts of the Batticaloa District before the Good Friday offensive in Vakarai established control in most areas of the hinterland while the renegade commander was mulling the fall of Vakarai and the Tamil areas of the Amparai district.
But the man still believed that he was safe in the Vadamunai-Tharavai jungles (Thoppigala). On Sunday night there were two LTTE Special Forces strikes in the deep interior, west and northwest of the secret camp where Karuna was planning his defences.
This stunned the renegade commander and his colleagues. The two selective strikes and the precision with which they had been carried out obviously unnerved Karuna. He realised that the LTTE Special Forces that had entered the heart of his defences were something that he could not understand at all.
They were moving fast. Karuna had no time to study and understand this new phenomenon of which he had vaguely heard of during his infrequent visits to the Vanni. The panic wrought by the Special Forces strikes combined with psychological operations aimed at all the unit leaders in the main camps of the Tharavai-Vadamunai jungles made Karuna lose his grip on the forces that were expected to remain loyal to him come what may.
Sunday night the renegade commander fled Batticaloa, accompanied by about a dozen of his trusted friends and lieutenants, including Nilavini, the commander of the LTTE's female fighting units in the eastern district.
His short-lived revolt has actually helped the LTTE emerge even stronger in Sri Lanka's political and military equations.
"We are planning the operations to take out Karuna bloodlessly according to our leader's instructions. We will do it in such a way that others may not even think of raising the flag of revolt in the future even in their wildest dreams," said Ramesh who was promoted colonel this week.
In the media frenzy that followed Karuna's proclamation that he was going to defy the Tiger leader, foreign and local analysts forgot that the men who made him tick as a brilliant commander, including his mentor Mano Master, had abandoned him.
The manner in which Karuna was checkmated is a limited demonstration of the military prowess and sophistication that the LTTE has developed since it signed the cease-fire agreement with the Sri Lankan government two years ago.
Even a seasoned senior LTTE commander like Karuna was not aware of the real capacity of the Special Forces and Psychological Operations units that Pirapaharan had raised during the last two years.
While the Sinhala polity nurses its seemingly incorrigible penchant for always backing the wrong horse on the Tamil side rather than finding a reasonable settlement to the conflict, Velupillai Prabhakaran, in his own quiet fashion, keeps his powder dry, lest anyone should dare take him for a sucker.
tamileelamnews.com
[size=9]Apr 16, 2004, 04:18 [By Tharaki]</span>
Why did Karuna fall so quickly and so ignominiously? Sections of the Colombo and international media that were swept off their feet by forty long days of his remarkable showmanship are obviously chagrined. So the nagging question uppermost in the minds of assorted Sinhala nationalists and sober scribes who were equally dazzled by the renegade commander's theatre is: Why did he give up and run as fast as he did?
First we should ask what gave him the confidence to raise the flag of revolt against the ruthless military machine of Velupillai Prabhakaran? Certainly, Karuna knew that the weaponry in his possession was no match for the heavy artillery guns and mortars in the Vanni. His ammunition supplies were limited. The military high command in Vanni had unlimited supplies and the means to bring in more. The sophisticated and modernized command and control systems of the LTTE were also based in the North. He was not familiar with the development of these systems in the last two years, though he had heard of them through his colleagues. Karuna was also aware that new weapon systems had been acquired by the LTTE in the Vanni.
Yet he was so confident that he could hold his own in the Batticaloa-Amparai districts. He believed that the geography of the East and provisions of the ceasefire agreement between Colombo and the LTTE were in his favour militarily. The areas that he controlled in the East were completely isolated from the Vanni by large wedges of land completely dominated by the Sri Lankan armed forces, from Weli Oya to Seruwila. There was absolutely no way for the LTTE to transport its heavy weapons, ammunition and troops overland to prepare and mount even a limited challenge to his authority in the Batticaloa district.
He was also sure that under the provisions of the ceasefire agreement the Tigers could not transport whole battalions without negotiating with the Peace Secretariat and the military; and that sans artillery or heavy mortars, things could not get worse than a prolonged period of standoff and skirmishes confined to the Vakarai region even if the LTTE were to mass a battalion or two on the Northern banks of the Verugal river.
The capacity of the Sea Tigers, as far as Karuna was aware at the time, was not adequate to transport the big guns and mortars and tons of shells safely along the coast in violation of the cease-fire agreement. He assumed on the basis of his experience that the Sea Tigers were not in a position to do more than two or three runs to the east coast with military hardware and troops without alerting the Sri Lanka Navy.
The Tigers had another handicap that suited him. They had only one geographically limited piece of land - sandwiched between Poomarathadichenai in Seruwila and Mavadichenai on the northern banks of the Verugal River to mass troops and military supplies to launch and sustain any offensive into the northern corner of the Batticaloa district. The area could be supplied only by sea and the choppy waters off its coast are not easy on vessels unloading military cargo.
Secondly, even if the Tigers succeeded in crossing the Verugal River and infiltrating the Vakarai region, it was not possible for them, according to Karuna's calculations, to cross the Valaichenai-Polannaruwa Road (A 11) without confronting the Sri Lanka army. The A 11 is the Main Supply Route to the Batticaloa district and hence highly secured by the military. The Tharavai-Vadamunai region (Thoppigala jungles) is not accessible to the Tigers by sea. The Eastern side of the region is bounded by a lagoon. The coastal areas beyond this are controlled by the military. Hence Karuna had good reason to believe that the LTTE could enter his stronghold neither by sea nor through the Vakarai region in sufficient numbers and with adequate weaponry plus supplies.
Also, Karuna organized his defences in Vakarai in several layers. Fallback positions and regrouping areas were well planned and established. In fact Karuna had boasted to a foreign journalist who was patently awed by the renegade commander's cool style that the LTTE leadership didn't know the art of defence warfare. So there he was sipping orange juice, having breakfast while chatting to media men as the cameras clicked away, seemingly unfazed by the military might of the Vanni.
While the Good Friday edition of the Island newspaper which carried an extensive interview with Karuna was coming off the press, a barrage of 120 mm mortars from beyond the northern banks of the Verugal hit all the defence layers of Karuna's troops in the northern part of the Vakarai region. The barrage was not intended to kill but to shock, awe and disorient the defenders. Amidst the thick rain of mortar shells, the command and control centre of Karuna's elder brother Reggie who was in overall charge of the defences of Vakarai was captured by a team of LTTE special forces.
Reggie who was at his temporary residence in Kathiraveli, rattled and shell-shocked, took to his heels when he found that the command and control centres of the Vinothan, Visalahan-2 and Anbarasi military units had gone silent.
Three LTTE Special Forces teams had taken these command centres by complete surprise and knocked them out of action before the barrage stopped.
Commanders of the female fighting unit Anbarasi called Savithri and the Vinothan unit called Barathiraj were seriously wounded.
Another Special Forces team ambushed the vehicle in which Jeyam was travelling deep behind the battle lines. Jeyam was the leader of the embryonic Sea Tiger unit that Karuna had established at Kathiraveli.
Meanwhile, troops of the Jeyanthan Regiment, the LTTE's elite infantry formation known for the fierce battles it fought against Operation. Jaya Sikurui, moved into
Karuna's forces were 'boxed in' by the Jeyanthan Regiment before daybreak. On Saturday morning leaders of the LTTE's political division from Batticaloa, who had opposed Karuna and had gone to the Vanni, moved into the box with megaphones calling on Karuna's troops to gather at particular points close to the beach. By noon more than 300 gave themselves up with their weapons.
The overall commander of the operations was Karuna's former deputy Thambirajah Ramesh. (He was promoted to the rank of colonel this week) Meanwhile, Karuna sent reinforcements under Jim Kelly Thaaththa and Rabert in a bid to stop the advance of the Jeyanthan regiment. On Saturday night LTTE's Special Forces struck behind the lines cutting off key supply routes for Karuna's forces in Vakarai. During the day LTTE's Psychological Operations unit that functions under its national intelligence division had started dialogues on the futility of internecine war.
Therefore, two counterattacks organized by Reggie and Rabert late Saturday night fizzled out under the impact of Special Forces manoeuvres and psychological operations. On Sunday morning Karuna's forces abandoned Vakarai in disarray and retreated to the Tharavai-Vadamunai region (Thoppigala).
In a move that the LTTE saw as one intended to protect Karuna, the Sri Lanka army said it was deploying more troops on the A 11 to prevent any major crossing by the LTTE in pursuit of Karuna's troops. In the meantime an LTTE group led by Janarthan, the commander of the military wing in the Amparai district who had been abroad for medical treatment during Karuna's revolt, arrived Sunday night in an area near Thirukkovil, 76 kilometres South of Batticaloa.
A Psy-Ops team and Kuyilinban, head of the LTTE's political division for Amparai district, accompanied Janarthan. They established radio contact with the LTTE's large Kanjikudichcha Aru base. After more than 24 hours of continuous discussions, arguments, counter-arguments, coaxing, persuasion etc., all the unit leaders there agreed to rejoin the LTTE. Not a shot was fired. It was a psychological operations victory.
A group of Tigers led by Karuna's former military intelligence chief, Ramanan, who had entered the southern parts of the Batticaloa District before the Good Friday offensive in Vakarai established control in most areas of the hinterland while the renegade commander was mulling the fall of Vakarai and the Tamil areas of the Amparai district.
But the man still believed that he was safe in the Vadamunai-Tharavai jungles (Thoppigala). On Sunday night there were two LTTE Special Forces strikes in the deep interior, west and northwest of the secret camp where Karuna was planning his defences.
This stunned the renegade commander and his colleagues. The two selective strikes and the precision with which they had been carried out obviously unnerved Karuna. He realised that the LTTE Special Forces that had entered the heart of his defences were something that he could not understand at all.
They were moving fast. Karuna had no time to study and understand this new phenomenon of which he had vaguely heard of during his infrequent visits to the Vanni. The panic wrought by the Special Forces strikes combined with psychological operations aimed at all the unit leaders in the main camps of the Tharavai-Vadamunai jungles made Karuna lose his grip on the forces that were expected to remain loyal to him come what may.
Sunday night the renegade commander fled Batticaloa, accompanied by about a dozen of his trusted friends and lieutenants, including Nilavini, the commander of the LTTE's female fighting units in the eastern district.
His short-lived revolt has actually helped the LTTE emerge even stronger in Sri Lanka's political and military equations.
"We are planning the operations to take out Karuna bloodlessly according to our leader's instructions. We will do it in such a way that others may not even think of raising the flag of revolt in the future even in their wildest dreams," said Ramesh who was promoted colonel this week.
In the media frenzy that followed Karuna's proclamation that he was going to defy the Tiger leader, foreign and local analysts forgot that the men who made him tick as a brilliant commander, including his mentor Mano Master, had abandoned him.
The manner in which Karuna was checkmated is a limited demonstration of the military prowess and sophistication that the LTTE has developed since it signed the cease-fire agreement with the Sri Lankan government two years ago.
Even a seasoned senior LTTE commander like Karuna was not aware of the real capacity of the Special Forces and Psychological Operations units that Pirapaharan had raised during the last two years.
While the Sinhala polity nurses its seemingly incorrigible penchant for always backing the wrong horse on the Tamil side rather than finding a reasonable settlement to the conflict, Velupillai Prabhakaran, in his own quiet fashion, keeps his powder dry, lest anyone should dare take him for a sucker.
tamileelamnews.com
<img src='http://kuruvikal.yarl.net/archives/PETBIRD1.gif' border='0' alt='user posted image'>