Defence

LLRC told of President Rajapaksa’s right to take military action

Senior lawyer Gomin Dayasri says the Sri Lankan government can justify its war against LTTE terror on the basis of seven principles required to establish a just war coming down from the time of eminent jurist Hugo Grotius.

Dayasri told the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) last Thursday (Oct. 28) investigating the circumstances that led to the Eelam War IV how the country could face the threat of UN war crimes inquiry and a probe launched by the US.

Secretary to the Ministry of Defense Gotabhaya Rajapaksa spoke to Daily Mirror online on the trial of General Sarath Fonseka, the support of the international community in apprehending the remaining elements of the LTTE and other issues.

The Indian Government would never influence Sri Lanka to restore the ceasefire and it would not listen to the political `jokers' of Tamil Nadu whose survival depends on the LTTE which killed one of the most respected Prime Ministers of India - Rajiv Gandhi, said Army Commander Lt. General Sarath Fonseka.

The Army Chief, whose tenure was extended by another year, said that the LTTE had caused much problems in Tamil Nadu and the LTTE's separate State ideology would cause damage to the sovereignty of India.

December 3,
2008: The LTTE has now made it clear that it would resort to guerilla warfare and terrorism if it was defeated militarily (which seems increasingly likely). This threat is supposed to persuade the government to agree to peace talks without the LTTE disarming. The government declined and insisted that the rebels had to disarm before there could be any negotiations. Previous peace talks and ceasefires failed because the LTTE refused to abide by the agreements, and the government refuses to go through that again.

With at least two previous failures of a successful breakthrough through the Tamil Tiger Devil's garden along the KILALY/MUHAMALE/NAGARKOVIL axis, mainly due to indirect fire via anti personal/ anti-armor mines and arti/mortar units, battleplanners in this sector set about to destabilise the Tamil Tiger FDL using crumbling operations to force the enemy's defensive cohesion to flood away thereby destabilizing the FDL. Further as I have mentioned in an earlier brief lengthily such a series of crumbling operations allows the Sri Lankan battle planners to master their opening game as well as shore up the morale of its soldiers.

As expected Task Force-I of the Sri Lanka security forces captured Pooneryn on November 15 freeing A32 highway from the control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). But the security forces used the continued spell of fine weather and the newly raised Task Force-3 to capture of Mankulam, a key junction on the A9 Kandy-Jaffna lifeline on November 17. On the eastern seaboard of Mullaitivu district, 59 Division captured Mulliyavalai village, 10 km from Mullaitivu, the key coastal town of the area.