Dien Bien Phu and the end of LTTE

Lalin Fernando

Sri Lanka’s newspaper ‘war’ correspondents and a few retired military souls reporting on the 30 year counter terrorist conflict were wont to induce a veneer of military sophistication to their ‘front line’ news as well as their egos by comparisons with famous battles not simply in any war but in World Wars. So Somme, Stalingrad, Gallipolli, Dunkirk, Berlin, Dresden, Hiroshima were visited with great vigour if not desperation.

One however went as far as hoping against hope during the Killinochchi battle to refer to Dien Bien Phu. In that battle the North Vietnamese guerrillas (Vietminh) under Giap defeated General Navarre’s French forces on May 7, 1954. After the rout of the LTTE in Killinochchi, no further mention of that battle was made (as usual).

Vietnamese

In the Dien Bien Phu battle the French forces decided to occupy a valley surrounded by hills and invite the Vietnamese to attack, fully and foolishly believing that the latter could not bring any heavy weapons to bear in that terrain.

It turned out to be that the Vietnamese, who later prevailed over the Americans as well, did. They carried their artillery guns in sections over tracks in the jungles and over hills. Having re assembled them, they surprised and later routed the French by out gunning and out fighting them.

Ironically the ongoing struggle on the stretch of Puthukkudiyiruppu (PK) land declared a No Fire Zone by the Sri Lanka Forces is where the LTTE decided to make their last stand, unashamedly using Tamil civilians as human shields. It was probably the most cowardly act in history especially for a organization that proclaimed it was a racist liberation movement.

Civilians

They built earth works to block both the Army entering and the civilians from breaking out. This battle was beginning to look not like that battle in Vietnam but for the LTTE more like Diyen Bayen (Biyen) Choo or simply in English if you get my meaning a P(ee) into the water in fear.

The LTTE chose this ground for their final battle after the fall of their defences in PK. They are today confined to 14 square kms of land bounded by the sea on the East and the Nanthi Kadal lagoon on the West with Army pincers reaching in from the North and South and army penetrations from West to East cutting the NFZ area held by the LTTE in two and reaching out north and south to link up.

SLN wolf patrols in the West lie in wait just off the coast as the SLAF covers the area with UAVs, photographing the scene including the LTTE inhumanly shooting the fleeing Tamil civilians.

What of the LTTE defence manned by its remaining 200 cadres? It rests on the self imposed restriction of the Sri Lanka forces not to use their heavy weaponry or planes in order to protect the Tamil civilians amongst whom the LTTE are intermingled. It has also built 20 foot earth walls (bunds), laid out anti personnel mines prolifically and has possibly well concealed traps of deep holes in the ground to stop the advancing troops.

Anti personnel mines

Suddenly Forces greater than any power of any guns burst out on April 20 and 21, 2009. The 75,000 trapped, press ganged, wounded, hounded, starved, shot at, petrified Tamil civilians began their trek away from the LTTE as they had done when the LTTE approached Jaffna in 2000.

Here they had also to brave the anti personnel mines laid treacherously and deviously by the LTTE.

They did that and smashed the myth perfidiously propagated by the Tamil Diaspora, the international community and media that the civilians were staying with the LTTE in the NFZ of their own free will, because of their fear of the Sri Lanka Forces.

The civilians however appear ironically to be saying to their self appointed guardians simply”Let my people go”. Was this the Exodus of the chosen people whose heaven was to be Eelam but in the opposite direction?

If so what of the infamous brain washed Diaspora that from the safety and comfort of Western capitals fought unwashed and unclean with ‘sips’ of water for the LTTE’s survival?

Not even one of them tried to come over to Sri Lanka and fight “for the ashes of their fathers and the temple of their Gods” as one other military writer grandiosely quoted of the response of the LTTE at PK. Another one (military) even quoted Churchill’s “we will not surrender”, but for the fascist LTTE.

Now that the human shield is beginning to melt will the LTTE fight or surrender? Who cares? They are now doomed to the fate they chose when they accepted suicide as a carefully planned but deadly propaganda. Pass the cyanide Praba that’s all you ever had to give the ‘boys’ and ‘girls’.

Conflict

Those who selfishly held their moral fire when the LTTE was rampaging in the North and East, killing indiscriminatingly and demolishing all attempts at arriving at a peaceful solution to the conflict, should now hang their heads in shame. They are the ones who are responsible for the suffering of nearly 250,000 Tamil civilians. No amount of demos in the West will erase their shame.

The best way they can salve their conscience will be by contributing to ameliorate the suffering of the IDPs together with the thousands of Sinhalese (Buddhists and Christians - let grave diggers know) and Muslims who are already massively engaged in the Vanni.

Will the thunder if not the monsoons of May 7, 2009, 55 years on from Dien Bien Phu dampen the scribes of war too?