USA’s Threatening Interventions during the Eelam War in 2009

Michael Roberts

This essay is an effort to unravel the whispers about an American military team’s secret mission to Sri Lanka at the height of the SL armed forces successful squeeze on the LTTE in 2009. The political significance of such a mission is profound and there are numerous tangential issues that are also significant.

The opening to this inquiry in 2018 was provided by Chandre Dharma-wardana’s welcome initiative in making an ethnographic notation about information mentioned by Foreign Minister Bogollagama in 2012. This item led me (earlier this year) to link it with other ‘mórsels’ of information and to explore the pressures mounted on the GoSL by the Western powers during the last phase of Eelam War IV in 2009. These inquiries have now produced additional information – morsels once again, but enough to take further steps in unravelling the interventions of USA and its allies. I will mark them in point form as A, B, C et cetera.

A = Ishanka Jayathilaka intervened and brought to light an “ëxclusive news item” in the Sunday Times of 22 February 2009 which asserted that “a Donor-Co-chair-backed humanitarian operation, spearheaded by the United States, to evacuate civilians  trapped in the fighting in the Wanni is now taking shape.” This enterprising Sunday Times journalist added that “a high-level team of the United States Pacific Command (US PACOM) from their headquarters in Hawaii is now in Colombo for this purpose” (the full news item appears as an Appendix below).

B = This news item alters my previous belief that the recce team came in April and thus enforces a modification in my presentation of the Chandre Dharma-wardana item.[1]

C = A well-connected friend with military experience (XY below) was stimulated by my article to search for more information among officers in the armed forces and he sent me this note on 22^nd April 2018: “Having spoken to several people who denied any knowledge, I was informed by a senior SLAF officer who was serving then, that there were several requests in this regard from high profile US and Indian officials who were present here during that time to bring in Special Forces to “help” the SL Government, but it was obvious that the real purpose was to rescue Prabhakaran. My friend added that If that had been allowed, we would still be fighting the LTTE, but we Lankans were fortunate to have a President and Defense Minister who did not cave into these demands”.

D = By pure chance I came across another news item conveying Rohitha Bogollagama’s opinions and information which relate to this particular event (Bandara 2017). The pertinent segment runs as follows: “The then US Ambassador Robert O’ Blake who once visited me wanted to bring an advanced mission to Sri Lanka to see if the surrender would work out — for the LTTE to surrender to American troops. That was resisted. There was an advanced intelligence team from Hawaii that landed in Sri Lanka to work out the logistics and apparatus. In fact, I did not want that team here. I restricted them to the airport and they went back. Little was known to the general public. We tactically got New Delhi associated with our engagement.”

Reworking this information by skimming off the self-aggrandisement, it appears that the American assessment team detailed with working out means of effecting the Washington-Blake scheme of persuading the LTTE to surrender was stymied by the firm stance taken by the Sri Lankan leaders with the covert support of Indian government – covert to the world but not to USA (see below). The key fact—or, rather, apparent fact — arising from Bogollagama’s little ‘excursion’ is that the team did not get beyond the airport and met GoSL personnel there (if any).

E = Having met the senior SLAF officer referred to in B above on the 24^th June [2018] I was informed that US officers in civilian clothes visited the SLAF HQ in Colombo on one occasion in 2009. He thought it was April but could not be certain.[2] This crucial piece of information suggests that Bogollagama was spinning a tale when he indicated restriction to the airport or, alternatively, that yet another team had arrived in Sri Lanka later in pursuit of renewed US and Western efforts to intervene in favour of the LTTE and the Tamil civilians.

F = These items of information should be set within the context of information provided by Mark Salter in a section within his To End A Civil War (2015) which has the sub-heading: “Last Gasp Norwegian peace efforts.” Here he writes

“towards the end of February reports began to emerge of a Co-Chairs initiative to move civilians trapped in the war zone via the deployment to the northeast coast of US military assets, principally Navy and Air Force craft. Foreign Minister Bogollagama pronounced himself áware’ of the initiative while also underlining the fact that the government was talking to several other friendly countries’ – in particular India – about the options for evacuating civilians. …. Critical to continued Norwegian efforts to achieve a peaceful ending to the conflict was a secret meeting in Kuala Lumpur between Ambassador Tore Hattrem and chief LTTE representative Kumaran Pathmanathan commonly known as ‘KP’. Organised with the support of Basil Rajapaksa, the meeting was also attended by Jon Westborg and Tomas Stangeland on the Norwegian side and V. Rudrakumaran and Jay Maheswaran on the LTTE side (2015: 348, emphasis added).

  Hattrem

G =Whether by design or through carelessness, Salter often does not present the dates of events — a cardinal sin in scholarship. On this occasion too, he does not tell us when precisely the Kuala Lumpur meeting was held. I had hitherto worked within the hypothesis that the USA’s recce team had visited Sri Lanka AFTER the Kuala Lumpur gathering. I am wrong. The information ferreted out by someone in the Sunday Times suggests that the international consultation and scheming centred around KP was after an American assessment team had visited the island. Alternatively, both events were more or less coincident.

H = Jeyaraj’s subsequent discussions with KP reveal quite clearly that Pathmanathan’s focus was directed towards working out a plan to get the LTTE leadership away to an amenable country– with Eritrea, South Africa and East Timor as the favoured nations (Jeyaraj 2011).

I = The various details in the To End a Civil War, the Wikileaks body of US despatches and government documents relating to the Co-Chair Consortium in Sri Lanka show that the lead-role in the Western-power inputs in the latter body lay with Blake (representing the US Secretary of State).[3] In part because of their generous financial aid, the key players in the Co-Chair Consortium (chaired by Mahinda Samarasinghe) were a foursome: Blake, Hattrem and the British and French ambassadors. In effect, the indications are that the Norwegian-role at Kuala Lumpur was as proxy and/or ‘lieutenant’ for USA (a thesis that is being developed by Ishanka Jayathilaka). The four-power combination was thereafter displayed in April 2009 when (Ia) Blake commanded Gotabaya Rajapaksa – circa mid-April 2009 —  to refrain from attacking the Last Redoubt [that is the “No Fire Zone” in his misleading nomenclature]; and (Ib) the Foreign Ministers of Britain, Norway and France hastily assembled and sought entry to Sri Lanka in late April 2009 so as to pressurize the government of Sri Lanka.[4] The moral fervour and determination of this endeavour was etched in David Miliband’s face throughout his stay in Sri Lanka.[5] His demand was rejected point-blank by President Rajapaksa[6] (aided by the quiet backchannel support of India).

J = Incidentally, these stray pieces of information indicate that Bogollagama was providing a misleading spin when he told Dharma-wardana that a “commando team had turned up in Sri Lanka.” So, his tall-tales are now relegated to a footnote status in our inquiries. However, his second public statement in 2017 (in red above) is of much greater weight.

K = Mark the date when an American assessment team seems to have landed in Sri Lanka: at some point in mid-February or around the 20^th/21^st February. At that stage the LTTE still held PTK. Nay more: their fighters had utilised a short-term GoSL ceasefire in early February to launch a highly successful attack which involved the use of explosives to bust the Kalamadukulam reservoir embankment and flood SL Army positions.  At one point the 59^th Division’s 53^rd Battalion was pushed back three kilometres. It was only the presence of reserve battalions that enabled the SL Army to stem this counter-attacking advance.[7] Thus, at this point it was difficult for anyone to conclude that the defeat of the LTTE was around the corner – even though one could reasonably surmise that it was a likely outcome in the longer run.[8]

L = What, then, was the PACOM recce team assessing? We will never gain concrete data about their objectives. We can reasonably surmise that they wished to protect the corralled Tamil civilians and secure their evacuation to Trincomalee as one element in a deeper, complex plot to save the Tiger leadership (with the exception of Pirapaharan and Pottu Amman[9]) who were to be spirited away to Eritrea or South Africa or Timor. That much is clear from KP’s chat with Jeyaraj and the effusive speech from Mike Owens on the 6th May 2009 which Daya Gamage revealed to the world.[10] Here, then, is the conclusive verdict from an impeccable source: “the effect of what was being proposed would have been to keep the LTTE alive politically and possibly militarily” –– the Indian Foreign Minister Shivshankar Menon in response to in 2017 reporter Kelum Bandara’s question on this line of interference (Bandara 2017).

Menon

M= We also know that the American recce team felt that these goals were difficult to secure: in their assessment the situation in Sri Lanka made their goals “a non-permissive exercise”. That incisive line of American military jargon was presented to an American journalist who called in at the embassy in Colombo seeking news about the assessment mission.[11] That summarizing evaluation was guided by the searing experiences of the US Armed Forces when they intervened at Mogadishu in Somalia in October 1993 – experiences which have been deeply seared into the American body politic and is encapsulated in the catch-phrase “Black Hawk Down”.[12]

N = One reason why the exercise was not feasible has been set out by my friend at Point C above: Mahinda and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa did not accede to these ‘requests’ and pressures then; while I have shown via a study of the Wikileaks despatches that two months later in mid-April Gotabhaya blandly accepted Robert Blake’s insistence that the SL Army should cease its advance[13] — though he Gotabhaya would have been well aware that the SL Army would initiate an attack on the LTTE”s remaining territorial space within the week and that the Sri Lankan government was determined to defeat the LTTE before the Indian General elections occurred in mid-May.[14]

O = We know that this sturdy position was enabled by the mutual understandings that were being worked out in quiet backroom meetings between sets of three officials on the side of the Indian government and the Sri Lankan government. It was PK Balachandran who first brought the mechanism to my notice and thus to public notice.   M.K. Narayanan (National Security Advisor), Shivshankar Menon (Foreign Secretary) and Vijay Singh (Defence Secretary) were India’s troika; while Basil Rajapaksa, Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Lalith Weeratunga were Sri Lanka’s threesome. Lalith Weeratunga has recently provided several pertinent details on when these arrangements got moving and how they worked; while Rajiva Wijesinha and Dayan Jayatilleka have supplemented the information with useful commentary.

P = The most critical point, however, has been made by Balachandran. He has told us that the “Congress govt in Delhi was fully with the Lankan objective of annihilating the LTTE and Colombo recognized this” (Balachandran 2015). This reading has been confirmed now in the public engagements of the former Foreign Secretary of India, Shivshankar Menon, in addressing his new book Choices. We can go further and assert that the troika meetings were designed to sustain Sri Lanka’s understandings on this point and to downplay the public charades of the Indian political leaders.[15]

Q= On this basis and from the recent news reports provided by Lalith Weeratunga and Rajiva Wijesinha on how the two sets of troika master-minded Indo-Lak relations behind the scenes, it is evident that a key figure in those mediations was the Indian ambassador in Colombo, namely Alok Prasad. To my mind this raises the possibility that Alok Prasad went into action when the US recce specialists arrived in February 2009 (and again later?) and that India’s hostility scotched this line of American imperial action – gunboat diplomacy in humanitarian attire if ever there was such a thing. Did Prasad speak to Blake at this moment? Or did the Indian ministers in Delhi convey the government’s thoughts to USA via the latter’s ambassadorial office in Delhi?  Will we ever know! I am whistling into the wind.

R = These items of information highlight the remarks with which I ended my previous excursion in this field. The Sunday Times journalist who ferreted the information (reported below) was a real sleuth. Few other reporters seem to have learnt of the presence of US military officials in Sri Lanka on some assessment mission while the mission was ongoing. Nor were many military and air force commanders in the SL armed forces in the know. My well-connected friend hit many blank walls till he received a vital morsel from an SLAF officer. We are still in the dark about whom the US recce team met and whether they discussed the battlefield situation with their own Military Attache in Colombo (Lt Col Lawrence Smith).

Secrecy is not a characteristic of Sri Lankan life. But it is an ingredient in the art of war as well as diplomacy. It does not pay to rub salt into the wounds encountered by Uncle Sam in Sri Lanka in 2009. Ssshhh is still the word.

*** END ***

NEWS ITEMS in SUNDAY TIMES, from The DIPLOMATIC EDITOR, 22 February 2009, entitled “Donor Co-Chairs working out çoalition task force,” http://www.sundaytimes.lk/090222/News/sundaytimesnews_01.html

A Donor-Co-chair-backed humanitarian operation, spearheaded by the United States, to evacuate civilians trapped in the fighting in the Wanni is now taking shape. A high-level team of the United States Pacific Command (US PACOM) from their headquarters in Hawaii is now in Colombo for this purpose. The exercise, The Sunday Times learns, will involve US military assets, including those of the Air Force and the Navy. The purpose will be purely to facilitate the movement of civilians from the north-eastern coast to a ship in the deep seas. This is for transfer to IDP centres or hospitals outside the battle zones. Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama told The Sunday Time he was aware of the intended US led “coalition humanitarian task force” but could not give a date when it would be set up. He said yesterday that the Government was talking to member countries of the Donor Co-chairs on an individual basis.” Mr. Bogollagama added: “we are also talking to several other friendly countries for civilian evacuation.They say they would always be comfortable with the direct involvement of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) carrying their flag with Government approval and supervision.” One such offer has come from India. Their acting Prime Minister Pranab Mukherjee told Lok Sabha (Parliament) in New Delhi on Wednesday that his Government had formally offered assistance including logistic support to evacuate civilians caught up in the battle zone. He said the Sri Lanka Government had accepted the offer based on the fact that it was coming from a “friendly country.” Though the Government has accepted the humanitarian operation in principle, it is not immediately clear when the evacuation exercise will get under way. One of the factors the move hinges on, it is learnt, is the ground situation since the Army has now further intensified its military campaign to regain control of the remaining areas in the Mullaitivu district. Another is the finalisation and co-ordination of logistic details. The initiatives of the Donor Co-chairs, consisting of the United States, Norway, Japan and the European Union, The Sunday Times learnt, has met with some initial difficulties. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has flatly rejected moves to allow the evacuation of civilians in the Mullaitivu district’s smaller areas which it is dominating. However, further contacts are under way. In the light of serious concerns over civilian safety expressed by Donor Co-chairs as well as other countries and continued LTTE refusals, The Sunday Times learns, may force the Government to allow the humanitarian exercise to get under way notwithstanding LTTE objections. However, such a move, highly placed defence sources said yesterday, would have to be after a close review of the ground realities. In the past few days, troops had made more territorial gains. The re-capture of Puthukkudiyiruppu, now the guerrilla nerve centre, was a matter of days, these sources said. Estimates of the number of civilians trapped in the battle zones vary from 125,000 to 75,000. This week there have been more complaints from those working for international agencies of LTTE firing at civilians to prevent them from moving to the newly-created Safety Zone. It lay on a thin stretch of land flanked by a lagoon on one side and the Indian Ocean on the other. Britain to back move against Lanka The British Government has voiced its support for an earlier call by Mexico for a briefing on the situation in Sri Lanka at the UN Security Council. Britain’s UN Ambassador John Sawers has told New York’s Inner City Press that his government was calling for a briefing on Sri Lanka. This was after the return to New York of UN’s humanitarian affairs chief, Sir John Holmes. He ended a visit to Colombo only yesterday. However, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s spokesperson Michelle Montas told reporters at Friday’s noon briefing that Sir John would not be available for a Security Council briefing after his return. He is to travel to Columbia. In Colombo, last Wednesday, the Cabinet rejected for a second time, a move by the British Government to name its former Defence Secretary Des Browne as special envoy to Sri Lanka. Earlier, Mexico’s call for a Security Council briefing on the Sri Lanka situation was shot down by Russia.  The British envoy’s remarks come as Sri Lanka is due to figure at a number of international fora in the coming week. Tomorrow, the European Union’s Foreign Ministers are expected to issue a strong statement on Sri Lanka. On Tuesday, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold hearings on developments in Sri Lanka. The US Government’s annual Human Rights Report is also due to be released in a fortnight.

 

  ***  ***

 EMAIL MEMO from XY, 22 May 2009

I refer to your recent telephone call when you asked me to find out about the presence of US Special Forces in the War Zone during the last days of the LTTE in May 2009. Having spoken to several people who denied any knowledge, I was informed by an air force officer who was serving then, that there were several requests in this regard from high profile US & Indian Officials who were present here during that time to bring in Special Forces to “help” the SL Government, but it was obvious that the real purpose was to rescue Prabakaran. If that had been allowed, we would still be fighting the LTTE.

Fortunately, we had a strong Leader and an equally strong Defense Secretary who had the guts to resist such pressure from US/Indian Officials, whilst accepting other assistance from them to track down and destroy their Floating Armouries etc, which as you know was the turning point in finishing off the LTTE permanently

. *** ***

 SELECT REFERENCES

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Bandara, Kelum 2017  ÜS strived to secure Prabhakaran’s surrender to American troops: Rohitha Bogollagama,”  http://www.dailymirror.lk/article/US-strived-to-secure-Prabhakaran-s-surrender-to-American-troops-Rohitha-Bogollagama-126470.html

Bandara, Kelum 2017 “Military victory over LTTE the first step towards the broader goal of reconciliation Shivshankar Menon,” 1 March 2017, http://www.dailymirror.lk/article/Military-victory-over-LTTE-The-first-step-towards-the-broader-goal-of-reconciliation-Shivshankar-Menon-124642.html

BBC ??  “Black Hawk Down: The Somali battle that changed US policy in Africa”,” http://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-38808175/black-hawk-down-the-somali-battle-that-changed-us-policy-in-africa

Buncombe, Andrew 2009 “Miliband adds voice to Sri Lanka ceasefire calls,”5 July 2009, https://thuppahis.com/2016/07/05/david-milibands-imperious-intervention-in-lanka-left-in-tatters/

 [Clinton, Hillary] 2009 “Hillary Clinton castigates Sri Lanka,” 22 April 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/world/asia/23lanka.html?_r=0

Dharma-wardana, Chandre 2018 “An US Commando Force was at Katunayake in April 2009 prepared for a So-Called ‘Humanitarian ‘Intervention’,” 7 May 2018, https://thuppahis.com/2018/05/07/an-us-commando-force-was-at-katunayake-in-april- 2009-prepared-for-a-so-called-humanitarian-intervention/#more-30266

De Silva-Ranasinghe, Sergei 2010b “Downfall of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam,” South Asia Defence and Strategic Review, May-June 2010, pp. 10-15.

Gamage, Daya 2014 “The American Agenda for Sri Lanka’s National Issues, 1970s-2014,” 5 July 2014, https://thuppahis.com/2014/07/05/the-american-agenda-for-sri-lankas-national-issues-1970s-2014/

Hull, C. Bryson 2009 “Sri Lanka opens eye in the sky on war zone,” 20 April 2009, http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSCOL450259

Hull, C. Bryson & Ranga Sirilal 2009 “Sri Lankan War in Endgame, 100,000 escape rebel zone,” 23 April 2009, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-srilanka-war-idUSTRE53J0IZ20090422

Dayan Jayatilleka 2018  “The Troika and the truth: constructive commentary on Lalith Weeratunga’s testimony,” 11 June 2018, http://www.ft.lk/columns/The-Troika-and-the-truth–constructive-commentary-on-Lalith-Weeratunga-s-testimony/4-656903

Jeyaraj, D. B. S. 2009 “Fraudulent concept of a “fire-free, no-fire, safe zone,” 18 April 2009, http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/343

Jeyaraj, D. B. S. 2009 “Wretched of the Earth break Free of Bondage,” Daily Mirror, 25 April 2009, http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/380.  

Jeyaraj, D. B. S. 2011 “KP’ Speaks Out. An Interview with Former Tiger Chief, Vavuniya: NERDO.

Klaidman, Daniel 2013 “Black Hawk Down’s Long Shadow,” The Daily Beast, https://www.thedailybeast.com/black-hawk-downs-long-shadow?ref=scroll

Mohan, Sulochana Ramiah 2015 “US ready to take Prabhakaran,” …..   8 November 2015, https://www.ceylontoday.lk/90-108791-news-detail-us-naval-ship-was-ready-to-take-prabhakaran.html

Peiris, Gerald H. 2010, “The Doctrine of Responsibility to Protect: Impulses, Implications and Impact,” 30 June 2010, http://www.slguardian.org/2010/06/the-doctrine-of-responsibility-to-protect-impulses-implications-and-impact/  

RFI 2009 “Government ignores French and British calls for ceasefire,” http://www1.rfi.fr/actuen/articles/112/article_3624.asp

Roberts, Michael 2009 “Realities of War,” Frontline May 2009, vol 26/10 … see 2018 re-presentation at  https://thuppahis.com/2018/04/27/a-slashing-critique-of-hillary-clinton-and-the-hr-lobby-in-april-may-2009-realities-of-war/

Roberts, Michael 2014 “Ball-by-Ball through Wikileaks: US Embassy Despatches from Colombo, 2009: ONE,” 27 August 2014, https://thuppahis.com/2014/08/27/ball-by-ball-through-wikileaks-us-embassy-despatches-from-colombo-2009-one/

Roberts, Michael 2015 “Ambassador Blake in Never-Never-Land: Misreading LTTE Capacity in Early 2009,” 26 August 2015, https://thuppahis.com/2015/08/26/ambassador-blake-in-never-never-land-misreading-ltte-capacity-in-early-2009/

Roberts, Michael 2016 “Reuters in Word and Image: Depicting the Penetration of the LTTE’s Last Redoubt, 19-22 April 2009,” 19 March 2016, https://thuppahis.com/2016/03/19/reuters-in-word-and-image-depicting-the-penetration-of-the-lttes-last-redoubt-19-22-april-2009/#more-20190

Roberts, Michael 2016 “Speaking to Gotabaya-I: Plans Afoot in 2009 to Rescue the Tiger Leadership,”  8 March 2016, https://thuppahis.com/2016/03/08/speaking-to-gotabaya-i-plans-afoot-in-2009-to-rescue-the-tiger-leadership/#more-20092

Roberts, Michael 2016 “Saving Talaivar Pirapāharan,” 5 April 2016, https://thuppahis.com/2016/04/06/saving-talaivar-pirapaharan/

Roberts, Michael 2016 “David Miliband’s Imperious Intervention in Lanka left in Tatters,” 5 July 2016, https://thuppahis.com/2016/07/05/david-milibands-imperious-intervention-in-lanka-left-in-tatters/

Roberts, Michael 2018 “The Bogollagama Gem: Thoughts on the Threatening US Spectre in March-May 2009,” 7 May 2018. https://thuppahis.com/2018/05/07/the-bogollagama-gem-thoughts-on-the-threatening-us-spectre-in-march-may-2009/

Salter, Mark 2015 To End a Civil War. Norway’s Peace Engagement in Sri Lanka, London: Hurst & Company.

Sengupta, Somini 2009 “U.S. Faults Sri Lanka on Civilian Woes,” 22 April 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/world/asia/23lanka.html?_r=0

Tammita-Delgoda, S. 2009 “The Casualties of Sri Lanka’s Brutal Civil War,” 16 April 2009, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-casualties-of-sri-lankas-brutal-civil-war-1669280.html

Tammita-Delgoda, S. 2009 “Sri Lanka: The Last Phase in Eelam War IV. From Chundikulam to Pudukulam,” New Delhi: Centre for Land Warfare, Manekshaw Paper No. 13,http://www.claws.in/administrator/uploaded_files/1274263403MP%2022.pdf

Tammita-Delgoda, S. 2014a “Crossing the Lines: Tamils Escapees from the Last Redoubt meet the Army,” 21 September 2014, https://thuppahis.com/wpadmin/post. php?post=13751&action=edit&message=6&postpost=v2

Tammita-Delgoda, S. 2014b “Reading Between the Lines in April 2009: Tammita-Delgoda takes apart Marie Colvin’s jaundiced propaganda article in British newspaper,” 26 September 2014, https://thuppahis.com/2014/09/26/rading-between-the-lines-in-april-2009-tammita-delgoda-takes-apart-marie-colvins-jaundiced-propanda-article-in-british-newspaper/

US Embassy 2014 “Ball-by-Ball through Wikileaks : US Embassy Despatches from Colombo, 2009: ONE,” 27 August 2014, https://thuppahis.com/2014/08/27/ball-by-ball-through-wikileaks-us-embassy-despatches-from-colombo-2009-one/#more-13481

Weeratunga, Lalith 2018 “At the Height of Eelam War IV: Mollifying India via Backdoor threesomes,” 11 June 2018, https://thuppahis.com/2018/06/11/at-the-height-of-eelam-war-iv-mollifying-india-via-backdoor-threesomes/

Wijesinha, Rajiva 2018 “The Personal touch in diplomacy seen within th troika 2008/09… But Then…!!!,” 13 June 2018, https://thuppahis.com/2018/06/13/the-personal-touch-in-diplomacy-seen-within-the-troika-2008-09-but-then/

MISSING ITEM

Menon, Shivshankar 2017 Choices:

**************

[1] The first intimation of the US teams presence came from a Skype chat in 2014(?) with an American reporter who was in Colombo in 2009’—at a time when I was focusing on the SL Army’s penetration of the LTTE”s “Last Redoubt” on 19^th April 2009. The reporter could not recall the precise date when he got wind of the rumour and visited the US embassy (not uncommon this – because time collapses events in one’s memory).

[2] In my own experience it is not uncommon for events to flow into each other.

[3] We must allow for the possibility that the Pentagon pursued lines of activity that did not always mesh with those of the Secy-of-State’s Department

[4] The Norwegian Foreign Minister was not given permission by Sri Lanka.

[5] Several friends have told me that Miliband was responding to pressures from well-organised Tamil groups in his own electoral constituency. I see that as only one factor. In surmise I assert that Miliband was directed by ideology: (A) the two-pronged influence of his father’s involvement in Left-wing politics in UK especially via the New Left Review (which he co-edited); and (B) his Jewish heritage and the manner in which the Tamil intelligentsia’s presentation of their community as persecuted exiles in the tradition of The Exodus (by Leon Uris) resonated with his political leanings.

[6] See Roberts, “David Miliband’s Imperious Intervention in Lanka left in Tatters,” July 2016.

[7] See de Silva-Ranasinghe 2010: 10-11 for details.

[8] If my memory serves me right, about the end of Janaury 2009 President Rajapaksa estimated that it would take another 3-4 months to defeat the LTTE. Events have proved him right – contrasting with Blake’s estimates in January of a prolonged conflict and the possibility of the LTTE’s breakout of the Vanni Pocket to sustain a guerrilla war for many months to come.

[9]  “We should also be prepared to help locate, detain and hand over to Sri Lanka or India Prabhakaran and other senior LTTE leaders should they leave the country” – Blake Despatch 33, Secret, 9 Janaury 2009 (Wikileaks). At the last stages in April/May 2009 when hopes of a successful intervention still prevailed. Pottu Amman’s name was also added to this proviso. It is unlikely that these caveat was ever voiced by  the Norwegians when they negotiated with KP.

[10] See Gamage 2014 and Jeyaraj 2011. For elaboration, see Roberts, “”Saving Talaivar Pirapaharan,” 2016

[11] I received this information during a Skype Chat with this reporter after he had retired and was back in USA.

[12] See http://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-38808175/black-hawk-down-the-somali-battle-that-changed-us-policy-in-africa and Klaidman, “The Lost Lessons of Black Hawk down,” 2013. There is also a book on the topic that I have nor read: viz, Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down. A Story of Modern War.   

[13] While the meetings between the two appear to have been informal and marked by genial greetings as “Bob” and “Gota,” there is little doubt that Blake’s request was a polite command with the weight of US military and international clout behind it.

[14] The latter contention is a surmise based on the further surmise that the LTTE’s grand strategic plan had the Indian elections as a temporal marker that could conceivably produce a federal government that was more dependent on the votes of the Tamilnadu and other southern states.

[15] Thus, on April 24^th 2009 Narayanan and Menon rushed to Colombo on a highly publicized visit to “to press for immediate end to all hostilities” (Sri Lanka Guardian, 24 April 2009). There were one or two other visits of this type in the three previous months of 2009.