Arming LTTE against Indian Army was most unfavorable and dangerous: Maj. Gen Gunaratne

[Spectre]

Oh yeah.. Indians were innocent passes by..

You want sources i'll give you your own.. For years trying to deny abetting the most vile kind of terrorism but the thruth cannot be hidden for long

"The first batch of Tigers were trained in Establishment 22 based in Chakrata, Uttarakhand. The second batch, including LTTE intelligence chief Pottu Amman,[43] trained in Himachal Pradesh. Prabakaran visited the first and the second batch of Tamil Tigers to see them training.[44] Eight other batches of LTTE were trained in Tamil Nadu.Thenmozhi Rajaratnam alias Dhanu, who carried out the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and Sivarasan—the key conspirator were among the militants trained by RAW, in Nainital, India.[45]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Tigers_of_Tamil_Eelam#Indian_support

"The camps were held from 1984 in various parts of the country, including Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh, to train the militants in the use of modern arms. The camps were under the control of the Central agencies. However, the Union government claimed that they were meant to train the militants in self-defence. The largest LTTE camp was located at Kumbarapatti in Kolathur."

http://www.thehindu.com/news/nation...mp-was-located-at-kolathur/article6357629.ece

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...-camps-in-Tamil-Nadu/articleshow/12506112.cms

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/970119/plus4.html

LTTE leaders at Sirumalai camp, Tamil Nadu, India in 1984 while they are being trained by RAW (from L to R, weapon carrying is included within brackets)

The LTTE training camp in Kulathur, Salem district, India, where the 16th batch was trained in 1985/6. The photographs were taken by Wasanthan,




There were no civilians left in Jaffna at that time, Civilians fled only the terrorists remained

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/05/world/india-airlifts-aid-to-tamil-rebels.html

Oh wow such love for the Tamils.. What happened to the thousands of them massacred and raped by the IPKF ? Why did the Tamil population turn against their perceived benefactors.. Your head is so much up inside your own hyperbole.. It's nauseating

http://tamilnation.co/indictment/indict050.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffna_hospital_massacre

http://www.firstpost.com/world/indi...-tamil-rebels-and-reaped-whirlwind-13913.html

Learn your own history and crimes before pointing fingers at others

1. You mentioned Punjab and Himachal. Conveniently forget Punjab and provide a wiki link for Himachal. Great!

2. Most of the genuine references are from Tamil Nadhu which I have never contested. Tamils were indeed supporting of those suffering from Sinhalese atrocities.

3. No civilians in Jafna, seems like you have learned tricks from Pakistani propagandists. All the tamils fighting didn't have their women and children in thousands. Do you want me to show pics of civilian victims?

4. IPKF was cleaning up your mess,It was IPKF which gave breather to SL where it regrouped and consolidated but it's useless arguing with brainwashed people. Better to have left SL to collapse from within. If IPKF was so unwanted then why was SL army not fighting IPKF, instead enemy's of SL were ffighting IPKF but this simple logic seems to be beyond your grasp.

5. If India supported brutal tactics of LTTE then it would have never had sent its own soldiers to fight them would it? Does Pakistani Army fight the Lashkars or Hizbul? No! Did Indian army fight Mukti Bahini - No!

 

[kadamba-warrior]

1. You mentioned Punjab and Himachal. Conveniently forget Punjab and provide a wiki link for Himachal. Great!

2. Most of the genuine references are from Tamil Nadhu which I have never contested. Tamils were indeed supporting of those suffering from Sinhalese atrocities.

3. No civilians in Jafna, seems like you have learned tricks from Pakistani propagandists. All the tamils fighting didn't have their women and children in thousands. Do you want me to show pics of civilian victims?

4. IPKF was cleaning up your mess,It was IPKF which gave breather to SL where it regrouped and consolidated but it's useless arguing with brainwashed people. Better to have left SL to collapse from within. If IPKF was so unwanted then why was SL army not fighting IPKF, instead enemy's of SL were ffighting IPKF but this simple logic seems to be beyond your grasp.

5. If India supported brutal tactics of LTTE then it would have never had sent its own soldiers to fight them would it? Does Pakistani Army fight the Lashkars or Hizbul? No! Did Indian army fight Mukti Bahini - No!

Funny how he says the assassination of Rajeev Gandhi by LTTE as a result of bad karma but forgets the assassination of Premadasa, the same dude who supplied the weapons to LTTE even as India fought them (as the OP mentions) by the same guys, mere 2 years later.

The real tragedy is that Sri Lanka, right from their independence, have, for some strange reason, harbored hostile intentions against India one way or the other, when they could easily have maintained neutral, if not cordial, relationship with India.

Sri Lanka chose to host US listening stations (Radio Ceylon) against Indian interests at the heart of cold war, while they had the perfectly understandable/logical option of staying neutral and not fingering a much bigger neighbor.

Even more strangely, it was Sri Lanka that took a conscious decision to needle India in 1971 when it supported Pakistan in the war effort "DIRECTLY against India" way before there was LTTE. That was a direct act of war against India, which the Gandhi of the time chose NOT to ignore and hence consequences!

And then they play victim-card when India chose to hit back.

Sometimes, I wish India takes a leaf out of Chinese play book to build artificial islands all around Sri Lanka to block their a*s in. Besides, India can find enough historic references to support her claims - just the way China does for her 9-fcuking-dash line. And Sri Lanka should have no problem with that since they generally idolize China and her ways of dealing with neighbors!

 

[Nilgiri]

1. You mentioned Punjab and Himachal. Conveniently forget Punjab and provide a wiki link for Himachal. Great!

2. Most of the genuine references are from Tamil Nadhu which I have never contested. Tamils were indeed supporting of those suffering from Sinhalese atrocities.

3. No civilians in Jafna, seems like you have learned tricks from Pakistani propagandists. All the tamils fighting didn't have their women and children in thousands. Do you want me to show pics of civilian victims?

4. IPKF was cleaning up your mess,It was IPKF which gave breather to SL where it regrouped and consolidated but it's useless arguing with brainwashed people. Better to have left SL to collapse from within. If IPKF was so unwanted then why was SL army not fighting IPKF, instead enemy's of SL were ffighting IPKF but this simple logic seems to be beyond your grasp.

5. If India supported brutal tactics of LTTE then it would have never had sent its own soldiers to fight them would it? Does Pakistani Army fight the Lashkars or Hizbul? No! Did Indian army fight Mukti Bahini - No!

I appreciate your posts and they carry a lot of truth and counters to what Gibbs is implying (that LTTE was a total Indian instigation) but India did play its role in expanding LTTE after it got established....especially after the anti-Tamil progroms in 1977. I.G had three main reasons for this: a) the political support she needed from TN under MGR b) SL tacit support given to Pakistan in previous wars c) creation of strong pro-congress voter base/indian client state in northern Sri Lanka should it have successfully split and joined/allied with India (similar to the Cyprus operation by the Turks).

But I personally feel she went about it the wrong way. It should have been a clean Indian intervention right from the beginning. Or nothing at all. Arming local militias like LTTE, no matter how just their cause may have seemed at the time, was the wrong "middle path" thing to do. Go big...or go home etc. But hindsight is 20/20. Her son found that out the hard way....when the LTTE frankenstein came to bite India. She obviously felt the BD model would work in SL, without realising that the situation with regards to the civilian population was not anywhere so severe and that this model falls flat when there is ethnic polarisation and the ones being supported are the minority. Neither did she account for general Tamil population (in TN) to get involved in any large degree beyond tolerating/accepting how their politicians sympathised and goaded the LTTE and its proxies....which created funding and sanctuaries....but no massive personel based transfer.

However Sinhalese nationalists and extremists bear much responsibility for LTTE creation. I don't want to go back to even Solomon Bandranaike time as to the anti-tamil riots and killings that happened (and a lot was against unarmed innocent civilians)...or the ones that happened even under British Raj.

If SL had truly promoted a federalist bilingual/bi-ethnic charter...much of the LTTE ignition would never have even started. They would have been a fringe group at best...probably fully extremist-Christian based to be honest since the dharmic links between the Hindu Tamils and Buddhist Sinhala would have overcome the few pockets of bloody history.

Anyway its a chapter I do not wish to dig up again...given sinhala and tamil healing is starting again and SL has made a bi-ethnic framework for its national identity now, having learned from the terrible mistakes from before. It will take a long time for the effects to fully recede.

 

[Taygibay]

So everybody tried to use the LTTE for profit and everybody got bit in return
and only had to work harder to get rid of them in the end? Seems fair enough!

Sad but fair! Thanks for those posts Anant_S, my good mate, Tay.

 

[Indiran Chandiran]

1. You mentioned Punjab and Himachal. Conveniently forget Punjab and provide a wiki link for Himachal. Great!

2. Most of the genuine references are from Tamil Nadhu which I have never contested. Tamils were indeed supporting of those suffering from Sinhalese atrocities.

3. No civilians in Jafna, seems like you have learned tricks from Pakistani propagandists. All the tamils fighting didn't have their women and children in thousands. Do you want me to show pics of civilian victims?

4. IPKF was cleaning up your mess,It was IPKF which gave breather to SL where it regrouped and consolidated but it's useless arguing with brainwashed people. Better to have left SL to collapse from within. If IPKF was so unwanted then why was SL army not fighting IPKF, instead enemy's of SL were ffighting IPKF but this simple logic seems to be beyond your grasp.

5. If India supported brutal tactics of LTTE then it would have never had sent its own soldiers to fight them would it? Does Pakistani Army fight the Lashkars or Hizbul? No! Did Indian army fight Mukti Bahini - No!

A brief backdrop to the events as quoted by @Spectre & a rather selective quoting from your country's tumultuous Sinhalese - Tamil relations post independence @Gibbs .

I'd merely add to what the two of you didn't mention.The Nehru Bandaranaike pact under which India took back a significant no of Tamil plantation workers during the 50's post their disenfranchisement & the stripping away of their citizenship immediately after independence , the incessant promptings by Nehru to Bandaranaike to uphold the Tamils claim to equal rights as equal citizens at a time when Sinhalese chauvinism started rearing its ugly head , the adoption of Buddhism as the state religion , de recognition of Tamil as an official language prompted by the SLFP resulting in the assassination of Solomon Bandaranaike ( by a Buddhist monk of all possible candidates for not "Sinhalising "Sri Lankan society far enough ) & a further tilt towards appeasement of the ultra right Sinhalese demands under his widow Sirimavo Bandarnaike coupled with nationalization , apart from thr regular anti Tamil pogroms through out the 50's & 60's further alienating the Tamils- none of which provoked any severe reaction in India.

The decision to get involved in the murky Sinhalese Tamil politics goes to a singular act of misjudgement by the Sri Lankan government & that is opening up Sri Lankan airwaves to VoA in the early 1970's under the prime minister ship of Junius Jayawardemne.

Do remember this was at the height of the Cold War where Ms Gandhi ( known for her paranoia & antipathy towards the US which btw was reciprocated by the Nixon administration ) saw this act as the final straw that broke the proverbial back of thecamel ( pls add the partisan role played by the Sri Lankans during the 1971 war wherein Western Pak warships & planes on their way to what was then East Pakistan sought & received fuel & other supplies which only ended after being duly warned of suitable action by Ms.Gandhi's government , etc .)


The assassination of Mayor Alfred Durapiah by Prabhakaran & others , condoned by moderate & extreme Tamils in Jaffna , for the dodgy role played by Durappiah signified the beginning of armed Tamil militancy .This presented India with an opportunity on a platter to involve itself in the internal matters of Sri Lanka .


The rest has been catalogues here by @Spectre & @Gibbs as well as plenty of sources online .

Ironically , Sri Lanka had the highest rate of literacy & the highest GDP amongst all the newly independent nations in Asia once under British rule .The way the SL Sinhalese leaders mishandled the Sinhalese Tamil equation prompted an aside from the great Lee Kuan Yew - it's a sad day that the ancient name of this island Serendip which lent itself to the English lexicon should be a land of chaos , misery & sorrow .( P .S - I write from memory .So, please excuse any error in the quotation or in the chronology of events .To the best of my knowledge they are minor.)

 

[Nilgiri]

A brief backdrop to the events as quoted by @Spectre & a rather selective quoting from your country's tumultuous Sinhalese - Tamil relations post independence @Gibbs .

I'd merely add to what the two of you didn't mention.The Nehru Bandaranaike pact under which India took back a significant no of Tamil plantation workers during the 50's post their disenfranchisement & the stripping away of their citizenship immediately after independence , the incessant promptings by Nehru to Bandaranaike to uphold the Tamils claim to equal rights as equal citizens at a time when Sinhalese chauvinism started rearing its ugly head , the adoption of Buddhism as the state religion , de recognition of Tamil as an official language prompted by the SLFP resulting in the assassination of Solomon Bandaranaike ( by a Buddhist monk of all possible candidates for not "Sinhalising "Sri Lankan society far enough ) & a further tilt towards appeasement of the ultra right Sinhalese demands under his widow Sirimavo Bandarnaike coupled with nationalization , apart from thr regular anti Tamil pogroms through out the 50's & 60's further alienating the Tamils- none of which provoked any severe reaction in India.

The decision to get involved in the murky Sinhalese Tamil politics goes to a singular act of misjudgement by the Sri Lankan government & that is opening up Sri Lankan airwaves to VoA in the early 1970's under the prime minister ship of Junius Jayawardemne.

Do remember this was at the height of the Cold War where Ms Gandhi ( known for her paranoia & antipathy towards the US which btw was reciprocated by the Nixon administration ) saw this act as the final straw that broke the proverbial back of thecamel ( pls add the partisan role played by the Sri Lankans during the 1971 war wherein Western Pak warships & planes on their way to what was then East Pakistan sought & received fuel & other supplies which only ended after being duly warned of suitable action by Ms.Gandhi's government , etc .)


The assassination of Mayor Alfred Durapiah by Prabhakaran & others , condoned by moderate & extreme Tamils in Jaffna , for the dodgy role played by Durappiah signified the beginning of armed Tamil militancy .This presented India with an opportunity on a platter to involve itself in the internal matters of Sri Lanka .


The rest has been catalogues here by @Spectre & @Gibbs as well as plenty of sources online .

Ironically , Sri Lanka had the highest rate of literacy & the highest GDP amongst all the newly independent nations in Asia once under British rule .The way the SL Sinhalese leaders mishandled the Sinhalese Tamil equation prompted an aside from the great Lee Kuan Yew - it's a sad day that the ancient name of this island Serendip which lent itself to the English lexicon should be a land of chaos , misery & sorrow .( P .S - I write from memory .So, please excuse any error in the quotation or in the chronology of events .To the best of my knowledge they are minor.)

Thanks for expanding the stuff I was hinting/summarising.

 

[Levina]

Tamils themselves.. But it was not that simple, Cold war and Tamil supremacist politics emanating from Tamil Nadu added fuel to the fire

Agreed.
LTTE had good relations with likes of MK.Karunanidhi but that's all.

Btw did you forget that it was our forces which wrested control of the JAFFNA Peninsula from LTTE rule, something that your army had then tried and failed to achieve for several years.The IPKF lost around 214 soldiers in that operation called op pawan.
Lets also not forget that your govt had entered into a secret deal with the LTTE that culminated in a ceasefire while our forces continued to fight LTTE.
Come 1989, your army even provided arms to LTTE. Was that not unethical?
So you should also stop preaching!
Had Rajiv Gandhi not been defeated in the elections, IPKF would have achieved what it was supposed to.

I wish RAW had not taken the JAFFNA univ bait. That was a disaster.

 

[anant_s]

So everybody tried to use the LTTE for profit and everybody got bit in return
and only had to work harder to get rid of them in the end? Seems fair enough!

Irrespective of who created whom and who supported whom, all three were killed by each others bullets.

The root cause of problem of Tamil Sinhalese ethnicity and demand for autonomy/homeland was never solved.
& in the end, you ask yourself a question, Was all the blood shed over the issue, worth it?

 

[VivasvatManu]

A brief backdrop to the events as quoted by @Spectre & a rather selective quoting from your country's tumultuous Sinhalese - Tamil relations post independence @Gibbs .

I'd merely add to what the two of you didn't mention.The Nehru Bandaranaike pact under which India took back a significant no of Tamil plantation workers during the 50's post their disenfranchisement & the stripping away of their citizenship immediately after independence , the incessant promptings by Nehru to Bandaranaike to uphold the Tamils claim to equal rights as equal citizens at a time when Sinhalese chauvinism started rearing its ugly head , the adoption of Buddhism as the state religion , de recognition of Tamil as an official language prompted by the SLFP resulting in the assassination of Solomon Bandaranaike ( by a Buddhist monk of all possible candidates for not "Sinhalising "Sri Lankan society far enough ) & a further tilt towards appeasement of the ultra right Sinhalese demands under his widow Sirimavo Bandarnaike coupled with nationalization , apart from thr regular anti Tamil pogroms through out the 50's & 60's further alienating the Tamils- none of which provoked any severe reaction in India.

The decision to get involved in the murky Sinhalese Tamil politics goes to a singular act of misjudgement by the Sri Lankan government & that is opening up Sri Lankan airwaves to VoA in the early 1970's under the prime minister ship of Junius Jayawardemne.

Do remember this was at the height of the Cold War where Ms Gandhi ( known for her paranoia & antipathy towards the US which btw was reciprocated by the Nixon administration ) saw this act as the final straw that broke the proverbial back of thecamel ( pls add the partisan role played by the Sri Lankans during the 1971 war wherein Western Pak warships & planes on their way to what was then East Pakistan sought & received fuel & other supplies which only ended after being duly warned of suitable action by Ms.Gandhi's government , etc .)

The assassination of Mayor Alfred Durapiah by Prabhakaran & others , condoned by moderate & extreme Tamils in Jaffna , for the dodgy role played by Durappiah signified the beginning of armed Tamil militancy .This presented India with an opportunity on a platter to involve itself in the internal matters of Sri Lanka .

The rest has been catalogues here by @Spectre & @Gibbs as well as plenty of sources online .

Ironically , Sri Lanka had the highest rate of literacy & the highest GDP amongst all the newly independent nations in Asia once under British rule .The way the SL Sinhalese leaders mishandled the Sinhalese Tamil equation prompted an aside from the great Lee Kuan Yew - it's a sad day that the ancient name of this island Serendip which lent itself to the English lexicon should be a land of chaos , misery & sorrow .( P .S - I write from memory .So, please excuse any error in the quotation or in the chronology of events .To the best of my knowledge they are minor.)

Quality post. You'r name suggest a mallu, are you one ?

 

[Indiran Chandiran]

Quality post. You'r name suggest a mallu, are you one ?

Thanks for your compliment .Nope.Title taken from a 1990 Tamil movie starring my Favourite actor Kamal Hassan.I'm not a Tamil too.

 

[Tshering22]

Interesting never knew Sri Lanka had armed ltte to fight Indian peacekeeper..I knew ltte fought their mentor/creator with whatever they got from India and collected from eleswhere.

LTTE was playing sides to get the best for itself as an entity.

Not many Indians also knew this since all new in those days was censored and a state secret under the Nehru dynasty.

However, today with freer access to media we get to see this type of info declassified.

He released a book on his experiences as an Army officer, Indian media is just highlighting certain parts of it's memoirs attributed to the IPKF

Every single thing what was mentioned is justifiable

Not much can be done about the past but considered as a tragedy.

However, the present is here for us and the future is there waiting for it all.

SL is a sensible country with an intellectually- mature population. The war has had a profound impact on both India and SL.

Let this serve as a memory to our generations about what needless wars can cause.

 

[my2cents]

Interesting never knew Sri Lanka had armed ltte to fight Indian peacekeeper..I knew ltte fought their mentor/creator with whatever they got from India and collected from eleswhere.

I didn't know that either. I was under the impression that LTTE was the common enemy of IPKF and Sri Lankan govt.

 

[Tshering22]

LTTE was a vile organization led by a megalomaniac who didn't give a damn about who he killed, whether they be military or civilian, Sinhala or Tamil. Nevertheless, it was an impressive organization in tactics, discipline, fund raising, etc. Many other liberation movements the world over copied their techniques, including the use of suicide bombers.

You do know that a lot of it was funded by radical churches in the west and that this 'marxist-leninist' cover was used to disguise the religious affiliations, right?

I was surprised when I read how various churches were involved in funding and fuelling the bloodshed in Lanka.

Do check up on them.

 

[my2cents]

Not sure about Pakistani's but every single Lankan is quite aware of what happened in their country, Including the Premadasa regime arming the LTTE for us it's not a grand revelation, It's the Lankans that suffered immensely through 30 years of bloodshed due to Indian architectured terrorism, so we very well know every single aspect of it, No need for outsiders to lecture us on our own recent history.. So please keep your condescension to yourself

In hindsight do you think it was a wise decision on the part of Sri Lankan govt. to allow IPKF into your island?? I know your answer but still want to know your opinion.

 

[wiseone2]

Thanks for your compliment .Nope.Title taken from a 1990 Tamil movie starring my Favourite actor Kamal Hassan.I'm not a Tamil too.

it was a hilarous movie

In hindsight do you think it was a wise decision on the part of Sri Lankan govt. to allow IPKF into your island?? I know your answer but still want to know your opinion.

did they have a choice on the IPKF ??