JAFFNA
Bloodbath at Mullaitivu
OVER 1,400 Sri Lankan soldiers are dead or missing after the Tigers overran an isolated Army camp at Mullaitivu, 175 miles north-east of Colombo on 17 July, in the biggest battle of the 13-year civil war.
Fewer than 40 soldiers survived the Operation Oyatha Alaigal (Endless Waves) as thousands of guerrillas reduced the 4 km camp to rubble in a ten-day battle. Survivors told how the LTTE removed tractor-loads of arms and ammunition, worth an estimated $20 million including two 122 MM artillery pieces and 1,000 shells.
Military rescue attempts were hampered by Mullaitivu’s isolated position surrounded by miles of Tiger-controlled jungles. Over 40 soldiers died when a Tiger suicide squad sank a Navy patrol boat on 19 July as Sri Lankan troops battled to secure a beachhead near the beleaguered base. Another 22 of the elite Special Forces were killed in a mortar strike on a landing craft. The Tigers admit to over 290 cadre killed.
Ten days later government forces finally regained control but there was little left of the base and it has been abandoned. Deputy Defence Minister Gen. Ratwatte’s absence at a parliamentary debate on the debacle incensed government and opposition MPs alike while press censorship kept casualty figures out of the papers and the country in the dark say angry politicians.
In truth, Mullaitivu was a disaster waiting to happen, a vulnerable outpost miles beyond the military’s Forward Defence Line. The Tigers’ withdrawal from Jaffna may have lulled government strategists into a false sense of security instead of realising it freed thousands of Tiger cadre for other targets. Operation Endless Waves as its name suggests defied conventional Western military wisdom with a cold-blooded “human wave” offensive.
Mullaitivu’s destruction allows LTTE leader Prabhakaran to protect his headquarters Base 1-4 in a new phase of Vanni jungle fighting and to threaten major food supplies to Jaffna with a new Sea Tiger base a few miles north of the camp’s smouldering ruins.
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