Ex-fighters recount how Ananthapuram battle spelled Prabhakaran’s doom, LTTE’s rout

By now it is widely known that the LTTE was finished as a fighting force after the Sri Lankan military’s merciless assault on Ananthapuram in Mullaitivu district left several veteran Tiger commanders dead or incapacitated, besides seriously denting the Tigers’ armoury.

7 survivors recount bloodbath

Hundreds of LTTE fighters perished, unable to challenge the vastly superior and lethal firepower of the military, forcing the once never-say-die insurgent outfit to disintegrate. Six weeks later, Prabhakaran was killed, and a whopping 12,000 guerrillas surrendered, ending a quarter century of one of the world’s bloodiest insurgencies.

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Now, the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP), a non-profit group seeking accountability in Sri Lanka, has come out with a fairly exhaustive report on the Ananthapuram battle after speaking to seven ex-fighters who miraculously survived the bloodbath but with physical and mental scars.

The ITJP report alleges the Lankan military massacred hundreds of severely wounded LTTE fighters and, knowing the significance of vanquishing the LTTE at Ananthapuram, used cluster munitions, white phosphorus, and other unidentified weapons on them.

The investigative report makes two serious allegations: One, when the military overran Ananthapuram, it massacred hundreds of severely wounded, immobile and almost dying LTTE fighters while capturing an LTTE-trained medic who later disappeared. Two, the military, knowing the significance of vanquishing the LTTE at Ananthapuram, used cluster munitions, white phosphorus, and other unidentified weapons, causing extensive burns, respiratory distress, partial loss of vision, and widespread fragmentation and blast effects.

Internal rift, commander change

It also quoted the survivors as saying that the relentless military offensive from the air and on the ground and the LTTE’s inability to resist effectively led to frayed tempers among junior and senior fighters as well as among senior Tiger commanders, forcing the LTTE to change the area’s top battle commander.

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A reading of the report also shows that some of the shameful tactics of the military were used earlier by the LTTE when it hunted down rival Tamils, militants and moderates, as it tried to stamp its leadership on the Tamil armed struggle.

Ananthapuram: a miscalculated front

Ananthapuram village is four kilometres northeast of Puthukkudiyiruppu in Mullaitivu, the same district where Prabhakaran was killed on May 19, 2009.

Once the military seized the northern town of Kilinochchi, the LTTE’s de facto capital, in January 2009, Prabhakaran, according to a survivor quoted in the report, announced that Ananthapuram should be “the final point to win or lose the war”. It was believed that the steadily retreating LTTE would regroup and launch a counter-offensive from Ananthapuram. It later turned out to be a grossly inaccurate military reading of what was to come.

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LTTE fighters quickly built trenches and used mechanical excavators to bury a dozen shipping containers in deep bunkers, which were then fortified. With electricity supplied by generators, these became the LTTE’s new command centre. A large amount of heavy weapons were buried for use later. To ensure Prabhakaran’s safety, he was ringed by five concentric circles of security.

The Tigers’ superior knowledge of the topography only provided a slim advantage. Such was the unrelenting advance and artillery attacks by the military that the LTTE could not lay landmines to slow down the soldiers.

Ill-equipped LTTE vs Lankan military

The military used overwhelming fire from heavy machine guns, cannons, and rocket-propelled grenades. Fighter jets, guided by surveillance drones, carried out multiple attacks on what came to be known as the Ananthapuram ‘box’.

In contrast, LTTE fighters were armed with mostly AK-47s, light machine guns and hand grenades, as much of the heavy artillery had been left behind during earlier hurried withdrawals. Fresh military supplies to the LTTE had ceased weeks earlier after the military bombed and sank LTTE supply ships at sea.

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Naturally, the defensive margin around Ananthapuram kept shrinking. Besides territory, the LTTE lost control of major roads. Evacuation of the wounded, whose numbers steadily rose, became extremely difficult and was possible only at night when drones did not operate.

To punish the LTTE further, the military and air force shelled and bombed medical facilities of all kinds even in designated ‘No Fire Zones’, causing a severe strain on medical supplies. If all this wasn’t enough, many of the LTTE fighters were new recruits hurriedly pushed into Ananthapuram.

Chemical warfare on injured cadres

When it became clear that Prabhakaran’s earlier fiat to make Ananthapuram his base for a final pushback was not succeeding, senior commanders persuaded him to leave the area. Amid heavy fighting, the LTTE leader escaped from there on March 26. At that time, he may not even have known that he had less than two months to live.

The LTTE survivors told the ITJP that the situation in Ananthapuram became extremely precarious. The shrunken Tiger zone now was home to around 800 cadres, of whom about half were fairly seriously or very seriously injured. Many of the injured commanders were summoned to fight again. Besides the lack of ammunition, starvation haunted the fighters.

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Worse, unrecognised chemical weapons were used by the Sri Lankan forces. One caused breathing difficulties, causing some of the cadres to collapse. It also interfered with their vision. Another bomb delivered smoke which burned its victims in a way different to the usual shelling.

Then, there was a smoke bomb which, once it came into contact with air, caused skin blisters “that swelled over several hours into huge water-filled balloons and then burst, leaving cadres too injured to fight”. Another explosive sucked up all the oxygen in a roughly 50-meter radius. “We had many LTTE cadres die suddenly in small groups without any of the bodies having any wounds.”

‘Demoralised cadres begged for death’

Everything caused trust to fray at the top of the LTTE command structure. Junior commanders reportedly questioned senior commander Bhanu (Sivanandan Somasekaran)’s lack of pushback against the military. Tension arose between Bhanu and his second-in-command. Eventually, Bhanu was replaced even as fighting raged.

The LTTE lost or abandoned around 90 per cent of its last stocks of weaponry and ammunition in Ananthapuram. To most LTTE fighters, it was clear that the long battle for Tamil Eelam was nearing a gory end. That happened formally when Prabhakaran was killed on May 19.

Left with no choice, the remaining LTTE fighters decided to somehow get out of Ananthapuram. Chaos and dysfunction set in among cadres. When the news of withdrawal was conveyed to the worst wounded fighters, who had become mostly immobile, “most … begged to be shot or asked for cyanide capsules”.

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None of the wounded survived when Ananthapuram fell to the military. Although none could fight any more, they were all slaughtered. Photographs released to the media showed burning shipping containers. From his new lair, Prabhakaran continued to call for resistance. The LTTE lost or abandoned around 90 per cent of its last stocks of weaponry and ammunition in Ananthapuram. To most LTTE fighters it was clear that the long battle for Tamil Eelam was nearing a gory end. That happened formally when Prabhakaran was killed on May 19.

How LTTE eliminated Tamil rivals

The ITJP report makes some serious allegations against the military and its top command vis-à-vis the mass killings in Ananthapuram even after it became clear that the Tigers had ceased to be a fighting force and a large mass of its bedridden survivors were barely living.

While the report doesn’t say, it is the bitter truth that the LTTE killed its real and perceived Tamil rivals precisely in the same gory manner. When it cracked down on the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) in April-May 1986, LTTE gunmen cut down even TELO cadres who were bedridden. Many others were chased, caught, and burnt to death on the streets as a horrified Jaffna watched. A few were tied to the back of jeeps and driven through the roads until the bodies splintered.

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Earlier, when the LTTE Jaffna military commander, Kittu (Sathasivam Krishnakumar), came under attack in March, LTTE guerrillas barged into their makeshift jails and shot dead dozens of Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) prisoners. Tamil political leaders who posed no threat to the LTTE were assassinated in cold blood simply because they thought differently. All this happened when the LTTE was confident of a final military victory.

A strategic flaw, a historical blunder

Of course, the LTTE’s macabre ruthlessness is no justification for what the Sri Lankan state did. But it weakens the case of those who seek justice for the military’s victims while glossing over what all the LTTE did.

Worse, Ananthapuram proved that the LTTE’s military strategy, despite earlier successes, seriously underestimated its foe in Colombo. One can also never forget that Mahinda Rajapaksa, who presided over the LTTE’s rout, took power thanks to a grave political miscalculation by Prabhakaran during the 2005 presidential election. Shockingly, the LTTE’s fiat to Tamils in its territory to boycott elections ended up putting in place a Sinhalese hardliner as president who ended up decimating the Tigers for good.