Drive to Open Key Road May End Up as War’s Biggest Battle

All that separates the army from a decisive victory in this country’s civil war is 19 miles of desolate road and one of the world’s fiercest guerrilla armies.

So short a distance, the generals say, never seemed so far. “We are learning the hard way,” said Maj. Gen. Lionel Balagalle, commander of Sri Lankan forces here.

In what is shaping up as the climactic engagement of the 15-year war, about 35,000 government troops are fighting to capture a highway that cuts through the stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The Tigers, recruited from the country’s Tamil-speaking minority, have been battling Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese-speaking majority for a separate homeland in the northern end of this lush tropical island. More than 50,000 people have died in the fighting since 1983.

If the Sri Lankan army succeeds in capturing Kandy-Jaffna Road, it will slice the territory held by the rebels in two and open a land route from the south to Jaffna, one of the country’s largest cities.

The Tigers, whose assassinations and suicide bombings have earned them a worldwide reputation, seem to sense that the stakes are high. They have thrown the bulk of their estimated 5,000 troops into the fight, using mortars and land mines to slow the army’s advance.

“Things have not gone as smoothly as we wanted,” said Ravinatha Aryasinha, a spokesman for the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry.

The casualties--about 1,800 guerrillas and 1,600 government troops have been killed in more than a year of fighting--are among the highest of the war.

The stiff resistance put up by the Tigers has not only embarrassed the Sri Lankan government but forced it to revise its timetable again and again. When the army launched its “Sure of Victory” offensive in May 1997, it predicted that its soldiers would quickly open Kandy-Jaffna Road.

Now, 15 months later and with 19 miles still to go, the generals refuse to set any timetable. “I wouldn’t want to do that,” Balagalle said.

The Tigers promise disaster for the government.

“There will be more bloodshed, and the Sri Lankan army is going to face a lot of problems,” rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran said in a message over the Tigers’ clandestine radio station in May.

The slow progress on the northern offensive comes as the government’s grand strategy for ending the war has suffered several other blows.

Sri Lankan President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, the scion of one of Asia’s most prominent political families, has proposed a sweeping reform of Sri Lanka’s Constitution that would grant a wide measure of autonomy to the Tamil provinces in the north and east. But with only a slim majority in parliament, the People’s Alliance--the coalition Kumaratunga heads--has been unable to push through its package.

“You can’t ram it down the throats of the people,” said Ranil Wickremesinghe, the leader of the United National Party, which many people blame for blocking the reforms.

The other prong of Kumaratunga’s strategy is the rehabilitation of Jaffna, which government forces recaptured from the Tigers in 1995. The government sponsored local elections in January and has promised to put an end to human rights abuses by the military.

The plan to revive Jaffna has suffered setbacks recently. In May, Sarojini Yogeswaran, who was elected mayor of Jaffna in January, was shot to death by gunmen suspected of being linked to the Tigers. The same month, a Tiger suicide bomber killed Brig. Larry Wijeratne, a popular commander.

“People liked the Tigers more than the army,” said Joseph Gnanaprasam, a Tamil shopkeeper in Jaffna.

In June, Kumaratunga ordered censorship of war reporting. On Tuesday, she declared a monthlong state of emergency--effectively postponing provincial elections that were scheduled for this month. Analysts said the reason for the postponement, officially announced a day later, was to avoid having to provide security at the polling booths--which would entail withdrawing troops from the front at a decisive stage in the war.

Despite such measures, even opposition politicians say there is firm national support for the war with the Tigers. And despite the slow going, the military says that its strategy in the fight to open Kandy-Jaffna Road is forcing the Tigers into the open where the army can fight them.

“We will keep fighting until we achieve victory,” Balagalle said.