Sri Lanka Rebels Close In on Key Northern City

A stunning string of victories by Sri Lanka’s Tamil rebels appears to have brought Asia’s longest-running war to a decisive moment.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a ruthless guerrilla army fighting for independence for a portion of the island nation, are on the brink of the biggest triumph in their 17-year struggle.

Tiger troops advanced Thursday to the outskirts of Jaffna, the Tamil minority’s cultural capital on the northern tip of the island, and hemmed in about 40,000 Sri Lankan troops holding the city.

Since overrunning a key government base two weeks ago, the Tigers have shown no signs of slowing down. Earlier this week, they claimed to have captured a seven-mile stretch of road outside Jaffna, opening a potential supply route for a final push to seize the city.

The Tigers’ battlefield successes have shocked the Sri Lankan people and prompted the country’s leaders to enact a series of measures to stifle dissent and kick-start the war effort. On Thursday, Sri Lankan officials began seizing property and cars in the name of the war effort and extended domestic press censorship to the foreign media.

Yet some Sri Lankans said Thursday that the new measures only reinforced their sense that the government was losing control. They fear that the Tigers will soon capture Jaffna--and win the war. Sri Lanka would be split apart.

“This is the worst crisis the country has ever faced,” Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, director of Sri Lanka’s private Center for Policy Alternatives, said by telephone. “The Tigers have gained the upper hand politically and militarily. I don’t know if the government can take it back.”

The rebel group launched its struggle for a Tamil homeland in 1983. The Tamils, a predominantly Hindu people who constitute less than 20% of Sri Lanka’s population, have long complained of discrimination at the hands of the country’s Buddhist Sinhalese majority.

More than 60,000 people have died in the civil war. The Tigers, notorious for their suicide bombers, have been declared a terrorist group by the U.S. government.

The current crisis began last month when Tiger troops launched an offensive, dubbed Unceasing Waves III, to take back Jaffna from government forces. Sri Lankan troops had held the nation’s second-largest city since 1995.

The fresh offensive came after the Tigers routed government forces in northern Sri Lanka in November, when the guerrillas recaptured in one week territory that had cost the government two years and thousands of lives to take. In that battle, in the region known as the Wanni, Sri Lankan troops panicked and ran.

The Tigers already control most of the eastern and northern areas of the island, which sits off India’s southeastern coast. Only Jaffna and the cities of Batticaloa and Trincomalee remain in government hands.

The latest offensive has rolled forward with striking success. On April 22, the Tigers overran Elephant Pass, the thin strip of land that connects the Jaffna peninsula to the rest of the island.

The victory marked another humiliation for the Sri Lankan army, as the outnumbered Tigers forced about 10,000 troops to pull back. Despite several warnings that the offensive was imminent, most of the country’s top leadership, including President Chandrika Kumaratunga, was out of the country.

Last weekend, the Tigers overran the Palali military camp. Now, the Tigers are just a few miles beyond artillery range of the Kilali military base--a fortress and airfield guarding the entrance to Jaffna. On Thursday, Sri Lankan leaders said their troops were holding a main defense line about 15 miles south of Jaffna.

Many Sri Lankans fear that a horrible battle is at hand. The city is surrounded on three sides by water. Neither army is known for taking many prisoners--and Tiger guerrillas often swallow cyanide if they are left wounded on the battlefield. In 1995, when the Tigers captured Batticaloa for a time, they reportedly executed 600 police officers.

“Many soldiers are going to die,” said Rohan Gunaratna, a Sri Lankan expert on the conflict and a professor at St. Andrews University in Scotland. “Because the soldiers cannot retreat and will die if they are captured, they will be forced to stand and fight.”

Gunaratna said the Tigers are militarily stronger than ever: better trained, better armed and better motivated than in the past. He predicted that they will retake Jaffna, negating the only military achievement of the government in the past five years. If the Tigers prevail, they will be able to consolidate their control over their slice of the island.

“The Tigers can now take territory and hold it--which they couldn’t do before,” Gunaratna said. “More and more, it will be like two countries fighting each other.”

Sri Lanka’s democratically elected leaders have taken radical steps in the last several days to turn the battle around. Kumaratunga placed the country on a “war footing,” diverted money from development projects and sought help from foreign countries.

On Thursday, Sri Lankan troops began seizing trucks for the war effort, and government leaders said they were prepared to break up strikes and close down newspapers. The government restored long-dormant diplomatic relations with Israel in the hopes of gaining military help. And officials told foreign reporters that they would have to submit dispatches for prior approval.

“Our aim is to see that news reports going out of Colombo [the capital] are balanced and carry our version as well,” chief government censor Ariya Rubasinghe said, according to Associated Press.

The United National Party, the country’s main opposition party, said the government was curbing civil liberties to cover up its own disasters.

“These measures are taken only to keep the truth from the people,” the UNP said in a statement.

Some Sri Lankans said the recent string of military disasters had seriously eroded the public’s confidence in Kumaratunga, who was reelected in December. And they fear that the war has been lost.

“The people are shaken,” said Sharon Xavier, a lawyer in Colombo. “Things have never been this bad.

“Middle-class people, professional people, people in the villages--they are all saying: ‘Oh my God, what is happening?’ ”