This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 8:39 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
The Sri Lankan writer, Dr Sinharaja Tammita-Delgoda, has made an astute analysis of why the Tamil Tigers finally lost the war in Sri Lanka. The Tiger’s leader, Vellupillai Prabakharan, had a choice between taking the local population with him on his retreat and using them as human shields or leaving them in place where some could attack the encroaching army. Prabakharan chose the human shield option, thus ceding clear terriyory from which the troops could operate. I wonder if he is right?
One Response to “Losing a guerrilla war”
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November 4th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
In the time frame you’re talking about, Prabhakaran had no choice. By that time, the civil war had been going on for 25 years, and the government army was becoming increasingly genocidal (i.e., willing to sacrifice civilian lives if necessary), having committed to ending the war as quickly as possible. If he’d left the local population behind, then the army would have cut them off, and Prabhakaran would have lost them completely, and not have had them available as human shields. Using them as human shields was his last desperate choice.
John J. Xenakis
GenerationalDynamics.com