The Pirabakaran Phenomenon Part 3 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part3.

htm

The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon

Part 3

Sachi Sri Kantha

[23 May 2001]

Learning from Mistakes

If there is one attribute which consistently has helped Pirabhakaran
in his climb to success, one can say that he possesses the sixth sense
in learning from the mistakes of self and rivals, so as to switch them
into benefits for his group. Legendary chess champions and other
great sportsmen like Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan were
blessed with this skill. There is no disagreement that during the past
two decades, Pirabhakaran has made a few mistakes. He himself has
acknowledged openly to a couple of these. Before I present
Pirabhakaran’s acknowledged mistake, I wish to share some general
thoughts on mistakes.

No sane human can brag that he or she is immune from mistake in

his or her life. This is particularly true for leaders. A true military
leader learns from his mistakes before it becomes costlier in terms
of lives and limbs. This learning from the mistake is what
contributes to the resilience and what makes or breaks a leader’s
hold on his followers. On mistakes and leadership, the thoughts of
Isoroku Yamamoto, the legendary Admiral who led Japan to her
early military successes in the Second World War, is worth to
ponder.
“A man of real purpose puts his faith in himself always.
Sometimes he refuses even to put his faith in the gods. So from
time to time he falls into error. This was often true of Lincoln.
But that doesn’t detract from his greatness. A man isn’t a god.
Committing errors is part of his attraction as a human being; it
inspires a feeling of warmth toward him, and so admiration
and devotion are aroused. In this sense, Lincoln was a very
human man. Without this quality, one can’t lead others. Only
if people have this quality can they forgive each other’s
mistakes and help each other.”
[H.Agawa - The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the
Imperial Navy,

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Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1990 printing, p.85]

As an aside, I note that my academic lineage tangentially links to

Admiral Yamamoto, via Professor Osamu Hayaishi, who was my
mentor at the Osaka Bioscience Institute. Professor Hayaishi (now
81, and still active) is one of the eminent, internationally
recognized biochemists of our times. After graduating from the
Osaka University School of Medicine in 1942, he served as a rookie
medical officer in the Japanese Navy for three years. During the
four years I was a member of his research group, I always
appreciated his inquisitiveness in finding something to learn from
the mistakes made in experiments. He felt more happy when we
reported the mistakes we made in experiments, than when we
reported ‘good results’. Little by little, I also grasped the value of
learning from mistakes and I have a feel that Admiral Yamamoto’s
thoughts on mistakes and leadership were passed to me by
Professor Hayaishi. If one accepts the wisdom, ‘To err is human’,
then success is blessed for those who learn from their mistakes, by
recognizing their mistakes first. Politicians are the last breed
everywhere to acknowledge their mistakes and Sri Lankan
politicians are no exceptions. Has Chandrika Kumaratunga ever
acknowledged until now that her 1994 election pledge to abolish
the executive presidency was a mistake?

At least three causes can be attributed to any mistake; namely,

inexperience, incompetence and vanity. Also, self protection (or in
the case of a leader, protection of his group from adversaries) can
be a fourth vital cause for mistakes. Children and teenages make
mistake mainly due to inexperience. That’s why they receive
guidance from elders (parents and teachers) in the society. Adults
make mistake mainly due to incompetence and vanity.

A leader whose mistakes result from vanity can be expected to lose

his or her leadership status sooner than later. Amirthalingam’s
tactical mistakes between 1977 and 1983 in his deals with the then
ruling UNP, as well as India’s Intelligence-wallahs, propelled the
next generation of Eelam Tamils into the leadership stakes. Here is
an example of how Pirabhakaran gained from the mistakes of his
rivals (Uma Maheswaran and Sri Sabaratnam) for the Eelam
leadership in mid 1980s, while living in Madras. This was in
relation to the bond he came to develop with MGR, who was then
the popular and powerful Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. The
following excerpt is from Narayan Swamy’s book, Tigers of Lanka.
“...Nobody could surmise what their relationship was like. ‘It
was some chemistry’, said Panrutti S.Ramachandran, MGR’s

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hatchet man on Sri Lanka. And the relationship lasted almost

until MGR’s death in December 1987, even after the IPKF
cracked down on the LTTE. Others in Madras thought MGR
saw in Prabhakaran the replica of the big screen hero that he
himself was, fighting for a just cause. But there were two other
factors to the MGR-Prabhakaran bonhomie. And they had to
do with TELO supremo Sri Sabarattinam and PLOT’s Uma.
“Sri, in contrast to Prabhakaran, moved close to Karunanidhi,
hailing him and privately rebuking MGR. His belief that TELO
was New Delhi’s favourite and so could get away with murder
possibly led him to commit this political sacrilege. It was also
at Sri’s initiative that he, Pathmanabha and Balakumar called
on Karunanidhi after the formation of the ENLF in April
1984.
“Uma, on the other hand, began as a MGR favourite. They
were so close at one point after the 1983 riots that MGR
would publicly put his arms over Uma’s shoulders while
talking to him, as if they were long lost chums. But Uma fell
out because of his close links with S.D.Somasundaram, an
AIADMK leader who by the middle of 1984 had rebelled
against MGR. Uma disregarded advice from colleagues that he
should avoid getting involved in Tamil Nadu politics and
maintain a distance from Karunanidhi. Uma’s aversion to
Mohan Das, the police officer, also proved to be his undoing.
The Tamil Nadu police naturally turned against Uma. The
eclipse of Sabarattinam and Uma eventually helped
Prabhakaran to become MGR’s favourite.”
[M.R.Narayan Swamy - Tigers of Lanka, 2nd edition, 1996,
pp.129-130]

One can infer a couple of salient facts. In mid-1980s, Pirabhakaran

was on par with Uma Maheswaran and Sri Sabaratnam for the
leadership contest among Tamil rebels. The ‘make or break point’
came from how each of these three aspirants for Eelam leadership
projected their personalities to MGR. The mistakes made by Uma
Maheswaran and Sri Sabaratnam were that they were hastily tilting
towards S.D.Somasundaram (then a senior leader of AIADMK who
was becoming a thorn to MGR) and Karunanidhi respectively. In
1984, MGR suffered a serious, debilitating stroke, and in hindsight
one can note that Uma Maheswaran and Sri Sabaratnam were
framing their plans for the post-MGR scenario. Opposingly,
Pirabhakaran was more closer in MGR’s orbit. Luck and
providence made MGR to live for another three years, while
holding the rank of the chief ministership, which permitted growth

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and sustenance for LTTE. Thus, incompetence resulting from lack

of intelligence (as proved by their servile reliance on India’s
Intelligence-wallahs) and vanity cost much to Uma Maheswaran
and Sri Sabaratnam, and they lost the battle of Eelam leadership to
Pirabhakaran. Now, to Pirabhakaran’s acknowledged mistake - the
1991 Battle of Elephant Pass.

1991 Battle of Elephant Pass

The seeds for the success of capturing the Elephant Pass by LTTE
in 2000 were sown in the 1991 Battle of Elephant Pass. For record,
I reproduce the Time magazine’s report [Sept.16, 1991], written by
Edward Desmond.
“Elephant Pass may one day be remembered as the key battle
in the long-running war of the Tamil Tigers to gain an
independent homeland in Sri Lanka. But for which side? After
24 days of fighting, last July, government troops carried the
day, but the Tigers’ defeat only hardened support among the
island’s Tamils for the fanatical guerrilla fighters who refuse to
give up the struggle. If nothing else, the battle of Elephant
Pass marked a new level of fury in a war that has already
claimed 18,000 lives and is likely to take many more.
“For eight years the Tigers had kept the armies of Sri Lanka -
and, between 1987 and 1990, India - at bay with the classic
guerrilla tactics of ambush and evasion. Two months ago, they
tried something new: a conventional assault on a
well-entrenched army of detachment at the head of Elephant
Pass, a narrow 2-km stretch of dunes and marsh that connects
the Sri Lankan mainland to the Jaffna Peninsula, a Tiger
homeland. The guerrillas intended to overrun the base and
regain control of the causeway, a decision that gave the army a
rare opportunity to fight the elusive Tigers in the open, where
its artillery and attack helicopters could be better used.
“The battle lasted more than three weeks. Despite months of
preparation, the Tigers failed to capture the army base. In the
end they withdrew; at least 564 of them had died. Nearly 200
government troops were also killed, but the army had won its
firtst large-scale engagement with the Tigers. Senior officers
assumed the setback had thrown the Tigers off-balance and
rushed to follow up on their advantage.
“Last week the army launched an offensive of its own,
Operation Lightning Strike, aimed at taking the Tiger’s largest
stronghold, deep in the Mullaitivu jungle of northern Sri
Lanka. According to army sources, 13 soldiers and more than

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200 Tigers, including three area leaders, were killed in the

skirmishes. Says Major General Denzil Kobbekaduwa, who
heads the field operations against the Tigers: ‘Nothing is going
to stop us now. Our mission is to seek them out, kill as many
as possible and destroy their fighting capability’. Such
confidence looks premature given the Tigers’ history of quick
recovery from setbacks and the broad backing they enjoy
among Sri Lanka’s 2.4 million Tamils...
“But even if Tamil morale remains strong, the military position
of the Tigers has weakened considerably. Their 8,000-strong
fighting force lost almost one-tenth of its manpower at
Elephant Pass. Worse, their underground supply network in
Tamil Nadu, the Indian state across Palk Strait, is being
destroyed by Indian security forces searching for the assassins
of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi...
“The Tigers prepared meticulously for the assault on Elephant
Pass. For nearly a year, under cover of darkness, they dug
trenches leading up to the barbed wire-encircled compound.
They dotted the surrounding landscape with bunkers built of
railroad ties and sandbags to shield themselves against artillery
fire, even set up some fake outposts complete with uniformed
dummies. Facing the formidable challenge of crossing the
open terrain, the guerrillas turned bulldozers and tractors into
armored cars by covering them with steel plates. They
deployed antiaircraft guns, mortars and a homemade rocket
system that could hurl a 50-kg device 1,000m.
“By May the government forces were certain that an attack
was coming and doubled the garrison’s strength to 1,000 men.
When the assault began on July 10, nearly 3,000 Tiger
fighters, including 500 women, surged through the trenches,
firing their AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades at the base;
though outgunned, the besieged soldiers fought back. Heavy
Tiger antiaircraft fire prevented helicopters from landing in the
camp to drop supplies and take away the wounded; a sergeant
major turned surgeon, amputing the limbs of injured troopers
by following radioed instructions.
“The garrison was losing ground when the government made a
daring decision. Naval units landed 8,000 fresh troops on a
beachhead 10 km from the base. Under fire from the moment
it hit the beach, the relief column sometimes covered less than
500m a day as the Tigers tried desperately to stop it by
mounting headlong charges. ‘It was amazing how they came at
us in waves’, recalls Brigadier Vijaya Wimalaratne, an officer

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with the amphibious force. After 24 days the relief troops

reached the camp and broke the siege.”
[Time magazine, Sept.16, 1991]

Pirabhakaran’s acknowledgment of a mistake

“Vilupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the Tigers, told TIME that his
assault failed because his forces could not move food and
ammunition to the front owing to heavy strafing by helicopter
gunships and fixed-wing planes. The Tigers’ armored bulldozers
proved too slow or bogged down in the sand. Key commanders
were lost early on. Prabhakaran admitted he failed to anticipate the
amphibious landing but claimed that the Tigers had won a moral
victory. ‘We have shown the world that we have evolved from a
guerrilla force to one that can fight a conventional war with a
modern army’, he said. ‘We learned the logistical problems of
conventional war. Now we can fight future battles better.’ [ibid]

Backbones supporting the Leadership

Previously I had presented [The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon, Part 2]
the view of Emory Bogardus emphasizing the importance of
followers in strengthening the leadership. How the followers react
to a mistake by the leader also can topple a weak leader. But
Pirabhakaran’s strength lies in moulding strong followers in his
group. The lack of success in the 1991 Battle of Elephant Pass did
not deflate Pirabhakaran’s followers. According to the same Time
magazine’s report,
“In Jaffna last week, the guerrillas appeared unaffected by the
setback. In a hospital ward where 60 young women lay
recuperating from wounds, the atmosphere was cheerful. Said
Sumathi, 16, who lost her right leg in battle: ‘All I want is to
get an artificial leg so that I can get back to the field. If I stay
home, how will we get Eelam [the independent Tamil
homeland]?...Says Varadan, 16, a guerrilla recruit: ‘It is better
to die fighting than wait in the village to be picked up and
tortured to death.’ [ibid]

Edward Desmond closed his report with a pithy sentence, “The Sri
Lankan army may have the momentum, but the war is far from
over.” In a couple of months, ten years will lapse since this line was
written. But the battles which followed the 1991 Battle of Elephant
Pass proved that Pirabhakaran learnt from his mistakes. This is no
mean achievement.

Lessons from the Power of Silence

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Mahatma Gandhi was a master in using silence as an effective

weapon in his freedom campaign against the British imperialism.
Not many have realized why Gandhi began his ‘vow of silence’. A
study of Dalal’s reference work, Gandhi 1915-1948; a detailed
chronology (Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi, 1971) provides
some clues. In page 36, Dalal notes, under the date 1921 Feb.7,
“Probably from this day MKG [referring to Gandhi by initials]
began to observe Monday as silence day, with three
exceptions: (a) when he was in mortal danger, and speaking
would render aid, (b) when somebody else was in danger and
speaking would render aid, and (c) when Viceroy or similar
dignitary called speaking was necessary. Silence usually
started at 3:00 pm on Sunday and lasted for 24 hours; but time
could be altered to suit needs.”

The latter half of the last sentence is thought-provoking; “time

could be altered to suit needs”. It is not wrong to infer that Gandhi
developed this new method to prevent leaks of his plans to his
adversaries via the blabber mouths surrounding him. He was shrewd
enough to realize that British rulers were trying to outsmart him by
planting spies in various garbs. When one studies the specific dates
in Dalal’s chronology of Gandhi’s activities, one can trace a trend
that whenever Gandhi was scheduled for campaigns or for some
discussions with his lieutenants like Nehru or for negotiations with
his adversaries, he had observed his ‘vow of silence’. Of course, he
duped the gullible media-vultures by telling some eccentric reasons
for his ‘vow of silence’. Developing this ‘wall of impenetrability’ by
a simple but eloquent method was Gandhi’s style of tackling the
‘intelligence arm’ of his adversaries.

I believe that, Pirabhakaran also had grasped the significance of

Gandhi’s ‘vow of silence’ in building up his army. He rarely makes
himself accessbile to media-vultures and gossip mongers. This is
another variant which distinguished him from the leadership of
Amirthalingam. The TULF leader lost his credibility by ‘opening
his mouth’ to literally everyone (UNP leadership, SLFP leadership,
ever-present ‘western diplomats’ in Colombo some of whom were
operatives of the Intelligence Agencies, media-vultures in India and
Sri Lanka, RAW and other Intelligence-wallahs of India) thereby
compromising the cards he held in the roulette game of politics.
Amirthalingam would have thought that by talking, he was carrying
out effective propaganda for the Tamil cause. But he was not
intelligent enough to realize that those who were listening to him
had their own agendas. Contrastingly, Pirabhakaran became a keen

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student of Gandhi in applying the ‘vow of silence’ to his support

his other maneuvers. Thus, he is castigated as ‘reclusive’ by the
media-vultures who feast on the verbal muck of publicity-seeking
politicians.

Anti-oratory leadership
Pirabhakaran has been called many things by his adversaries, but
‘orator’ is not one. Pirabhakaran is not an orator. Period. This is
one of his virtues, which flies on the face of his critics who compare
him to Hitler. One of the hallmarks of Hitlerism is
mass-manipulating oratory. Chaplin parodied this Hitler
behaviorism eloquently in his first talkie, ‘The Great Dictator’,
showing how microphones curl and dance with every utter and
grunt emanating from Hitler’s demoniacal mouth. Those who had
this gift of Hitler and who made much political hay in Sri Lankan
platforms and parliament were undoubtedly, padre Bandranaike (in
mid-1950s) and Premadasa (from 1970s to early 1990s). These two
politicians, in reality, can be cast as Hitler-imitating-types [HITs in
short] in the 20th century Sri Lanka. Comparisons of the political
careers of padre Bandaranaike and Premadasa to that of Hitler
deserves some attention and I will touch on it subsequently. One
should note that those - such as Chandrika Kumaratunga and
Dayan Jayatillaka - who are ardently tagging the Hitler ‘label’ to
Pirabhakaran are those who had proximity to the two HITs of Sri
Lanka; Chandrika to padre Bandaranaike (by birth) and Dayan
Jayatillaka to Premadasa (by patronage). In being a non-orator,
Pirabhakaran is in league with the calm and composed
Chelvanayakam.

Tamils in India and Eelam had enjoyed tub-thumping oratory of

their political leaders for decades. Oratory is an important art form,
which has value in society. But the downfall of Tamils in political
arena came when, politicians came to be praised as leaders solely
due to their oratorical skills. Pirabhakaran broke this viscious trend
by his silence and reclusive habit. As a consequence, Tamils and
non-Tamils came to place much significance in every word he
uttered in his annual Heroes Day Speech, delivered in November.
[Continued]

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