The army thinks it can win. It is wrong

FROM the line of dusty travellers leaving the Tamil Tigers' heartland in northern Sri Lanka, young men are strikingly absent. The people trudging out of rebel territory, across a strip of scrubby ground dotted with bundles of barbed wire and gun-slung soldiers, say securing exit passes from the rebels has become increasingly tough. For the young, it is all but impossible. As far as the Tigers are concerned, they are potential fighters.

The rebels want to keep the young and fit in their stronghold, a mini-state run with thuggish ruthlessness. Since 1983, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have fought for an independent “homeland” in the east and north for the island's Tamil minority. In July the Sri Lankan army declared it had cleared the eastern part for the first time in 14 years. Now its sights are on the north. In his heavily fortified headquarters in the capital Colombo, the army chief, General Sarath Fonseka, says he expects to chase the Tigers from the north in a year, “maybe less”.

This is more than a commander's bravado. After the army's triumph in the east, subsequent victories suggest the Tigers' strength is diminished. In early September the army cleared an area just south of their heartland, capturing a Tiger naval base purportedly used to receive smuggled weapons. Days later it sank three ships it said were ferrying light aircraft and a bullet-proof car for the Tigers' chieftain, Velupillai Prabhakaran. In eastern Sri Lanka some Tamils express surprise, and sometimes disenchantment, that the Tigers' roar has been more muffled of late.

If the army did win the north while holding the east it would constitute a huge and unprecedented victory. Its last big push into the area, in the late 1990s, ended with hundreds of dead soldiers and a humiliating retreat. In the east, which has a mixed population of Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims, the rebels' hold was patchy and the army was helped by the defection in 2004 of the Tigers' commander in the region, known as Colonel Karuna. The Tigers hold the Tamil north in a much tighter grip. And the army has fewer soldiers than it would like for its northern campaign, because it is busy securing the east.

Days after the government celebrated its latest victories in the eastern port town of Trincomalee last month, suspected Tigers bombed a bus in the area, killing the driver and wounding several passengers. Though such incidents in the east have decreased, they suggest that the Tigers remain a force to be reckoned with. In the north, on the margins of their fief, there are areas where it is unclear quite who is in control: the army or the rebels.

Even a northern victory, momentous as it would be, would not bring an end to Sri Lanka's conflict. That will not come without a political solution, giving some measure of autonomy to the island's Tamils who have suffered discrimination from the Sinhalese majority more or less since independence.

A cross-party group of politicians has made some progress on this front, agreeing that the island should be devolved at the provincial level—an improvement on an earlier government proposal for district-level devolution. But last month the defence minister, Gotabhaya Rajapakse (brother of the president, Mahinda Rajapakse), made it clear where the government's priorities lay. A political solution, he said, would be impossible without first crushing the Tigers. This dashed any faint hope that the ceasefire agreement the government and the Tigers signed in 2002, and which is still notionally in force, might yet be revived.

In the east, meanwhile, the government has an opportunity to show Tamils they are better-off under the government than they were under the rebels. But its commitment to this goal is questionable. In a Trincomalee town hall with views of the glittering Indian Ocean, more than 80 families sleep on a concrete floor amid battered cardboard boxes of possessions. They have lived here for more than a year, since they were shelled out of their homes in nearby Sampur, a former Tiger stronghold; thousands more of their fellow townspeople languish in camps outside the town. Though few of them seem to know it, they are unlikely to return home: Sampur has been turned into a no-go high-security zone for the army.

The government faces other challenges if it is to pull off victory in the north. People in Colombo, for whom the war is a rather distant affair, may not have heard any bombs lately. But they complain about rocketing inflation, and political support for President Rajapakse's government is ebbing. Dogged by allegations of incompetence and corruption, it is expected to be further weakened when it presents its budget in November. In last year's, military expenses surged by 44%. Another big rise will increase pressure to show that all this spending is achieving something.

(http://www.economist.com/world/asia/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=9905428)