A Jeep-load of Policemen were on their routine chores last Tuesday morning. They were travelling from Vavuniya town to Thandikulam, the furthest point in the Wanni under security forces control for their daily task-keeping checks on guerrilla infiltration.

Led by a Reserve Sub-Inspector, there were 13 of them - a Sergeant, two female home guards, a Police driver and the rest, all constables. They had left their barracks only a few minutes earlier and were in the heart of the town, a stone's throw away from the clock tower, an edifice that has become a landmark in the Vavuniya town.

Two grenades fell, one after another on the road. One exploded ripping off the rear of the Jeep. Within moments gunfire began to rain on the group of Policemen. Crowds in the town, shop owners and eating houses fled as bursts of automatic weapons rendered the air.

The Police driver stepped on the accelerator, drove some 300 metres past the clock tower into the Police Station. In the neighbouring Four Brigade Headquarters, Brigadier

Forty five minutes later, three Policemen,

and a civilian lay dead. Two soldiers, 12 civilians and ten policemen were wounded.

Police clamped down a curfew. Troops sealed off the town area and launched an immediate cordon and search operation.

Vavuniya is a well fortified town, for years a model for controlled areas where life went on as usual. Barring a few skirmishes, the civil administration machinery functioned under tight security. In the recent weeks, it became a hub of human activity with the influx of refugees escaping the fighting in the Kilinochchi area.

Troops were deployed to screen the large number of men, women and children wanting to cross the Thandikulam barrier.

The jeep load of policemen were travelling to join in the exercise which had become a daily routine.

Did the LTTE succeed in infiltrating the Vavuniya defences to carry out that attack? Or was it the handiwork of another disgruntled group?

If it was the LTTE, why did it pick on a "less attractive" target when there were so many other positions in the heart of the town which it could have attacked for maximum effect. Moreover, the men in the jeep were mostly in civil clothes,

But another incident two days later, left no doubt in the minds of the investigators that the LTTE was at play. It happened shortly after midnight signalling the dawn of Friday. Four men entered the Telecommunications complex. They were engaged by armed Policemen who were assigned to a hurriedly set up Guard Post last Tuesday. Here too, a gun battle raged for 45 minutes before the attackers fled to a nearby school. A search operation that went on until the early hours of the morning drew a blank. It was clear to the authorities that the four men attempted to blow up the Telecommunications complex.

If the two incidents were clear proof that the LTTE was trying to destabilise Vavuniya more disturbing was the news that some of its cadres had infiltrated into the cleared area. Heightening concern were fears that some of them have entered with the displaced persons.

In fact, separatist violence in the past weeks has centered much around infiltration and attack. In the village of Kuda Pokuna in Velikanda (which is on the main supply route to Batticaloa) Tiger guerrillas attacked a Police guard post at dawn on Thursday, killing three sub inspectors, 21 police men and four civilians. A further 18 Policemen were injured.

Reference has been made in these columns repeatedly of multifaceted strategy of the LTTE. Whilst its broad approach militarily is to combine guerrilla style operations with terror tactics, its overall politico- military strategy is complex and operates on a wide front of co-ordinated activity.

Politically, the LTTE maintains a high profile domestic and international posture. This is aimed at maintaining support of the Tamil diaspora which is one arm of influence to sustain propaganda pressure on the government of Sri Lanka in international fora including NGOs, and lobby groups.

These have proved effective even though in the recent months the LTTE has lost some of its image on the one hand and on the other have had to contend with an improving image of the Sri Lanka Government in its human rights record even though there has been accusations of violations and inaction in the recent months. This is an aspect which the LTTE was quick to exploit and has been successfully doing so since 1983.

A significant priority of its international programme is of course pitched to regain the support of India which it destroyed with the assassination of late Premier Rajiv Gandhi.

The re-vamping of the LTTE tactics to push refugee exodus to India is a part of its two-pronged design to win over opinion at both the centre in New Delhi and the State Government in Tamil Nadu. The Sri Lankan Government has sadly been lacking of drive to counter the LTTE propaganda internationally depending more on responsive action rather than a co-ordinated long term programme. The clamping on the media has not helped the PA Government in this regard either. It is naive to devalue and under estimate the International interaction of an independent Fourth Estate. It is surprising that the PA Government disregards the importance of the independent media, in the opinion and decision making process in the international political scene.

After all, the essence of democracy lies not only in a freely elected political system but as importantly in the existence of free expression. Otherwise it is a lip service democracy.

I made reference to the international aspect as it is critically important to the LTTE to raise funds, procure arms and as importantly to influence the international cover up of LTTE atrocities against unarmed civilians.

In the domestic strategy, the LTTE relentlessly pursues its objectives of draining the country's economy, destabilisation of the "border" areas aimed at "ethnic cleansing" in conjuction with an offensive on the security forces.

From the pattern of its operations it would appear that in the current strategic balance the LTTE retains its core fighting cadres to concentrate on hard military targets - i.e. Mullaitivu, whilst deploying their peripheral cadres to tackle softer targets of attacks on "border" villages and other soft targets.

Thus retaining its strike capability whilst posing the security forces to thin its resources by widespread deployment. This perhaps answers the choice of the Vavuniya target on Police and Home Guard cadres.

It should also be remembered that the classical pattern of infilitrated subversion is to introudce into target areas the minimum hard core cadres for training organisation and leadership of partisan cadres. This is the classical Maoist doctrine that the guerillas are the fish and the populace the ocean. Both are complementary to the common design.

In this manner a guerrilla force is able to maximise sabotage without committing its hard core cadres. An added advantage in that method is that it makes it difficult for the security forces to identify the mobilised local groups without alienating public opinion.

This is exactly the dilemma of the government in enforcing security measures in populated areas with mixed ethnic communites. Often the public lose sight of the security requirements and regard security measures as discriminatory. This is precisely the impression the LTTE wants to create.