The unfinished business...

WHEN the 'Friends of Lakshman Kadirgamar' held their special commemoration of the late Foreign Minister on October 12, on the completion of two months since his assassination by the LTTE, they performed a much needed task to keep alive his spirit and dedication to the unity of Sri Lanka and peace with dignity.

The two orations by Mr. H. L. de Silva P. C and Mr. S. L. Gunasekera spelt out the qualities of Lakshman Kadirgamar that made a person who did not come with grass roots connections as most other politicians do, to succeed in his new role of politician, which he performed par excellence.

What was most significant about the event was the reminder that his assassination by the LTTE, far from driving further fear into the people had in fact begun the process that would ultimately lead to the wiping out of terrorism in this country.

The tasks ahead

The commemoration of this genuine patriot brings into focus the need to carry on a sustained campaign to achieve the goals of his entry and stay in politics. Keeping alive the memory of Lakshman Kadirgamar cannot be left to remembering him in sculpture or in annual orations in his memory.

There is a great deal of work to be done to continue the good work that the "Friends of Lakshman Kadirgamar" began last Wednesday.

All of it is aimed at reining in the LTTE, and most importantly liberating the Tamil people in the North and East, and elsewhere too, who are under its thrall, due to its continued policy of terror.

This calls for mobilizing the masses of this country that openly demonstrated their grief at his sudden and cruel removal from our midst, to participate in peaceful activities, to pressure the LTTE into abandoning both its ways and its arms.

As Mr. H. L de Silva expressed clearly that there is no room anymore for the political charlatans and their circumlocution that they will tame the Tiger, without saying how they will do it.

Empty promises of achieving peace, with no strategy explained, will not bring an end to the war that the LTTE now wages at its own time and pace. It is time for all to realize that the politics of appeasement, even under a gravely flawed Cease Fire Agreement, will not stop the separatist aims and terrorist policies of the LTTE.

As Lakshman Kadirgamar saw it and said it too, shortly before his killing, if the CFA is flawed and violated with so often and with such impudence then it is time to renegotiate it. To paraphrase Mr. H. L de Silva, we must realize that the facilitator turned mediator can very well lead this nation to an unintended suicide.

It was this understanding that made Lakshman Kadirgamar state in his last major speech that if those who are here to facilitate cannot carry the torch of pluralism and democracy any further, then it was time the torch was handed over to someone else. He said so knowing very well all the gravitas such a statement had, coming from the country's Foreign Minister.

The various acts of appeasement taken to "create conditions conducive for peace" by the UNP did not make the Tiger drop a single stripe.

The same is true of the concessions given by the UPFA government, too. To quote from the latest editorial in the pro-LTTE "Eelam Nation" web site "the joint mechanism proposal for Tsunami which recognised the LTTE as the de facto government of most of the Thamil areas a formidable step, has been laid aside".

This refers to P-TOMS and shows how the LTTE viewed it; as the recognition of the LTTE as the de facto government in most of the Thamil areas and a formidable step too. One must not lose sight of the fact that Lakshman Kadirgamar was killed by the LTTE after the P-TOMS agreement was signed.

The business at hand

There were many things with regard to achieving an honourable peace, national unity and liberating the Tamils held in the armed grip of the LTTE, that Lakshman Kadirgamar was intent on doing when the assassin's bullet took him away.

If one is to make the bullet return to strike the LTTE as a boomerang would, then one must continue the work that Lakshman Kadirgamar had made it his business to achieve.

He used his diplomacy for years "knocking on the doors of the powerful nations" as he himself said, to explaining that terrorism if ignored or mistaken for national liberation struggles would strike them too.

Those powers saw his warnings become real. He also worked very hard to stop the use of children in war, and had come very close to realizing this goal when he was so brutally finished off.

The UN Security Council was to discuss the report of Olara Ottunu, the UN Secretary General's Rapporteur on Children in War, which denounced the LTTE for repeatedly reneging on pledges to him to stop this cruel practice.

There was also the Report by the Secretary General himself calling for sanctions against international terrorist organizations, including the LTTE.

Had he attended the 60th Session of the UN General Assembly and remained there for the necessary diplomatic lobbying, there was every possibility of at least one of his goals that of sanctions against those who conscript children to carry arms being adopted. The LTTE too knew this very well.

The best way of remembering Lakshman Kadirgamar is to keep working at these goals.

This cannot be left to any government alone. One cannot even in the distance see a politician of the calibre of Lakshman Kadirgamar to steer this through the labyrinths of international diplomacy.

It is here that one must harness the people, to raise their voices loud and clear against the evil of terrorism, the danger of separatism and the intolerable inhumanity of child conscription.

The "Friends of Lakshman Kadirgamar" and others should steer the process of the peaceful mobilization of the masses against these policies of the LTTE, and bring their collective opposition to the notice of the world. It should be done in such a concerted manner that the international community will be unable to turn a deaf ear to what is said.

It took the killing of Lakshman Kadirgamar, with the stamp of the LTTE all over the brutality, to ultimately compel the European Union to ban travel within the EU to the LTTE. Enough killing was taking place by the LTTE that some sanctions were in order was what the EU thought.

In the same manner when more pressure is brought to bear on the world outside, we stand more than an outside chance of achieving one of Lakshman Kadirgamar's most cherished goals; that of saving the children of Sri Lanka from the cruelty of child conscription. It is now time to make this the first item in the agenda of the unfinished business of Lakshman Kadirgamar.