The word war is a misnomer - Dr. Harischandra Wijetunge
 

by Chamikara Weerasinghe

The Editor-in-chief of the Sinhala Encyclopedia and President of the Sinhalaye Maha Sammatha Bhumiputtra Party, Dr. Harischandra Wijetunge yesterday insisted that all types of writers should abstain from the practice of using word "war" to describe murder.

He said that this practice was so common among both foreign and local writers in the island specially when they write about acts of the LTTE terrorists in the country's North and Eastern Provinces.

Dr. Wijetunge said that it was bad language practice to describe LTTE killings that take place in the Northeast as "war."

It is also erroneous to say that "the LTTE has resorted to war" when they in fact had resorted to killing people or murder, he pointed out.

"The LTTE is a proscribed terrorist organisation who murders people looking to divide a unitary country by means of murder and violence," he said.

"There is no way they can declare war against the Government except murder and violence," he said, "this is an insurgency that needs to be suppressed."

Referring to the Ceasefire Agreement, Dr. Wijetunge said that it was restricted to the Government because such an Agreement could exist only between two honest parties. "But the Ceasefire was to be adhered to only by the Government with the LTTE resorting to murder of soldiers and civilians," he said.

If the LTTE had a genuine commitment towards the Ceasefire, they would have honoured it and discussed terms with the Government and given up their arms, he said.

The LTTE can take the JVP for an example. When the JVP resorting to violence nobody called their actions war or revolution, but murder or homicide.

Ever since they entered the democratic political stream however, having given up their arms, they earned the respect as a decent political group, he pointed out.