Defeat LTTE's communal designs in East

In a commendable measure, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has despatched a high-powered State delegation headed by Minister A. H. M. Fowzie to the Trincomalee district, for the purpose of providing relief to those displaced by the current Tiger-triggered violence there. This is a stitch in time which could help in knitting these unfortunate persons into mainstream life once again and ensure their well being.

Herein lies the difference between the State and a terror organisation, such as the LTTE. While the State always needs to think in broader terms and ensure the security and well being of all its citizens, irrespective of caste, creed and language differences, a terror group is not bound by such considerations.

It could be expected to be obsessed with its narrow military and political objectives and completely disregard the well being of those who come within their areas of operation. In other words, the people are reduced to helpless pawns in the self-serving designs of the LTTE.

The current, LTTE-engineered population displacements in the East need to be placed in the correct historical perspective and be seen as part of LTTE attempts to alter the demographic composition of the Trincomalee district. We need hardly say that Trincomalee is peopled by all our ethnic groups and possesses a uniquely multiethnic, multilingual and multi-religious character. It has never been the preserve of a single group.

However, it is the aim of the LTTE to radically alter this ethnic balance and ensure that the district is emptied of the presence of the Muslim and Sinhala communities. In other words, violent ethnic cleansing is the LTTE's aim and the history of the conflict proves that such heinous tactics have been freely resorted to by the Tigers.

In 1990, they drove away the Muslim community from the North and let loose inhuman violence on the Eastern Province subsequently, with the same intention. The hundreds of Muslim devotees who were ruthlessly gunned-down by the Tigers while at prayer in Eastern mosques, continue to unsettle and bring deep disquiet to all those who say "no" to violence. The aim was to unleash racist violence on the Muslim community and reduce it to a negligible presence in Eastern Sri Lanka too.

The current LTTE-inspired violence in Trincomalee, is aimed at achieving the same ends. This is renewed racist violence which could never be condoned by the civilized world.

Accordingly, the State needs to step-in in an emphatic fashion to put an end to these efforts at ethnic cleansing by the LTTE. First, the LTTE needs to be defeated militarily in the East and, second, wide-ranging programmes need to be in place to ensure the well being of all our communities.

This is a situation which is pregnant with opportunities for the State. While ensuring the resettlement and rehabilitation of all our communities in the Trincomalee district, the State needs to relentlessly expose the violently anti-Muslim tendency of the LTTE. It gives the State a prized opportunity to damn the LTTE further in the eyes of the world.

We urge the State delegations in the Trincomalee district to lose no time in lending a helping hand to all those in need in the region. Not for a moment should anyone feel that he or she has been overlooked by the caring eyes of the State.

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