Lessons from the Tiger blow at diplomacy

TIGER ATTEMPT: The attempted assassination of the Pakistani High Commissioner Colombo, Mr. Bashir Wali Mohamed has further raised the scale of the LTTE's terror in its ongoing battle to achieve its goal of a separate state of Eelam.

The Government has condemned this dastardly act by the LTTE, and correctly expressed its concern about the LTTE's decision to widen its terror attacks to include perceived regional threats.

With this attempt on the life of the High Commissioner from Pakistan, the LTTE has shown its readiness to further internationalize the conflict in Sri Lanka, considering any friends of Sri Lanka as its enemies. It is no secret that Pakistan has helped Sri Lanka to face the threat of the Tigers earlier and has not hesitated to do so today.

This attack, typical of the LTTE's reliance on terror for its ends, must open the eyes of other regional players, specially those repeating statements about being supportive of Sri Lanka's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and readiness to strengthen the defence capabilities of the Sri Lankan State.

Contempt for diplomacy

The LTTE which internationalized the crisis here through the Tamil Diaspora has again shown its disregard for territorial boundaries in its ruthless campaign to carve out its state of Eelam. As much as it ignored territorial borders when assassinating former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, it has now carried out "cross-border terrorism", albeit within Sri Lanka, with its targeting of the Pakistani High Commissioner for assassination in Colombo; for he is the representative of the sovereign State of Pakistan in Sri Lanka. The LTTE has thus emphasized its position of total disregard for the respect and protection accorded to diplomats, and its contempt for diplomacy itself.

This contempt for diplomacy must surely prove an eye-opener for many who urge the Sri Lankan government to handle the Tigers with kid gloves, in their misplaced belief that they are a group willing to respond to such overtures.

The LTTE's disregard for international opinion and contempt for diplomats and diplomacy, when it does not serve its cause, should make all those who lump both the Government and the LTTE together in calls for the ending of hostilities have second thoughts about their all too frequent appeals for the resumption of negotiations.

The Government has at no stage refused to resume negotiations, which the LTTE unilaterally abandoned in April 2003, and was briefly pushed into in March this year. The situation is that the Government has to defend the territorial integrity, the national assets and the rights of all people of Sri Lanka, under threat from the unrestrained violence and terror of the LTTE.

Kethesh Loganathan

The attack on the High Commissioner of Pakistan resulted in pushing into the background the LTTE's heinous killing of Kethesh Loganathan that determined man of peace who dared accept the post of Deputy Director General of the Peace Secretariat.

If the attempt on the life of the South Asian diplomat from a friendly and neighbouring country that helps Sri Lanka showed one aspect of the LTTE vis-…-vis regional cooperation, the killing of Kethesh Loganathan proved once again the determination of the LTTE to eliminate all Tamils who dared to hold views that were different to its own, and had the courage of one's convictions to act in public in keeping about such convictions.

The University Teachers of Human Rights (Jaffna), that dedicated group of activists who make no bones in their criticism of the LTTE as well as Sri Lankan governments, had this to state in their comment on the killing of Kethesh: "The LTTE-intelligence related website Nitharsanam devoted 7 lines to the killing of Kethesh. It began, "Infamous traitor of the Tamil race Ketheshwaran Loganathan was shot dead a short while ago. Known as Tamil Betrayer Kadirgamar Junior, he was deputy head of the Government Peace Secretariat...".

This derisive snigger is the stamp of the killers, their very nature and their values that are the antithesis of decency and true heroism. The implicit boast in the killing and its timing is that this organisation can and would pick off its unarmed opponents at will, should they persist in giving hope to the people."

The message is quite clear. There is no room in the LTTE's strategy and policies for any person who persists in giving hope to the Tamil people that there is a way other than violence and terror, and a separate state, to achieve their aspirations for equality and sharing of power in the Sri Lankan polity.

Kethesh was a traitor to the Tamil race, precisely because he sought to give this ray of hope to the Tamil people. This contempt for those who hold views different to its own comes from the LTTE's own fear and lack of conviction about the correctness of its own goal and the methods of achieving it.

That is why it killed Appapillai Amirthalingam, Neelan Tiruchelvam, Lakshman Kadirgamar and now Kethesh Loganathan, as it did so many others who dared differ from the policy of terror it believed in.

With the "derisive snigger" at Kethesh Loganathan by Nitharsanam, as the UTHR (J) describes it, the LTTE has bared its hand in the killing of Kethesh and also Lakshman Kadirgamar, who it considered a senior among "Tamil betrayers". It did not bother to take up the offer of Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu of the CPA to condemn the killing of Kethesh if it was not responsible for the fell deed.

Instead it was pleased to make a "derisive snigger" as its signature for the crime. So much for those who lack the courage to name the LTTE for a crime, but looks towards its acceptance of guilt through default by not condemning its own act of savagery.

The Civil War syndrome watching the developments in Sri Lanka in the past few days from the UK, I cannot push aside the concern at the increased number of reports in the media here about the return to "civil war" in Sri Lanka.

The latest comment about this comes from the director of the "Independent" National Peace Council Jehan Perera. He is quoted by Delhi-based Maseeh Rahman in "The Guardian" of August 15, 2006, stating: "Clearly, the ceasefire is effectively dead, and even the monitors from the international peacekeeping mission have said they might as well go home. The civil war has started again".

It is obvious that both Jehan Perera who said it and Maseeh Rahman who reported him are not aware of what a civil war is. Just for the record the recent reports by a senior British diplomat and a very senior military commander in Iraq on the situation there was that unless the violence is curbed Iraq will soon slip into civil war.

This is about a country where at least 30 people are killed each day; in sectarian violence in the attempt to foist the George W Bush styled democracy on that country. If that is the case in Iraq, after the 2003 Bush-Blair led invasion there, how can one with any stretch of the imagination describe the situation in Sri Lanka, as one of "civil war" or anywhere near it.

This is disinformation of the highest order. Can there be civil war in a country where the Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims live together in the absence of violence directed against each other in most parts of the country, particularly the Western Province.

The Muslims in Muttur were not attacked by Tamil civilians, but by the armed cadres of the LTTE. The Tamils in the North and East are not under attack by the Sinhalese or Muslims there, although they are under attack by the LTTE.

What the armed forces do is to act against the LTTE, and not against the Tamil people. This must be evident to anyone who looks at developments in Sri Lanka without Tiger blinkers on.

Alas, this is not the case with so-called activist for peace and those of the media who either take delight in repeating such unrealistic statements for "good copy" or don't bother to ascertain facts when reporting on a crisis in a third world country. One would look for greater objectivity on comment and reportage from both.