Who’s shooting Indian fishermen?

Maj. General Lalin FERNANDO (Retd)

SHOOTING INCIDENT: One Shah Jehan (SJ) writimg to a local English daily supposedly from South India, uses the question ‘put’ to him by an Indian ‘friend’ regarding Kachchitivu “Who shot the Indian fishermen?” pursuing a covert campaign to cause as much collateral damage on SL especially its Navy, media and Government.

SJ would have us believe that he finally plucked courage to say ‘Could they not be the LTTE’ although being home sick he repeatedly kept ‘mum’ to all the other aspersions he says the ‘friend’ cast on SL regarding the incident.

He praises India and especially its media which apparently is forthright in such circumstances.

He seems to be ignorant that whenever there is a terrorist incident in India, Pakistan is, except for the recent Peace Express incident, instantly accused and found guilty by the Indians. He also says Tamilnadu politicians find it ‘difficult to look at each other’s faces’.

So SJ of SL says he could not respond to the Indian’s presumptions of how terrible we are which must not come as a surprise to the readers of SJ’s articles.

He even says that the South Indian fishermen, who despite the violence continue to ‘fish’ in troubled SL waters, have said they will meet ‘violence with violence” ‘fire with fire’.

One senses some vicarious glee in his remarks; as otherwise there is no purpose for ‘fishermen’ to air such extremely blood thirsty threats presumably to the SLN. Such threats may reveal their real identities either as terrorist supporters or followers of the skull and cross bones cult.

Whatever, they without any hesitation have with steadfastly ‘fished’ in the past 25 years cavorting with terrorists if not smugglers or even pirates in SL’s maritime waters and getting quid pro quo.

The unsaid question is will SJ take their side as he has done in this article when they ‘fire’? He for good reason hasn’t said whether if at all the Indian authorities reacted to this release of hot air that appears to have burnt a searing if not heart rending hole in SJ’s media pants.

According to SJ, the Indians have already lost ‘300’ lives with 1000 injured in these ‘incidents’ which he “who never to himself has said this is my own my native land” blames on the SLN.

Whoever is to blame, this death and the associated violence are to be very greatly regretted, whether the victims are innocent fishermen or not and whether the figures are wantonly and grossly exaggerated or not.

Every action must be taken to prevent them from happening. It is good that the Tamil Nadu government once again as in the past 25 years intends to take the initiative. It does appear they have been lax about it for unknown reasons.

However, when one remembers that this ‘fishing’ violence has been ebbing and flowing in the same seas for over 25 years, these figures should not stun anyone.

The rewards of these incidents must be extremely high, not just because the prized lobsters and prawns around Kachchitivu which find their way to gourmet dining rooms abroad are found here and are hotly contested for by both Indian and SL fishermen but because there may be bigger rewards in helping terrorists who have recourse to huge amounts of funds received from the Diaspora, murder, illegal taxes, extortions, kidnappings and robberies.

It was the Central Government of India without much understanding of the problem or even having consulted the South Indians that conceded Kachchitivu to SL. Will they chose to misunderstand again is what SJ’s trial balloon is about.

Interestingly if not amazingly, one Vaiko according to SJ’s source in Madras, the Indian Navy and Coastguard are alleged to be both ‘mute’ and also ‘hand in glove’ with the SLN in these incidents.

Vaiko is an unabashed terrorist aficionado and a communal maverick. One would say his reaction is typical of a dwindling section of the Madrasi politicians that would shamelessly accuse the proud and honourable Indian Navy, the biggest and most formidable in the Indian Ocean and protector of the Indian sea coast to being in cahoots with the SLN and acquiescing in the killing of Indian fishermen.

After all there was a time these same anti Indian Madrasis shamelessly let their parochial feelings overcome them to openly denigrate their own army (IPKF) after the latter’s ill conceived ‘intervention’ in SL from 1987 to 1991.

For SJ to repeat such damaging aspersions on the Indian Navy would also be sadly but typically irresponsible and no different to the behaviour of the rumours mongers he gave ear to.

While SJ has been able to size up the innermost feelings of the ‘fishermen’ and quote Vaiko’s allegations without any restraint or comment, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanithi, quoted as saying ‘we cannot tolerate any more killings of Tamil fishermen by the SLN’, standing as a LTTE supporter, until the discovery of a tons of explosives surreptitiously brought in by the LTTE brought him down hard to Mother India.

He has now urged the Indian Prime Minister just to instruct the Lankan Government to’ ‘desist’ from firing on innocent Tamil Nadu fishermen. ‘Desist’ is not the same as ‘killing’ as Karunanithi well knows but not SJ.

The SLN which must protect the territorial integrity of SL at the cost of their lives if need be, carry out their orders as meticulously as they are aware that in the seas it is not only difficult to define boundaries or identify terrorists mingling with ‘fishermen” especially when they try to escape when ordered to stop.

They will certainly desist from firing on ‘innocents’ whoever they are and wherever they are from. SJ goes on to describe how a ‘floating tin can’ in Ramanathpuram suddenly exploded critically injuring two fishermen. That is the bloody reality of this stretch of water.

If cans ‘floating’ in the sea are explosives, it is not inconceivable that they were brought there by part time innocent ‘fishermen’ aiding the terrorists full time or vice versa. Either way the people concerned in ‘floating bombs’ stand to incur the wrath of the SLN and unfortunately for them, face prejudicial and sudden extreme violence.

Our press has nearly a 200 year history which not only India but many developed countries will find hard to equal.

It has been described as ‘mischievous’ and ‘cheeky’ by foreigners but according to SJ, it is also ‘vague, unbelievable, unauthenticated’, and ‘not as free as in India’. Apparently we do not also ‘speak about our grievances’ and ‘do not have a platform’. We also ‘kept mum about the Kachthativu shooting’. He asks why and says India has 24 hour TV of ‘unrestricted, unfiltered, and undistorted news’.

Who would believe it if Shah Jehan did not tell us. What a pity SJ has forgotten how though there is a very horrible level of terrorist violence going on here, equal it is said by the same media at times to Iraq, the media viciously and with little restraint often criticise everyone in the land including the Executive President.

Sure some journalists have been murdered here due to there being criminals in uniform such as those who killed Richard de Zoysa after torturing him brutally. Don’t such things happen in other parts of the world too ?

But the perpetrators here have either been brought to book or been dealt equitably by fate. Where else in the world do media get to perform more ghoulishly than in SL by ‘persuading’ the police to remove the covering sheets and expose the faces of corpses of murdered people to TV cameras? Maybe SJ too should have kept ‘mum’.

The resilient SL media survive Rs 500 million damages suits filed in court by making ‘arrangements’. Has SJ not noticed why despite notoriety some vastly rich people rarely have a bad press thereafter?

May be they do it differently in India where not so long ago in Delhi a very rich man was found to have dismembered and worse and buried over 20 children while the police ignored the complaints of their pitifully poor parents.

Where was the Indian media then or at the destruction of the Babri mosque ?

Having a very high level of literacy and education which is also free up to tertiary level, SL universities have the most militant undergrads anywhere in the world.

They air their ‘grievances’ ferociously with the abandon of lunatics on ‘platforms’ even trapeze artists would shy off. We had two youth insurgencies and have one terrorist war with multiple baby brigade launchers (MBBLs) still going on.

Does SJ believe that the media in SL comes from a different milieu and is unrepresentative of the majority of the people? He may believe from India that these things happened and happen in SL because the people have no other ‘platform’ to ‘air grievances’.

Others might believe it is so because we have had a surfeit of such liberties. SJ might consider how free were the reports made by the Indians when the IPKF took on the LTTE?

The LTTE normally gouges out eyes, drains the blood and batters and chops the bodies of those it captures but will SJ ever mention these in his despatches?

Or juxtapose it with how Daya Master and many other LTTE cadres were permitted to come down to Colombo, get treatment and ‘chopper’ back to their bunkers. SJ is certainly not a prophet in his own land.

One must also never forget that the Indian leaders were ready with millions of their followers to get their heads broken by the British and sent to prison while ours drank tea with them and received the identical rewards of national freedom. Their media is from that very different, honourable milieu.

It is not only in India but in many other countries that one is able to take the government to court for their faults and errors. One can do so in SL too and it is being done frequently.

If SJ bothers to refresh his mind he will remember that Supreme Court on being petitioned by private citizens ruled that the merger of two provinces by the India-SL Agreement no less was ultra vires the SL constitution.

There is no barrier as to what the private citizen can petition the law courts in SL even if some are frivolous. SJ adds when ‘Lankan Tamils’ are arrested in SL they are presumed guilty until they prove their innocence’.

This is quite contrary to the law as SJ even when in India must know unless he feigns ignorance. Also does he refer to criminals or terrorist suspects? SJ should ask the Indian police especially those in Kashmir, Manipur and Assam or police in any other country whether they do not differentiate. SJ is in for a reality check.

There is no difference between Sinhala, Muslim or Tamil terrorists. The law treats them equally. However we have not yet sanctioned 10 bullets in the head for them when they are pursued.

SJ should also ask the LTTE about the five dead bodies both in Mutturajawala and A’pura and the judges about Trinco and Muttur without posing these questions to the readers with Dutch courage he has developed in India.

Maybe the parts of India SJ visited being close to a mythical Shangri-La did not have kidnappings, murder of politicians, and influx of boat refugees which he says occurs all the while in SL.

Do the boat people trace their efforts back to Vijayabahu? SJ should check with Bangladesh about the present day Vijayas paddling furiously across the Ganges and the Brahamaputra rivers into India.

It is as though what happens every day in India does not adequately if not completely cover the gamut of crime and sedition the world knows. Maybe SJ has nothing else to write about other than how terrible our country. Especially the Sinhalese by implication. This surely mirrors the views of some others well known to him.

SJ while in Madras, when odiously comparing the differences in behaviour in India and SL might also remember what Arabs would think of one of their own were an Arab to go to the spiritual capital of the Jews and sing their praises.

If he thinks that by belittling the media of his country he is drawing attention to some kind of paralysis of conscience due to an imagined state sponsored fear psychosis, (a la Saddam?) he may be underestimating the courage and ingenuity of his own countrymen as well as being as guilty as Judas.