Carnage in Dehiwala

The LTTE wreaked yet another carnage by bombing a crowded office train in Dehiwala killing nine persons and injuring over 73 on Monday. The attack follows a familiar pattern witnessed in recent times which the public have come to view with grim foreboding.

The whole purpose of the terrorists is to keep the public under a seige mentality with their terror strikes and also engineer a collapse of the economy. By this modus operandi the LTTE hopes to instill fear in the public and stall economic activity.

The authorities have to take stock of the situation and map out an effective strategy to confront this threat. If this means a full overhaul of the existing security set up then it should lose no time in doing so.

This psy war waged by the LTTE should be defeated adopting whatever means without being tied down by enforced limitations. If it has to the Government should enact new laws to supplement the Emergency regulations and the Prevention of Terrorism Act to give them more muscle to smoke out the Tiger operatives in our midst.

This is third attack on civilian targets within of one month ( the Piliyandala bus bomb and Fort attack are the others) which has to be taken note of by the authorities and drastic measures taken to eliminate the threat.

We should come to terms with the fact that the Tigers will attack civilian targets as a means of setting off battlefield reversals and take every precaution to counter the threat.

Monday's incident shows that the LTTE had smuggled in a parcel bomb into the ill fated train with ease. It is only yesterday that we editorially commented on the precautionary measures recommended to all bus crew by the National Transport Commission to avert bomb risks. Now these same measures will have to be introduced in respect of trains as well.

Unlike buses which regularly stop to pick up passengers trains run a more or less single journey to their destinations. Therefore it is unfathomable as to how the security was lax in checking parcels and baggage in trains - especially when it was clear that the terrorists would target trains in the light of precautionary measures taken in buses.

The authorities should make a thorough reappraisal of the current security set up and plug in all loopholes to bring it as near watertight as possible leaving no room for the LTTE to strike. This of course cannot be accomplished without public cooperation as was evident in the detection of two bus bombs in Moratuwa and Kadawatha which was solely due to the alertness of commuters and bus crew.

The latest attack on innocent civilians by the LTTE should at least now open the eyes of those human rights advocates and their NGO friends as to the true nature of the outfit. Those who expect the Government to play by Queensbury rules should not wear blinkers when it comes to LTTE atrocities which are ignored when they document alleged infringements of Security Forces to put the Government on the rack before the international community.

True, a State cannot use methods adopted by terrorists. But by the same token the State has a responsibility to protect its citizens and in the course of this task would have to deploy extraordinary measures considering the extraordinary nature of threat emanating from the most ruthless terrorist outfit in the world. Why are those who shout hoarse over alleged human rights violations of the Government silent on the Human Rights of the innocent civilian victims of the recent spate of bus bombs.

The Human Rights lobby should at least now take a dispassionate view of the ground situation where the LTTE is free to strike at will while the Government has to necessarily be tied down by enforced codes of conduct. The whole question of human rights should be viewed in this context.