Think anew
Government Defence
Spokesman Minister Keheliya Rambukwella has understandably
laughed off LTTE pleas for a ceasefire. It has been a perennial
Tiger ploy to cling to this lifeline whenever it was cornered in
the past.
Today it is more than cornered. The outfit is on the verge of
annihilation with the troops moving for the kill into the last
Tiger bastion which has shrunk to some 60 square kilometres, in
the Mulaitivu jungle.
So it is natural that the Tigers have petitioned the UN to
broker a ceasefire. According to our front page main story
yesterday quoting the Minister, the LTTE has written a letter to
the United Nations, Britain, Japan, Norway and the United States
indicating it’s readiness to agree to a Ceasefire with the
Government, while at the same time refusing to lay down arms.
These are the very Co-Chairs the Tigers had spurned before
after several rounds of peace talks. Can one assume it is going
to be any different now?
Besides, this call for a ceasefire is a familiar ritual we
have all got used to. It follows a pattern when the LTTE is
about to be floored. But this time around the Government is
calling the shots. It has come to a stage where it is asking
LTTE cadres to surrender as against just laying down arms.
This certainly is a sea change in the fortunes of the
three-decades-long war which has today been all but won by our
valiant forces. It is clear to the outside world that the
Government is in firm control of the situation.
It is in this backdrop that a EU call urging the LTTE to
participate in a political process is most baffling. A EU
Foreign Ministers meeting in Brussels has said they were
convinced that the long standing conflict in Sri Lanka cannot be
resolved by military means. This implies that the EU is still
according status to the LTTE as the sole representative of the
Tamil people.
This, despite the overwhelming evidence showing the plight of
the Tamils held as captives by the outfit to be used a human
shield, not to mention the gunning down of civilians who dare
flee into forces’ enclaves.
There is an on going process to hammer out a political
solution in the form of the All Party Representative Committee
which the EU is well aware of although neither the LTTE or it’s
proxies are party to it.
With it’s inhuman face starkly exposed it is difficult to
understand as to why the West still considers the LTTE as the
sole voice of the Tamils. They should also harken to the many
appeals made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the outfit to
surrender arms and enter talks. This despite the overwhelming
advantage enjoyed by the President on the military front where
he could well afford to dump the LTTE in any equation.
It is time that the international community get rid of this
mindset that accords undue status to the LTTE and thinks afresh.
This is more so because those whom the LTTE claim to represent
are rapidly deserting the outfit - even risking their lives.
They are fleeing from the Tiger domain into the secure arms
of the Security Forces. This scenario should prompt the outside
world to abandon the LTTE as a viable force which could bring
solace to the Tamil people. In any event the outfit is on it’s
last legs as seen from last Friday’s incident when it made one
last throw of the dice using the last of it’s aircrafts in a
failed suicide mission.
True, it could be argued that any settlement could be arrived
only between the parties at war. But this equation is no longer
valid with the LTTE all but vanquished. The outside world should
now look in terms of a post war scenario which has no place for
the LTTE.
...And now a different war
Nominations close for the Western Provincial Councils
elections tomorrow and city walls are virtually obliterated by a
rash of posters of candidates’ mugs, proclaiming to make heaven
on earth if elected. In the meantime the Colombo Municipal
Council has read the riot against those defacing city walls with
even prosecution contemplated according to a recent news item.
There is another war brewing between candidates of the same
party vying for space not just on city walls but also on garbage
bins, lamp posts and even tress are not spared especially in the
suburbs.
Most interesting though are the slogans accompanying
candidates’ images on the posters, bordering on the ridiculous
to the bizarre. One such poster speaks of a ‘convivial friend of
the masses’ though the candidate’s visage is anything but
friendly.
No doubt the poster war is bound to reach it’s zenith once
nominations close with all it’s spin offs and entertainment viz.
the defacement and tarring of opponents’ posters or the
fratricidal poster war between fellow candidates.
An order was issued by the Presidential Secretariat barring
candidates of the ruling party to carry the President’s picture
alongside theirs. But this has for the most part been ignored by
candidates especially in the rural areas of the Western
Province.
At the last local council elections some candidates in the
rural areas carried their aliases by which they are known
locally, instead of their real names. Needless to say most of
these aliases were the least reputable. It is hoped this time
around such posters would be spared the image of the President. |