War on terrorists Versus cosmetic treatment to Tigers

Dr. P.A. Samaraweera

Last week Britain published a report on a new “Anti-terrorism strategy” highlighting the risks posed by terrorists. According to this, Al Qaida would fragment over time but its ideology will survive giving rise to more terror groups.

It has also referred to other countries which would garner terrorism. The 174 page report warns Britain of growing attacks by terrorists and focuses on the aspirations of terrorists and how terrorism will evolve in the future in increasing use of chemicals and explosives in terrorist attacks.

This tallies with the discovery of large quantities of chemicals and explosives by the Army during the ‘wanni operations’. This week, 7,500 kilos of potassium chloride and various chemicals were seized from the Udayer Kattu area captured by the Army.

Further, during the operation of the LTTE enclaves of the Vanni, the Army had captured vast hauls of arms, ammunition, several 130 mm artillery guns, anti-aircraft machine guns, rocket propeller guns, multi-purpose machine guns and sophisticated war equipment.

In the past, during fake peace talks, the LTTE smuggled ship loads of arms, ammunitions and war materials. All this build up of arms had been despite several LTTE ships being destroyed by the Navy during recent times.

The point here is that if the Government had not swiftly continued the war on terrorists and given a hearing to peace activists, international moderators, human rights organisations and back-up agencies of the LTTE, the Tigers would have sooner or later aimed the arms and artillery guns against the Army and over run the country causing greater devastation to the whole of the country making it easier for the LTTE to carve out their mono-ethnic separate state.

This would have caused a worse humanitarian crisis than the current situation. Because as the LTTE track record shows striking terror is the main item in their agenda as they are engaged in a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign directed at the Sinhalese and the Muslims.

In contrast, the role of the Army is humanitarian. At present, the Army had refrained from using heavy weaponry to save civilians and this is at high cost to their own lives and safety. Further, the International Community should note that the soldiers are under strict orders not to fire a single bullet towards civilians because their mission is to liberate the civilians from the terrorists.

Therefore, the international community, human rights activists and so on should put pressure on the LTTE to release the civilians and not point the finger at the Government to relent.

The irony, is that while a small country like Sri Lanka, brutalised by terrorists, is fighting tooth and nail to eradicate terrorism and bring peace to the country, the ‘heavy weights’ like the US, UK and Canada are pampering the terrorists by prescribing cosmetic treatment to the Tigers such as peace talks, cease-fires, pauses and permitting supporters of terrorism to parade demonstrations, hold forums, public meetings and so on. Thus, some countries are playing a different ball-game with the terrorists and juggling a dual role thereby giving leverage to the terrorists.