Verbal war must follow military war - S. L. Gunasekera

Uditha KUMARASINGHE

Attorney-at-law S.L.Gunasekera said once the military war against the LTTE is won, immediate measures should be taken to defeat the verbal war launched by the LTTE friendly diaspora throughout the world to create an environment conducive to the LTTE to gain politically what they couldn't achieve through war.

"At present various Western countries and some NGOs are attempting to interfere in the internal affairs of our country. These elements through their various propaganda campaigns have paved the way to the LTTE terrorists to promote their dream of a federal state within Sri Lanka which the LTTE could not achieve through their bullets," he told a media briefing organised by the World Alliance for Peace in Sri Lanka held in Colombo yesterday.

According to Gunasekera when India made undue pressure on Sri Lanka in 1987, then President J.R. Jayewardene did not have a backbone to stand against India. Today, we have a dynamic President with a strong backbone who is not subject to any undue foreign pressures impacting on the internal affairs of our country.

He said the most important issue that we should focus our attention is what should be done after the war is won against the LTTE terrorists. If the military war ends, the Tamil racists will start another war of words to promote the LTTE ideology. Therefore, an effective propaganda campaign should be launched.

These Western countries did not utter even a single word when the LTTE killed 670 policemen in 1990 and massacred 124 Muslim civilians in Kattankudy. In addition, when innocent Sinhalese were killed and the LTTE evicted thousands of Muslims, these countries always remained silent. Today they ask the Government to go for a ceasefire. In a situation where the Government has reached the final stage of destroying the ruthless terrorist leader Prabhakaran, some high level foreign officials of Western countries come here and force the Government to go for a ceasefire, he added.