Time Appropriate For World
Powers To Cut Out The Rhetoric In Coming To Sri Lanka's Aid More Tangibly!
Periscope Global Sinhala
Village
For LankaWeb
It is all well and good that US Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice has voiced concern over a flare-up of violence in Sri Lanka which
has to be acknowledged with thanks by the Sri Lankan Administration
but to merely express hopes that Colombo and Tamil Tiger rebels will
resume talks to reinforce their fragile truce seems a toke gesture by
the Secretary of State of a Nation as powerful as the USA committed
to eradicating world terrorism!
The LTTE are labelled as a group comprising of the world's most ruthless
and dangerous terrorists on the same lines as Al Quaeda which has even
acquired some of their tactics such as the concept of suicide bombings
from the LTTE who pioneered it.What sources such as the USA fail to
see is the deeper implications of permitting the LTTE to continue with
impunity as their tolerance would further assist their inroads into
other world conflicts involving terrorism such as Afghanistan where
the latest reports indicate that the Taliban terrorists are being aided
both logistically and with weaponry towards their cause as incredible
as this sounds. Nepal's Maoist terrorists, the Abu Sayyak terrorists
of the Philippines, direct links to Al Quaeda, and certain underground
terrorists in Southern India operating from Tamil Nadu and many other
underground terror groups worldwide to which the LTTE are reported to
be providing surreptitious logistical and insurgent related modus operandi
and what are countries like the US doing about it rather than voice
pontifications from their high horses rather than coming down ground
level towards facing the realities of what the LTTE terrorists really
stand for?
It seems abominably insufficient that mere lip service by the the U.S.
State Department would serve equitably towards resolving the problem
and perhaps time appropriate for the US and other world powers to focus
their attentions on the LTTE in the same terms as the do any other world
terrorist group posing a threat to free society and the concepts of
a tranquil existence for the inhabitants of a Sovereign Sri Lankan Nation
on a parallel. Terms which would not be uncertain towards seeking out
and destroying them beyond repreive as the the LTTE in particular despite
international condemnations continue to be defiant as they perpetrate
their attrocities with abandon and impunity knowing fully well that
it is the same indifference towards addressing them as mendacious terrorists
on the part of World Powers such as the US and Canada that builds LTTE
confidences and justifications towards criminality. It is gross apathy
that even Sri Lanka's regional super power neighbor India has shown
recent indifference to the escalating violence in Sri lanka while paying
lip service in the same manner as the USA where both Nations hesitate
to take appropriate deterrent action that seems to grant the LTTE Carte
Blance towards their criminalities.
It is also cause for concern that the Sri Lankan Government is hanging
on to the vestiges of a worthless Peace Process and Ceasefire at the
present time when affirmative retaliatory action seems mandatory and
if left until too late would have dire consequences for the Nation,
its people, public property and Sovereign Territory which were previously
compromised and at times destroyed with devastating effects on the Nations
smooth functioning, well being and economy.
Even as the Sri Lankan Armed Forces, Navy and Police are being attacked
and precious lives are being lost, the US and its counterparts seem
to prefer the path of moderation and rhetoric which says little or nothing
for the lives lost and the imminent threat the LTTE are now posing to
the Nation and it will not be long before the Nation having reached
a breaking point once again responds though retaliatory violence and
its armed forced step into high gear in a concerted effort to contain
the terrorist threat which seems the only course of actions available
towards quelling the LTTE who have not responded to negotiations nor
dialogue for all the time the conflict existed. It is upto the major
world powers to step in to stem the rot perhaps in as much as the European
Union has done in a show of good faith.
The Peace Process initiated by previous regimes appear to have been
once acceptable to the LTTE purely based on what they probably saw as
an advantage towards their cause and specifically towards rebuilding
their resources and priming themselves for renewed attrocities towards
secession which certainly seems to be manifesting itself throught the
realities of what is happening in Sri Lanka today. Once the Presidency
changed hands to be replaced by a no nonsense, though thus far moderate
and pragmatic new President the LTTE are beginning to see the light
at the end of their tunnel towards Eelam fast dissapearing and probably
the reason for their renewed violence which has to be nipped in the
bud sooner than later!
More than anything else Sri Lanka today needs a course of actions which
will send a tangible and clear message to the terrorists that they have
overstepped the leniencies and tolerances extended to them by the World
as well as the authorities in Sri Lanka and the time is at hand when
all this has to change!They can no longer be given any considerations
towards negotiated peace as it is they who have chosen to violate the
Peace Process, Ceasefire and all the goodwill extended to them by Sri
Lanka and the International Community and if need be they have to be
confronted militarily and put down in a worst case scenario where the
felt need is becoming more and more apparent towards the justification
of this course of action.It will undoubtedly be costly and one which
the more moderate think is avoidable but the buck has to stop somewhere.
If the recent assertions by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces that they
are well equipped to deal with any LTTE attrocities and better so than
on previous occassions which is in all probabilities true given the
information on their preparedness both militarilly and strategically
they have to be prepared for the eventuality of containing the terrorists.
If a confrontation is what the LTTE are asking for perhaps they should
be responded to with all the resources available but with cunning ,
stealth and even paramilitary support which has been available to the
Armed Forces Of Sri Lanka which have not been categorically utilised.
It has to be concluded logically despite the propaganda about their
capabilities that they are a decimated lot debilitated after the Karuna
breakaway, the Tsunami and their cadre consisting more of child recruits
and defiant women who screech to the media than a viable fighting force.
That they are prepared to fight obviously with cyanide capsules and
explosives strapped around their torsos also a consideration which needs
to be offset against how the Armed Forces confront the, very cautiously
with the obvious consciousness of self preservation a priority!With
their so called leader hiding in the jungles as would a coward lacking
the wherewithal or the courage to present himself openly and their political
representations indulging in defiant rhetoric which they are more than
likely unable to substantiate in the long run, what the LTTE are now
resorting to appears to be a last ditch effort towards their survival!
Washington's plans to dispatch a senior official to the troubled tropical
Indian Ocean island soon to discuss the conflict appears insufficient
towards remedying the cause as the LTTE now believe they are stepping
in to high gear a false belief nonetheless beyond the reality that that
they are prepared to indulge in further murder and mayhem in Sri Lanka
towards shaking the Nation to the core of its very existence. The latest
reports also indicate a desperate attempt to infiltrate the hill country
and the Indian Tamil labour contingencies who are apprently being forcibly
coerced into submitting to LTTE thugsand their intimidations towards
support for their cause.Reprisals perhaps for the free passage given
the LTTE who were let loose by the previous Ranil Wickremasinghe Administration.
It is fast becoming very apparent that dialogue alone seems an insufficient
deterrent to these rabid, futureless monstrosities calling themselves
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The State Department response
through Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice expressing concern over the
recent upsurge in violence in Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka during
talks with visiting Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera
is far too token towards the real means needed to either repel or deter
the LTTE who have openly broadcast internationally what they call a
buildup towards Eelam War IV. Will the US also fiddle and spew rhetoric
while Sri Lanka eventually burns?
It is infact a double standard as far as US responses to Global terrorism
is concerned to show any leniency to the LTTE and the sooner the US
views the LTTE as a dangerous terrorist group along with the rest of
them which needs to be put down and destroyed, the better! given the
consideration that they have not responded to peaceful means and don't
seem to have any intentions of doing so while decommissioning their
weapons, renouncing their objectives and indicating a willingness towards
a dialogue conducive to a lasting peace and joining mainstream Sri Lankan
society. Their pretences are so transparent towards the reality of their
insincerities and have fooled many albeit the prevalence of the rationale
and awareness of the more discerning who understand their real intent.One
of them the late Hon. Lakshman Kadirgamar often proclaimed his reservations
about the realities of the LTTE and eventually paid the ultimate heavy
price for it through Administrative lapses in as much as Sri Lanka is
paying for past administrative indiscretions and indifferences in letting
the LTTE roam free and unchecked.All the powers that be who believe
to the contrary need to re-evaluate their condfidences that the LTTE
could be negotiated with or even rehabilitated as it is at present a
pipe dream!.
In the latest violence, at least five Sri Lankan sailors were killed
and 10 others were missing and presumed dead early Saturday following
the sinking of a navy gunboat in a suspected suicide bombing.The attack
was the first sinking of a high-powered naval gunboat since a Norwegian-brokered
truce between Colombo and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) went into effect from February 2002.
US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Sri Lankan Foreign Minister
Mangala Samaraweera have discussed the current status of the Sri Lankan
Peace Process and the importance of strengthening the ceasefire, but
it seems ludicrous thet the so called strengthening of the ceasefire
is a one sided effort which gives the LTTE the opportunity to continue
their cowardly attacks unabated and with impunity and an apathetic shame
on the part of the Superpowers equipped to deal with them effectively
that all they have to offer are praises for the Sri Lankan Government
for its restraint while taking needless heavy casualties at the hands
of the unquelled LTTE.
Is it not about time for the major World Powers to cut out the rhetoricand
provide Sri Lanka with a more viable and tangible means to overcome
the terrorist problem for good?
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