NATIONAL SECURITY IS UTMOST : UPHOLD IT

Dilrook Kannangara

Costly mistakes at war are not unique to Sri Lanka. These have occurred almost in every war and still continue unabated in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine and in many more countries. The gravity of each should be viewed in the correct context. The most sensible thing to do when terrorists attack security forces from behind civilians is to retaliate such attacks aiming at enemy positions. The artillery division did the right thing (may not be a good thing!) and with due respect to those affected we should continue to follow a similar strategy. Deviation from this tried and tested method (by all the legitimate armies in the world) will only have the following consequences.

1. Encouraged by the results, terrorists will continue to use human shields more and more with extreme success.
2. There will be many unwarranted ‘advisors’ to the legitimate military with ulterior motives. They will ensure the army ends up being lame ducks.
3. ‘Peace-Without-Law & Order’ campaigners will have registered a victory for the LTTE by driving down the fighting spirit of the nation
4. The ‘international community’ will make it an opportunity to poke their dirty fingers into the affairs of yet another sovereign country.

Let me justify my claim. As we have seen many a time, LTTE propaganda is much more advanced than ours. They set the ground work well ahead of planned terror attacks.
MBRLs were used with extreme success in defending Trinco, Mavil Aru, etc. recently. Just before the terrorists attacked Jaffna FDL, terrorists claimed that the SLA’s ‘scorch earth policy’ is harmful to the environment. SLA played Ostrich by not using MBRLs and air power resulting in the first apparent defeat in 2006. Encouraged by this the terrorists attacked Habarana and Galle in rapid succession. Further attacks were halted by the repeated air force bombardment on sea tiger bases in retaliation.

In a dramatic turn of events, the terrorists attacked a civilian ship just a day after the incident. This is undisputable evidence of how the terrorists make use of our Ostrich strategy. Terrorists only knew too well that our security forces will endure losses without a fierce counter attack after hordes of criticism from many quarters following the 8 November incident. It happened.

When civilians are taken hostage in LTTE controlled areas, the government (the only one in the whole world) continuously send FREE food, medicine and other amenities to these areas knowing very well that most of these end up with the terrorists. We not only sustain the terrorists in doing so but help them be seen as providers to the civilian population. They also use money selling these to civilians to buy terrorist needs. Going by this strategy the LTTE ensured the closure of their Kappang highway, take more and more civilians hostage in many parts of the country, demand separate stream of funds to its TRO from donors.

Encouraged by the Master’s success in attacking legitimate forces while hiding behind civilian privileges, the Servants also follow suit. This is manifested by the hooliganism and irresponsible behaviour the TNA (‘sit-in-protest’) and UNP (‘palayaw’) have manifested in Parliament and outside from time to time.

We got to break free from this vicious cycle. Military strategies should be selected only by the members of the security forces and not by politicians, journalists, the international community, ‘peace-without law & order’ campaigners or terrorist mules.

This is simply because national security is utmost, far more important than casualties of war (and ‘peace-without law & order’). Many billions can make Sri Lanka their home in the future if national security is preserved. On the other hand, if we collapse in the face of terror attacks and give in, no civilisation can survive in our island. The 20 million population today will suffer under a mere 30,000 terrorists and so will their children and no one will want to call this their safe home. Start exterminating terrorists wherever they hide and let the message be very clear-terrorists cannot hide in the safety of anything, we will hunt them down undeterred and we only get bolder and experienced by mistakes on the way