Ranil trying to control dysentery with an amude
(loincloth)
Photo Courtesy The Daily Mirror 20-06-2006
Elephantine peek-a-boo with
Tigers?
The Island Editorial
The UNP is reported to be distributing sirens among the
people in the villages affected by terrorism. This project has been
going on for some years to help villagers sound warnings against terror
attacks. Alerting the people in case of an emergency is believed to
be a prerequisite for averting disaster. But there is little that poor
villagers can do, even if they are warned of a terror attack in a village
surrounded by a large number of blood thirsty savages in darkness. The
choice they have is to either get butchered inside their humble homes
or run out to the accompaniment of the wail of sirens and face the same
fate under the stars. For, the Tigers who descend on far flung villages
are not in a hurry: they have hours to search for missing villagers
and drag them out of their hiding places.
On the other hand, the Tigers have now graduated from cutting and chopping
to a far more effective way of massacring civilians—blasting claymore
mines. Of what use are sirens against mine attacks?
The Tigers are hell bent on ethnic cleansing in the North and the East
through a spate of massacres and the UNP ought to go beyond giving away
sirens in helping them keep the Tigers at bay. Having ruled this country
for over 19 years since 1977, mismanaged the war effort and peace processes
alike and failed to protect the people in the terror-affected villages
or at least provide them with basic infrastructural facilities such
as electricity, the UNP cannot absolve itself of its sins by donating
sirens. It is during its watch that the LTTE got duty free state-of-the-art
communication equipment via the Colombo Port. Sirens are just peanuts
compared to those sophisticated equipment. This doesn’t mean the
SLFP-led governments have fared any better. They, too, have neglected
those voiceless villagers.
The UNP had a different approach to protecting those affected by the
JVP terror during its second uprising in the late 1980s. We didn’t
hear of sirens being distributed in the rural backwaters of the South
to ward off JVP terrorists, who matched the LTTE brutality in massacring
civilians. Nor did we hear of the SLFP distributing sirens either. Not
even the Reds, who are now preaching the virtues of appeasement to the
terror-affected populace, seemed to believe in warning systems. They
all got together and armed themselves to the teeth. And, worse of all,
the weapons they got from the UNP government were never returned! Thousands
of such sophisticated weapons are still missing. A few years ago, the
police uncovered a cache of weapons from behind a false wall in the
office of a minuscule left party making a grand show of pacifism and
advocating separatism in Colombo.
The villages prone to LTTE terror need armed protection. Nothing else
is going to be effective in ensuring their safety. The on-going scheme
of recruiting home guards is a step in the right direction. But they
must be recruited in adequate numbers and properly trained. Precautions
are called for to prevent guns falling into the wrong hands and finding
their way into the underworld. Similarly, it is incumbent upon the government
to investigate the allegations of atrocities by the armed forces against
Tamil civilians. There is a heart rending story of a Tamil family, which,
the LTTE claims, was massacred by a group of armed forces personnel
recently. True, the report is on an LTTE website but it shouldn’t
be dismissed as a propaganda lie of the terrorists without a probe.
The security forces are not without rogue elements in their midst and
they must be detected and brought to justice if they perpetrate violence
against civilians. No one who doesn’t oppose brutality of rogues
in uniform against Tamil civilians has any moral right to condemn LTTE
massacres like the recent one at Kebilithigollewa.
The issuance of more and more arms is certainly going to aggravate
an already bad situation as regards the alarming increase in access
to arms and it is likely to have unforeseen ramifications. But there
is no alternative to that desperate measure, with the LTTE on the rampage––without
anyone to rein it in. It is only wishful thinking that a bunch of terrorists,
who massacre men, women and children, could be stopped in their tracks
through warning systems.
As the main Opposition party, the UNP is duty bound to pressure the
government to do its utmost to protect the villagers fleeing LTTE terror,
and to assist it in that noble endeavour. The mere distribution of sirens
in the hope that those gadgets will help drive the Tigers away is like
trying to control dysentery with an amude (loincloth).
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