Fawners of the Northern Felines - How an unholy consortium of Leftists, Rightists and Moguls of the Press snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

R Chandrasoma

That the Tamil Tigers have been severely mauled in the recent fighting between our armed forces and the terrorist hordes in the North and East is a fact that only the stupidly partisan will gainsay. The pathetic pictures of hundreds of the rebel dead strewn across a desolate landscape are so telling that words are not necessary to fill in the scale of the defeat for a movement that was once hailed as the greatest rebel outfit in the world.

In the decade past, the 'war' against the Northern Terrorists was led by an avuncular fraud and his swollen-headed (and peace-loving) niece. A demoralized Sri Lankan Army was repeatedly routed in combat by gun-wielding dervishes who relished death as a sacred means of advancing their cause. At the time of this humiliation and general mayhem, the generals were busy procuring fat contracts and wheedling the Big Political Boss for an extended stay in office. All this is tiresome history.

Things are different today. No longer is the President of this country a cultural alien who finds the autochthony of the Sinhala-Buddhists an offence. Nor are the armed forces led by pliant time-servers happily ensconced in plush Colombo offices. This double-change in command strategy has led to the acquisition of a new and daring posture that has made the Rebels think twice before attacking army positions. The human-wave tactics that led to shameful reversals in the past have been countered by accurate fire from multi-barreled rocket-launchers that has decimated the enemy. It can be safely stated that the Tamil Tigers will never repeat the great 'victories' of the years past. It can only be downhill for them.

Surely, this is a sea-change in the security position of our country and should be celebrated by the movers and shakers in our society. Alas, this is not the case -far from exhibiting the joy and hubris that generally attends victory over an inveterate enemy, there is denial and suspicion. Except for the State-Controlled Press, there is a desperate attempt by the media to downplay the abjectness of the defeat of the Tamil Tigers. This astonishingly unpatriotic negativism takes various forms. Firstly, there is the role of the 'umpire' played effectively by some leading newspapers. The adopted scenario is that there are two 'narratives' - that of the 'GOSL' and the LTTE. The former says that the rebels were routed while the latter says that innocent girls were killed. Who are we to believe?

Reflect, friends - will this kind of scurvy hypocrisy be tolerated in any other country in the world? Is it the business of the press to massage the news to make the enemy the victim and the forces battling to safeguard the integrity of our country gung-ho adventurers?

Let return to the second line of attack favoured by the English-language newspapers. This is the dog-eared and miserable thesis that rebellion can never be defeated. Now that the Tamil rebellion is at death's door, the NGO fed brigades that thrived on this misery are desperately trying to keep the fight going. How, you may ask. One highly effective method is to persuade editorialists to trash and ridicule the 'military solution' and to refigure the President as a misguided fool. This is being done with considerable bravura in the Sunday Newspapers issued from Colombo. Is the President Cornered? - this is the screaming headline in one newspaper.

A man who calls himself 'Ravanna' declares unctuously that 'Ranil Wickremasinghe is the wisest and greatest politician of modern times' A female - obviously one very well placed - has a centre-page spread on the futility of war with the Tamil Tigers. These effusions are well-timed. The Tiger is dying and these verbal gymnastics are nothing other than heroic attempts by pen-wielders of the fourth estate to prevent the sure extinction of the northern felines that have ravaged this country for so long. Why this anguish? Is it a contagion passed on by foreigners who are now the paymasters of a very influential class in this country?

The Press is mightily concerned with the delays at check-points and delight in showing brawling Bhikkhus - at a time when the army is fighting - and dying - to prevent murderously robotic barbarians from overrunning the North and East of our imperiled country. The insinuation is that this fighting is sectarian and driven by the extremism of the JHU and the JVP. In brief, the 'war' is a perversion engineered by a numerically strong but ideologically marginal fringe of society In this matter they are in wonderful unison with that other powerful block dong wondrously good work on behalf of the Tamil Tigers.

The recent 'Anti-War' rally held in Colombo had an astonishing mix of seeming adversaries whose love for the Tiger transcended all bounds and animosities that separate them. At this rally Catholic Priests rubbed shoulders with religion-rejecting Marxists while the SLFP renegades of once-powerful Chandrika Group displayed a warm camaraderie towards RaWick's pinch-hitters and internationalists. Their joint hatred of the Sinhala-Buddhists was made very evident in the way the pugilists among them treated the Bhikkhus.

A final point to reflect on. Are these Catholic-Marxist-SLFP-UNP warriors (and their brethren in the so-called Free Press) united by honest ideological commitment? Are they mere paid proxies for a mightier force that menaces the territorial integrity of this country? If the latter is the case, must we not unite to defeat this grave threat to our independence?