CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

IF the Finnish and the Danish withdraw from SLMM, Sri Lanka should rid the country of the failed SLMM- and the failed CFA along with it

Ramanie de Zoysa

The failed Sri Lanka Monitoring is bowing to the dictates of the Tamil racist killing machine, the LTTE, by allowing its members from Finland and Denmark to withdraw citing ‘inadequate security’. This will remove 20 monitors (12 Finnish and 8 Danish) from the 57 member strong SLMM. In fact the SLMM bowed to the LTTE’s demands the moment the Mission abandoned its naval monitoring operations after the LTTE’s failed attack on the Pearl Cruiser II carrying 750 unarmed Sri Lanka naval personnel. Whatever reasons are being cited by the withdrawing EU monitors or the SLMM, the result is that every demand of the terrorist LTTE is being met by the current ‘peace facilitators’ in Sri Lanka.

BBC reports SLMM spokesman Thorfinnur Omarsson saying that (the withdrawal of Finnish and Danish monitors) "is not good for the mission". The Sri Lankan Government must tell him in no uncertain terms that it “is not good for Sri Lanka either”. LTTE is chopping and changing the CFA and the SLMM to suit its own agendas at will and willingly or otherwise the SLMM is dancing to those tunes jeopardizing the entire country’s security. Who knows whether partisan Norway encouraged these EU members behind the scenes to withdraw from the mission thereby pleasing the Tamil terrorists once again? Who knows what deals have been struck behind the scenes between the LTTE and the Norwegians to fulfill LTTE wishes? The risks are too great for Sri Lanka to take and Sri Lanka is not under any obligation to take such risks with the lives of the Sri Lankan civilians and defense personnel!

In the words of Mr Omarsson the withdrawal "will affect the operational effectiveness of the SLMM and ultimately affect the people of Sri Lanka." So, why have an ineffective SLMM and why have a structure that will affect the people of Sri Lanka in a detrimental fashion?

The remaining EU country Sweden is also on the wane; adopting a ‘wait and see’ attitude ‘for now’.

The only permanents in the Mission seem to be the thick- skinned Norwegians who have said that they will “continue efforts to mediate in the conflict”.

The main questions Sri Lankan Government has to raise are why the LTTE is guaranteeing the safety of the Norwegian monitors, what deals have been struck between the LTTE and the Norwegians to ensure their safety to the exclusion of others, whether the SLMM consisting only of the Norwegians will resume naval monitoring operations which they discontinued in May 2006 following the LTTE attack on the Pearl Cruiser II and if indeed they are, WHEN will these operations re-commence?

Should the SLMM response be that they will not be re-commencing full operations the Sri Lankan Government MUST declare the SLMM a failure and a surplus to requirements and discharge them from duties with immediate effect.

The establishment of the SLMM was very much a vital part of the ceasefire agreement (CFA) signed by the LTTE and Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe in 2002. Article 3 of the CFA states that the parties to the agreement “agreed to set up an international monitoring mission to enquire into any instance of violation of the terms and conditions of this Agreement.” The same article also states that the “mission shall conduct international verification through on-site monitoring of the fulfillment of the commitments”. It is not a secret that since of late the LTTE has not allowed the SLMM on-site access for their verification activities. The phasing out of the SLMM will render the CFA a non-event.

Will the official termination of the CFA ‘plunge Sri Lanka back to war’ as international media and our very own Sinhala ‘peace at any cost’ pundits predict? Sri Lanka can not plunge any where any further as Sri Lanka has been at the receiving end of the war right through out the period that was supposed to be covered by the CFA. Sri Lanka’s defense personnel have been getting killed daily, civilians have been getting massacred, public life and property is being destroyed, political leaders are being eliminated, LTTE has been acquiring military and communication capabilities throughout, LTTE have been building new bunkers and stealthily acquiring government land, LTTE have been carrying out the ethnic cleansing of the bordering villages without any reaction from the Sri Lankan Government since the CFA was signed. This is the maximum the LTTE is capable of unleashing on Sri Lanka with their pregnant women and baby brigades and they have not spared an iota of terror they are capable of against Sri Lanka. The uprooting of the CFA will remove the straight jacket wrapped around the Sri Lankan defense capabilities and allow it to better protect itself by eliminating the LTTE before the LTTE eliminates Sri Lanka.

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