CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s crime

Editorial Courtesy The Island 30-08-2007

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has committed a crime. He has indicated his desire to recapture a part of the country, which is currently being held by a terrorist outfit. He told a group of home guards at a recent passing out parade that the Wanni would be cleared of the LTTE. His statement has stirred up a hornets’ nest. The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) has expressed its grave concern over his pronouncement, according to media reports.

Strangely, there wasn’t a whimper from the SLMM when LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran threatened to plunge the country back into war immediately after the last presidential election in 2005 and did as he promised within days. Had there been high octane performance on the part of the monitors and the omnipotent international community to dissuade him from carrying out that threat, the country would have been free from war and Gotabhaya wouldn’t have been in the limelight; he would have been confined to the MoD like a petty clerk with nothing to do. They should have at least protested against Prabhakaran’s decision to have a dip in the Mavil Aru reservoir, which marked the beginning of the present phase of war.

The SLMM also took it lying down when Prabhakaran kicked out its members from the EU countries in retaliation for the EU ban. They meekly obeyed his order and left the country. The NGO fraternity was mum and the all powerful diplomatic community looked the other way. There were no vehement protests by the SLMMand the international community, when the LTTE targeted a troop carrier with 700 unarmed soldiers and monitors on board, off Mullativu in May last year.

The monitors get worked up only when the LTTE fights its way into a cul-de-sac and the army plans an onslaught. It is intriguing that they didn’t let fly when LTTE spokesman S. P. Tamilchelvam threatened, in the aftermath of the recapture of Thoppigala, to step up attacks in the southern parts of the country. If the monitors are not perturbed by the LTTE threats to take the war to the South, how come they become so concerned when the national military declares its intention of moving into the North? After all, at a recent meeting with the Head of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP), the SLMM endorsed the government position that only armed forces and the police could carry arms in the country. The implication of that endorsement is that those who wield illegal arms have to be neutralised. (US President George W. Bush has been invading other countries to stamp out the menace of illegal weapons. He is said to be mulling over the invasion of Iran as well. Why is it that the countries that the monitors represent haven’t registered their protest with the White House?)

Any reasonable person will agree that the government must be concerned about the safety of the civilians in the Wanni and act accordingly in dealing with the LTTE. If the army launches offensive operations in that region, it is the people being used as a human shield by the LTTE who are going to bear the brunt of the fierce battles to be fought. The so-called collateral damage is going to be huge unless the LTTE lets go of the people in its clutches without deliberately exposing them to danger. The chances of the LTTE doing so are remote. That is the reason why the government should tread cautiously as regards the Wanni battles, without jumping in with both feet.

However, anyone who opposes the government’s reported plan to march on the Wanni is duty bound to protest against the crimes that the LTTE is perpetrating on the civilians under its jackboot. It is forcibly conscripting children and the youth in their thousands besides unbridled extortion and violent suppression of dissent. Each family is forced to hand over at least one member to the LTTE. The people are being kept in that terrain against their will. Two UN workers who helped some civilians flee were abducted and held incommunicado by the LTTE. And the UN office in Colombo didn’t even report the incident to the UN headquarters until this newspaper exposed it. When the government blundered by trying to evict about three hundred Tamil civilians staying in lodges in Colombo, there were howls of protest—quite rightly so. (This newspaper condemned the government action in a front page editorial.) But, why have the human rights and other NGO activists who took the government to courts over that forcible eviction, the diplomatic community and the SLMM chosen to ignore the plight of the people forcibly held by the LTTE in the Wanni? Is it that those people are without human rights?

Aren’t the monitors, the international community and the NGO fraternity at least concerned about the humanitarian workers in the Wanni? The INGOs operating in that part of the country have had to keep their local staff indoors for fear of LTTE abductions, according to Reuters. What have the monitors got to say to this? Why don’t they express their concern in such a way that the world will sit up and take notice? Maybe, the Amnesty International should revive its ‘ball game’ and collect signatures for the sake of those beleaguered aid workers.

As for the Defence Secretary’s statement which has irked the SLMM, what do the monitors think he should have told a group of home guards at their passing out parade? Should he have told them that the government had no intention of going ahead with its war effort and the home guards therefore could return to their villages and observe sil?

The SLMM ought to be asked with due respect whether it expects the Defence Secretary or the armed forces chiefs to submit the texts of their speeches to the monitors for sanctioning prior to delivery. Governments get the monitors they deserve! Perhaps, the Rajapaksa government should take a leaf out of Prabhakran’s book on how to handle monitors.

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