If the ‘war’ is stopped...
by S. L. Gunasekara
Courtesy The Island 05-11-2007
IF the government stops the ‘war’ [i. e. military operations
against the LTTE] as so many engaged in the lucrative ‘business’
euphemistically named "peace activism", as well as the ‘Thompson
and Thompson’ of the foreign diplomatic corp in Sri Lanka, the
incredible duo of Blake and Chillcot demand, what will be the result?
What will NOT HAPPEN is that the LTTE will give up arms or agree to
any power sharing agreement with the Government for the LTTE has shown
by its deeds as well as by its words that it will not agree to sharing
power with any person or organization even if they are Tamils.
Were this not so, Amirthalingam, Mr. and MrsYogeswaran, Tiruchelvam,
Mr. and Mrs Tambimuttu, `Tall Sri’ Sabaratnam, Padmanabah, Thangadurai
and countless other Tamils would be alive today, and Anandasangaree
and Devananda would be able to move around without body-guards and engage
in politics freely in the North and East, while the likes of Sambandan
would be able [if so disposed] to conduct public meetings to commemorate
their erstwhile leaders and activists who were foully murdered by the
LTTE.
Thus, what WILL HAPPEN if the Government stops the `war’ is that
the LTTE will continue to exercise its usurped powers of governance
in most parts of the Wanni and parts of the Jaffna Peninsula with an
unabated degree of fascism and repression that no part of this Country
has ever seen.
What WILL ALSO HAPPEN, as experience has shown, is that the LTTE will
use the respite gained by such stoppage, to be able to recruit [both
forcibly and otherwise], Tamil youth including minor children into their
terrorist cadres, train and arm them while smuggling more arms and ammunition
into this Country to enable them to prolong the conflict and their fascist
rule, which would necessarily enable the Peace Businessmen to amass
more wealth with more and more `Alms’ coming in from their foreign
puppeteers in the form of INGOs while the Country continues to bleed.
Is this what these ‘peace businessmen’ and this diplomatic
duo of ‘Thompson and Thompson’ want ? Do they want a racist
megalomaniac who, among other atrocities, trains or causes the training
of young men and women to commit suicide by exploding bombs attached
to their persons slaughtering or maiming all in the vicinity to continue
to rule our helpless citizens who live in those parts of the Country
over which the LTTE exercises usurped power ?
If that is what they want why do they not say so in plain language
without hiding their unwholesome desires in a mass of sanctimonious
verbiage ??
It is axiomatic that there can be no peace in the Country while the
LTTE remains armed – for how can there be peace in a Country where
there are two sets of `Armed Forces’, with one set being loyal
to the Government and the other to the megalomaniac named Prabhakaran
to whom murder and mayhem is the `oxygen’ on which he survives
??
Thus, it is refreshing to find Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse
articulating the unvarnished truth by saying that the military defeat
of the LTTE is an essential pre-requisite to peace – for truth
is a ‘commodity’ to which those in the citadels of power are
usually allergic or economize upon when compelled to face it. The last
person in that ‘citadel’ who spoke the unvarnished truth about
the LTTE was former President D B Wijetunge who said that "There
is no ethnic problem in Sri Lanka but only a terrorist problem"
or words to that effect. Wijetunge was castigated from all quarters
including his own party for so speaking the truth. So also will Gotabhaya
Rajapaksa - but he should not be dismayed. He should rather continue
his noble work unabated, drawing comfort from the words of Jesus Christ:-
"Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’
sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"
[Mathew 5:10]
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