JVP for War, UNP for Surrender, SLFP Undecided; what?s Best for Us?

Dilrook Kannangara

The nation is at cross roads; a decision has to be made soon as to what we are going to do. We are after peace, prosperity and law & order. What can bring all these?

If we chose to surrender what are the repercussions? Surely there will not be peace as terrorists will not want any peace as they never wanted; large scale ethnic cleansing will take place in the North, North East, North West, East and in the upcountry. Millions will be displaced for ever; retaliation attacks will take place elsewhere. The country will be split along ethnic lines as the LTTE wants it. Muslim separatism will raise its head as happened in 2002 after Valachchena riots. To hell with prosperity and law & order. It would be like Japan had it surrendered to Aum Shinrikio threats in 1995; US, UK and Australia had they surrendered to Jihad; Iraq as it is now; another holocaust in place of Israel.

What if SLFP’s indecision continues? In fact most Sri Lankans are in indecision. LTTE will intimidate the national economy. It is the LTTE’s last straw to attack the Sri Lanka’s economy; in fact in the last 24 years of war the real blows were suffered by the economy as the war has been one of the least intensive wars in the recent past. Compare the casualty figures of the Congo war, Bosnian/Serbian war, Vietnam/Afghanistan/Iraq/Iran wars, Cambodia, Chechnya, etc. More natural deaths have occurred during the last 24 years; more suicides and murders have been committed; more have died of natural and accidents than from the war/conflict. Therefore, we should guard the economy with whatever means available and at all costs. No wonder the UK government want to part with the terrorists; we haven’t forgotten that they were instrumental in utter havoc and disintegration in the South Asian region. They may have succeeded in splitting India into three or more parts, but they shouldn’t be allowed to do the same for this island. So the SLFP’s ‘middle path’ will end up in a stuck in the middle situation. It will be a prolonged surrender.

What if we go for an all out war? Some may say that we had done so and failed; did we ever try that? No. Few military operations doesn’t equal war.

We all knew that the three armed forces are not among the most effective in the world. It was last Friday that the Navy confronted a flotilla of 26 LTTE boats; only 2 were destroyed; a pathetic success rate of 8%. If one analyses all confrontations, this remains a striking recurrence. Same with the anti-aircraft guns that were firing aimlessly last month. The witch-hunt for LTTE aircraft also ended up in disaster. Strangely the SLAF was silent in their usual daily targeting of LTTE positions after the 30th of April. We all have heard of the barrage of MBRL onslaught on barren land where no LTTE cadres or equipment was present.

Is it because of inherent ineffectiveness of our forces due to improper planning or the lack of proper instructions to engage the terrorists with a view to destroying them?

If the answer is the latter, the government should get serious about handling the terrorism menace and I bet this is the case; the head of state recently declared that there is no war in Sri Lanka. It is apparent that the government has instructed the armed forces to only chase away the terrorists in a confrontation.

What we need is the type of attacks that took place in 1995 against LTTE terrorists in which within just two hours more than 500 terrorists were killed around Weli-Oya; only 2 soldiers were killed as the SLAF Y-8 bombers did the needful. Terrorists’ bodies were overwhelming and the army and the villagers had to give them a decent burial. What a marvelous victory it was; a journalist who traveled in a copter reported that the stink was felt high in the sky; so was the sweet sound of conquest resounded the world over. Why can’t we have such triumphs anymore? This is the type of operations that will take place if we follow the war path.

For peace to dawn on this land at least 20,000 LTTE terrorists should be killed; it is as simple as that. If we aren’t doing that, there is no hope for peace.

It is time that these three arms of national defence are converted to killing machines targeting the LTTE with ferocity. The need of the hour is not to surrender but to make good use of the adversities to overcome terrorism.

At the same time we got to protect our seaports, airports, public infrastructure and civilian lives/properties.

This is duty of the government to overcome this hurdle; we knew this coming one day when the LTTE is cornered and at the verge of extinction; make them history.