Is There A Real Need To Continue Tolerating The LTTE Friendly SLMM?

© Hindsight By Sunil Kumara Senaratna ~ For LankaWeb ~ Jan21st 2007

Albeit wishful thinking perhaps, in refusing the Scandinavian truce monitors' request for a Sri Lankan Air Force helicopter to travel to the Wanni for a meeting with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) a clear message appears to have been sent whether inadvertently or not by the Government of Sri Lanka that the SLMM no longer have carte blanche to communicate with an outlawed terrorist group within the statutes of the world as well as the nation and hopefully it will sink into the thick skulls and hides of the SLMM that their manouvres as well as interferences into internal matters of the Nation are unwelcome and contentious and the call for the Nation to be rid of them by many opposing groups of political perception quite justifiable.

Is this however a namby pamby administration that jumps from pillar to post as far as the SLMM are concerned or is there some compelling urge based on a hidden agenda which cannot motivate the Government to give the Scandinavian Monitors the marching orders and look for a viable and more feasible replacement on the basis that the present crew are motley and an LTTE friendly lot and therby pro-terrorist by every definition where even their past track record has attested to this reality.

Given the routing the LTTE are being subjected to by the Armed Forces in the North and East it would seem inconceivable and a mockery to the precepts of National Security to continue any further tolerance of the SLMM who should be jettisoned from any further participation in Sri Lanka's internal affairs which they continue to force themselves into, at times surreptitiously while their blatant pro LTTE agenda back in some of their home countries have now become pretty obvious and graphically exposed by more than one investigative source and in particula SPUR of Australia amongst others.

While it seems an affront to the current mood in the country regarding 'the rights of the terrorists' which are realistically non existent the peace monitors who have now quite easily qualified for the status of 'Lame Ducks' have had the nerve to request a helicopter for SLMM chief Lars Johan Solvberg to visit Wanni for talks with the LTTE political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvam himself teetering on the brink of oblivion who is also a terrorist as far as the Nation of Sri Lanka is concerned.

It also seems futile to dwell on on the resumption of monitoring operations suspended more than a month ago given the mendacities of the LTTE, their reluctance to be contrite and Nation friendly and continue hoping that their champions the SLMM will once again create platforms for their terrorist activities to which the newly appointed head of the Peace Secretariat Palitha Kohona has waved a Red Flag and rightly so while also deserving many plaudits for his decision!

That the SLMM spokesman T. Ommersson has said "the request was made to the Government’s Peace Secretariat, but turned down with no reasons given" is perhaps an indication that the Government is now onto the SLMM skullduggery which has in all probilities existed and prevailed in the LTTE's favour for a long time.

The time is at hand where it will no loinger be tolerated in blind faith and a pointer towards the consciences of the SLMM that their days just as much as those of the LTTE could be numbered and in full perception of the new leader of the Peace Secretariat whose concept of peace does not necessarily mean bartering with non Nation friendly fully armed terrorists who are on the run!!

The request was made following a meeting between the SLMM head and Peace Secretariat Chief Palitha Kohona. The discussions were on the resumption of SLMM operations after the monitors re-grouped in Colombo suspending their operations in the Northern and Eastern Provinces.

In retrospect this could easily be fallout based on the doings of the likes of Eric Solheim and his co workers whose tranparencies towards pro-LTTE bias have long since been exposed and that there is a new kind of sentiment towards SLMM monitoring on the part of the GOSLwhich many analysts deem interfering rather than monitoring and perhaps justifiably so although this might not be openly admitted for obvious reasons!

The People's National Party the JVP will be very pleased at this decision as they have together with the nationalist Buddhist political group the JHU pointed out many transparencies and duplicities on many an occassion involving the SLMM and their attitudes towards the LTTE on which basis they have continuously demanded that the SLMM be revoked and a replacement found! case in point for the next Governmental assignment perhaps in addition to wiping out the LTTE terrorists off the face of Sri Lanka!

While the the SLMM have previously been allowed access to all areas of the North and East, except the Muhamalai Forward Defence Lines in Jaffna and Vakarai in the Batticaloa district which seems a grave error of ommission based on their past history of being LTTE informers and panderers it seems somewhat preposterous that SLMM monitors have been permitted recently as this past Saturday to enter the Batticaloa district where an estimated 7,000 displaced persons from Vakarai have arrived since the recapture of the area by the Army on Friday.

As many speculate about the ramifications of such permission to a group which has in the past tended to favour the LTTE and whether the safety of these refugees might not be further compromised if their whereabouts and movements are revealed to the LTTE who in their utter desperation are capable of stopping at nothing and easily attempt to recover their lost' human shields' as the case might be!

The SLMM given all their irregularities and pro LTTE manouverings realistically cannot and should not be trusted although said to be operating with 34 monitors and are due to be in the field in the North and East according to latest reports where all their intentions and moves could prove to be suspicious, contentious and ironically they themselves perhaps in need of monitoring if they cannot be let go based on the Trojan Horse Concept in the best interests of Sri Lanka!.