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What's Funny And What's Serious About Political Solutions,Military Responses and Zero Sum!© Insight By Sunil Kumara ~ For LankaWeb26th October 2007 The Secretary General - Secretariat for Co-ordinating the Peace Process Mr. Rajiva Wijesinha, in his SCOPP Report under the caption "Political Solutions, Military Responses and Zero Sum Perceptions dated 26 October 2007 seems to have tripped on his coat tails in attempting to apply the Zero Sum approach to the situation in Sri Lanka quite forgetting that the issue in Sri Lanka despite all the various theories by so called intellectuals and pundits is not a Political One per se if the definitive disparity between freedom loving Tamil community and the terrorists of the LTTE were put into proper perspective which in the greater scheme of things point towards a single solution which is to eliminate or incapacitate the terrorists before applying the Zero Sum Theory to the freedom loving Tamils who want no part of Velupillai Prabhakaran and the LTTE or else one can rest assured Zero Sum would equate to No Win rather than Win Win!!! It is a problem which has been created by a group of egocentric terrorists led by a megalomaniac psychopath who has together with his criminals pretending to be freedom fighters churned up a mendacious internal armed insurrection which has been blown out of proportion by the sheer mismanagement of idealogical, selfishly motivated, power hungry politicians who have taken all the wrong directions and compromised the Nation's future towards progress and development big time and perhaps a' zero zero 'application would sound better in describing the State of affairs within Sri Lanka today thanks to some of the past hierarchies which do not need pontificating litanies of this nature by representatives of the Peace Secretatiat whose sermons do not seem favourable towards the resolution of Sri Lanka's woes of the day. Some Zero politicians indeed! While this gentleman's theory may be relative to a peaceful solution that has now taken on the guise of a pipe dream thanks to the unrelenting nature of the LTTE terrorists it seems to have been fanned by a friend with a Harvad Graduate School reputation who has explained to him the theory of Zero Sum on the assumption that," if someone benefited from something, then someone else had to lose.Therefore we tended to be excessively competitive, not just to advance ourselves, but to hold others back, on the grounds that if they went forward we would ourselves go back. In a more modern world, according to this theorist people realized that they could themselves benefit from the success of others, that many situations were potentially win-win ones, where by helping others rather than holding them back you could also do well yourself." It is also one which is rationally inapplicable to the situation in Sri Lanka as what is needed towards the resolution of her problems is one which would effectively deal with terrorists who are not freedom fighters but anarchists and not politically motivated beyond false pretences and merely interested in disrupting the normal order of life in Sri Lanka towards their own agendas! And to cap it all up they are absolutely unrelenting beyond their objectives to carry on regardless or die trying towards a goal which not only seems unacceptable but also unattainable with very little or no sympathy or support from anyone who understands them for what they really represent! A bunch of pathetic losers looking at a big Zero rather than Sum Zero! While in theory the Zero Sum explanation may sound very credible in a normal application, it does not gel within the terrorist plagued climate of Sri Lanka and where in Heaven's name did the LTTE terrorists ever merit any recognition that their idealogies were based upon benefiting from the success of others and that the situations they have created within Sovereign Sri Lanka were win win ones for anyone who crossed their path who were instantly eliminated in unspeakable fashion and murdered ruthlessly ? It might also be brought to the attention of this 'reputable voice'
on behalf of Human Rights ( and lately there seem to be many of them!)
that the Counter Terrorism Conference arranged by the Lakshman Kadirgamar
Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies was one intended
to formulate a viable solution to counter terrorism rather than palaver
to it as the case seems to have been.The very nature of the demise of
its founder attests to this! Almost synonymously as if on cue, the LTTE
launched one of their biggest attempts albeit unsuccesfully to overwhelm
an Air Force Base of strategic importance almost as though what was
said at the conference by some of its prominent invitees was tantamount
to describing an invincible strength of the terrorists and that the
Government could not defeat them militarily. Consequently there were
indeed those who claimed that the conference had been a great fiasco
because some of those who spoke had portrayed the Government as incapable
of defeating the terrorists when much of the related Armed Forces offensives
pointed to the contrary and what transpired was a show of strength towards
all the gaffe of the participants by the LTTE eventually costing the
Sri Lankan Government moderately but the terrorists very dearly! There is nothing absurd in the claim that the conference was indeed a great fiasco which went beyond its objectives towards perhaps compounding the Nations' terrorist problem or at least lending wings( no pun intended!) to it judging by the events which took place at the Saliyapura Air Force Base in Anuradhapura where the Sum Zero theory at best should be put on hold towards a better alternative and applied once the terrorist element has been removed from the face of Sri Lanka or incapacitated.That the The LKIIRSS had invited scholars of repute, who hypothetically according to Mr Wijesinha were not bound by any expectations to sound Pro Government seems fair enough on a think tank basis but for some of them such as the outspoken Mr Chaliand to draw the analogy about the LTTE comparable to the most powerful terror group which the Government could not defeat was laying it a bit thick and obstreperous if a proper definiton was needed. To the contrary, if this was intended to be a serious analytical exercise, the purpose was to share ideas for the sake of helping to develop coherent policies and issues at hand relative to counter terrorism where if the participants had something unwelcome to say, the sensible response would have been to maintain a stiff upperlip perhaps rather than attempting to ridicule the Government of Sri Lanka which categorically they did and hence the bravado of the terrorists which ensued! . And what exactly does Mr Wijesinghe mean when he says" Do our
cosy Sri Lankan commentators, in calling us names, realize that the
Sri Lankan Armed Forces are not like that, that the Sri Lankan Peace
Secretariat does not glorify war and suicide cadres? Do they recognize
that unless terrorism is dealt with firmly, more and more families will
have to sacrifice one member and then two to such practices? Do they
care about anything at all, or is it more important to claim, without
studying Dr Chaliand's speech, that he embarrassed the Sri Lankan Government,
and isn't that tremendously funny? " The cozy Sri Lankan commentators perhaps in retrospect have criticized
the Peace Secretariat based exactly on the reasons highlighted and emphasized
in this presentation where it is not the glorification of war or suicide
cadres that is the issue here but the inability to identify them for
the better or the worse through accurate presentation rather than with
euphemisms and which of the two needs justification and how! May it
be asked what Mr Wijesinghe has as an alternative to 'dealing with terrorism
firmly' as he has specified beyond the lines adopted by the GOSL? And
may it also be pointed out that the eloquent Mr Chaliand seems to have
relented his stance to a degree about the need to quell terrorism and
how to get about it in an almost about turn mentality in a recent statement
to the media which helps to accentuate much of the criticism against
him as purposeful where as a result of which he tries to compensate
for his indiscretions of the not too distant past! |
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