Tamilnadu and pro LTTE activism

Mario Perera writing from New Delhi

The visit of Basil Rajapakse to Pranab Mukerjee, the telephone call from Sonia Gandhi to Karunanidhi and the subsequent visit of Pranab Mukerjee to the octogenerian calmed his pro LTTE stance. Newspapers even suggested that K gleefully accepted the opening presented to him by these contacts to wriggle out of his predicament. It will be recalled that he threatened to withdraw the support of his 16 members to the Central Government if the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka was not addressed. Elections are around the corner and no one really wants to upset alliances that brought them into power.

It is reported that Prabharakan's designation of K as being a ''Tamil nationalist' had embarassed the latter. Prabha had said that K was a 'Tamil nationalist' who was not only very vocal but equally active against the 'Sinhala State terrorism' of the Tamils. However Congress spokesman Manish Tiwari came to K's rescue by stating that the latter should not be embarassed by the declarations of the leader of a terrorist group. Tiwari also said that the Sri Lankan government had been more that cooperative regarding the issues concerned.

India is itself in the throes of a series of serious problems. There is a relentless onging probe against what is know as 'saffron terror' (Hindu nationalist terror) supposedly linked to the BJP. The terrorist bomb blasts earlier attributed to Muslims groups are being probed anew in the light of this 'saffron terror' discovery.The bomb blasts concerned are those that occured in Malegaon, Mudasa, Delhi, Ahmedabad and jaipur. At this very moment a 'Sadhvi' (a woman sadhu) aged 38 years is the main suspect as regards the Malegaon blast.

A further thorn in the side of the Indian government is RajThackeray (leader of the MSN) whose gooons carry out regular physical aggression against the persons and property of North Indian (mainly Bihari) migrants in Mumbai. A few days ago a Bihari youth Rahul Raj was shot by the Mumbai police while he was brandishing a home made pistol and screaming threats against Thackeray. Just yesterday another Bihari youth was beaten and lynched in a local Mumbaia train by the same hoodlums.

Also Keral youth are being recruited fore terrorist actriites on behalf of Punjab separatists. With all this terrorism on its own soil the Indian Government is in no way ready to hearken to Prabha's plea that his LTTE be debanned.

The LTTE air attacks on the army post in Mannar and on the ower station in Colombo is being highlighted on TV and in the newspapers.With such attacks the LTTE is conveying to India and the world that it is far from being a spent force as Colombo claims. Attacks of this nature especially in the heart of the capital by such fragile, hasitily assembled aircraft flying with total impunity certainly gives credence to LTTE claims that its obituary is still not ready to be written.