LTTE AND 'INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY' EXPOSED AGAIN
The LTTE has been exposed again. It is not the invincible force that the NGO boys and girls had wanted us to believe. It was the LTTE and not the government that started the fighting in Muttur, having denied the basic facility of water to the people by closing the Mavil Aru anicut. The government had to engage the armed forces in what is now referred to as a limited operation in order to supply water to the people, after failing to come to a settlement through the peace secretariat. It is clear that the LTTE is interested in peace only to win a separate state, as the terrorists know that they are incapable of achieving it through "war".
However, they would now and then try to impress the world that they have the strength to confront the armed forces. The "international community" also would boost the "achievements" by the LTTE in these confrontations to force the Sri Lankan government to give Elam on a platter to the terrorists through so called negotiations. The "international community" and their henchmen and henchwomen would argue that the LTTE is invincible and therefore "peace" has to be attained through negotiations. Of course, by peace they mean a federation that would finally lead to a separate state.
The LTTE claimed that the attack in Muttur was against the operations by the armed forces to supply water from the Mavil Aru to the people in the surrounding areas. However, what they had in mind was something else. They wanted to ethnic cleanse the area by driving the Sinhala people and the Muslims away from Muttur and adjoining areas. The area surrounding Trincomalee is very important to the LTTE as they want to establish the Capital of Elam in that town. The LTTE is desperate to occupy the Trincomalee harbour and to cut off the supply line to the armed forces in the Jaffna peninsula.
Further Muttur, Welioya and in general the Seruvila electorate constitute the bridge between the Northern and the Eastern provinces and the LTTE would like to have this area free from Sinhalas and Muslims. When the LTTE commenced the fighting the "international community" did not make any statements nor the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) attempted to stop the fighting. Perhaps, the members of the SLMM were busy monitoring the rest houses in Polonnaruwa and had no time for these trivial matters. Nor these worthy gentlemen were interested in supplying water to the innocent villagers around Mavil Aru.
However, the western media spearheaded by the British Broadcasting Corporation and the local anti government media were more interested in telling that the LTTE had captured Muttur having overrun the camps of the armed forces. They wanted to demoralise the Armed Forces and as usual to drive a wedge between the Sinhalas and the Muslims. Mr. Hakeem, who finds it easy to make statements against the government than against the LTTE, for obvious reasons, helped the latter by criticising the former. He did not even think that the LTTE was mainly interested in ethnic cleansing and was happy to accuse the armed forces.
This "triumphant" period was short lived and as soon as the armed forces went into action, though of limited operations, the LTTE was exposed. The LTTE does not have the capabilities of defeating the armed forces, even with the assistance of the NGO boys.
As soon as the LTTE suffered severe casualties, Solheim and others appeared and wanted the government to stop the war. Solheim had apparently asked the President to stop military offensive for which Mr. Rajapakse is believed to have said it was the LTTE, which began the confrontations and Solheim should have asked the terrorists and not the government to stop the fighting. I wonder what would have happened if Chandrika Kumaratunga was the President.
It is clear that the west that maintained both Ranil Wickremesinghe and Chandrika Kumaratunga as the leaders of the UNP and the SLFP respectively, is not happy with the present leadership of the SLFP. There is a plan by these vested interests to bring back Chandrika Kumaratunga as the leader of the SLFP, and the party I am sure has the resources to defeat the ambitions of the west.
It was a victory for the SLFP to remove Chandrika Kumaratunga an agent of the west from the post of the president of the party and it is unlikely that the west would be able realise their ambitions. There is a group of MPs in the SLFP, supported by the NGOs, and at least one of them has accused the JVP and the JHU of promoting the so-called war.
Ceasefire Agreement
The LTTE now claims that they would respect the treacherous Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) signed by Ranil Wickremesinghe and Prabhakaran, which led to dividing the country officially into so-called cleared and uncleared areas, and gave the LTTE the upper hand in dealings with the Sri Lankan government. In any event is the CFA something that the LTTE could violate and respect according to its whims and fancies? The SLMM that has members only from Norway and Iceland at present, is silent on these matters, and there is no necessity of this outfit. In fact the CFA that had been abrogated by the LTTE on a number of occasions could itself be thrown into the dustbin of history.
Alhough it is the LTTE that violates all the agreements, it is the government that always has to defend itself by claiming that it is not engaged in "war". This mentality or the mindset that has been forced on the government should be dropped.
The government and the armed forces are always under pressure by the "international community" to show their innocence, while the LTTE has been given a free licence to violate any agreement that it has entered into. The SLFP should think of conceding to the demand of the JVP to send the Norwegians home and drop the so called CFA. It is not just a demand of the JVP, as the vast majority of peace loving people including those who voted for the UNP support such a move and the government should realise that the so-called international community is nothing but humbug, and as a respected government it should not be dictated either by this gang or by India which works hand in hand with USA at present.
The attitude and the plans of the Norwegians were further revealed when Jon Hansen-Bauer who hails from Norway claimed that the "Colombo government has shown willingness to consider the demands by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (for a port) in return for the reopening of the key reservoir in the Trincomalee area now under rebel control". The government immediately said it was nothing but wishful thinking by the Norwegians and countered the Norwegian claim. Whatever the government initially said it is clear the intention of the Norwegians is to create a separate state for the LTTE, and that they are here to achieve their objective with or without considering the views of the Sinhalas. If somebody thinks that the views of the Sinhalas can be ignored in finding a solution to the terrorist problem in Sri Lanka then he/she is engaged in wishful thinking.
The LTTE that is not capable of establishing an Elam through "war" can achieve their ambition only through negotiations. However, they engage in warfare against the state in order to convince that they could defeat the armed forces, and it is in the interests of the government to come to the negotiating table. The "international community" that is aware of the limitations of the LTTE gives support to this strategy which is most probably devised by the former.
It is up to the government and the people of the country to defeat all the treacherous strategies of the west and the LTTE that work hand in hand with each other, in spite of the bogus bans of the latter by the former.
The LTTE in its latest attempt to convince the world and more importantly the terrorists who are now getting disillusioned with the leaders, has decided to wage "war" to capture Jaffna. After all Jaffna is what the LTTE wants most in spite of the fact that Trincomalee would be the capital of Elam, and if they could capture Jaffna it would boost the morale of the terrorists.
On the other hand, if they lose the "battle" then it would affect them drastically as the terrorists would begin to leave the LTTE. The LTTE is so desperate to keep the terrorists with them Prabhakaran has decided to take the risk. The "international community" would be more active as a result, and would be desperate on their part to resume "peace negotiations".
However, the LTTE is interested in "peace negotiations" only because they cannot achieve an Elam through "war", and they would go on killing anybody, especially among the Tamils, who would not agree with them politically. The latest dastard act of the LTTE is the brutal murder of Ketesh Loganathan, which should be condemned with all the contempt that it deserves.
The government has to make it clear to the "international community" in very strong terms that foremost duty of a government is to protect the sovereignty of the country and the lives of the people than to protect a so called CFA that is not honoured even by the LTTE.
The CFA is now a dead letter for all purposes, and in the name of the CFA the government cannot turn a blind eye to the eroding democratic rights of the citizens.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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