Sept.11th 2008

First it was Kofi Annan with his well articulated responses to the entreaties of the Tamil Diaspora lobby against the Government of Sri Lanka as visualized by many analysts and now his successor Ban Ki Moon the Secretary General of the United Nations where he seems to be toeing the same line in his recent statements over military activities in Sri Lanka. Both these orators hardly seem to realise that their manouvres contradict the path of justice despite expressed worries concerning civilians, where the cautions about '‘the principal of proportionality and the selection of targets’ to quote his own words are words which could be misinterpreted as terrorist friendly and could easily be picked up as a message towards their cause. Already some terrorist supportive website are doing exactly this and perhaps the UNSG should learn to maintain a stiff upperlip in favour of true justice rather than be eloquent over a situation beyond his control, jurisdiction and perception as well as appearing incomprehensible by his own interpretation.

One thing he fails to have observed while issuing cautions to the Government of Sri Lanka which his statements are tanatamount to here is that civilian casualties during the recent offensives in Sri Lanka have been negligible or much lower than the exaggerated portrayal by the terrorists and their supportives where it seems obvious that the Secretary General was prompted by false reports of large numbers of civilian casualties, a theme which is used by the Tamil Tigers as well as their supportives to discredit the Government in the eyes of the less discerning and of course a global theme in every situation unfavourable to terrorism and terrorists on the run.

It is also a fallacy that all forces fighting terrorism are alike if that's what has motivated the Secretary General's rhetoric as there are varying degrees of intensity and the modus operandi relative to the felt need and in the case of Sri Lanka an imperative one towards redeeming the Nation from the clutches of a brand of terrorism that needs no introduction to the world as the most dangerous and on the same footing as Al Quaeda or even more so.

A recent observation by the Sri Lankan Peace Secretariat needs endorsing towards the apathy of the Secretary General's statements that the Secretary General may not have realized that his remarks could be used to advantage by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam who will use any weapon to hand, including a misinformed and unwary Secretary General and others of his ilk to halt the advance of Sri Lankan Armed Forces~ unrelenting and well focused towards their objective of eliminating the terrorists and have the enemy on the run.

Consequently these remarks during a press briefing on ‘the victims of terrorism’ made to the media suggests that by the UNSG's reckoning terrorism comes in different grades, and that some terrorists are not as heinous as those who struggle against them and truly a misguided as well as lopsided concept which is unacceptable in the world of today.

Most curiously in the case of Sri Lanka the victims of Tiger terrorism still continue to enjoy a supportive lobby from sources such as the UN, Amnesty International, certain myopic idealogues from Tamil Nadu and even the US in some cases whether inadvertently or not where regardless of the interpretation that lends the motivation, the focus is on terrorism that any logical world audience finds abhorrent and contemptible where not understanding or not choosing to understand the interconnected nature of terrorism suggests ignorance as well as the apathy which goes with it!

The UN Secretary general in this sense surely needs to study the Sri Lankan situation very carefully before being overly eloquent in his comments about a situation within a Democratic Nation which is following a very legitimate direction towards ridding a scourge which has plagued it for decades.

The Sri Lankan Armed Forces have reached a point where their objectives are about to be realised and in this pursuit they do not need the unsolicited comments of a world leader who seems to have misconstrued his comprehension relative to Sri Lanka as the case seems to be alongside the unwarranted comments of the other pro active terrorist lobby in their incessant attempts to spoke the wheels of governance relative to all the rationalities involved.

Quoting the Peace Secretariat once more it needs to be emphasized that " Perhaps with knowledge there will come wisdom, and the UNSG will publicly acknowledge the extraordinarily good record of the Sri Lankan forces in this regard, their careful selection of military targets, the paucity of even collateral damage.

Hence it is unfortunate that the United Nations should lend itself to such selectivity, and that the advisers of the Secretary General has not vocalised the importance of protecting people in the rest of the world who suffer from terrorism also needing a voice but have been left at the mercy of indiscriminate military regimes( a rather long list!) " where the areas of terrible military excesses extremely visible to the world at large nonetheless go virtually unnoticed by the 'prestigious' United Nations!