ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Editorial The Island

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“Earth has not anything to show more fair,” wrote Wordsworth of the breathtaking view of the mist clad London from the Westminster Bridge way back in 1802. But today the earth has nothing to show more dreadful and unfair than what is unfolding at the British Parliamentary Square, where terrorism is being advocated openly.

On Wednesday, LTTE activists launched a mob attack on the Chinese Embassy in London in full view of the British police. Only three of the perpetrators were arrested and others went scot free. Last month, LTTE mobs attacked the Indian and Sri Lankan High Commissions with stones and only a handful of attackers were nabbed. Terror backers also ‘beheaded’ the Nehru statue near the Indian High Commission recently and as usual got away with it.

The LTTE seems to be carrying out a ‘ceaseless wave’ of attacks on embassies and diplomats perceived to be hostile to its ghoulish cause. In August 2006, the LTTE bombed Pakistan High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Bashir Wali Mohammed’s motorcade in Colombo. He escaped death by the skin of his teeth. In Sep. 2007, LTTE activists forced themselves into the Sri Lankan Embassy premises in Paris and desecrated Sri Lanka’s national flag. In January this year, LTTE gangsters in Toronto stormed the Sri Lankan Consul General’s Office. In March, LTTE activists tried to attack the office of Deputy Sri Lanka High Commissioner in Chennai and have the mission closed down. Much to the embarrassment of the Norwegian government sponsoring the LTTE, Tiger backers smashed the Sri Lankan embassy in Oslo last month.

The LTTE seems to be ‘more equal than’ other terrorist outfits in the West; it can commit any acts of violence against diplomats and diplomatic missions with the police looking the other way.

An American intelligence team which visited India prior to President Bill Clinton’s visit identified the LTTE as the main source of threats to the American leader and warned of, among other things, possible unmanned aircraft attacks. On Feb. 27, 2007, the LTTE carried out a shell attack on two helicopters carrying a group of diplomats from Canada, the US, Japan and EU and the UN head of mission in Sri Lanka, in Batticaloa. Two envoys sustained minor injuries. But those diplomatic bigwigs given to firing from both hips at the drop of a hat took it all lying down both literally and figuratively. They returned to Colombo the worse for wear but strangely refrained from condemning the LTTE! Today, most of those countries are doing their damnedest to bail out the LTTE trapped in the Vanni!

Britain has been extremely assiduous and obdurate in its campaign to have the rule of law restored/preserved in other countries. But, it is flouting its own anti-terror laws by harbouring the LTTE in spite of a ban and trying to save Prabhakaran and other terrorists. Nothing poses a graver threat to the British democracy as well as that of the world than this kind of duplicitous laxity on the part of world powers in dealing with terrorism.

Of the Houses of British Parliament turning a Nelsonian eye to violent mobs advocating terrorism and launching attacks on foreign embassies in broad daylight, one may say with apologies to Wordsworth:

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