CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

LTTE Killers vs. Karuna Faction - GOSL Better Place Your (Our) Bets Carefully!

Nissanka

Karuna has declared his willingness to disarm and integrate within the democratic system in Sri Lanka whereby he is willing to accede to political pluralism as long as assured a sense of "control over destiny" for the Tamils of Sri Lanka. Furthermore, Karuna has declared openly that since he broke away from the murderous LTTE, his outfit has not attacked Sri Lanka's defense establishment even with a catapult. As well, rightfully, he has claimed that the biggest threat to the Tamils of SL today comes from not the SL military, but from the devil incarnate on earth, Prabhakaran himself!

Against this backdrop of conciliatory messages from Karuna, Velupilllai Prabhakaran, the megalomanic and sadistic killer of the "Vanni LTTE" has only uttered threats of horrific violence, but has followed up on them by going on killing sprees since last November (killing over 225 SLDF and wounding over another 150 to date).

Given this ugly but compelling scenario, the GOSL has to carefully evaluate the situation and place its (our) bets carefully.

For one thing, betting on Karuna is a better prospect if the GOSL genuinely wants to arrive at a permanent solution. What I mean by "permanent solution" here is not the same as what the LTTE wants. LTTE wants to get a separate fascist, racist state for itself and could not care less about the ordinary Tamil man/woman's aspirations. Prabhakaran wants to create another Pol Pot regime and nothing short of that. All the talk of LTTE agreeing to a "federal system" within Sri Lanka has been only for consumption and nothing more (given LTTE's track record, only an imbecile would believe otherwise).

On the contrary, Karuna has spoken quite clearly about the futility of carrying on this endless war and sacrificing generation after generation of Tamil youth for a cause that is not only un-winnable (i.e. India will never allow it, even if a weak and stupid GOSL government - and we have had few of those lately- caves in), but the concept of forming a totally separate state, which sprang up in the 1970s, is totally incongruous today in the context of rapidly expanding and modernizing "global village." One has to admire Karuna's pragmatism in this regard - as opposed to the "frog in the well" archaic, "country hick" mindset of Prabhakaran. This type of thinking alone makes Karuna somebody you can bet on, with some cautiously optimistic confidence.

Naturally, there is a heavy pressure from the Norwegians and the SLMM on the GOSL to act against Karuna as they see Karuna as the un-healing, hemorrhaging peptic ulcer in the LTTE's rotting gut. They know well, just as Prabhakaran does, that if the Karuna's campaign continues for much longer, the LTTE will be in serious jeopardy given that the population will be more amenable to a solution that preaches the end of war with honor as opposed to grandiose claims of winning the war (LTTE's favorite slogan of "vanquishing the Sinhala army forever") that they have heard over the past 25 years and now know to be only a psychedelically concocted pipe dream!.

I think the time has come for the GOSL to call the LTTE's bluff (i.e. threatening to go for all-out war if GOSL does not disarm the Karuna faction) and openly start to provide all material - including military - and moral help to the Karuna faction to ward off attacks from the murderous Prabhakaran LTTE. After all, Karuna's group today is a legitimate political entity in Sri Lanak - TMVP - and it is a fact that it has not fired even a catapult at the SLDF or the innocent civilians of Sri Lanka. On the contrary, Karuna's cadres have been doing a marvelous job of systematically stabbing the LTTE war machinery and causing it to bleed steadily. Therefore, it would be a shame to let these aspiring young Tamil "moderates" (yes, may not be much moderate at present, but all signs point to that if given the chance) be slaughtered by the LTTE's megalomaniac and sadistic killer, Prabhakaran.

While Karuna wants a "honorable peace," the LTTE's sadistic killer wants only an endless war that is bound to perpetuate death and misery for the Tamil population and an equally horrendous impact on the rest of Sri Lanka.

I would unequivocally say that Karuna has become a glimmer of hope of ending this terrorist war "honorably" and as such, he need our help at this hour of critical need.

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