CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

TO SAVE SRI LANKA - WAR IS THE ONLY ANSWER

S Senarath Canberra

War is horrific and traumatic. But unfortunately war is the only way to preserve the sovereignty of our country, as the LTTE cannot be trusted. The LTTE will never give up its claim for the Ealam and we must never succumb to that demand. Talking peace in the manner which the government is doing now with the LTTE means we are giving more and more to their separate state. There have already so many concessions of a most unprecedented level granted to the terrorists.

In fact thanks to Ranil the Tigers are now running a defacto separate state in more than 1/3 of the land and ¾ of the coast of Sri Lanka.

We should bear in mind the fact that the key player in the whole exercise is Prabhakaran, who is a wild beast and not a human being, and has pledged never to give up his thrust to create the Ealam. Even most recently, Prabhakaran, Pottu Amman and Karikharan have re-emphasised that they will create the Ealam. Furthermore, the webpages of all Tamil Ealam, Tamil internet sites proclaim the very near formation of the Ealam.

The Tigers have different messages for different audiences. When speaking during the peace process they say they have abandoned the Ealam (yet they also mention about secession!); then they proclaim to their own people that Ealam will soon be forthcoming. So what more evidence is required? We should not be stupid to believe the LTTE rhetoric that they will settle for something less than a separate state?

We should bear in mind that Prabhakaran and his cohorts will never give up the claim for Ealam. If we are going to believe the terrorists, then we are utter fools. Even recently Prabhakaran had clearly stated that he wants the formation of Ealam. But we, the Sinhalese could not understood that rhetoric!

War is the last and only option available to safeguard mother Lanka. We are dealing with a terrorist megalomaniac, Prabhakaran. Until he and his group are hunted down, Sri Lankans will never be able to say that their country is safe. We must safeguard our country for future generations now, and not later.

LTTE will not commence a full blown war. They know thanks to the ceasefire agreement, and with the support of Norway, they could get the Ealam without firing a single shot or blasting a single bomb (and LTTE knows that they could not win a war against the government militarily - that is why they called for a unilateral ceasefire before the MOU was signed).

In Sri Lanka before the ceasefire we ran a 'mercenary war'. If a proper, honest war is waged against the murderous terrorist invaders, the entire nation will join in (something akin to the war waged by King Dutu Gemunu, nearly 2,500 years ago, against the same group of people). Remember how in 1983 the Sri Lankans came out from their houses with whatever tool they could find to fight against the Tamil Tigers when a rumour spread in Colombo that the Tigers had attacked Colombo.

The people must be given the leadership to run the war, and not the 'mercenary' type of military campaign waged by a corrupt government officials. It should be noted that Dutu Gemunu or any Sinhalese king only destroyed the Tamil invaders who tried to capture the south, but never annihilated the Tamils completely, although they could have easily done so. The Tamils were sent back, not massacred.

It is important to bear in mind that a future, fully-fledged war will not be against the Tamil people but against the force of the terrorist Prabhakaran.

In Sri Lanka, we have a very brave and young army that vastly outnumbers the Prabhakaran army. If the army is given full military strength with proper political and military leadership, we could win this war. We must not be hesitant to obtain support from foreign countries such as the US, Israel, India, Pakistan, etc., especially in regards to military intelligence.

The government must be fully genuine and committed to the war. The safety and well being of the military must become the paramount concern of the government.

If we have to go back to war, we must be prepared to do so. We may lose the country anyway. It is better to fight a war and lose the country than to just hand it over on a golden platter to the terrorist leader. We should not become so menial and cowardly as to succumb to a terrorist leader.

If we must go back to war, we must fight a proper, intelligent war, then without doubt we could win. Even 'though one of our previous leaders (Ranil) stated that we could not militarily defeat the LTTE (which is a cowardly statement that all Sri Lankans should be utterly ashamed of), our soldiers have adequately demonstrated what they could do to win over the LTTE. The LTTE numbers are very few, (maybe around 8,000 at the time of hostilities), thus the reason they recruit women and children. Our army itself has 100,000 men and women or more.

The country of Sri Lanka the Sinhalese comprised of 75 percent, whereas the Tamil in the north and east combined together is less than 12 percent of the total population (yet they want 1/3 of the country and ¾ of the coast).

To win the war the government must appoint the best military leaders to their positions based totally on merit. Like what happened in the past, especially during 1994 - 2000, the war cannot be won by the appointing of blood relations and cronies to the highest ranks of the military. These acts resulted in an unprecedented level of military losses on our side.

Our military leaders must be focused on winning the war, not on how to make money from the war (sadly this is what happened in the past). All three forces must be provided with the best weapons and training. They must be held in high esteem - not in the manner of how badly we treated those brave Army men who were living in the Athurugiriya safe house.

Note that our young people are currently not joining the military (after the ceasefire). However, during the times of war, they came in droves. This personifies the bravery of our young men and women soldiers and other military (of course, there were deserters), and their current disgust at the government's subsequent handling of the problem after signing and implementation of the MOU.

The government, by agreeing that our forces should not fire the first bullet, has put a very dangerous and unfair risk on the lives of our military. If the LTTE decide to attack the military and the civilians (unlikely to do so as they could get the Ealam without firing a bullet) the number of our sacrificial lambs will be enormous, much higher than it was between 1990 and 1994 - and will probably run into several thousands.

The LTTE have already killed a number of army and navy personnel this year and we did not respond to this.

Like the LTTE, the government should also prepare for war.

The Sri Lankan Government leaders (not the present leader, the JVP, and the JHU) must get rid of its inferiority complex by saying openly that the Tigers are stronger than them and that the government cannot win a war over them. The Sri Lankan governments, the present and the past have impliedly stated that they should succumb to Tiger demands. This is nothing else but a pathetic situation, that denigrate the great people of Sri Lanka.

War is the only way to safeguard the unitary status of mother Lanka. Let's be prepared for that.

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