Threats won’t succeed where
bombs and bullets have failed
Editorial Island
The LTTE military spokesman has sought to play down the loss of Thoppigala,
which, he says, is of no strategic importance. If so, what on earth
had the Tigers been doing there for over two decades and why did they
put up so much of resistance to prevent the army from capturing it?
Spokesman the LTTE political wing S. P. Tamilchelvam has blown a gasket!
He has vowed to destroy economic and military targets. Why should he,
so to speak, fly off the handle, if Thoppigala is of no importance and
its fall has not affected his outfit adversely as his military counterpart
claims?
When the LTTE launched a daring offensive and captured the Mullativu
military base in 1996, the Kumaratunga government reacted in a similar
manner. The then Deputy Minister of Defence Anuruddha Ratwatte cut a
pathetic figure by trying to save face by calling it a ‘prestige
camp’ which had no ‘strategic significance.’
The big guns of that government tried to play down losses when army
camps fell like ripe karthacolomban one after the other. How many times
we have heard of ‘tactical withdrawals’ by both the army and
the LTTE! Only the poor combatants who have to nurse their buttocks
swollen due to being repeatedly buffeted by their own heels during flights
know that ‘tactical withdrawal’ is nothing but a euphemism
for running for dear life leaving everything behind. So much for military
debacles and the Orwellian Newspeak, which losers take refuge in!
Tamilchelvan has said nothing new. He says the LTTE will now attack
economic and military targets to cripple the government’s war effort.
What else does the LTTE normally do? Doctors are those who treat patients,
teachers are those who teach pupils and farmers are those who cultivate
their lands. Similarly, terrorists are those who wreak havoc on society.
They do nothing else.
How would any other country have reacted to such threats? Al Quaeda
is threatening to step up attacks on the US and its allies and is in
the process of planning and carrying out some of its terror projects
as evident from the deteriorating security situation in the UK. Will
President Bush give in to terrorism because of such threats? Never!
Remember when bin Laden offered a truce, the White House spurned it
and promised to put his outfit out of business. Will the UK withdraw
troops from Afghanistan and Iraq in view of Al Quaeda threats? No! New
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has promised to defend Britain against
terrorism at any cost. Britain must be proud of him and more power to
his elbow! (We only hope that he will give all terror groups abusing
the British soil the elbow!) Newly elected President Nocolas Sarkozy
has vowed to protect France against terrorism come what may. That is
true leadership, which all democrats the world over should admire. President
Musharraf has promised to put the kibosh on terrorism in Pakistan. Indian
leaders are determined to face the threat of terrorism with might and
main. If they don’t defend their countries, who else will do so?
So, President Mahinda Rajapakse has no alternative but to emulate President
Bush, Prime Minister Brown et al and be determined not to give in to
terrorism.
Prabhakaran’s problem will be to find a new target. He hasn’t
spared a single economic or military target and it looks as if he had
to settle for repeat performances. However, in so doing he will own
up the fact that all his previous attacks were in vain. Worse, there
is no guarantee that with more and more attacks he will succeed in achieving
what he has failed to for the past twenty years or so. Unfortunately
for him, the country has learnt to live with terrorism. She may not
have leaders like William the Silent as the Opposition Leader said the
other day, but she has demonstrated her ability to bounce back every
time she suffers a terrorist attack.
So, Prabhakaran is not likely to get a turbo boost for his separatist
project regardless of what he is planning to do to military or economic
interests of the state. Prabhakaran, too, has his own problems, doesn’t
he? He is getting a dose of his own medicine. The military is playing
the same game as he. It has learnt from its blunders like Operation
Jayasikuru as manifest in how it successfully conducted the Thoppigala
operation. He also has mysterious explosions in his mono ethnic enclave
which was at one time thought to be free from infiltrations. His woes
are sure to worsen with the passage of time as his empire of darkness
is shrinking. There may be several more Karunas in his organisation
waiting for an opportunity to stage mutinies. The heavier the pressure
that a guerrilla movement undergoes, the more prone it becomes to splits.
Difficulties in replenishing his stocks, acute manpower shortage, the
prospects of the army opening more than one front in the North, the
situation in the western world, which is becoming increasingly hesitant
to mollycoddle foreign terrorist groups, battlefield defeats, and the
like, must already be giving him sleepless nights. Worse days are yet
to come!
Rhetoric is not going to take the LTTE anywhere. Threats cannot succeed
where bombs and bullets have failed for over two decades. It is time
Prabhakaran realised his violent campaign has failed to yield results
and settled for something attainable through negotiations without causing
anymore bloodshed. Let his friends, both local and foreign, tell him
that home truth. And fast!
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