CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

The Indian Government should reveal why Indian public should fall prey to terror

Shenali Waduge

Now described as India's 9/11, the Mumbai 60 hour siege will go down in history leaving many still baffled at how a handful of men under 30 years of age, were able to take over 10 sites in India's busiest city in four straight days of carnage. With possibly 300 dead including 3 of Mumbai's top anti-terrorist officers the gruesome takeover of Mumbai by extremist gunmen only revealed India's ill-preparedness & institutional incapability despite warnings that should have prompted timely action.

Thus, do not the 18million Mumbai citizens as well as the Indian public not have the right to question the Indian Government - demand why there were no helicopters available to transport the elite commandos to the besieged sites & why it took over 10 hours for them to finally reach Mumbai's terror sites but more importantly remains the question why such gunmen should hate the Indian public so much? The Indian public needs to know from the Indian Government why terror should take place in India.

The meticulous planning involved goes without saying & it will provide analysts plenty of research material. We can but guess the number of terrorists who entered Mumbai via the trawler, how many entered by land, how long they stayed in Mumbai, how they booked into the hotels, how they were able to store the weapons - were not the rooms cleaned each morning by hotel staff as is customary, who visited them, how many terrorists actually escaped & are they still in India, how they could remain awake through the night firing indiscriminately & what were their actual plan. India's intelligence says it was to blow up the Taj & kill 5000 people, the 1st could have been done easily on the first day, 5000 people is somewhat questionable which next raises the question of how much weapons remain unused in the rooms booked by them - India's public must be having plenty of questions. The gunmen knew each of their targets thoroughly, they knew all the hotel layouts even secret entrances, they had Blackberry's & GPS devices, including night-vision goggles which the police lacked, even the elite Black Cats had not been provided with thermal imaging equipment to distinguish terrorists from hotel guests to facilitate their operation & eventually all the hostages at Nariman House ended up dead. The 26/11 Mumbai siege can be equated to 21st century terrorism outsmarting India's 20th century weapons & equipment.

The 26/11 attack on Mumbai has certainly shaken up the Indian establishment. Realizing that promises to beef up security alone is unlikely to decrease the anger amongst India's public the Home Minister has been replaced with P. Chiddambaran who incidentally was the Minister of State for Internal Security in Rajiv Gandhi's government. Even the infamous National Security Advisor - M K Narayan is also likely to be replaced. He being one of the architects of regional terrorism during the days he was part of the institutional establishment created to destabilize friendly nations.

Whether it was "elements in Pakistan" that were responsible for the attacks the critical question is why would India at all be prone to terror attacks unless India's Governments have not infringed upon nations, used similar tactics to disturb & disrupt another country. If this be the case, then the 26/11 is likely to be ghosts of ones past misdemeanors returning to remind India that there is a thing called nemesis. It then gives India's citizens every right to demand of its Governments what follies they have committed for obviously India's public is not party to any of these malpractices that successive Indian Governments have adopted to reign supreme. Indians are proud to be Indian but surely not if it means that India has cheated its way to supremacy through covert & overt tactics used by Indian Governments.

Having managed to capture one of the gunman the Indian authorities interrogating him has revealed that he belongs to the militant Islamic group Lashkar-e-Taiba which obviously meant to insinuate Pakistan's involvement & stir anti-Pakistan Muslim sentiments though all the time aware that there is a large Muslim vote base that none of the politicos wish to disturb too much. The Pakistan Government has denied any links to the Mumbai attacks & has even asked India to investigate the possibilities of the men being from South India & having ties to the LTTE terrorists.

With elections in India drawing near the anti-terrorism drives will usher similar sentiments of the US 9/11 which took place at a time when George Bush's popularity was at an all time low. The 9/11 incident created a rebound & Bush ended up the Messiah for the US public with his "war on terror" slogan. Now evidence keeps surfacing that the Bush administration was well aware of an attack in 2001 some even claiming US staged 9/11 to strategically base itself in the Middle East & take over its oil reserves & build up a pro-western culture base. Similarly, India is now seeing to follow a similar path though the Indian publics have elevated themselves & refuse to be befooled again. They are now demanding more accountability from their politicians.

More than WHO actually attacked Mumbai the critical question any Indian should ask is WHY? Politicians will eagerly attempt to run after the WHO ignoring the WHY for answering the WHY would lead to many skeletons being revealed in their closets which have been hidden from the public.

We all understand the power of the Indian media - apart from their desire to "be the first to report" they do a very commendable job. The manner in which they covered the Mumbai siege needs commendation for they kept most of the footage disclosed not wishing to jeopardize the NSG operation. They voiced the sentiments of the public but did not overdo nor attempted to take any political side - this is a far cry from the journalistic or media coverage happening in Sri Lanka. The open praise & salutes of gratitude to the men in uniform repeatedly over media gave Indians a sense of pride in themselves & was important to hold sentiments of unification. In Sri Lanka we often find the media those opposing the Government ever ready to sensationalize stories even fabricate & very few channels actually have a good word to say about the agonies that the Sri Lankan men in uniform go through in their bid to rid terrorism from Sri Lanka.

The moment the news of the gunmen signaling out US & British passport holders broke out it guaranteed US & British media attention, the takeover of the Nariman House gave the message that the gunmen were anti-Israeli - this was obviously what the gunmen wanted. We are well aware that terrorists enjoy media coverage just as much as the media gains from such coverage.

What we need to remember is that it is not important whether the gunmen were Al Qaeda or a franchise - what can be deduced by the deaths is that age, religion, caste or creed did not matter when the gunmen began their shooting spree. They were purely trained to kill indiscriminately - that is why we call them terrorists. What is the point in referring to them as "suspected" - if they hold a gun & they shoot randomly they are nothing but terrorists. It is timely to go back 10 months when more than 200 people were killed throughout India, but Mumbai's attack was by far different & more dramatic - it lasted almost 4 days & must surely provide inspiration for even homegrown terrorists to try similar soft targets.

It is for India to pick the forest from the trees. Whether it is the Deccan Mujahideen, the ISI, the Al Qaeda or the Lashkar-e-Taiba or even a complete outsider is secondary what is important to know is that the arms industry, the men who build up hatred amongst youth enough to maim & kill belong to transnational networks. No one in the end is a member of any entity - India must not look for the symptoms but the cause.

There are essentially two threats to global security (national & international) transnational crime & terrorist activity both are not to be taken separately but having close links & ties to one another though transnational criminals are only interested in making money while terrorists desire to make money to support their political & ideological objectives. It is easy to comprehend how terrorists involve themselves in organized crime to financially bolster their appearance & visibility.

Both entities operate in areas with weak enforcement of laws, use sophisticated technology & launder money. Southern Philippines, Parts of Indonesia, Russian Far East, and Golden Triangle & Sri Lanka become some of these networks for transnational crime & terrorist activity.

We are all aware that an increasing share of the world economy is attributed to illicit activity such as drugs, human trafficking, small arms sales, illicit transport of natural resource & piracy. Terrorism & narcotics become linked when we consider Colombia's FARC, the KLA in Kosovo, Taliban & Al Qaeda in Afghanistan & the LTTE in Sri Lanka. These illegitimate dealings however are artfully combined with legitimate fund making drives in the form of charity organizations which are used in large measures to deposit funds. These groups operate on a network structure that becomes impossible to locate or identify the leaders.

Thus the transnational scope with which they function enables them to unite individuals from across the globe at any given time. Such criminal activity is likely to provide a defining problem as the 21st century progresses leaving economic discrepancies between developing & developed countries, weak states that terrorist groups operate to make good of these discrepancies & transform issues into political uprisings.

Countries that join the war on terrorism cannot set aside the links to transnational crime & a cohesive operation across borders & nations is called for leaving aside petty differences between leaderships. India being the larger of the South Asian nations need to assess how it functions within the SAARC region, accept its follies vis a vis destabling operations carried out in practically all of the nations that make up the SAARC.

India need not be reminded of its illicit maneuverings in Sri Lanka & training supporting LTTE terrorism through Tamil Nadu & other regional terrorist groups though one of India's leaders eventually became assassinated by the LTTE terrorism which turned the tables on its master. India's public many of whom must be clueless about how far the Indian Governments have assisted terrorism in Sri Lanka may be shocked to learn the truth. Furthermore, despite the 2008 Global Hunger Index revealing that 200million Indians suffer from hunger, India sends tons of food to Sri Lanka's North even though the Sri Lankan Government repeatedly insists it has sufficient quantities in stock for 3 months to look after the IDPs. Is this not a case of political bullying by India without first looking after the hunger needs of Indians first?

Similarly, if Indians are proud of their people & take pride in their sovereignty, will the Indian people ask the Indian Government why it allows Tamil Nadu politicos to openly support a banned terrorist entity in the form of the LTTE - a terrorist group that was banned first by India for its assassination on Rajiv Gandhi? Will the Indian people not ask the Indian Government why it allows the Tamil Nadu politicos to virtually hold the Central Government to ransom, why the Indian Prime Minister should given an audience to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister whose name was even linked to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi & who was to meet the Indian Premier the very day the gunmen struck Mumbai to force a ceasefire in Sri Lanka & allow the LTTE terrorists to regroup. What right does the Tamil Nadu politicos have to demand that India's Central Government should force the sovereign Government of Sri Lanka to stop its army from eliminating LTTE terrorism?

Why should India wish to interfere in internal affairs of another sovereign country - is this the India that says it is against terrorism in all its forms? Is this the India that goes on international stages bemoaning the ills that terrorism brings to the world - the actions of the Indian Government reveals how much vote bank politics becomes important for political survival & the Tamil Nadu politicos know exactly how to play their game. Does the Indian public not know how much pressure India's Central Government exerts upon Sri Lanka's Government even to force a sovereign nation to buy weapons only from India? Does the Indian public not wonder why India's Central Government is indirectly supporting the LTTE by allowing the Tamil Nadu politicos to unite with the LTTE which wants to secure a separate state for the Tamil people not realizing that this bid is a larger ploy to annexing the Eelaam with Tamil Nadu & eventually creating a bigger Tamil State - is the Indian people party to all of this manipulation. The Indian Central Government wishes to have its public focused on terrorism linking it to traditional arch rival Pakistan - this self-serving approach will only create more misery for the Indian public who will bear the brunt of terror strikes since politicos are guarded to the teeth with security.

Obviously the Indian public is clueless of what the Indian Government does in the region - it is such insincere operations, manipulations, covert operations, intelligence faux pax that has today backfired to create a nemesis upon the Indian public.

The Indian public is today going to pay for the sins of their successive Governments & pinning the blame on "elements" is unlikely to solve whats likely to be in store for India. The 26/11 Mumbai terror ended in 4 days, India may have to face more sieges unless the Indian people who have shown great courage in not allowing communalism to brew but have rightly diverted their anger towards the real culprits - the politicians. Their guilt is evident by the manner in which none have entered Mumbai. It is time for the Indian public to take democracy into their own hands & demand that manipulative politics in a region that should remain united largely on account of the historical & cultural ties that exist between the neighbors should be fostered & not festered.
Enough is Enough.

Indian public - we urge you not to allow your Governments to bring down our region & create the anarchy that exists in Africa & parts of the Middle East.

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