CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

A Reply to Somini Sengupta of the New York Times

Charles.S.Perera

The Editor,
The New York Times

This letter is a reply is to put in correct perspective the information in a report by Ms.Somini Sengupta, published in the New York Times website of the 5 December,2008, on Sri Lankan Army is Pushing for End to 25-Year War Against the Tamil Rebels , which I had been twisted to give a wrong interpretation to what actually is taking place in Sri Lanka, and to discredit the government and the Government Forces of Sri Lanka.
I am just an ordinary citizen of Sri Lanka and in that capacity I write to correct a possible wrong impression Somini Sengupta's article may have given, about the Government of Sri Lanka and the present prevailing situation, to your readers.
Ms.Sengupta speaks of the "Government Forces military action" against the terrorists , as Asia's longest- civil war which had extracted a high cost for the divided country's civilians. Here it should be reminded to your readers that Sri Lanka is not divided according to the communities. It is a united nation of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim Communities. The terrorists with whom the government is at war, want to divide the country to have their own Separate State, and the government is at war to stop them from just doing that, therefore Ms.Sengupta'sn divided country's civilians, is a misnomer.
Ms.Sengupta, does not explain the strategy, nor does she describe correctly Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapakse she says is responsible for the " hard strategy" as she calls it.
Mr.Gotabhaya Rajapakse, is the younger brother of the President of Sri Lanka. When Mr. Rajapaksa was elected as the President of Sri Lanka by a popular vote, he promised to the people that he will rid the country of the terrorist who had infiltrated into the north and east and had for the last thirty years inflicted damage to the country and its people spreading terror through out the country.
In order to keep this promise to the people, the President brought down his younger brother Gotabhaya Rajapakse, a battle hardened veteran, who had been commissioned by the Sri Lanka Army, as a second lieutenant in May,1972, rose to be the Second in Command of the First Regiment. He led many battles against the terrorists for twenty years and liberated large areas that had been occupied by the terrorists. He was promoted as a Lieutenant Colonel. He left his Regiment in 1990, to be the Commandant of the Kothalawela Defence Academy and retired in 1992 after 20 years of distinguished Military Service.
This is the Valliant battle hardened Gotabhaya Rajpakse who fought against the terrorist for twenty long years. He understands Prabhakaran's terrorist tactics more than any one else. That is the man Ms.Sengupta introduces to your readers as "an American who once worked as a computer systems administrator in Southern California."
Mr.Rajapakse retired from the Army and left Sri Lanka for Security reasons to America, where he worked as Computer System administrator, which Ms.Senguptan adds only later to suit her "strategy" of giving the possible discredit to the army, by specifying how the "civil war" is conducted by a Computer System Administrator from South California, to your readers.
Ms.Sengupta, describes a surrealist landscape, creating the impression of the government forces driving away the civilians after bombardment, leaving the ruins to soldiers and birds, and brings to the notice of the readers the damage that has been caused not by the terrorists but by Rajapakse. In order to make Rajapakse brother more satanic she adds that he is determined to crush the "rebels" ( deliberately avoiding the word terrorists) militarily and therefore ended the peace negotiations and violated human rights.

In fact the Rajapakse brother did not end the peace negotiations. It was the terrorists that walked out of the negotiations refusing to sit with the Government delegation and asking for a separate territory to set up their Eelam State. There had been no death or damage to the Tamil civil population in the bombardments and artillery fire by the Government forces. There were no scattered bodies and human skeletons in the surrealist landscape Ms. Sengupta describes. The violation of human rights by the government forces have not been proved except showing images of one or two civilian wounded by shrapnels.

Sengupta does not say that the Tamil Civilians in Killinochchi are kept by the terrorists as a human shield and driven into areas under their control against their will. Number of civilians escaping into the government controlled areas have confirmed that they had been kept in the terrorist controlled areas under threat.

It is a wrong that the "rebels" had been fighting to carve out a home land for Tamil on the Island for a generation. More than 50 percent of the Tamil population in Sri Lanka live in the south with the Sinhala and Muslim Communities. They are not sympathisers of the terrorists, nor do they recognise the terrorists as their liberators, nor do they call the terrorists 'rebels'

It is only the group of terrorists, supported by the Tamil diaspora that is fighting to carve out a homeland for Tamils. Ms. Sengupta does not present the whole situation to the readers of the NewYork Times, but presents only distorted parts of the story suitable to discredit the government, making out the terrorists as "liberators", fighting against a despotic government.

The Government is democratically elected, and does not flout the freedom of the people. The Government is in the process of preparing a viable political solution to solve some of the endemic problems within a multi ethnic society, in consultation with all parties representing the different communities.

These proposals will be presented once the terrorism is brought under control. As the terrorists continue to explode claymore bombs, and use suicide bombers massacring civilians , there is an absence of normal living conditions , for a successful devolution of political power . One has to live under these conditions to really understand the situation.

Ms.Sengupta's reporting is not that perfect as she does not come to her own conclusions, but gives what friends and associates of the persons concerned as facts. For instance Mr. Rajapakse's satisfaction that the terrorists ( which Sengupta always calls "rebels" ) have been weakened, and the moral of the forces have been bolstered, and more importantly the public opinion is in favour of the war against the terrorists., Sengupta says , is because " privately Mr.Rajapakse's friends and associates say that his resolve is deeply personal : the the Tamil tigers tried to kill him two years ago."

The facts Ms.Sengupta had kept away from the readers of the New York Time, are that the terrorists profiting from a cease fire agreement signed with a previous government, had strengthened their forces, stock piled heavy arms, artillery, and war items. They had procured communication equipment aided and abetted by the Norwegian Embassy , bought ships, air planes, from large sums of money ( said to be 300 million Dollars a year) collected and transferred to the terrorists, by their front organisations among the Tamil diaspora in Canada, USA, UK, Australia, Norway, Germany, France and Thailand.

The terrorists were well organised, and during the Cease Fire the government forces were reduce to stand and watch while the terrorists continued strengthening their forces terrorising the people and killing and massacring their opponents, politicians, and Officers of the Security forces. They were also kidnapping children to increase the numbers of their terrorist forces , and trained young girls and boys to carry out missions as suicide bombs, called the black tigers.

No one then thought that the Sri Lanka Army will ever be able to defeat the terrorist forces. It was in that climate that Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapakse the battle hardened retired Colonel of the Sri Lanka army then living in California was called by his brother the President Mahinda Rajapakse to come to plan strategies along with the Commander of the Sri Lanka Army to fight the terrorists, who had refused to negotiate, but continue terrorism until they were given the north and east for a separate Tamil Homeland.

Therefore, when Ms.Sengupta arrived in Sri Lanka to prepare the report for the New York Time, the Government Forces lead by the Commanders of the different Forces, and assisted for the planning, and supply of necessary arms and armaments by Mr.Rajapakse , were able to reduce the terrorist forces, who no one thought would be defeated, to shambles.

Therefore, there were very good reasons to offer a look of immense satisfaction , when asked by Sengupta at her interview, and said that the government forces had proved that they can defeat the terrorist forces the people had said was "invincible".

Those are the true facts of the case and the "war" against terrorism was not a personal vendetta of Mr.Rajapakse, but a necessity to free the country of a terrorist menace that had benumbed all normal conditions of life , development and progress. Mr. Rajapakse is doing what is best to stop terrorism in all its forms. There is no special hard-line approach that requires apology to any one for the stepped up military effort to end terrorism.

The International Community continued a game of double standards, while fighting terrorism in their own countries, continued to ask the Government of Sri Lanka to negotiate with the terrorists, who did not want to negotiate but asked for a separate home land, while continuing their terror tactics.

Sengupta in her twisted reporting calls the President of Sri Lanka a veteran of Sinhalese populist politics. The President was elected by the votes of the Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities, under a democratic system, and though he is from the Sinhala Community he does not draw his popularity from only the Sinhala. He is a President of all communities, and definitely against terrorists and terrorism. He was fighting for human rights long before Ms.Sengupta became a reporter for the New York Times.

Mr.Gotabhaya Rajapakse the Defence Secretary, a battle hardened veteran, is a good strategist, who is doing what is necessary to end terrorism in Sri Lanka. There are certain of his actions only a man experienced in war and direction of armies will understand.

Therefore, Ms. Sengupta's criticisms and insinuations are that of a uninformed civilian.

The terrorists have hidden stocks of suicide bomb equipments every where in Sri Lanka. They send the trained suicide bomb carriers the black terrorists to Colombo. Once in Colombo they find accommodation in Colombo shanty areas as ordinary citizens. After that they are contacted by the "helpers", who provide them with the explosive jackets and place them in a selected place to target an important person and detonate the jacket of explosives they carry under their blouse or shirt.

That is the modus operandi of the terrorist bomb carriers. Therefore, as a security measure these places in shanty areas are checked to assure that there are no black tiger terrorists among the occumants. That type of checking is done even in UK, Germany, France and in USA for Al Queida terrorists. Therefore, it is not a means to harass the shanty dwellers, it is only a security measure.

Mr. Rajapakse is the Defence Secretary responsible for the conduct of the defence of the country, and he cannot be held responsible for extortion, abductions and extrajudicial killings in government-held areas, which is the area of responsibility of the Police Force. There have been several arrests, and action is being taken on these issues. It is easy to blame the army personnel for what ever crime. It I being resorted to by many to discourage the valiant soldiers in their war effort against terrorism.

The humanitarian aid sent by innumerable NGOs have to be checked as they have been responsible for anti government propaganda and helping the terrorists. Even packets of food sent by UN Agencies is said to have contained explosives and war like material for the use of terrorists. Ms.Sengupta's report is based on information collected at random without proof or details, and perhaps from people who are opposed to the government, and its war effort.

Unfortunately the foreign journalists have not taken well to the government's effort to end terrorism. BBC is openly supportive of the terrorists, putting in doubt all announcement of victories of the government forces against the terrorists. Ms.Sengupta herself doubts the capture of Pooneryn by the government Forces. There is on the other hand images of areas captured by the Government Forces circulated in the government websites. When one looks at things through the coloured glasses of prejudice the truth is veiled.

NGOs and INGOS working in the terrorist controlled areas spent lot of money, and transported material like iron bars and cement to these areas for construction work they said they were carrying out, but when the areas were cleared by the Government Forces, they had found that the NGOs and INGOs had not constructed any buildings , road or bridges. The material they had transported to these areas had been utilised for construction of under ground bunkers for the terrorists.

But when the NGOs and INGOs left the terrorist controlled areas they were working in, they left behind vehicles and heavy machine. The terrorists have utilised these machines to build earth bunds to protect the areas where they had terrorist head quarters. The Norwegian NGOs alone had left behind 38 heavy vehicles for the use of the terrorists.

I do not want to write further as I have given enough information to contradict Ms.Senguptas's report, and given the good readers of the New York Times enough material facts to reflect and to understand that terrorism is the same whether it is against the Western Nation, or the poor nations else where.

I make a special plea to readers of the New York Times, to understand that the Government of Sri Lanka against all difficulties and false accusation of violation of human rights is doing what any government would do to end the menace of terrorism within its territory. The Government Forces are now on the verge of ending the terrorist menace in Sri Lanka, with least damage to the civilian population. Your moral support will be a great encouragement to our valiant soldiers.

Disclaimer: The comments contained within this website are personal reflection only and do not necessarily reflect the views of the LankaWeb. LankaWeb.com offers the contents of this website without charge, but does not necessarily endorse the views and opinions expressed within. Neither the LankaWeb nor the individual authors of any material on this Web site accept responsibility for any loss or damage, however caused (including through negligence), which you may directly or indirectly suffer arising out of your use of or reliance on information contained on or accessed through this Web site.
All views and opinions presented in this article are solely those of the surfer and do not necessarily represent those of LankaWeb.com. .

BACK TO LATEST NEWS

DISCLAIMER