Easy For The US to “Negate” The Previous Government’s Counter Terrorism Failures But The Realities Are Etched In Stone And Far From Being Failures!
Posted on June 29th, 2015
Lankaweb Weekly Editorial
June 29th 2015
With the passage of time there will be various theories about the pros and cons of the defeat of terorism in Sri Lanka where many attempts will be made mostly by enemies of the previous Regime to down play the role in negative perspective but nothing stands firmer than the salient reality that it was indeed the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime that vanquished the Tamil Tigers and Velupillai Prabhakaran and rid Sri lanka of the scourge they were and done permanently and irrevocably.
The world knows today that what the Rajapaksa Regime did was precedent setting and no other nation plagued with terrorism was ever able to accomplish this although the magnitude of the operations involved – for instance USA’s war against Al Quaeda may have a disproportionate albeit relative disparity but the facts are stubborn. Alquaeda stil are operational where global Fundamentalist Islam related terrorism is sickeningly rampant whereas the Tamil Tigers are truly vanquished.
One wonders whether it is this realty that continues to motivate negative views on what transpired in Sri Lanka and in a sense one of envy and dejection and frustration where Sri Lanka’s critics on the issue need to be silenced permanently as it is simply unacceptable and unrealistic.
If as reported the 2015 Country Report issued by the US State Department highlighted counter-terrorism failures of the Previous Government and the Opposition accusations of Sri Lanka’s security being vulnerable and threats by Liberation Tigers continue to persist, it is because it is plausible and to be expected that there is more than a ring of truth to it, what with Ealam Governments in Exile, the re-grouping of various LTTE cells around the world, hopefully to no avail, and conveniently overlooked by nations like the USA, UK and entities like the EU to suit their objectives, indeed the vulnerabilities do exist with the many pointers towards it.
The ‘Country Report on Terrorism and Patterns of Global Terrorism 2015’by the US Department of State, took into consideration, events and issues of the year 2014 where there is a significant awareness by many analysts attesting to an increased vulnerability since the new government took office whereas the report looked into incidents in 2014, when Mahinda Rajapaksa’s administration was in office where the vulnerabilities despite being hypothetically
assumable was mere speculation where the Rajapaksa Administration visibly took adequate preventive measures of a very concrete nature with all kudos to them!
Thus when the report pointed at “counter-terrorism errors of the previous government,” tit appeared to be indicative of a means to strike back at the previous regime which to all intents and purposes was in fact defeated through the efforts of the US in collaboration with certain known enemies of the State both internally and externally who cashed in on many errors by the Rajapaksa Administration in post LTTE Sri Lanka successful enough to initiate a regime change but as to whether this will be a permanent change is yet to be seen with Elections round the corner.
While presently the island’s security appears intact from a terror threat or a rising threat of the LTTE or other armed groups it needs to be concluded that it is mainly due to the efforts of the previous regime but not to be taken for granted with deadbeats politicos like Ranil Wickremasinghe and Chandrika Kumaratunga around whose reputation towards once being soft towards the LTTE which eventually was to their chagrin must never be forgotten.
It seems almost a euphemism that to ensure real counter terrorism and thwarting its dangers no government could match the skills of the Rajapaksa Administration fpr sheer sfficiency bur sadly they exceeded the statutory limits of expectation of a Nation trying to rebuild yet disillusioned by how its leaders took undue liberties to achieve merit as well as lining their own pockets!
Mistakes that hopefully will never be repeated by future aspirants of power as they sometimes tend to unleash the wrath of a watching world permitting wrongful conclusions as in this Report under review.
June 29th, 2015 at 2:11 pm
Here is the full report SL section.
“SRI LANKA
Overview: The 2009 military defeat of the terrorist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) marked the beginning of what many hoped was a new era for the country. The Sri Lankan government maintained a strong military presence in post-conflict areas and continued to voice concern about the possible reemergence of pro-LTTE sympathizers. Although the Sri Lankan government maintains a comprehensive counterterrorism stance, counterterrorism cooperation and training with the United States in 2014 was limited.
Sri Lankan police apprehended a small number of Maldivian nationals attempting to transit through Sri Lanka to Syria allegedly to become foreign terrorist fighters.
Legislation, Law Enforcement, and Border Security: Counterterrorism legislation in Sri Lanka has historically focused on eliminating the LTTE. In 2014, the Government of Sri Lanka continued to implement the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), enacted in 1982 as a wartime measure, which gives security forces sweeping powers to search, arrest, and detain individuals. Embassy Colombo had significant concerns regarding use of the PTA by the previous government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa to harass and detain public actors under the guise of seeking to revive the LTTE. The new government has pledged to end the broad application of the PTA, and has also taken steps to reduce the military’s role in civil society and its control of land in security zones in the north.
Although U.S. counterterrorism assistance to Sri Lanka has generally been limited, the Sri Lankan government maintained its partnership with the U.S. Departments of State, Homeland Security, Defense, and Energy on securing its maritime border. The U.S. Coast Guard, under the Department of State’s Export Control and Related Border Security program, continued to train Sri Lankan Coast Guard and Navy personnel on border and export control matters, and the Government of Sri Lanka continued to cooperate with U.S. Customs and Border Protection through the Container Security Initiative.
Border security remained a significant issue for the Sri Lankan government. In 2014, the International Organization for Migration trained 54 newly-recruited Sri Lankan Department of Immigration and Emigration officers in techniques to improve border surveillance and combat human trafficking.
The government continued to collaborate with the EU Immigration Department on an Advanced Passenger Information system, which transmits passenger information to Sri Lankan immigration officials upon arrival. Collaboration with the Australian government continued on the development of a passport fingerprinting program that was originally scheduled to go online in 2014. The data generated from these collection systems will be significant assets to the Sri Lankan government in its efforts to control and combat illegal migration.
In March 2014, the government announced it had designated 16 organizations and 422 individuals as terrorist entities and/or facilitating terrorist financing designed to help revive the LTTE. The Sri Lankan government did not provide information regarding criteria for designation or any supporting evidence. A team from the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Director’s office, which visited Sri Lanka in October 2014, expressed concerns the designation process may not have met UN standards.
Countering the Financing of Terrorism: Sri Lanka belongs to the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism, a Financial Action Task Force (FATF)-style regional body. While neither an important regional financial center nor a preferred center for money laundering, several factors make the country vulnerable to money laundering and terrorist finance. These include a lack of transparent tender mechanisms in government projects, past experience with terrorism, tax evasion, and a large informal economy. Legal remittance flows through the formal banking system have increased sharply in recent years, and will surpass US $7 billion in 2014. Remittances originate from Sri Lanka’s substantial overseas workforce, primarily in the Middle East. For further information on money laundering and financial crimes, see the 2014 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), Volume 2, Money Laundering and Financial Crimes.
Regional and International Cooperation: Sri Lanka continued to cooperate with a number of donor countries, including the United States, to improve its land and maritime border security. These efforts also enhanced the government’s capacity to interdict potential foreign terrorist fighters attempting to transit through the country. Sri Lanka is one of 85 partner nations in the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, and in 2014 served as GICNT co-chair.
In November, representatives from Sri Lankan law enforcement and judicial personnel attended the three-day Ninth Regional Workshop for Judges, Prosecutors, and Police Officers on effectively Countering Terrorism in South Asia in the Maldives. In December, the Sri Lankan government held the Galle Dialogue, which featured multilateral discussion by international security force representatives on issues of regional security in South Asia, including maritime terrorism.
Countering Radicalization to Violence and Violent Extremism: Sri Lanka continued to operate a rehabilitation program for former alleged LTTE combatants, although limited access by independent bodies to known rehabilitation camps precluded reliable evaluations of the government’s efforts.”
“http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2014/239408.htm”
June 29th, 2015 at 4:03 pm
A true confirmation of agreement towards the content of Editorial as far as opposition response which the UNP are trying to contradict.
June 29th, 2015 at 7:16 pm
There are plenty of Indian vermin working in the US State Department. I am sure the report is written by one of them. The fact when it comes to terrorists in Ceylon is that the terrorists were in fact Indian terrorist arm financed, trained, managed, armed and branded Tamil Tigers by the Indian Imperialists. This is a fact not many the so called Sri Lankans (the latest breed of some kind of people) are not prepared to accept as Indian Imperialist are good at directing our attention to the bad West but not the Indian nonviolent aggressors and oppressors.
June 30th, 2015 at 7:56 am
True about ” plenty of Indian vermin working in the US State Department_ This is a fact not many the so called Sri Lankans (the latest breed of some kind of people) are not prepared to accept. ” Implants of the West supported Indians et al, determined to thwart the imposing Chinese influence as a direct threat to the region and used as pawns?
There are no real non-violent Indian types today except perhaps as ascetics in the hills of the Himalayas as Sadhus the last of the real non violent types having faded with the passing of Mahatma Gandhi.
Ironically two other Gandhis, Indira and Rajive were at the opposite end of the equation as aggressors and oppressors ( not of the non violent kind) against Sri Lanka but paid a price for it as history has proved.
June 30th, 2015 at 8:44 am
Sri Lanka is struggling out of Colonisation whilst keeping some time honored values and identity. Lanka has done nothing wrong in stopping extreme terrorism in the country. Any other country would have done the same thing a long time ago. The Cold War politics prevented Lanka from doing just that.
Terrorism and Separatism will never be tolerated in Lanka. That message must be made clear whatever anyone else says.