Dr. Chandana Jayalath

Prime Minister Theresa May said Britain must be tougher in stamping out Islamist extremism after attackers killed at least seven people by ramming a van into pedestrians on London Bridge and stabbing revelers in nearby bars. After the third militant attack in Britain in less than three months, May said Thursday’s national election would go ahead. But she proposed regulating cyberspace and said Britain had been far too tolerant of extremism. “It is time to say enough is enough,” the Conservative leader said outside her Downing Street office, where British flags flew at half-staff. “We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are,” May said, adding that Britain was under attack from a new breed of crude copycat militants. The word ‘copycat’ made me write this article.

One time it was George W Bush who asked the entire World to rally round for anti-terrorism. Quoting part of his speech Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror. The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, and huge-huge structures collapsing have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness, and a quiet, unyielding anger”. We made no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them. America and our friends and allies join with all those who want peace and security in the world, and we stand together to win the war against terrorism”. This was only when US lost four aircrafts while Sri Lanka had lost 2 helicopters 2 fighter jets and 2 airbuses in addition to damages to 12 fighter jets and 3 air buses in one incident.

It should be noted that Sri Lanka is the first country in the modern World to eradicate terrorism on its own soil, thus bringing the ever best example to any forces on how to answer terrorists in a language understandable to them.

Glen Jenvey, a specialist on international terrorism, also claimed that al-Qaeda has copied most of its terror tactics from the LTTE. He highlighted the LTTE as the mastermind that set the pattern for organizations like al-Qaeda to pursue. Some of the comparisons he used to draw his conclusions are the LTTE invented the modern suicide bomber and deployed it against political, military, and civilian targets. The LTTE continuously attacked shipping off the coast of Sri Lanka by blowing ships up and by acts of piracy. Attacks on the USS Cole off Yemen and piracy off the coast of Somalia, a stronghold for al-Qaeda followers, possibly copied the LTTE tactics. The LTTE’s use of a women’s section has being copied by Chechen terrorists, for example the Black Widows” who played a role in the Moscow theatre hostage crisis. Attacks on civilians in buses and trains in Sri Lanka are similar to the al-Qaeda attacks on public civilian transport during the July 2005 bombings in London.

The Australian Federal Police alleged that the men have provided significant funds as well as electronic and marine equipment to the Tamil Tigers since July 2002. Commenting on the possibility of the LTTE engaging in other similar incidents, Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe onetime said We are concerned that sort of thing is taken place in Australia, that Australian citizens are being duped into making contributions to what they believe to be honest fundraising activities in terms of relief for people in distress”. We all know that the people who are leaving Sri Lanka from Tamil Tiger controlled areas pay some hundred dollars as a forced contribution to the LTTE.

The U.S. Department of State banned the LTTE as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (TRO) in October 1997, and in November 2001, named the LTTE a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) under Executive Order 13224. Despite such action, the front organizations continued their activities unhindered and reportedly collected large sums of money following the December 2004 Tsunami. A press release issued by the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, said, The TRO’s efforts worldwide reportedly have allowed the LTTE to use humanitarian aid, which TRO collected for the international community after the December 2004 Tsunami, to launch new campaigns to strengthen LTTE military capacity.”

Clearly without hesitation and in principle, that the barbaric practice of terrorism—deliberately threaten the innocent unarmed civilians to achieve political, ideological, or material gain—must be abolished through the concerted efforts of all peaceful nations. Organizations such as LTTE had established a worldwide network of operatives, with links to other terrorist organizations to provide mutual support and assistance. This network has developed links with organized crime, drug trafficking, state sponsors, and companies and corporations sympathetic to its causes. Therefore, the fight against terrorism requires a multidimensional approach aimed at the entire spectrum of terrorism.

Neither an academic nor an international legal consensus as to what ‘terrorism’ means is available. However, it could be the use of violence irrespective of the context in which it occurs. Because of many divergences that have made it impossible to conclude a convention on international terrorism in order for a single, all-encompassing, legally binding definition, some terrorist allied groups are hiding behind the term of ‘rebels’. Even the BBC has been naming LTTE as a rebel organization. In whatever form it takes, it goes onto include the circumstances that are unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them. So, it is all about social devastation including loss of innocent lives. The price the Sri Lankans paid for LTTE’s dream of Ealam exceeded one hundred thousand lives with an economic cost of nearly US$ 300 billion. More than that, it is a drop by 30 years in the country’s development.

Rather than trying to find who and who are responsible for what and when, time has come to find ways not to repeat the most terrible moments of the nation. One such effective measures and perhaps a must is to identify supporting arms of terrorism that has been geographically dispersed and largely involved in money laundering, propaganda, and more tenderly in large scale brainwash. One such rendezvous is the Europe where ‘sympathizees’ have been a source of nuisance to local governance such as for example David Cameron. Since knowingly financing, planning and inciting terrorist acts have been already declared to be contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations, it is important to understand that any individual or entity who acts for, or on behalf of terrorist organizations, in the name of ‘liberation’ is still terrorism. It is therefore an obligation of the member countries to institute actions under the numerous UN conventions on terrorism. Doing so also casts on countries the obligation to implement these provisions equally, to all terrorist entities across the globe.

What is forgotten is that the Europe is advocating a nation that battled and defeated the most horrible ruthless terrorist movement in the World for thirty years when some of the Western nations including the United States plunged Sri Lanka to open dialogues that U.S. never compromised in the process of dealing with terrorism. LTTE terrorism lasted 3 decades with none of the foreign recipes for peace delivering any peace to the nation. 30 years of failure to deliver peace for Sri Lanka is what should haunt the international community. For it was only after going through daily terror deaths, bombs and killings that a Just War was declared and LTTE was militarily defeated after offering them the opportunity to surrender. While more Germans died after World War 2 ended and Germany was occupied for over 10 years after the wars conclusion, close to 300,000 Tamil civilians were saved more than 11,770 LTTE combatants handed themselves in and are all accounted for, many of them were child combatants. None of them died, were tortured, starved, ill treated or killed (as German POWs and German civilians were) but went through an indigenous rehabilitation program and are now leading normal lives.

One final message! Terrorism that takes various shapes is a global challenge that no State can ignore in the misguided notion that it is somebody else’s problem. Also, no one should not be deceived in semantic debates on either the justifications offered by so-called liberal movements which act on behalf of terrorist organizations. If any State to succeed in coping with the terrorist menace, it must necessarily have to stay ahead of the terrorists in terms of intelligence, technology and criminal justice. More than anyone else, the entire Europe must carefully reassess the security levels and take a decision whether to flourish or perish. The biggest lesson the Europe to learn is if a camel gets his nose in a tent, its body will follow.