CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

A Lesson From Our Past In Combating Terrorism

Wilfred Fernando Melbourne Australia

There is no denying now that the terrorists have reverted back to the only job they can do best, and they are expected to do, that is terrorising the innocent civilians - their trademark activity. The previous theories that they can carry out conventional warfare are now proven nonsense. They have in the recent days intensified attacks targeting civilians. The manner they choose the place and the time shows that they are planning for maximum carnage.

In these dangerous times of increased terrorist activities, where these ruthless and heartless criminals looking for novel ways of killing umpteen number of innocent people, the government too must find creative ways of combating this menace. The people who sympathise with the terrorists bring forward many untenable arguments to condone their criminal acts. One such is the question 'Well, how can you define a terrorist?' The answer is very easy. A terrorist is a person who plans, targets and carries out operations to kill exclusively the civilians. You can add to this statement, plans 24 hours. In the case of security forces they are duty bound to fight terrorists and protect general public, any civilian causalities are collateral damage. While you and I think many other things beneficial to you, your loved ones and people around you, the terrorist only thinks how to kill you.

In this pastime they have the freedom to choose the time and place. In combating this situation government should have realised by now, it cannot entirely rely on its conventional armed forces. This is obvious by the very fact that it has time and again asked general public to be vigilant and look out for any suspicious objects or suspicious persons in their vicinity. In defence of the public, I must say many disasters have been avoided during the past months thanks to these watchful public, even to the extent of apprehending them. In the incident of recent bomb throw at the railway carriage, the terrorist escaped though he was apprehended on the next day. This and many other cases reveal the inadequacy of the Government strategy of leaving this dangerous job (vigilance) to the untrained and unarmed public.

Firstly the majority of the members of the general public are hardly in a position to keep an eye on the activities of the terrorists, not because they are selfish or devoid of any patriotism, but because they have so many other things to worry about. Very many of them are fully engrossed with thousands of problems regarding their jobs, their homes, their children and so on.

Secondly, even if they detected some suspicious activity, an object or a person what can they do? They are not trained to react to this type of hazardous situations. They have no right to investigate others personal things or to tap somebody on the shoulder and ask for his identity. The best he would do is to save his own self and his loved ones. By trying to do what he is not an expert at, he might most probably aggravate the situation.

What all these facts leading to is that, handling terrorists must be left to the government security personnel who are armed, trained, paid and avowed to tackle this kind of risks. There are many divisions in the defence forces who are skilled in different types of tasks. Then exactly, who should be doing this most vital and risky duty?

Today thousands of our armed personnel of the navy, army, air force, police and home guards roaming our public places, streets, jungles, rail roads, air, seas and every nook and corner of our country. For the last two decades or so, only a very few of these barbaric acts were avoided by these forces. Also not many terrorists were caught at any of the numerous checkpoints. Those checkpoints mainly create a hassle to the law abiding citizens.

The reason is not that our well loved Sri Lankan security personnel are inefficient or any wanting on the part of their commitment or resolve. The reason is due to something missing in our security strategy. No sane terrorist who is on a mission or otherwise will move around a place where they are bound to bump into security staff. They can do whatever they want without encountering any defence personnel, except perhaps at airport. (Only Sri Lankan terrorists are still capable of leaving the ground without going through government airstrips. They have their own planes if you can call them planes.) The above in succinct is that our security personnel, in the present circumstances are too conspicuous and their activates are too predictable for these invisible foes.

So what is the solution? The solution can be found if we care to take a lesson from our distant past. Whatever our ancestors did, they did better than the present day nationals. Our ancient Kings had much more worse and frequent terrorist threats from not only within Sri Lanka but from foreign courtiers too. Not only have they kept this country as a united country they also protected all our national heritage and culture more than two millennia. How they did it?

One of the most important aspects of their security arrangement is clearly absent from the present day defense mechanism of our Island. That is the government secret service (to use the old word “chara purusa sevaya”). This was so important unit in our Kings’ security system; there are records in our chronicles that King himself took part in gathering information, mixing among the people disguised as a commoner.

We know some form of secret service activities of the calibre of KGB, FIB, HMSS, RAW etc are operating at certain level of governing system. One can be sure that they are mainly to safeguard the ruling regimes. That activity can be spread to include the security of the common people as well. If the civil clothed under-cover agents are deployed to mingle among the public at all places and at all times, this menace could be reduced to a considerable degree with less expenditure of resources which are both human and financial. Of course they should carry arms - stealthily though. If they are already there it is necessary to increase their presence many folds.

This is a sure way of discouraging the terrorists and will keep them guessing frantically where and when to strike. What is more is, this can even avoid these disasters before they occur. If expedient measures were taken in this direction terror campaign may reduce drastically- may be to the extent of eradicating terrorism from our country.

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