Editorial

12th March 2000

LTTE's diabolical stratagems

The low intensity "warfare'' which took place in Rajagiriya on Friday night is a powerful reminder of the verity that impending negotiations can intensify a conflict. When talks are round the corner, any two sides enmeshed in an armed conflict are prone to escalate aggression . The rationale for this is that negotiations are best conducted from a position of strength.

It's a supremely poignant irony then that negotiations which are supposed to finally evolve a solution to a crisis in reality turn out to escalate conflict. For civilians, who are caught up in this hopeless situation, this sort of paradox adds insult to their injury. They are the losers on all counts, particularly when bombs that are meant for parliamentarians or a Deputy Minister of Defence don't find their targets. This is not to say that it is fair to target the Deputy Minister of Defence or any other parliamentarian in the first place. But its a reminder that conflict has its own chaotic trajectory.

William Hague, the leader of the British conservative party who visited parliament with the leader of the opposition, and later was seen at what is perhaps the social event of the year – the Royal Thomian cricket match — would also have probably been awakened to the reality of the capriciousness of terror, after hearing news of the bomb attack. Mr. Hague may or may not have anything to do with facilitating any kind of talks between Sri Lanka's diverse political factions, but, it is obvious Mr. Hague is not an uninterested spectator. It has been rumoured that Mr. Hague, like the Norwegians, is interested in brokering a solution to the conflict.

If Mr. Hague's timing was bad, he could have been caught up in the bomb blast instead.

That might sound ghoulish to say, but, though it is not a suggestion that Hague was the intended target of the attack, it is a suggestion that terror is not very discriminating in these parts. The sheer capriciousness of a terror campaign can be frightening; it fundamentally destroys all notions of security and stability that are generally taken for granted in most civilized polities.

The Norwegians or whoever it is that are interested in brokering a solution to our conflict, would be naïve to ignore these verities of wartorn societies. There is nothing worse than foreign mediators who don't know the first thing about the conflict that they hope to mediate.

Any sort of conflict resolution mandates that any party that seeks to mediate or facilitate a solution be aware of the complexity of the conflict at hand, and the sensitivities of all protagonists involved. A bomb blast that takes place "while Anton Balasingham the LTTE's political ideologue is convalescing'' raises a whole host of legitimate questions about the bona fide's of an organization which agrees to talk - - then postpones the talks on account of the illness of one of its top rung leaders – and then proceeds to carry out an RPG explosive attack in one of the city's key peak time traffic zones.

In fact such an attack should precipitate the question whether talks can be had at all with an organization with this measure of ruthlessness.

But, on the flip side , it is argued that the most intransigent enemy has to be neutralized. That may be so, and may be talks are inevitable in a desperate situation such as what we as a country are in at the moment.

But, if it means that the talks that have been planned have to go on regardless, it should also mean that all the ramifications of talking to a ruthless intransigent enemy should be considered, especially when there is a "facilitator'' in the form of a country which has a record of not fully understanding the LTTE's diabolical stratagems.

The Political Column