Editorial

No. 8, Hunupitiya Cross Road, Colombo 2. 
P.O. Box: 1136, Colombo.
E-Mail:  editor@suntimes.is.lk
Telex: 21266 Lakexpo CE
EDITORIAL OFFICE Tel: 326247,328889, 433272-3
Fax: 423258, 423922
ADVERTISING OFFICE Tel: 328074, 438037
CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 10, Hunupitiya Cross Road, 
Colombo 2. 
Tel: 459725, 448322, 074 714252
Fax: 435454

We may therefore be pardoned for taking a look at the political sandstorms developing not too far away from our shores - in Afghanistan.

The citizens of the world can perceive clearly a New World Order emerging as a knee-jerk reaction to the momentous happenings in New York and Washington on that fateful day of September 11.

The usually gung-ho British Prime Minister Tony Blair, desperately keen to cut an image as an international statesman, was in Pakistan praising the man and the country which we would remember were unceremoniously jackbooted out of the (British) Commonwealth two years ago after a military coup, and were not invited for the Commonwealth Summit in Brisbane scheduled for this week.

Israel, America's regular ally, is grumbling and complaining that the US has ignored it in search of Arab/Islamic friends such as Syria, designated by the US as a state that sponsors terrorism.

The US Defence Secretary is currently on a tour of countries such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan surrounding Afghanistan, in an effort to virtually purchase the allegiance of these countries which his president probably did not know ever existed on the world map until now.

The Western powers are turning international realpolitik on its head by building frenzied coalitions with governments whose people don't really warm up to the Western powers that easily.

We in Sri Lanka don't have any real qualms in the Afghanistan's Taliban getting a bashing. The Taliban did destroy the massive images of the Buddha which had stood in the Bamiyan valley for almost one and a half millennia. The West of course condemned these acts of destruction but did nothing to prevent them. These probably do not qualify as terrorism.

We observed last month in our publications that the EU did not give priority to terrorism for the on - going UN General Assembly sessions on September 11. The WTC attacks catapulted the issue into top priority.

The West's current collective hysteria about global terrorism is clearly a reaction triggered by terrorism endangering the interests of the industrialised world . The war against global terrorism therefore exists only upto the borders of Afghanistan or whichever lair in which Osama bin Laden is hiding. We should not have any illusions about that reality.

But yet, for whatever it's worth we at least in theory identify with the gist of the refrain coming from the West which is "let's forget the past - let's fight the scourge of global terrorism in the future".

Sri Lanka's own stake in the whole emerging clash against terrorism cannot be overstated with the fight that we have against terrorism in our own backyard. We should not hesitate to jump whatever bandwagon against terrorism, and play a leading role in any such campaign the way we provided a leadership role in the Non Aligned Movement from the 1960s upto the 80s. We must find our voice again as a leader in a formidable international movement constituting thesilent majority of the world -- and no doubt, that voice must be heard loud and clear.

The Political Column

Editorial/ Opinion Contents