Rajpal's Column

18th June 2000

Security, soft targets and being soft in the head

By Rajpal Abeynayake

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Mr. C.V.GunaratneAmericans got a reputation for being paranoid and too prepared. The Y2 K turned out to be a big non-event, and persons who were caught out preparing for a long winter of discontent were looking quite silly when Y2 K turned out to be a big yawn.

In Sri Lanka, we are on the other end of the preparedness spectrum. When C.V. Gooneratne was killed by a suicide bomb, he was called a "soft target'' - the ultimate insult to the man who died as a result of a virulent suicide attack. "Currently the American strategy is straight deployment and conventional war tactics. This implementation plan begs the question, can the dog that can fight the cat, lick the kittens? The answer is no. 

America's department of defense has an increased operational budget to levels matching cold war spending. In fact, the United States has the current capabilities to fight two and a half wars. 

However, those wars are conventional wars. In order to fight the enemy before the United States, the United States must change their plan and move to a direction of effective containment, not wasted spending. 

That's from an American policy document, after the US policy wallahs decided that conventional warfare is not the way to meet unconventional terrorist threats aimed at the state. 

The soft target explanation that was trotted out by the establishment in the aftermath of the C.V. assassination shows that Sri Lanka approaches the security issues from a ultra-conventional mindset. (Replace that with "dumb mindset.'')

Any Minister of the government is under threat, particularly under the present circumstances in which the top echelon of the government (President, Deputy Minister of Defense) is difficult to get at. Calling C.V. a soft target, in a post assassination rationalisation, is like calling Rajiv Gandhi's assassination "a soft option.'' 

"The term guerrilla comes from Spanish and referred to the tactics used in the Northern regions of Spain during the Peninsular War between 1808-1814. Guerrilla warfare has been used by the Native Americans helping in the Revolutionary War and has increased in usage up to popular use throughout the twentieth century in armed conflict. Guerrilla warfare is effective precisely because it is irregular. 

Traditional warfare is fought using massive deployments of troops in order to accomplish a known political goal. Guerrilla warfare uses covert operations in order to sabotage one's opponent. 

The objective of guerrilla warfare is to inflict damage upon the enemy, and not to achieve the same goals which traditional warfare sets to achieve.'' (Prof: Raymond Tanter, expert on counter guerrilla warfare.)

Of the guerrilla outfits in any part of the world, the LTTE has acquired a reputation of being one of the most irregular (Gandhi assassination, attacks on UNP and PA rallies during the Presidential elections, on the same day), and yet, the Sri Lankan security establishment thinks that C.V. was a "soft target.'' A soft ball security establishment takes a while to get used to hardball offensives, but yet this takes the cake?

This response is also amazing at a time when the general global preparedness level is almost unreasonably high. (Take Y2K and airport security for instance.) Has anyone ever been killed by a bomb-related joke, or even injured by one, asks one writer of satire, in a recent piece in TIME. But, the strict rule is that bomb related jokes are anathema in airport security zones, under pain of instant arrest. Contrast this with the security preparedness here, where bomb related jokes come from within the security apparatus ("C.V. Gooneratne was a soft target'') 

The reaction of the security establishment was as bad as the reaction of the shocked Colombo chattering classes who were fairly catatonic about the knowledge that C.V., a man for all seasons, (and a good hail fellow well met character, an impish raconteur) was made a suicide bomb target. But, then, the chattering classes never took security seriously, unless it was their darling sons or daughters who died in an attack. "Airport security like some sick ritual of submission, where the trade-off for getting to fly in the sky, is having to grovel on earth'' says the same irate columnist quoted above, about airport security in most industrialised countries. 

That's a measure of the level of preparedness, in most countries that do not have terrorist threats that are anywhere near as intense as the threat here in Sri Lanka. But, a good guess is that the Sri Lankan security establishment will never quite get it into their heads that the security threat now aimed at the state, is not one that can allow for any kind of chances. 

Yet, hit our men with a ton of bricks on their head, and they will still not know the intensity of the security threat. (Three years ago, the LTTE blasted a bomb below the Central Bank building, and started firing RPG's from a location in the middle of the road. All this was aimed at civilian targets and yet, C.V. Gooneratne, a government Minister, is classified a "soft target.'' ???) 

Tailpeice: At least if the war and the sporadic attacks on the city don't convince anyone that there is a grave threat aimed at the state, then the presence of international journalists should. 

Peter Arnett, celebrity journalist was here last week. He is at a different end of a spectrum that includes journalist from Discovery channel, who come here and discover that Sri Lanka is not Sierra Leone (oh! my my, the words sounds so like alike, what?) 

Lotus eating lifestyles are quite amazing to foreign journalists, who discover that three wheeler rides in Colombo are deadlier than suicide bomb attacks. 

But, a separate story should be done about foreign journalists especially the ones who think that Kandy is in the North of Sri Lanka and that the Sri Lankan army is the official supplier of arms to the LTTE. 

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