What is the similarity between Shane Warne and the LTTE? If you find that a difficult question to answer then you might as well throw yourself into the rubbish dump.

It is as easy as the first question in many a quiz show. Both have been caught with their fingers in the cookie jar and both have tried to get out of the contretemps with utterly specious and childish arguments about their indiscretions.

When tests showed that Shane Warne had taken a drug banned by sporting authorities, his best defence was that his mother had given it and he had taken it without question. Such a dutiful son who in this day and age takes capsules and tablets without a second thought- well not even a first one it would seem-must surely qualify as the son of all mothers.

Like most Australians he must have read his Shakespeare and wondered whether his mother would chastise him with words that bite just before he set out on his journey to South Africa to conquer the cricket world.

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth is a thankless child".

There is, of course, the much more obvious explanation that brings him much closer to the LTTE than to those who boast of filial fidelity. That is that Mr. Warne finds it too much of a strain on his ego and on whatever ethical code he follows, to tell the truth.

And what is even more sickening is that this comes from an Australian, who like many fellow Australians in his country's media and sports circles that strike a moral pose and are quick to condemn cricketers, particularly from South Asia, for all sorts of offences even when such persons have been cleared by the highest authorities in the game.

If this was the first time that this particular cricketer had been found trying to get one past the slips, one might have felt a tinge of sympathy for him. But, as we know the Australian Cricket Board (the less said about that the better) had fined Mark Waugh and Warne for selling information to a bookie, a fact that was carefully hidden away until exposed by the media.

So Warne is not only suspect of multiple offences but was quite willing to put his mother out to dry.

How like the days of Hitler's Nazis and Stalin's communist informers when persons betrayed their closest family for the crumbs that fell off the tables of party higher ups. In the case of Warne, of course, it was a convenient excuse. But that hardly enhances the moral quality of his act.

Such similarities bring Warne's action close to the moral code of the LTTE. Besides the news that Warne tested positive to a drug that he should not have taken broke within days of the LTTE being caught with its collective pants down when it was found smuggling arms through a government-controlled area in the north- western waters.

The LTTE knows full well that this is a violation of the Ceasefire Agreement that it signed with the government. Having given that solemn pledge and tried to convince the world of its sincerity this time round the LTTE continues to violate clauses in that agreement.

The SLMM that monitors the working of the ceasefire has unequivocally stated that the LTTE has been guilty of such violation. Nor is this the first time that the LTTE has tried to move arms or violate the ceasefire agreement.

What is even more reprehensible is that the LTTE was actually engaged in peace talks with the government in Berlin when LTTE cadres here were quite happily violating the agreement.

But this is not the only article of faith that the LTTE has violated with impunity. It has continued to recruit children to its cadres by means of abductions, threats and other forms of intimidation. That it will refrain from doing so in the future is admission enough to the accusations that have been thrown at the Tigers by various sources.

By entering into a ceasefire and then engaging in peace talks the LTTE has tried to convince the world-especially the western donor community where most expatriate Tamils live- of its sincerity, at least this time round.

But such attempts at presenting a lily- white image of itself are constantly exposed by the LTTE's violations of its pledges before the world. If its words of peace and peaceability are not matched by deeds, then would it be wrong for those who have questioned the LTTE's motives and intentions to ask whether they have been wrong in their suspicions?

The LTTE's chief negotiator Anton Balasingham tried desperately to put an innocent face to the Delft incident. He was reported to have denied in Berlin that the LTTE was involved in smuggling weapons.

The LTTE has tried to make out that the trawler was an innocent fishing vessel that had developed engine trouble and was merely being helped by the kindness of the Sea Tigers.

But neither Balasingham nor his cohorts in the north has explained what a 23 mm anti-aircraft gun was doing aboard a fishing vessel. If the LTTE has developed a unique technique in fishing by shooting heavy calibre bullets into the air to kill fish in the deep waters perhaps they should share it with the rest of the world- or get a patent for it as befits this day and age of globalisation and intellectual property rights.

The truth is that the LTTE was caught red handed and has lied in an effort to wriggle out of a bad position.

While all this is going on before the eyes of the world, the government's negotiators seem to acquiesce in these doings by their acts of commission and omission in not confronting the LTTE.

They may be telling the LTTE behind the confines of closed doors that they should refrain from such obvious violations. If so such chastisement is not seen in the government negotiators' public statements or posture.

Such behaviour on the part of the government and its negotiators leaves the inescapable feeling that they are going out of their way to be nice to the LTTE.

This seeming reluctance to confront the LTTE when it has so obviously violated terms of the agreement or even be tough when it makes outrageous demands such as the right of their unlicensed drivers and vehicles to enter government-controlled territory, is hardly the way to win public support which the government surely requires at a time the cost of living is reaching for the stratosphere.

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