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The
Open Fire Agreement (OFA) The Government might say that this is not the document they want, but it was only this February in Geneva, that they made a solemn pledge to abide by its provisions - to the letter. The "limited response" bombings, as the Government put it, at dusk on Tuesday at Sampur, south of Trincomalee, was a direct knee-jerk reaction to the attempt on the life of the Army Commander the same day -- inside his own den -- the Army Headquarters in Colombo. No self-respecting top brass of the military anywhere in the world --whether they graduated from the finest schools of West-Point, Sandhurst or the National Defence College would permit a "turn the other cheek" response to an attempt on the life of its Numero Uno. Even governments are often under pressure from the military -- and politically -- to "teach them a lesson" when attacked once too often. It was only a fortnight ago that the Libyans marked the 20th anniversary of the US aerial bombing of their President's House in Tripoli (where his little daughter was killed in the air raid) in retaliation to a Libyan-backed bombing of a discotheque in Berlin. Such terrible aerial bombings are taking place day in and day out, to this day, in occupied Iraq. Any
right-thinking person would, however, say that these tit-for-tat
bombings may serve a short-term purpose, but rarely win a long-term
advantage. So, everybody grumbles under their breath that the mighty powers are "murderers", but goes on to do business with them anyway, because of economic necessities. Despite the fact that the LTTE had systematically killed 150 servicemen since President Mahinda Rajapaksa took office just last November, they were unable to trigger a reaction that would justify the collapse of the peace talks. All this orchestration on their part went on while attending one round of peace talks in Geneva and fixing dates for another round. It's becoming as clear as night follows day, that the LTTE sees the talks as a peace trap, and would rather opt to keep the military option afloat, and talk peace only if they find the heat on them too much to face. Their provocative claymore attacks against the servicemen not having succeeded in provoking a favourable counter-reaction -- they found the attack on the Army Commander, succeeded in breaking that patience. The retaliatory strikes in Sampur provided them the handle to gain some sympathy worldwide thanks to some western news agencies that help them to carry their message to world capitals despite the acknowledgment by even the Scandinavian monitors that the attacks were indeed on LTTE targets. Now
the Government in Colombo has got a taste of flagrantly violating
the CFA – and knowing that it too can get away with it. If
they can do it why can't we, seems the rationale of the hardliners
in the corridors of power in Colombo. This new chapter will now open the floodgates for more and more abuses of the CFA by either side. Very soon that document is not going to be worth the paper it was written on. And this low-intensity conflict (see our Comment in the Business section and Page 12 Analysis) will go on bleeding the economy which in turn affects all citizens of this country alike. This makes the country look for cash from outside sources (and from where it comes matters little as long as it comes), every foreign dollar turning Sri Lanka into a sadly, non self-reliant state, hitting world headlines for all the wrong reasons. But bigger issues are at stake. And the Government will urgently need to do more than fire-fighting and sporadic bombing raids --to win this struggle. |
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CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT No.
47, W.A.D. Ramanayake Mawatha, Colombo 2, Sri Lanka.
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