Terrorism- beyond the censure

"Who really cares about these people?" That's a fair question that could be posed to the champagne swilling denizens of the international community, in the wake of the Claymore mine blast that killed 64 in the usually sleepy town of Kebbilithigollewa.

Condemnation of the attack is heard in a clamour, and no doubt it is almost shrill if not cacophonic. We cannot find a country that has not expressed its displeasure with token words of censure.

But, behind these words of ritual condemnation, is the rub. It's the United States that identified the LTTE as the attacker.

That's not to say that other countries do not know the LTTE was the attacker. But was this order of circumspection really necessary? Was it a necessary caution, to avoid mentioning the LTTE considering that the organisation never had a history of claming responsibility for any of its acts of infamy? There is a therefore subtle message of contempt for these dead people that emanates from the capital cities of friendly countries.

If the obvious perpetrator cannot be instantly identified, it follows that there is no real sense of urgency in condemning this Claymore mine blast, which was so deliberate, that the detonation of the bomb was remotely controlled.

If that last sentence does not convey the idea, here it is, put in a more graphic yet less subtly stated way: A Claymore mine was detonated by LTTE cadres who waited by the roadside and watched as a bus laden with schoolchildren and civilians passed a point on the road, which had been carefully mined. The detonation was precisely timed and executed as the bus went over the landmine. This was lamb to the slaughter.

This order of subterfuge and deliberation would not have brought out token words of condemnation if the location was different, if the town was less sleepy, if the country was less remote, and if the victims were not essentially humble.

Bomb blasts in London, or New York make massive detonation noises. Their echoes reverberate to the far corners of the globe - and the resolve to get at the perpetrators is usually heard louder than the blast.

When 9/11 happened, Osma Bin Laden's name was mentioned almost ritualistically. When the London tube bombings occurred, Islamic terrorists were identified as the perpetrators, and everybody who wanted to be seen internationally as a Dirty Harry or a highway vigilante, almost ingratiatingly pleased Tony Blair and George W. Bush screaming "terrorist, make my day punk." But, it's a pathetic measure of the integrity of international wire services to see how news stories are treated differently. The Kebilithigollewa blasts were a blip on the news radar.

The London bomb blasts stayed on the news for weeks. It behoves the fair comment that white victims of terror are more important to the world's newsmakers than coloured victims of terror, especially those from a rural backwater of a developing country. The fact that a known censured and outcast terror group is behind these attacks does not make them any more newsworthy in the estimation of the average wire service news Editor. He wants his wire to sizzle to the sound of eggs and bacon frying on an open fire.

Whatever happens to white people usually provides him with this buzz and energy. Anything else that happens to people who are humble or non-white is generally considered heavy static on those wires. It means that 64 deaths in Kebbilithigollewa get a minute on the world's TV networks, versus a week or a month for 16 in Kentish Town.

Having written that, we are certain that the news of bomb blasts last week in this country will have their own way of creeping into the consciousness of world leaders and decision makers. It is a wired world out there, even as it is a weird world.

The networking on the World Wide Web for instance, will ensure that an attack that is so vile will create its own momentum and push on the news industry. It may not be said overtly, but it has already been decided in the world's capitals that the LTTE did this, and that its actions can never be made opaque by a crassly worded disclaimer on a terrorist website.

It would be correct therefore to say in retrospect that the LTTE has cooked its goose with this attack. It is know that the LTTE is inviting a backlash with these blasts, meaning that its leadership wants the blood of not just the 64 people who died on the bus.

On a conservative estimate, one Claymore should, in their calculation, lead to a thousand deaths - preferably of Tamil people. This is the terror they want by proxy, and there is not a world leader or a government that does not know of this perverse tendency as fact.

It's not within the LTTE's capability to get away with this level of brass, by carrying out naked acts of terror in a world keenly sensitised to the goals behind calculated terrorism. The choice of Kebblithigollewa - sleepy as it is - or the behaviour of the wire services after the act would not insulate the LTTE from the repercussions of this attack on young men women and children.

The LTTE, which has already earned its stripes as an outcast, will now watch as governments gradually begin contributing towards a process that would obliterate such acts of terror.

A world - albeit one in which wire service Editors determine the import of the breaking news - cannot take too much of this reality of unbridled opportunistic terrorism. World opinion will collectively get around slowly but surely to make the LTTE pay for this crime.