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by Bandu de Silva

This is an issue I have been hearing increasingly in the close circuit of Conferences and Seminars I had chosen to attend recently on the so called "Peace Process," a process, which some are not loath at designating as the "Piece-Process."

In a presentation made by a former Army Officer at one of these conferences, while discussing the relative military capabilities of the armed forces and the LTTE, he brought up the issue of the erosion of the will of the nation as an area not to be left out of consideration.

It is an issue which is even more important than the numbers and quality of armed forces and the military hardware at one's disposal. The question of maintaining the "will of a nation" at the highest level of articulation is one that deserves as much as other considerations as others which will demonstrate the readiness of a state to meet situations which affect its territorial integrity and other threats to its existence.

I have tested the validity of the issue by raising it at a lecture delivered recently before a select audience on the subject of `Defence and Foreign Policy' at Kelaniya University (Social Science Department) by Air Commodore Jagath Singh, Director of the Centre for Strategic and International Relations Studies and the Institute of Defence Studies in New Delhi. The speaker appreciated the question and went into a long explanation to show that it was an important element in any country's defence strategy.

One may then ask what this "nation's will" one speaks about is in more precise terms. The obvious answer in present day context is the will to fight an enemy whether it is external or internal, in the first place, in defence of the territorial integrity of a country.

States do not wilt under pressure however weak one may be and allow any walkovers when it comes to this question. One may also add a nation's honour but defending that alone could lead to difficult situations.

In the context of the situation in Sri Lanka, for over two decades now a war ranged between the government and the LTTE, an organization which has been variously designated by different people.

The GOSL itself or its spokespersons have been changing the definition of the LTTE to suit the mood. In their own version the LTTE has called themselves "freedom fighters" waging a "war of liberation".

That has gone to influence the international community in a big way so much so that the outgoing head of the SLMM, the former retired Norwegian army officer was reported to have claimed at a final meeting with the Secretary of Defence that the LTTE were "freedom fighters"! Now, a breakaway group from the LTTE claim they too are "freedom fighters" against the LTTE dictatorship and are attempting to free the people of the Eastern Province from that dictatorship. So the term "freedom fighters" is seen snowballing in different directions.

The Tamils themselves called them "Boys" once. That was in the emotion-filled situation after the Pogrom of 1983. When the "Boys" started giving the "works" to the Tamil themselves, fleecing them of their wealth and property, taking away their children to fight the war, taxing them regularly, permitted no dissent, killing opponents, imposing travel bans on them, taking away their democratic right to exercise the ballot at elections, they began to realize what their lot had become.

I have seen a number of well to do Jaffna families shattered. It is easy to blame the Tamil people as one blamed the German people once for not raising a finger against the Nazi dictator.

But, it must be admired that there are at least a few Tamils who raise their voice at the risk of their life and that of their loved ones. As Asia Tribune reports in Canada all open support for the LTTE has disappeared within a week of imposing the ban on the LTTE. That shows how flimsy this so called support to the LTTE as "sole representative of the Tamil people.

How could the SLOG or any one else support such a myth in the name of peace? Do not those who oppose the LTTE deserve protection?

Successive governments have also changed the definition of the LTTE from time to time.

One saw how former Minister, G. L. Peiris, chief spokesperson once on the "Piece Process" bending over his back both literary and metaphorically, to please the LTTE after the CFA was signed and the so called "peace talks" began. One saw the former Head of the Peace Secretariat, Dr. Jayantha Dhanapala calling the LTTE "militants."

The predicament of the officials is seen even from the way the new Head of the Peace Secretariat, Dr. Palitha Kohona first dodged the question when asked by the journalist if the LTTE were "freedom fighters" but at least came around to say that other countries have "banned them as a terrorist organization." (Daily Mirror, Hard Talk Column, April 17th 2006).

That is a round about way of saying things. I thought the English language was quite precise and matter of fact. The use of the French language would have been ideal if one wants to dilatory.

These are the problems that the so called "peace process" has introduced. (The cynics may be right in calling it the "piece process." Anyway, that seems to be what is happening progressively in stages). It has taken the sting off the SLOG which earlier defined the LTTE as a terrorist organization and even banned it. Lakshman Kadirgamar, the former Foreign Minister single handedly continued to expose the LTTE as a terrorist organization and he was eliminated by them.

The peace option in the present situation has been viewed from the perspective of damage to the country's progress both in short and long terms, and the effects of other ramifications of the problem on the territorial integrity of the state and the stability of its democratic institutions, have taken a backseat in the process.

In the final analysis, what seems to be more important is the survival of the people in power at a given time. The Ranil Wickremesinghe government proved that. President Chandrika Kumaratunga confirmed it.

The GOSL's present difficulty in maintaining the stance that the LTTE was a terrorist organization is revealed by Dr. Kohona's recent remarks. The GOSL is facing a situation where it has to get other countries to pull the chestnuts for her. It hails it when others ban the LTTE but is not prepared to call a spade a spade.

That is what the LTTE and the international community has reduced it through the "peace-process." On the contrary, the LTTE continues to draw all the benefits from the CFA and the "Peace-mood of the GOSL. It has beefed up its military hardware and fighting forces to a level which was not there before and has even opened the prospects of aerial war with the opening up of two military airports and the acquisition of some small planes.

Once the GOSL took on the LTTE issue as one of terrorism. That it was a correct assessment was seen from the way that a number of countries banned the organization. That included neighbouring India, the U.S., the U.K, Australia, Malaysia, and now Canada. SLOG was compelled through inner compunctions, and external pressure to relax its stand towards the LTTE as a terrorist organization in order to bring them to the discussion table.

That was given up in order to uphold the principle of negotiation as the primary option in preference to the military option. The failure of the military option to yield the desired result was the determination of the international community to see it succeed. No country ever applied effective sanctions on the LTTE raising funds from the Diaspora and others and on the flow of arms.

Presently, GOSL is wasting much energy trying to keep the issue of terrorism on the agenda of international and regional fora articulating its verbal opposition to it while letting grass grow under its feet.

It has been compelled to take such a position due to various compulsions including the pressure from the international community. So it is unable to checkmate LTTE terrorism on the ground, and the latter holding the population in areas under their control from exercising their democratic rights as citizens.

The LTTE is working in a two-pronged direction. One is to create, as one of its major strategies, a fear psychosis through attrition and make people "lose the will." This is the idea round the recent spate of mobilization of the people, training them in arms, organizing them as para-military forces of the LTTE, organizing violence in Trincomalee, Jaffna and off Mannar coast carried out in the name of `people.'

Who are these people? Aren't they the ones that the LTTE is taking in batches to the Vanni and Sampur jungles to be trained whose passing out parades have been publicly displayed, if that is not the work of the LTTE itself? The other is to "create a will" among the Tamil population, which is the opposite of what they are trying to do with the SLOG and the people at large.

Adding to the scenario, there are the foreign and local NGOs doing their turn to create a fear psychosis among the people. They are spending millions of Dollars to hold peace conferences, seminars and publish newspaper articles and for talk shows on the TV, the object of which is to suppress the national will by creating a fear psychosis in the population and making them forget the bigger enemy of terrorism .

What is the net result of all this? Are we not in a situation today when the people are wholly confused and not knowing in which direction things are moving? Shouldn't there be a clearer view of things and explanations on what the GOSL's stand on fighting local terrorism?

If war is forced on the people through repeated action of terrorism, there is no alternative but to fight to the end. What is at stake is not just terrorism but the territorial integrity of the state which has to be safeguarded at any cost.

(The writer is a former career diplomat and ambassador.)

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