• Lord of war

• Due punishment is a must
  
   

Lord of war

The LTTE has held Sri Lanka ransom for a quarter of a century and the politicians in power must urgently heed the following facts to achieve a lasting solution:

1. There can never be peace in Sri Lanka until the LTTE is disarmed 2. After 25 years of killings, massacres, assassinations and other terrorist activities the LTTE will never lay down their arms voluntarily 3. Their demands are unwarranted, unjustified and impractical for many reasons.

They are not the elected representatives of Tamils 4. So, there is no option but to disarm the LTTE by use of force and the sooner this is done the more lives will be saved eventually. In any armed confrontation harm to civilians is inevitable and war or no war the LTTE will continue to kill 5.

The Norwegian 'peace makers' have only helped the LTTE to go from strength to strength and they should be asked to go home, 6. If India interferes it should be reminded how the Indian Army attacked Sikh separatists even in their temple and about the pulverizing assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE on Indian soil 7.

The Tiger problem has dragged on for a quarter of a century only because the successive governments of Sri Lanka up to now have been weak, short sighted and overly concerned about the 'world opinion' on this purely internal matter Sri Lanka.

The 'world' is not going to save Sri Lanka from the Tigers.

W. Y. Rambukwelle, Katugastota.

Due punishment is a must

Our society seems to be going from bad to worse. Assaults, thuggery, intimidation and murder seems to be the order of the day. The main reason for this is the lack of due punishment for crimes.

Patrick J. Buchanan says "A modern society that outlaws the death penalty does not send a message of reverence for life, but a message of moral confusion. When we outlaw the death penalty, we tell the murdered that, no matter what he may do to innocent people, to those in our custody and care, women, children, old people, still his most treasured possession, his life, is secure. We guarantee it in advance.

Just as a nation that declares that nothing will make it go to war finds itself at the mercy of warlike regimes, so a society that will not put the worst of it's criminal to death will find itself at the mercy of criminals who have no qualms about putting innocent people to death."

When people go scot free or with minimum punishment for major crimes too we give criminals a signal that they could go on committing crimes with impunity.

Influence from influential people, specially from politicians, and the subservient mentality of those in the judicial system are the two reasons for this situation.

More lenient the punishment, be more the occurrence of the crimes. More the crimes, by and by, lesser the punishment will become, for then the society and even the judges get desensitized to the atrocity of the crimes.

This vicious cycle must be broken. It can be broken only by the judicial officers. It's time there is some standard of punishment in this country.

It has become a joke now that even child molesters, drug traffickers and rapists get a few months prison sentence and even murderers get laughable punishments.

by Dr. Mareena Thaha Reffai.