PN Khera
A Sri Lanka military spokesman indicated that it would take about two weeks to overrun the last Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) bastion in the six square-kilometre sliver of land between a lagoon and the Bay of Bengal. Given the kind of media coverage that was coming out of Sri Lanka showing the plight of the Tamil population in the combined assault on the hapless people by both the LTTE and the government forces, there could only be but one fervent prayer — that the people are spared further torture. Within the war zone, it was only the elimination of LTTE supremo Vellupulli Prabhakaran that can ensure the emancipation of those who have become caught in the crossfire because the Sri Lanka Government cannot afford to declare a ceasefire at this juncture till the LTTE high command surrenders and that is unlikely to happen so long as Prabhakaran is alive.
It was high irony that the man who symbolized in himself the promise of emancipation of the Tamil people from Sinhala overlordship on the island-nation should, in the final summing up, emerge as the one person who brought upon his people the worst kind of atrocities. It was bad enough to be bombed with heavy artillery, saturation implosion with multibarrel rocket launchers and aerial bombardment by the Sri Lanka armed forces, but that this was compounded by the use of tactics by the LTTE that deliberately put women and children in the line of fire is a realization that is dawning slowly on the rest of the world that wants the conflict to end forthwith. Yet the fallacy prevails that if some way is found to ensure that Prabhakaran is not eliminated in his last stronghold through international intervention on his behalf, the plight of the people will improve.
To expect the Sri Lanka government to let victory slip out of its grasp at this juncture is asking for too much and so the world must wait till the last bunker is cleared in the current trench warfare. The expectation is that they will find the body of Prabhakaran somewhere in the rubble given that all avenues of escape have been sealed. But there is still one possibility that Prabhakaran will try to make a run for it on one of the suicide rafts that have been fashioned with the proverbial LTTE cunning and that he would prefer to die by ramming the explosives laden craft into a Government naval boat in one last spectacular defiant gesture. That could well be the only way that the Tamil people can be liberated from their plight.
Conversely, he could prefer to live in the expectation that he could fight another day. A surrender and a trial at Sinhala hands would be the kind of drama Prabhakaran would love to exploit. He has refined the art of propaganda as one of the many weapons of his kind of insurgency. Fighting in an island environment, he has managed to influence a Tamil diaspora spread not just in southern India but also in the US, Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia whose exertions to bring about a ceasefire were clearly oriented more to save Prabhakaran than address the plight of the Tamils caught in the crossfire.
The true picture of the plight of the Tamils is in the refugee camps set up by the Sri Lanka Government with international assistance including India. Frame on frame is revealed the story of a people physically and mentally traumatized by concentrated bombardment by Sri Lanka Government troops; by coercive detention by the LTTE leadership; by the use of children as soldiers and of women as suicide bombers. The time is ripe for the world to impress on Colombo that only concrete measures to ensure that the imprint of second-class citizenship is erased from the Tamil psyche will ensure that there is no recrudescence of the sentiments that led to the Tamil uprising against sustained repression. (ADNI)
A Sri Lanka military spokesman indicated that it would take about two weeks to overrun the last Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) bastion in the six square-kilometre sliver of land between a lagoon and the Bay of Bengal. Given the kind of media coverage that was coming out of Sri Lanka showing the plight of the Tamil population in the combined assault on the hapless people by both the LTTE and the government forces, there could only be but one fervent prayer — that the people are spared further torture. Within the war zone, it was only the elimination of LTTE supremo Vellupulli Prabhakaran that can ensure the emancipation of those who have become caught in the crossfire because the Sri Lanka Government cannot afford to declare a ceasefire at this juncture till the LTTE high command surrenders and that is unlikely to happen so long as Prabhakaran is alive.
It was high irony that the man who symbolized in himself the promise of emancipation of the Tamil people from Sinhala overlordship on the island-nation should, in the final summing up, emerge as the one person who brought upon his people the worst kind of atrocities. It was bad enough to be bombed with heavy artillery, saturation implosion with multibarrel rocket launchers and aerial bombardment by the Sri Lanka armed forces, but that this was compounded by the use of tactics by the LTTE that deliberately put women and children in the line of fire is a realization that is dawning slowly on the rest of the world that wants the conflict to end forthwith. Yet the fallacy prevails that if some way is found to ensure that Prabhakaran is not eliminated in his last stronghold through international intervention on his behalf, the plight of the people will improve.
To expect the Sri Lanka government to let victory slip out of its grasp at this juncture is asking for too much and so the world must wait till the last bunker is cleared in the current trench warfare. The expectation is that they will find the body of Prabhakaran somewhere in the rubble given that all avenues of escape have been sealed. But there is still one possibility that Prabhakaran will try to make a run for it on one of the suicide rafts that have been fashioned with the proverbial LTTE cunning and that he would prefer to die by ramming the explosives laden craft into a Government naval boat in one last spectacular defiant gesture. That could well be the only way that the Tamil people can be liberated from their plight.
Conversely, he could prefer to live in the expectation that he could fight another day. A surrender and a trial at Sinhala hands would be the kind of drama Prabhakaran would love to exploit. He has refined the art of propaganda as one of the many weapons of his kind of insurgency. Fighting in an island environment, he has managed to influence a Tamil diaspora spread not just in southern India but also in the US, Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia whose exertions to bring about a ceasefire were clearly oriented more to save Prabhakaran than address the plight of the Tamils caught in the crossfire.
The true picture of the plight of the Tamils is in the refugee camps set up by the Sri Lanka Government with international assistance including India. Frame on frame is revealed the story of a people physically and mentally traumatized by concentrated bombardment by Sri Lanka Government troops; by coercive detention by the LTTE leadership; by the use of children as soldiers and of women as suicide bombers. The time is ripe for the world to impress on Colombo that only concrete measures to ensure that the imprint of second-class citizenship is erased from the Tamil psyche will ensure that there is no recrudescence of the sentiments that led to the Tamil uprising against sustained repression. (ADNI)
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