Crouching Tigers
(Courtesy of The Island)
Disturbing news has come from India; the LTTE is said to be returning to its old ways. A Tiger cadre, arrested in Tamil Nadu with 75 cyanide capsules, 330 gm of cyanide, GPS equipment, Sri Lankan driving licences and mobile phones, was planning to return to Jaffna with the help of two friends, The Hindu has quoted the Indian police as saying. Why does an LTTE combatant who fled to Tamil Nadu in 2009 want to come back with so many cyanide capsules at this juncture?
The UPFA is sure to blow the threat of LTTE revival out of proportion to gain political mileage which it is badly in need of at this juncture. The government is likely to pooh-pooh it for political reasons. In dealing with terrorist threats it is counterproductive to either make mountains out of molehills or molehills out of mountains. Security threats must be assessed realistically and each political leader given adequate protection accordingly.
The country has, under the last government as well as the present dispensation, remained focused on the political front since the declaration of the Jan. 08 presidential election last year. Political compulsions and expediency have taken precedence over national security concerns. The LTTE can take full advantage of this situation.
Some of the so-called rehabilitated LTTE combatants may still be committed to their macabre cause and ready to lay down their lives for it. Was the LTTE cadre caught in Tamil Nadu on a mission to organise them? A senior Tiger who tried to revive the LTTE in the Vanni perished at the hands of the military. Gobi was his name.
The LTTE has been in suspended animation in this country since May 18, 2009, but it is very active in Tamil Nadu and the West as the US has revealed in a recent report. Not all Tiger arms caches have been detected and there may also be undetected LTTE safe houses with arms, ammunition, suicide jackets and other terrorist paraphernalia, outside the North and the East.
Sri Lanka is like a patient recovering from a successful cancer surgery and precautions must be taken to prevent the recurrence of the disease. The onus is on the new team of doctors who took over the patient from those who performed the operation to do everything in their power to ensure that no room will be left for the return of cancer.
The LTTE succeeded in assassinating war veteran Gen. Janaka Perera during an election campaign in 2008 because the Rajapaksa government failed to protect him.
Meanwhile, the security of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who provided political leadership to the country’s war on terror, must not be compromised on any grounds. There are lessons to be learnt from the security lapses which caused former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to perish in an LTTE suicide attack during an election campaign. The Indian leader who was out of power at that time took his security for granted because he underestimated the LTTE.
The Tigers never forgave Rajiv for India’s military operations against them here in the late 1980s. The fact that Prabhakaran is pushing up daisies does not mean that the LTTE has lost its striking capability. No rehabilitation programme can be considered 100% successful as former war winning Army Commander Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka himself has gone on record as saying. Being one of those who were instrumental in defeating the LTTE, he, too, ought to be careful. The same goes for former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and the military commanders.
Similarly, it is not advisable for political leaders including President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to lower their guard under any circumstances. The absence of terror attacks since the end of the war is no reason why anyone should take the threat of terrorism lightly. What the powers that be ought to bear in mind is that the LTTE’s strategy consists in creating leadership vacuums and triggering political upheavals.
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