Island Editirial: Concentrate on bigger picture
Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando lost his job, the other day, after admitting, in a brief interview with the media, that though he had received intelligence warnings of possible terrorist attacks, he did not anticipate terror strikes of such a magnitude. Why he and other grandees in the defence establishment had been taken unawares has now become patently clear. They failed to assess the threat properly let alone take stern action to neutralise it because they were oblivious to the ground situation. If they had been au fait with what was going on in the Eastern Province and Colombo, perhaps, they would not have waited for intelligence alerts to act. Unbeknownst to them the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ) had established itself in the East and infiltrated Colombo.
Friday night’s suicide blasts, and gun battles between the NTJ cadres and the security forces, in the East, have demonstrated how serious the situation is and made one wonder what on earth the defence bigwigs and the government have been doing all these years. Lulled into a false sense of complacency, they blissfully let the grass grow under their feet. It is also possible that they may have thought they would get under the skin of many a politician if they resorted to intelligence gathering and keeping politically connected suspects under surveillance.
Huge stocks of explosives, arms, ammunition and sharp weapons which raids on suspected NTJ hideouts have yielded so far, in several parts of the country, suggest that the outfit had been planning something much bigger. It would not have made years of preparations for bombing a few churches and hotels. If it had not carried out the Easter bombings, it would have been able to consolidate itself further in the country while the defence authorities and the government were in a slumber.
What prompted the NTJ to time its attacks for Easter Sunday is not known though it is widely thought that the recent mosque massacre in New Zealand was the trigger. New Zealand is convinced otherwise if the statements made by its political leaders are anything to go by. If carrying out retaliatory attacks had been the ISIS’s motive and the NTJ turned on a soft target at its behest, would they have bombed secular places? The NTJ is obviously on a campaign to destabilise the country, but what would it gain from a destabilisation campaign? Unlike the ISIS it is not capable of taking on the armed forces to wrest control of territory or sustaining a military campaign over a long period of time. It has now had to fight for its survival, so to speak, though the possibility of further suicide attacks cannot be discounted. Acts of terrorism will not help the NTJ and the ISIS get anywhere near their goal, in this country.
Sri Lanka is one of the nations that have learnt to live with terrorism. It may be recalled that the LTTE, in spite of its military prowess, its control over parts of the country and international backing, failed to achieve its goal. Prabhakaran’s bomb attacks did not have the desired psychological impact on the people. In other countries, people run away when explosions occur, but, here, the military and the police have a hard time, trying to prevent onlookers from running towards blast sites!
Towards the latter stages of its struggle, the LTTE had to resort to forcible conscription as it failed to cause a backlash, after 1983, to swell its ranks. Perhaps, the NTJ expected a backlash on Easter Sunday, but the people acted with remarkable restraint, separating as they did, fanatics from the Muslim community, who also condemned the savage violence unreservedly and called for action against the terrorists who abuse Islam. The international community which stood accused of having a soft corner for the LTTE has unequivocally condemned NTJ violence and offered to help counter its terror. The Muslim majority countries have also pledged their solidarity with Sri Lanka. Not even the ISIS proper has been able to sustain the momentum of its military campaign. It has suffered a string of humiliating setbacks and been driven out of Syria. So, there is no way the NTJ can succeed.
The NTJ consisting of a bunch of mad men and women, whose religion is terrorism, however, remains a formidable threat to national security and could be more elusive than the LTTE.
The LTTE thrived because the mainstream political parties never made common cause. The country lacked a cohesive strategy to combat terrorism until 2005. It is incumbent upon the leading figures of all political stripes to concentrate on the bigger picture, stop playing politics with the issue of public safety, realise the danger everyone is in and join forces to defeat the NTJ and neutralise the ISIS threat.
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