24.8.2008
Sunday discourse by Philip Fernando for Asian Tribune
Garrison
town of Thunukkai has fallen to the armed forces, so the
Asian Tribune reported. Prabhakaran now seems to linger
inside a bunker waiting in vain for USA, India and someone
else to intervene. There will be none. The political vacuum
he succeeded in creating doomed him. He bumped off Alfred
Duraiappah, A, Amirthalingham, Neelan Thiruchelvam, Lakshman
Kadiragama, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle and all the Tamil moderate
leadership ruthlessly. His evil wizardry in marketing
terrorism was his own booby trap that swallowed him as
his options for negotiations dwindled. Now he is battered,
cornered and seemed as if he is at the end of a shortened
tether.
Prabhakaran
hoodwinked the international outfits for far too long.
But no wizard can package deadly contraband till kingdom
come. Living at his wits end, only international pressure
pushed and shoved him towards a negotiated solution. He
could not shift to the political track; there was none
to go to.
The
weight of his multi-fanged paraphernalia with its suicide
squads, child recruitments, credit card embezzlements,
bank-robbing banditry, extortion guises for fund raising,
and paid fifth columnists inside and outside Sri Lanka
collapsed under the weight of its own immoral terror project.
Columnists
who wrote glowingly about Tiger prowess are equally guilty
as Prabhakaran for foisting a myth that LTTE is invincible.
Those across the Palk Strait wrote of Prabhakaran the
“wizard” every time his goon squads made a
stealthy raid somewhere. Remember! The glorified accounts
of the raid on Anuradhapura air base that covered acres
of news print on Sunday morning. Time and again they scooped
Tiger wizardry. Some even feigned threats for writing
such inane stuff, thinking that government would come
after them. The Sri Lankan government fortunately did
not want to waist its breath on such hapless disinformation
sources. Times reveal that the armed forces are at the
entrance to Kilinochchi now.
Sri
Lankan security forces have coordinated their multiple
formations brilliantly. Commandos have been used in lightening
strikes in tandem with conventional operations and our
forces maintained a very high degree of morale despite
fierce fighting. .Their air raids were devastatingly deadly.
If
the LTTE had had a worthwhile political wing with a popular
appeal, no vacuum would have been created in the North
and the East for others like Douglas Devananda, V. Muralitharan
alis Karuna and Sivanesathurai Chanthrakanthan alias Pillaiyan
to fill. He opted for undiluted terror. He was trying
to wade off torrential rain with a broken umbrella. Balasingham
and Tamilselvam were mere puppets dancing to Prabhakaran’s
tune.
The
Rajapaksa government, which Prabhakaran thought would
be easy fodder for his cunning machinations (that was
why he asked Tamils not to vote for Ranil in 2006), took
the battle straight to Vanni, knowing that LTTE's political
‘Achilles heel’ was the battle front. No freedom
fighter worthy of that title would venture to fight it
to a finish unless he had sufficient ground forces and
weaponry to practice what he preached. Ultimately, Prabhakaran
fooled himself more than he fooled the international outfits
with his rhetoric. To lose militarily without a political
action plan tantamount to suicide-a practice he promulgated
with uncanny design. The oft repeated axiom that those
who preach by the word shall perish by it, has not become
archaic yet.
Prabhakaran’s
scan respect for the lives of his own cadres, hence his
wanton murder of thousands of innocent victims struck
a deviant, destructive and despicable chord needing a
longer analysis some other time. Those made to die for
a cause which the leader himself knew was unattainable
and not within reach even in its wildest dreams, was a
treacherous act not worthy of a human being.
Prabhakaran
made one big blunder when he assumed that India would
throw its weight behind him like in 1987. There are no
grounds what so ever for anyone to intervene because there
is no scope for negotiations without a political apparatus.
He exhibited hallucinatory traits to even think that the
friends of the LTTE would intervene now. A cranky old
attorney has now being hired to fight things in US courts
or vilify the Defense Secretary of Sri Lanka. Futile is
the only word that can describe that attempt.
In
1987, India justified its direct interference to take
the LTTE off the hook trying to create a political solution
through an alternative to war against terrorism and the
LTTE was forced to accept it. But before long India realized
the LTTE was not for any political solution and resorted
to war at the slightest provocation. Peace talks became
a pretext for going to war later.
Today,
the LTTE has demonstrated beyond any doubt that it is
too stubborn, fool-hardy and intransigent to accept a
reasonable solution. Worst still, nor can Prabhakaran
accept any of the solutions, so far offered to him including
federalism, because his own hardened cadres would revolt,
they are too brainwashed and blinded to accept anything
except to fight to the bitter end. Eelam has been solidly
etched across their foreheads so far too long.
Prabhakaran
tried a unilateral truce attempt recently which Rajapaksa
government did not want to touch even with a barge pole.
So Prabhakaran is in a soup, rather an empty cave. The
four bunker walls separate him now from an ignominious
end. Norway is no where to be seen. According to American
jargon it is “No way! Jose (pronounced hosay).
Courtesy - Asian
Tribune