Pooneryn puts terror on irreversible retreat

BY: Lucien Rajakarunanayake

22nd November 2008
“As the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration approached the end of its third year in office last weekend, this column concluded that the country was three years closer to the defeat of terrorism.

This was before the President announced to the country last Saturday morning that the Sri Lanka Army had captured Pooneryn, opening a land route to the Jaffna peninsula after nearly 20 years, bringing about a major alteration in the balance of force between the Government and the LTTE,” says opinion columnist Lucien Rajakarunanayake.

“Under the prevailing situation the Government sees no need for any international monitors to assess the needs of the affected Sri Lankan citizens or to carry out the effective distribution of relief already being done through the International Committee of the Red Cross, other identified relief agencies and the Government machinery.

It is necessary to mention that there has been considerable credible evidence of Non-Government Agencies that were engaged in relief work in the Wanni region, having provided both financial and material assistance to the LTTE, for the pursuit of its separatist goals against the sovereign state of Sri Lanka, through terrorism,” he further stated in the popular weekly, Daily News column, ‘On My Watch’.

Following are excerpts of the weekly column ‘On my Watch’.

“As the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration approached the end of its third year in office last weekend, this column concluded that the country was three years closer to the defeat of terrorism.

This was before the President announced to the country last Saturday morning that the Sri Lanka Army had captured Pooneryn, opening a land route to the Jaffna peninsula after nearly 20 years, bringing about a major alteration in the balance of force between the Government and the LTTE,” says opinion columnist Lucien Rajakarunanayake.

If the Sri Lankan troops were gaining the upper hand over the past one year, it was now clearer that they are even more on the ascendant, and the LTTE is on what seems an irreversible retreat.

The news of the capture of Pooneryn while definitely adding to the already good morale of the Security Forces, also gave a major boost to the morale of the public, eager to see the end of terror in the country and the return to peace and harmony.

If the Army Commander’s report of the success at Pooneryn could be considered a special gift to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, when marking the third anniversary of his presidency, and about to celebrate his 63rd birthday; it was also an eagerly awaited gift to the people of Sri Lanka, who despite so many difficulties they face, have been strongly supportive of the Security Forces through the tough operations they have been carrying out since the reopening of Mavil Aru.

The news of the gain at Pooneryn was soon followed by the military success at Mankulam, which was precedent to the Army overrunning the LTTE’s Forward Defence Lines at Muhamalai and Kilali, and the news on Thursday evening (Thursday 20) that the troops advancing towards Paranthan from Pooneryn had taken over an airstrip of the LTTE in the Nivil area of Pooneryn.

Even before the news of the success at Pooneryn it was an upbeat President Rajapaksa who spoke to the media in New Delhi where he had gone to attend the second BIMSTEC Summit, and also met the Indian Prime Minister.

The President’s message to the Indian media was no different from what he has been repeatedly emphasising in the past weeks – namely that the Government was not ready nor did it see any purpose in having yet another farce of a ceasefire with the LTTE; and that it was clearly the Government’s position that it was time for the LTTE to lay down its arms and enter the democratic process.

It is significant that the President was so forthright in re-stating his position, shortly after he had met the Indian PM Dr. Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, and also coincident with the Tamil Nadu Assembly voting to call for a ceasefire between Government troops and the LTTE in Sri Lanka, with yet another call for talks with an organisation that India had just extended its ban as a terrorist organization for two more years.

Sweet and Sour

All this success in the military front, in diplomacy and internal politics was certainly sweet for the Government, as it demonstrated both its stability and its ability to pursue the fight against terrorism, together with its policies for economic development.

It is but natural that such success cannot be sweet in the ears of the LTTE, as its spokesman Nadesan showed when he tried to pooh-pooh the fall of Pooneryn, and vowed to keep on fighting.

While On My Watch, I now see the emergence of a Defence Watch by a lone ranger politician hanging on to the tail of a weakened elephant, and some others “Watches” too that will seek to attract the attention of the public very soon.

But what one already sees in the Defence Watch is a ghoulish delight in detailing what it claims to be the human cost, in terms of lives of troops lost and injured, especially in the capture of Pooneryn.

One can see how such a watch falls in very good sync with Tiger Spokesman Nadesan’s Watch in belittling the gains of the Security Forces against the terror of the LTTE; and the other Watch that is carried out from across the Palk Strait by the Tamil Nadu politicians, who are desperate to have a slogan that will have a good ring with the Tamil voters when the Indian General Election comes by in a few months from today.

But Defence Watcher is also watching the stars with great interest, as he has foretold three dates in December 2008 when the President will dissolve Parliament and call a General Election.

It is necessary to do a little reverse watching and ask these watchers of today, the actual cost in terms of lives lost when the LTTE overran the military camps at Elephant Pass and Mullaitivu and the troops were compelled to withdraw having suffered heavy losses at Pooneryn too, under their own watch in earlier times.

One must also add the cost in terms of civilian life by claymore bombs alone during the so-called ceasefire signed by the present ally of the Defence Watcher, which the same watcher so vehemently opposed in earlier times.

Kilinochchi

As the success at Pooneryn leading to a reopened land route to Jaffna and control of the entire west coast, where the LTTE and its Sea Tigers had the best locations for gun-running and other smuggling from Tamil Nadu that threatened both the Security Forces and the Sri Lankan State, becomes better understood in the overall operations against the terrorism of the LTTE, the focus of critics is suddenly turned on to Kilinochchi.

Defence Correspondents are suddenly termed Defence Experts and Analysts, even by so-called radical Sinhala newspapers, to say that the Government has abandoned plans for the capture of Kilinochchi, which is said to be strategically more important than Pooneryn.

Weekly and Sunday columnists who unashamedly peddle the line (or whatever fickle thinking) of the UNP, and the political strategies of the LTTE through the TNA and fellow travellers, are all agog to show how the Government has changed its military strategies, through weakness or even fear of Indian reactions, to give up the march on Kilinochchi and go for Pooneryn instead. No doubt the defence establishment appears to have made an error in attaching much propaganda effort to Kilinochchi.

In that case it is also the fault of these self-appointed “defence analysts” to have fallen for such propaganda. Yet, this does not mean that military strategy has to be cast in stone, or that the actual intent of the military has to be fully revealed to every weekend columnist.

It is necessary to understand that the military can and does often change strategy when it is opportune militarily to do so, and as it now seems evident, while Kilinochchi is in fact a largely deserted town, (the LTTE having taken the people away from it further east as a buffer against advancing troops) the relentless progress of the troops to Pooneryn and beyond, is a demonstration of the determination to go on with the fight against the LTTE and its policy of terror.

They come with a plea for the suffering citizens trapped in the midst of war. Their cry is humanitarian, and their cause obviously so just and humane. But, just as we see happening in Tamil Nadu they are loudest, and even shrill, when the LTTE is taking a beating.

This was seen once again when Amnesty International (AI) came out with its latest statement on the situation in Sri Lanka., opening with a largely baseless but yet emphatic assertion that: “The Sri Lankan Government must immediately end its policy of blocking humanitarian aid needed to reach an estimated 300,000 displaced people in the Wanni region of northern Sri Lanka.”

The Presidential Secretariat has already categorically rejected this assertion by AI of a blockade of humanitarian aid. No doubt by the time this column is published a fuller response to the lengthy AI statement would have been issued.

But, it is certainly strange that an organisation such as AI should make such a baseless and highly unjust statement about a Government that over the protracted years of a terrorist campaign threatening the sovereignty of the country, and causing major damage to peace, harmony and the economy and violence to life and limb, has been consistent in providing everything for the Sri Lankan citizens on the North and East, who are the hapless victims of the LTTE’s terror and lack of concern for humanitarian welfare, which AI in its own statement admits the LTTE is not interested in and would not carry out.

It is necessary to substantially quote here the initial statement of the Presidential Secretariat in rejecting this grossly false allegation by AI.

“It is correct that a large proportion of the civilian population of the Wanni region who live in locations still controlled by terrorists of the LTTE are undergoing considerable hardship and suffering due to the rigid policies of the LTTE of preventing the free movement of civilians and making use of them as human shields against the advancing forces of humanitarian liberation of the Sri Lanka Government.

“Under the prevailing situation the Government sees no need for any international monitors to assess the needs of the affected Sri Lankan citizens or to carry out the effective distribution of relief already being done through the International Committee of the Red Cross, other identified relief agencies and the Government machinery.

“It is necessary to mention that there has been considerable credible evidence of Non-Government Agencies that were engaged in relief work in the Wanni region, having provided both financial and material assistance to the LTTE, for the pursuit of its separatist goals against the sovereign state of Sri Lanka, through terrorism.”

Network Contractors

There will be many more such statements coming out very soon, mostly lacking in objectivity and largely seeking the induction of “International monitors” to assess the needs of the displaced citizens and supervise the distribution of relief.

The Government will have to carry out an offensive against such interfering interests that is as determined as it is carrying out to eradicate terrorism from this country.

In doing so it is also necessary to bear in mind that the efforts of these possibly misled, misleading and condescending preachers of humanitarian values have their allies in the international news networks.

If I am asked who is best to give a contract to sanitize a terrorist organisation that is banned for its terror in nearly 30 countries, my answer today would be the BBC.

This is from my own experience of its reporting last week. Riding piggy back on the AI report, the BBC World Service News last Wednesday night referred to the humanitarian situation in the North, and went to show, what it admitted to be LTTE footage, of relief work being done by the LTTE among the displaced people.

There were shots of children being taught in a make-shift school, and a middle-aged woman teacher saying how the students were affected by the war, and how mortars fall while teaching was going on.

Although the report started with AI, the reporter or producer had forgotten the criticism that AI itself had made of the LTTE’s lack of concern for humanitarian work or inability to do such work.

The lack of objectivity, and even a sense of recent history, was evident when using LTTE footage to show the world how the outfit was helping in education, when all these years it has been well documented that the LTTE has been forcibly taking children away from schools and parents, denying them any education to conscript them as child soldiers to carry arms for terrorism. The report also, admitting LTTE footage, said how the LTTE was giving stiff resistance to the Sri Lankan troops after the fall of Pooneryn, (taken close to the “de facto” capital of the rebels) and the Security Forces having gained control of the entire west coast, and pushed the LTTE into a far corner in the North East.

According to the reporter the Government in Colombo says Tigers are terrorists (not he definitely) and that civilians areas held by the Tigers must be freed.

Was it ever in doubt that people held by force of arms of terrorists must be freed? And is it only the Government in Colombo that says the Tigers are terrorists – what of the Governments in New Delhi, Washington and all of the European Union, which also includes London, where Bush House is located and the BBC has its headquarters?

We are aware that the BBC has many problems of credibility, decency and cultural norms from the controversies it has been involved in recently, where even the Conservative and Labour leaders had found common ground in condemning some programming of BBC.

That is a problem for the BBC and the UK taxpayers to worry about. But, taxpayers and those who not pay tax too in Sri Lanka have a right to be concerned as to how this so-called great beacon of broadcast truth projects the Government and people of this country to the world.

Just to give a small touch of being balanced, the report concluded by saying that the LTTE has been accused of using civilians as human shields, and went on to add that the Government has also been blamed for ordering humanitarian workers out of rebel areas when so many people are in need. Not a word about the fact that the humanitarian workers were ordered out for their own safety and that relief work does go on even without them.

When those who claim the special status of the “international community” is looking for ways of sending foreign monitors here, the BBC can come as a handy contractor to undermine national sovereignty.

On Wednesday night the BBC had to admit that not only Pooneryn but the entire west coast was now under Government control. Yet, at 11 pm last Saturday night, the BBC news was not certain, neither convinced nor convincing that Pooneryn had been taken by Sri Lankan troops.

The report said the military “claimed” that Pooneryn had been captured, and also said the LTTE had said nothing about it.

The reporter was obviously unaware, or not bothered about the fact that the President of Sri Lanka in a statement to the nation had said that Pooneryn had been taken by the Armed Forces, that another land route to Jaffna was now available, and had also told the LTTE it was time to lay down their arms and surrender.

Nearly 12 hours after the President made that statement, the BBC had still not thought it fit to report that Pooneryn had indeed been taken by Sri Lankan troops What is most regrettable is that these are the standards of objectivity and good reporting that are held up by many as examples of the best in broadcast journalism.

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