SRI Lanka cannot win militarily against the Tamil tigers, was what they used to tell us. Not only the NGO's, the slimy Norwegians, but even some of the half baked armchair military pundits used to dish out this manthra on a regular basis, until most of us were either believed them outright or were prepared to do so.
I was one of those who used to breathlessly read Iqbal Athas' proclamations of imminent doom for a long time until the continued failure of such dire forecasts to materialize began to shade his credibility in my mind. And that made me start wondering why some of these people act as they do.
For a long time, Sri Lanka's English literate 'elites' effectively influenced the government's attitudes and its approach to the increasingly destructive terrorism problem. Even while it was quite evident that there was no real 'ethnic problem' as the NGOs and the Norwegians always termed it, being able to demoralize and browbeat the opinion leading group in Colombo made it possible for these shadowy groups with links to the LTTE to manipulate facts and force their own deliberate misinterpretations on the entire population of Sri Lanka. Gradually we came to accept whatever the Norwegians trotted out, even when the gut-feel was that it was all wrong, but was the only way out of a situation which they had convinced us was definitely going to end in Sri Lanka's complete defeat by the LTTE.
Never was this situation completely true, while the Norwegians were behind many obstacles thrown against arms and intelligence procurement by the Sri Lankan government. Today we know that the Norwegians wanted to see a powerful LTTE negotiating from strength and browbeating the Sri Lankan government into submission. No wonder the Indians started getting uncomfortable with this process.
Terror attacks in September of 2001 in New York brought about a change of world perception of terrorism, and a definite change to Sri Lanka's fortunes as the US entered the fray. The rest is history.
Now that the LTTE is about to recieve the coupe de grace from the Sri Lankan defence forces, the very same maggots and anti-Sri Lankan covert forces are coming out of the wood work. The new theory is that the LTTE will turn magical guerilla, assumably superior to anything the SL can muster against them and unconquerable as they were touted before being conclusively routed by our boys. The modus operandi is the same; half truths, deliberate misinterpretations, unsubstantiated, unsupported and unverifiable, mostly imaginary capabilities attributed to the magical guerillas who will be able to attack with impunity and continue to wage an unending war against us. This, I presume is supposed to worry or even scare us.
There are many reasons why re-birth of the 'magical LTTE guerilla' is only a figment of a maggot's imagination.
LTTE leadership is destined for extinction. That's guaranteed, given the fact that the present mood in Sri Lanka is overwhelmingly slanted that way. With the lunatic fringe leadership out of the way, most of the youger generation tamil youth will be open to seeing ground reality for what it is; the only outcome from a confrontation with the Sri Lankan military is a speedy death.
The tamil youth will also get a taste of democracy, and the freedom of the wild ass that reigns everywhere in Sri Lanka. Perhaps they may even learn to appreciate thetrue sense of human freedom for once in their lives without a sense of destiny entrenched in self-destruction.
The real possibility of having the good life; relationships without approval from a beauracratic apparatus, a right to enjoy a beer with friends, and the national past time - cricket or even fornicate at will.
There'll of course be those who will want to turn the clock back. Sri Lankan military intelligence can be depended on to deal with them using our own tested and proven, inimicable counter-terrorism techniques.
Those who are attempting to give us a sense of new foreboding are the same carion birds. The faces may be different, but there should be no mistaking who they are and what their agenda is.
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