The Peace Charade

Sri Lankans of World War 2 vintage relate with delight the story of a timber merchant who became a business tycoon almost overnight by duping his British masters. His modus operandi was to bribe the guards at the entrance and exit gates of a military establishment and make a single lorry load of timber pass through many times. Each entrance and exit of the lorry was marked as a lorry load of timber being delivered and was paid for by the British.

The LTTE is now playing a similar ruse with the Sri Lankan government and the ‘ international community’ with regard to child soldiers. They handed over 49 child soldiers to the UNICEF for rehabilitation in an organisation well known to be a LTTE front and on the same day abducted 24 persons including several students. Lest the story of release followed by abduction be considered as chauvinistic Sinhalese propaganda, there are the international news agencies which reported that about 250 persons, mostly parents of the abducted children staged a demonstration at Vallachenai demanding the release of the children. Even the BBC which is so much enamoured with the LTTE, (they provide good copy) did report of the protest demonstration by parents of the abducted children..

The Sri Lankan racketeer of World War 2 vintage was only cheating his colonial master but these so called liberators were attempting to cheat the Sri Lankan government with whom they are supposedly negotiating for peace and the international community which was forking out their tax payers' money for rehabilitation of these child soldiers. Little wonder the LTTE takes part in these peace exercises because it is very lucrative and the potential is immense — $ (US) 4.2 billion for reconstruction and rehabilitation.

This is indeed a tragi-comedy because the LTTE having cheated the world virtually before their eyes, are getting away with it as they have always done. The Norwegian monitors admit the abduction of the children and a spokesperson has said that they were attempting to get the abducted children released. But such praiseworthy attempts often come to naught and the Norwegian peace makers have on numerous occasions had their noses rubbed very embarrassingly in the sands of the Wanni.

The organisation supposed to ‘ rehabilitate’ the child soldiers, The Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation has been exposed by The Island as a LTTE front and it is indeed questionable whether these child soldiers be ‘rehabilitated’ as normal children or be given further military training! Western nations who cry out in horror against use of child soldiers will now in fact be paying for further training! This pusillanimous attitude of the Sri Lankan government and western nations including Japan towards an issue so sensitive as abduction of children for war is no doubt the reason for the terrorists suspending peace negotiations. Whatever raw and brutal acts of terrorism they commit these vociferous defenders of human rights will refuse to act on them for the sake of saving the ‘peace process’. Have these peace makers ever given a thought to the estimated 10,000 children that have been abducted during the near 20 months of ‘ peace’? Do they care for the agony and plaintive cries of the children and their parents?

These nations that are combing the world in search of ‘war criminals’ must realise that by their passive attitude they are in fact collaborating with these criminals who are abducting children for war. These child victims and their parents will certainly see them as collaborators with war criminals. History will no doubt judge these peace makers for their tacit collaboration.

What a peace charade this is !

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The company they keep!

The Inspector General of Police Mr. T.E. Ananadarajah has been video taped and photographed at a birthday party of the daughter of a person whom the police themselves say is a ‘drug baron’. It is not only the police chief that has been filmed but many other police top brass as well The Island report said.

The IGP responding to questions of an Island reporter has said that he had accompanied a businessman, who was a friend of his to this party and he ‘knew nothing of the background of the business partner of his friend’.

We don’t want to prejudge the issue, but an obvious question to ask is whether even a police constable will believe a suspect when he says he attended a party of a person whom he knew nothing about? According to Sri Lankan police traditions the suspect would have received two thundering slaps and asked to tell the truth. Besides what were so many police top brass doing at this drug baron’s party?

The policemen, we know, are very circumspect about the company they keep, especially the police top brass. They move in cars with blackened shutters under heavy escort.

Others get recces done before they attend public functions or when they go to places they are not familiar with. Mr,. Ananadarajah, being a Tamil heading the police, should in fact have been extra careful.

No doubt some will be calling for the head of the police chief, particularly those a few rungs below him in the hierarchy of the police headquarters. But Mr. Ananadarajah’s blunder— if we may so called it— is not unprecedented because some officials even in higher ranks and even certainly top politicians have been reported to have been frequently seen in the company of well known criminals. Not only drug barons but bookmakers, arms dealers, gunrunners are rubbing shoulders with the high and mighty quite openly in high society. It is openly said that some top notchers in government are notorious timber fellers and even active in human smuggling! Others are generous hosts to terrorists of the North. And they continue regardless of public exposures. In this paradise isle politicisation of criminals and criminalisation of politicians are in rapid advance.

Old fashion adages such as ‘Man is known by the company he keeps’ is no longer taught or heard in this age of the criminal.