Although the government, up to the time of writing, has not gone on record accusing the LTTE of responsibility for Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar’s assassination, few if any Sri Lankans would ever believe that anybody else would have or could have done it. As one commentator had it, not even Prabhakaran’s mother would believe that. It remains to be seen whether this country can in this hour produce a voice as forceful and as eloquent as his to convey this message to the wider world which has for too long mollycoddled the terrorists garbed in the sheep’s clothing of freedom fighters. The spokesperson of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) said some hours after the shooting that the cease-fire was endangered. The Norwegian foreign minister has said as much. That is self-evident. But just as much as the wide masses are convinced that a Tiger sniper squeezed the trigger that extinguished the life of a man who was one of this country’s best and the brightest, they know equally well that going to war with the LTTE is not the way to react to Sri Lanka’s enormous loss.

The big question that must now agitate everybody’s mind is: "Why should the LTTE do it?" We may even ask ourselves: "Why should the LTTE do something as stupid?" But then they are a group that assassinated Rajiv Gandhi in India although they would today like to place that deed behind them as Anton Balasingham has tried to do each time the uncomfortable question is posed to him on public occasions. The Tigers have not tried to deny that they killed Gandhi, a former prime minister of the country from where they long trained and based. In fact, it can truthfully be said that India created the monster although Sri Lanka and India herself, given today’s relationship between the two countries as well as their own enlightened self-interest, would deal with that matter in exactly the same way as the LTTE deals with the Rajiv Gandhi assassination.

The circumstantial evidence must necessarily point to the Tigers as far as the Kadirgamar assassination goes. It is well known that he has long been a prime target and had been stalked not for months but for years. His was a voice that damned the LTTE in the councils of the world who as President Kumaratunga said yesterday "waged a relentless struggle against terrorism in all its forms despite continuous threats to his life." The Tigers especially could not bear the fact that he was a Tamil who did not buy their case of "freedom fighting." They have been able to terrorize all those who opposed them, most so in the areas they hold under an iron grip. But Kadirgamar despite all the risks continued to make the strong case against granting them the international legitimacy they have long sought. That, obviously, could not have endeared him to the LTTE.

It is said of guerillas and of terrorists that they have to be lucky only once while those they fight must be lucky every time. We do not know how many times Lakshman Kadirgamar escaped death. That only Pottu Amman, the LTTE’s intelligence chief and, possibly, his boss in the Wanni will know. But Kadirgamar was not lucky on Friday night when he went to his private home at Bullers Lane for the swim that he tried to do almost every day. This former athlete, a champion hurdler in his day who captained Trinity at cricket and had won his rugby colours, told a journalist that despite his 73 years, he liked to swim 1,000 meters every day. As we all know, much wisdom comes after the event. There had been intelligence, or at least a suspicion, that there will be an attempt on Kadirgamar’s life in August. His advisors have tried to stop him from going to Bullers Lane because he was easier to protect at the highly fortified government bungalow that was his official residence. But he had been adamant about his swim even at that late hour of the night. And thus ended a most valuable life.

Let us not forget that an LTTE agent cultivated President Premadasa’s household members for months and years before the chance came for the suicide bomber to explode himself at Armour Street that fateful May Day. General Ranjan Wijeratne, an intrepid fighter of terrorists and a fearless man, advised many of those at risk against routine which made them vulnerable. But he always chose the same shortest route to his office from his home because, some say, he believed in the power of his horoscope. We know ex post facto that the swimming pool in Kadirgamar’s back garden was visible from an unoccupied upper storey of a neigbouring house. That was where the sniper, armed with a high-powered rifle, night vision equipment, tripod, suicide jacket and cyanide capsule did his thing.