Vavuniya District Judge M. Illancheliyan has, as we reported on Wednesday, warned of stern action again the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) if the outfit fails to rein in its members who are said to be extorting money from the business community. The Judge has told a PLOTE leader, produced before him, that the concessions his organisation had got from the government for self defence must not be abused.

We couldn’t agree with the learned judge more. The Tamil politico-military groups that have obtained weapons from the state to defend themselves against the LTTE must be made to realise they wield no license to unleash terror with impunity.

Many Tamil businessmen in Vavuniya as well as other areas, where those Tamil groups are active, have to part with large sums of their hard earned money monthly for their safety. Some of them are reportedly moving out of those areas, unable to pay protection money to both the LTTE and the state assisted armed groups.

The business community, which is essential for ensuring supplies to the conflict zone, so as to keep civilian life going, needs to be encouraged to remain in those areas. The sordid operations by the armed groups will only drive more of them away, thus aggravating the woes of the war affected people. The responsibility for creating an atmosphere where the business community is free from harassment and threats lies with the government.

The role the anti-LTTE Tamil groups are expected to play is to be a democratic alternative to terrorism and help rekindle democracy in the conflict zone. Their arms are only meant for self-defence and the government must have zero tolerance for those weapons being trained on civilians. They are making an already bad situation worse by taking the advantage of the culture of impunity which has set in owing to years of violence and counter violence. They are thriving on the misery of a hapless populace like carrion seeking vultures.

If those Tamil groups cannot be different from the LTTE, the government ought to seriously consider disarming them forthwith so that the people at least will have one problem less. Stripping them of their weapons will be tantamount to throwing them to the Tigers but such drastic action is called for unless they mend their ways and transform themselves into a people friendly force. The state must not sponsor any group that unleashes violence against civilians.

Likewise, the LTTE needs to be condemned for its own criminal activities. It has a well established system of extracting protection money, which has unfortunately come to be taken for granted. The reopening of the A-9 highway turned out to be a goldmine for the LTTE as it had an opportunity to rake in millions of rupees daily by way of illegal taxes. Strangely, there were no protests from any quarters including the human rights groups. Apart from scarcity, the reason why the prices of essential commodities remain very high in the North and some parts of the East is the LTTE ‘taxation.’

We revealed last week that even some big time mobile phone companies had been paying protection money to the LTTE because they had some of their towers in the LTTE-held areas. Those respectable members of the corporate community must hang their heads in shame for having contributed to the LTTE war chest.

The rupees they paid to the outfit must have been turned into bullets and claymores which have claimed many lives. In other words, they have partly funded the LTTE’s war.

Anyone who steers clear of the issue of LTTE ‘taxes’ and its reprisals against those who act in defiance has no moral right to be critical of other outfits who are committing the same offences. The LTTE must not be considered ‘more equal’ than other extortionists and its violence shouldn’t be cited an excuse for passive compliance.