The LTTE is the first terrorist organisation in the world to develop its own air wing. An example has been set which will be studied and (wherever possible) emulated by other terror outfits worldwide. In this sense Air Tigers constitute a potential security threat extending well beyond the shores of Sri Lanka. The LTTE, after all, has a history of being a terrorist trend-setter. As Col. Soosai proudly claimed, the terrorists who blew up the USS Cole emulated Black Sea Tiger methods: "I think in Yemen they used our strategy of suicide attack to blow up an American ship" (Tamil Tigers Reveal their Secrets — BBC). The LTTE’s acquisition and successful use of aerial capacity will thus serve as an example and a stimulant for other major terrorist organisations.

Why then did Lankan attempt to drum up international support against the flying Tigers fare so badly? Up to now not a single country has condemned the Katunayake attack. The US and China reiterated their general condemnation of terrorism and called for peace while India expressed concern about the general escalation of violence. But is it possible to conclude, from this absence of condemnation, that the international community is pro-LTTE? Hardly; for instance, a week after France failed to condemn the Air Tiger attack French police arrested 17 Tiger activists trying to extort money from the Tamil community in Paris. The inescapable conclusion is that our requests for support met with chilly responses not because the international community prefers the Tigers but because of the disapprobation with which many countries are coming to regard Sri Lanka’s conduct towards some of her own citizens, the North-Eastern Tamils.

The LTTE is a terrorist organisation. But in their inaugural use of air capacity, the Tigers very intelligently opted for a military target rather than a civilian one. This too would have contributed to the deafening global silence about Air Tigers. Unfortunately the unrestrained manner in which we are currently using our air power makes it hard for us to occupy the moral high ground. We may call our attacks/counterattacks humanitarian operations; the South may know little about the unfolding tragedy in the East due to the regime’s deft news management; but the horrendous reality is no secret to the outside world. Our indiscriminate bombing and shelling have ensured that no place is a safe place for Tamils domiciled in Tiger controlled areas, thereby contributing to the creation of around 150,000 refugees. This massive exodus into our areas is not an expression of support for us, as the regime ingeniously claims; rather it is the only way civilian Tamils can escape our incessant long range attacks on Tiger territory: "Sarangapani, a coolie from Vavunathivu said that earlier people had time to take shelter in peace zones like schools, temples and churches. The fighting forces bypassed these shelters. But now no place is safe. ëWe don’t know when an artillery shell or an aerial bomb will fall in our area. The attacker can’t be seen. There is no warning that he is going to come. There is no escape’ he said" (Hindustan Times — 2.4.2007). Our manifest disregard for the wellbeing and protection of a segment of our own citizens seems to the prism through which more and more countries are coming to see Sri Lanka — and this constitutes a major reason for the absence of any solidarity with us globally, in the face of the Air Tiger threat.

Fighting the war half-heartedly is a charge that has been levelled against most Lankan leaders, especially President Premadasa. Sirisena Cooray in his biography of Mr. Premadasa, rather than denying the charge, explains the logic behind this approach to the war. "Fighting the war half-heartedly’..is a result of our democratic system’. The majority of Tamil community are unarmed, peaceful civilians; they may sympathise with the armed separatists; they may even help in some ways; but still they are non-combatants and citizens of this country. Any leader of Sri Lanka will have to think about this group, rather than about the LTTE. Any leader would want to satisfy these people, or at least not antagonise them too much... After all, it is not a war against some invader from outside; the enemy is from your country, part of your people. If you do not think that way even genocide becomes possible" (President Premadasa and I: Our Story).

Fighting the war half-heartedly is not a charge that even his worst enemy can credibly lay against President Rajapakse. The regime conducts its military operation undeterred by considerations about ëcollateral’ damage. The President’s brother is in charge of defence and the President backs him completely. Money and political support are available in abundance. The regime defends all actions of the Security Forces, unconditionally. This is the politico-military context in which the Air Tiger attack took place. And it demonstrates that the total war strategy of the Rajapakse administration, carried out in disregard of civilian casualties and international opinion, was unsuccessful in preventing the Tigers from making a quantum leap and using air power for the first time. This development has the potential of diluting every advance the Lankan forces have made on the ground since June 2006. It also shows that a total war strategy cannot really weaken the Tiger; it merely damages the Tamils and antagonises the rest of the world (both can backfire on us).

Our total war strategy, though it failed to clip Tiger wings has helped turn Batticaloa into a vast refugee town with more than a hundred thousand people existing in makeshift shelters often lacking in basic amenities. Is this the deliverance we boast of? Enforced liberation seems to be followed, in some instances, by enforced resettlement: "In several cases children were in school when buses were brought and parents asked to pack up instantly. They had to leave without their children. At Palacholai near Chenkalady on 15th March, soldiers told the IDPs that they would burn their huts, throw grenades inside and shoot if they did not go. Local reports said that in some instances soldiers beat the IDPs with sticks to drive them into buses" (UTHR — 27.3.2007). Do we really believe we can win the backing of the Tamils by treating them with such little compassion and even less dignity? If this is the way we are liberating the Tamils from the Sun God’s bondage, we should be unsurprised if the LTTE manages to find amongst these wretched of the East enough recruits to sustain the Fourth Eelam War.

Viktor Klemperer, academic, intellectual and Jew, had every reason to wish for the defeat of Nazi Germany (Dresden fire bombing saved him from deportation to a concentration camp). But when the long awaited defeat came, Prof. Klemperer found himself doing something he had not done for years — thinking as a German, and therefore feeling some of the pain and the humiliation of a vanquished race: "They (the Americans) drive quickly and nonchalantly and the Germans run humbly along on footÖ We who only yesterday were the oppressed, and who today are called the liberated, are ultimately likewise imprisoned and humiliated. Curious conflict within me. I rejoice in God’s vengeance on the henchmen of the 3rd ReichÖ and yet I find it dreadful now to see the victors and avengers racing through the city which they have so hellishly destroyed" (To the Bitter End — emphasis mine). Why shouldn’t some of the Tamil refugees, languishing in refugee camps or being forced to return to their far from safe homes (quite a few of which had been destroyed, damaged or looted) feel a conflict akin to this? Who stands to benefit from their pain and their shame (at the insensitive conduct of the victors, who act as masters rather than compatriots) but the Tigers?

Self delusion is a dangerous proclivity, particularly when faced with an enemy as deadly as the LTTE. Since it was known that the Tigers did possess airpower, the authorities should have expected an attack any time (why else would the LTTE bother to acquire planes?). Why then were we taken by surprise, so much so that the Tigers were allowed to get away scot-free? Wasn’t it because we have come to believe our own exaggerated propaganda about a mortally wounded Tiger cowering in his den, in fear and anxiety? With our worldview coloured by such a perception, it would have been impossible for us to believe in the LTTE’s capacity to carry out a daring raid against a (supposedly) well guarded airbase close to Colombo.

Since the unthinkable did happen, it would make sense to rethink some of our cherished beliefs of the enemy. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s peace process and his presidential bid came to grief because both were based on the conception of a tractable Tiger who could be inveigled away from the path of terror through appeasement. This misconception was such that within months of signing the CFA the Wickremesinghe administration was making plans to downsize the army and find other occupations for those units to be withdrawn from the North-East — while the Tigers were engaged in a major recruiting/conscripting drive! This deadly underestimation of the Tiger commitment to the goal of Eelam is shared by the Rajapakse administration. While Mr. Wickremesinghe thought that the Tiger was a tomcat, President Rajapakse and his coterie seem to think that he is a paper Tiger. The Tiger is barbaric, fascist, terroristic; indubitably. But the Tiger is not cowardly; nor will he give up, even in the face of insurmountable odds. This reality may be unpalatable but unless we accept it we will never be able to deal with the LTTE effectively — as the Air Tiger attack demonstrates.

Despite credible evidence of the Tigers using the peace process to acquire aircrafts, the Wickremesinghe and Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga administrations took no countermeasures for fear of jeopardising the CFA. The Rajapakse administration too shares blame for this calamity. After all, Mr. Rajapakse had been doing things ëhis way’ for one and a half years. Since the LTTE’s acquisition of aircrafts was hardly a secret, the President had ample time and opportunity to do something about it. Not only did he fail to do so; his administration did not take this factor into account in its defence plans, as the debacle on Monday demonstrated. The fact that the Tiger planes flew hundreds of kilometres, attacked a premier defence establishment and escaped is a shame that the Rajapakse administration cannot wash away with verbal gyrations.