Friday’s bus bombs are a grim reminder, if reminders are needed, of the vulnerability of ordinary people to LTTE terror. The Tigers, feeling the heat of the military pressure on the Wanni and the ongoing military efforts, albeit at heavy cost – some 130 police and servicemen were killed in May and over 500 wounded, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake told Parliament last week – are stepping up their attacks on soft civilian targets. Greater Colombo and the bigger urban centers like Kandy have been targeted in recent days and a combination of luck, public vigilance and preventive measures has contained the number of successful strikes to less than what they might have been. But that is still too many and the need to continuously keep the guard up cannot be over-stressed.

The government is naturally concerned that prevailing democratic norms, including the freedom of the press, is helping the LTTE to gather vital intelligence from published sources. While the press is conscious of the dangers of publishing material that can be regarded as sensitive, and often exercises a degree of self-censorship, there is also the ever-present danger of those in authority covering their own failures by restricting the public’s right to know. In this context, exchange of harsh words like ``traitor,’’ evident these past few days both from both the defence and political establishments, will do nobody any good. When blatant excesses, such as the abduction and torture of journalist Keith Noyhar, that has earned public condemnation both at home and abroad, are attempted to be passed off as ``green card’’ strategy, we see calumny sinking to the worst possible depths.

It is true that the events of Black July in 1983 were exploited by some to claim political asylum in countries offering better prospects than their own. Such people were in reality economic rather than political refugees. We do not think it likely that a man would murder his family and set fire to his home to claim political asylum overseas. But when goon squads, either communally or otherwise inspired, engage in such carnage, seeking safety is a natural instinct. Post-1983 many people did take advantage of asylum possibilities overseas for economic reasons. But given the ground situation in the country at that time, fears for the safety of their families and themselves would have also influenced decisions to seek greener or safer pastures elsewhere. Journalists are no different from other people in this regard and it is a sad comment on our times that some of our professional colleagues have been compelled by circumstances to seek refuge outside this country.

Shortly after Friday’s first bus bomb at Katubedde, President Mahinda Rajapaksa in a statement warned that the LTTE was seeking to trigger communal riots by such acts of brutality all too evident these past few days. The people of this country must never forget July 1983 and what it did to Sri Lanka. Sadly the government of the day and the law enforcers did nothing as criminal mobs engaged in looting and arson and allowed what might have been nipped in the bud by effective preventive action to assume horrific proportions. While some in the armed forces and police, angered by public apathy in the north to the LTTE targeting soldiers and policemen in Jaffna, actively egged the mobs on, others stood by and watched sometimes approvingly. The government of the day, at least one of whose leaders was accused of sparking the riot, was either unwilling or unable to protect its citizen.

While we can be reasonably sure that this will not be the case today, the country and the people having learnt the lessons of the past, the need for eternal vigilance remains. Hence the president’s exhortation that the people remain calm whatever the provocation, and do not succumb to the LTTE’s efforts to fan communal hatred and violence. It is also imperative that the people remember that while all Tigers may be Tamil, all Tamils are not Tigers. The vast majority of the Tamil people of this country are peace loving and have no truck with the terrorism of the Tigers. Also, it is necessary particularly for members of the majority Sinhalese community to remember that some Sinhalese have treacherously sold themselves to the LTTE and helped the perpetration of terrorist acts. This is a well documented and proven fact. Therefore turning on innocent Tamils because of acts of LTTE terror is something that nobody can countenance.

Having said that, it must also be stressed that however difficult it is, the government is responsible for ensuring the safety of ordinary people from acts of terror. Given the spate of recent attacks, people using public transport today feel particularly vulnerable. It is true that many attempt at blowing buses and trains were successfully thwarted, due in large measure to public vigilance. A three-wheeler driver who grappled with the man who detonated the bomb laid on the Dehiwela railway line resulted in his dropping a bag which provided a number of useful clues leading to his arrest. The subsequent interrogation led to the recovery of a sizeable cache of weapons and explosives. But `dummy runs’ by law enforcers have established that as many as 90% of bombs that may be planted in public transport will be undetected. This is an unacceptably high figure pointing to the obvious that people must be much more alert than they are at present. The recent blasts and detections will hopefully create better awareness.