The Colombo SAARC Conference has come and gone but the summit hangover lingers. Many were those who had uttered expletives in the run-up to and during the summit due to road closures and the Day-of-the-Jackal type security arrangements which caused immense hardships to the public in and around the city. And their consternation was understandable.

But, resistance to the SAARC summit from politicians and their hangers on had little to do with any suffering they had to undergo because of the event. Instead, it emanated from their hidden agenda. Green with envy, they were all out to prevent the government from gaining some mileage from the SAARC Summit.

Critics of the SAARC Summit made an issue of its cost. True, a great deal of funds was expended at a time the country was in dire financial straits. The present government stands accused of unbridled profligacy and dissipation. It is enjoying a champagne living on a toddy income! And it deserves to be hauled over the coals for wasteful expenditure. But, criticism against the cost of the SAARC Summit would have sounded more convincing and constructive, if it had come from some quarters never accused of extravagance and criminal waste of public funds.

What moral right does anyone have to question the cost of holding a summit of heads of State, having granted billions of rupees both in cash and in kind to a terrorist group? Didn't a previous government pay the Customs duties amounting to millions of rupees on a massive transmitter brought in for the LTTE' clandestine radio to facilitate the dissemination of anti-Sri Lanka propaganda internationally? Didn't a past government give wads and wads of cash and many truckloads of arms, ammunition and cement to the LTTE? Weren't LTTE leaders who were shuttling between the Wanni and foreign capitals allowed to bring in crates and crates of undeclared goods sans checks and duty through the KIA some years ago? It was the people of this country who footed the bill and it was the country's national security that suffered as a result. Are we to take those who are responsible for such criminal waste of public funds seriously, when they fault their rivals for hosting a regional summit because of its cost?

Some politicians stooped to the low level of questioning even the cost of food for SAARC leaders. In a country where terrorists are fed at public expense, should the cost of victuals for a group of visiting foreign dignitaries be an issue at all? Sri Lanka is the only State in this world that has been using public funds to provide food and medicine to an enemy waging a terrorist war to destroy it. How the LTTE has been taking the lion's share of food and medical supplies sent by the State for the use of civilians in the Wanni is patently clear from the goods found in the LTTE camps that have fallen to the army. But, the State keeps on sending food and medicine to those areas. And it must continue to do so for the benefit of the people in spite of the LTTE siphoning off supplies.

Ironically, this is in stark contrast to the manner in which those who oppose Sri Lanka's war against terror are fighting their terrorists to counter threats to their national security. During the American Civil War, it may be recalled, President Lincoln's army resorted to such ruthless methods to preserve America's territorial integrity that General Sherman, who practised the scorched earth policy to the hilt, used to brag that even if a crow were to fly from the East Coast to the West Coast, it would have to carry provisions. Today, Lincoln is a hero and America a role-model democracy! And, most of all, Sri Lanka is getting enough and more gratuitous advice on how to handle its secessionist war!

The LTTE came to terms with reality and desisted from trying to sabotage SAARC. It only made a virtue of its adversity by declaring a SAARC related truce in a bid to gain a breather, albeit in vain. But its sympathizers continued their campaign against the SAARC Summit, ably assisted by the government bashers blinded by their parochial political agendas to the national interest. What irked them more was the timing of the SAARCConference.

They had been celebrating Sri Lanka's loss of the UNHRC seat and the prospects of the EU not extending the GSP plus concession. The LTTE, badly cornered on the military front and gasping for some respite in the Wanni, is banking on three other fronts for survival––political, human rights and international relations. The conferment of the SAARC chairmanship on Sri Lanka was the last thing they could stand at this juncture. The fact that the South Asian leaders met in Colombo in spite of huge security threats and resolved with one voice to battle terrorism and Indian leader Dr. Manmohan Singh's visit, which they thought would never materialise stood in the way of their campaign to have pariah status conferred on Sri Lanka.

It was while the international media focus was on Colombo that the United Nations World Food Programme issued a statement erroneously claiming that 30 per cent of Sri Lankan families went without food for days. The government, for once, acted swiftly and nailed the canard in record time. Else, that bogus claim would have been picked up by the international media and beamed across the globe. Whether the WFP or a mole in it really made an attempt to discredit Sri Lanka has yet to be established beyond doubt, but its statement would definitely have lent credence to the on-going campaign to paint a bleak picture of Sri Lanka and project it as a failed state.

The Rajapaksa government may have busted money and inconvenienced people to gain some mileage by hosting the SAARC summit and it may be lambasted for that, but the participation of all the heads of State concerned and the successful completion of the event have stood the country in good stead. For, the campaign of the terror lobby and its hirelings to give Sri Lanka a bad name by derailing the SAARC Summit came a cropper.

In that sense, the SAARC Summit was a victory for the people abhorring terrorism.