In keeping with the spirit of the New Year that has just dawned, with malice towards none and charity towards all.

Anyone who has boxed would tell you that when you throw a punch you should not leave yourself open for a devastating uppercut. RW ‘s challenge to debate the President is quite unwise He has quite unnecessarily left himself open to receive an uppercut. He of course knows that the President is no great debater and would never enter into any debate for that is not his style; had Jayaraj Fernandopulle been alive he would have taken up the challenge and would have made mincemeat out of RW, just on one issue alone, namely the CFA. This of course is not to say that the government has not been guilty of profligacy, nepotism and bad governance.

That abominable CFA was crafted secretly with neither the Service chiefs nor the Comm-ander in Chief, the President of the country, being consulted. It was the third ceasefire agreement agreed upon with the LTTE. It was also the third time that the LTTE used a ‘ceasefire agreement’ to prepare for war. The first was when President Premadasa reached out to the LTTE sincerely, to make peace without any understanding of the wiles of the LTTE (he had been left out by President Jayewardene when he negotiated with the Indians and did not also have the advice of the late Lalith Athulathmudali nor Gamini Dissanayake, who were involved in the ‘process’). He more or less ordered the IPKF to leave at the request of the LTTE. The next act of treachery was committed on the then inexperienced President Kumaratunge, who not learning from the past, rushed into a ceasefire agreement and talks with the LTTE, and exchanged over 40 letters; the LTTE bought time and when they were ready for the next round indulged in a ‘Pearl Harbour’ type attack and sank two ships of the Navy and recommenced hostilities. She lived to learn.

The third to fall into the LTTE trap was Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe, with the Ceasefire Agreement of 2002. Between 2002 and 2004 the LTTE used the CFA to prepare for what they called ‘the final assault’ to establish their separate state.

Mr. Wickremasinghe may have meant well perhaps he thought that he could trap Prabhakaran but as some of us pointed out at the time, the CFA was a wholesale sell out. Articles 1.8, called for the disarming of all groups opposed to the LTTE; We stated that this would result in another massacre, (they had indulged in two horrendous massacres of opponents before), we were sadly proved right, the LTTE took full advantage of this article to decimate anti LTTE groups; Article 1.10 required our troops to travel the A9 without weapons, putting them at the mercy of the murderous LTTE, which indulged in an unprecedented act of treachery and killed 640 of our policemen who had surrendered to them on the orders of President Premadasa on a promise the LTTE had given him, stating that they would be given safe passage out of the Eastern province if they surrendered; Those who agreed to Article 1.10 of the CFA perhaps did not care about the murder of the 640 policemen in cold blood; Articles 1.11 and 1.12 of the CFA permitted LTTE cadres to visit government held territory and Article 1.13 permitted LTTE cadres freedom of movement to visit government held areas to do ‘political work’!! (how naïve can we be?). It was also agreed that search operations and arrests would not take place. The above cited articles and the actions of the ‘appeasement brigade’, who fell over themselves to please the LTTE, helped to entrench the LTTE and prepare them for the final battle, which Prabhakaran had promised; The government also permitted the LTTE to travel the world to mobilize their Diaspora and organize their arms procurement. The government permitted them to secure sophisticated communication systems to reach the four corners of the world; they permitted them to bring in containers without Customs inspection (it is being mentioned that the light planes were smuggled in knocked down condition in those containers); All this was thanks to the infamous CFA.

Thanks to the CFA, the LTTE was able not only to set up offices in government controlled areas, but they briskly occupied the political and social space throughout the north and east and virtually confined our service personnel to barracks. The LTTE was able to send their cadres to government held areas and intimidate government officials, teachers, students, workers trade unions, organize strikes, intimidate peasant farmers, they organized demonstrations, erect monuments to their heroes and last but not least organize ‘Pongu Tamil’ festivals to mobilize the people. The government in Colombo did not seem to care

The de-facto administration of the north and east was in the hands of the LTTE. In Batticoloa they had assassinated the Gover-nment Agent Anthonypillai, who had not toed their line; though there was a new GA they administered the district from Kokkadicholai, where Karikalan, the LTTE’s political leader for the east, presided. The LTTE had established a parallel administration in government controlled areas thanks to the CFA and the government looked askance. It was during this period that Manirasakulam was taken over by the LTTE in violation of the CFA, and the government was informed by the Services of the threat which manifested itself later in the form of the closure of the Mavil Aru anicut, The government turned a blind eye to this despite the protests of the people of the area. Sampoor was fortified and the Trincomalee harbour virtually surrounded during the period of the CFA. During this period the LTTE was also infiltrating the hill country and establishing cells but the government took no action because it became more important to them to safeguard its so-called ‘sacred peace process’ despite the fact that the security of the country was being undermined. One cannot forget the raid on the ‘safe house’ in Millennium City and the betrayal of he Long Rangers (the LRRP) or the deep penetration unit of the Army and the 43 brave personnel, connected with our military intelligence, including Brig. Muthalib, who were killed off one by one by the LTTE after they ‘obtained’ the list of names from our traitors who remain scot-free today. The government did nothing about this horrendous violation of the so called CFA. There is no denying the fact that the LTTE utilized the provisions of the CFA to prosecute a multi-pronged battlefield, guerilla and terrorist war against Sri Lanka and we are today paying the price for that folly. The youth of this country have had to pay with their lives for this folly.

RW has been critical of the government’s economic policies, though there is truth in this charge, let us not forget that he gave a blank cheque to President Rajapakse by stating that his party would support the budget unconditionally even though no one knew what form the budget would take. Let us also not forget that he stated that the UNP would support a merger of the north and East. We have to be grateful to the people of the south and in a sense to Prabhakaran for having prevented him from becoming the President of this country. As President he would have made former Presidents Jayawardene and Premadasa in particular appear to be lambs. There is little doubt that had he become President our beloved country would have been divided and Eelam would have become a reality and that Eelam would have included the hill country as well! Our grateful thanks go out to President Rajapakse, his brothers Gotabhaya and Basil and to that truly great General Sarath Fonseka who should be elevated to the rank of Field Marshall when this war is over, and last but not least the CJ Sarath Nanda Silva and the Supreme Court which held with the late great Advocate Mr. HL DeSilva and ruled that the merger of the Northern Province with the Eastern Province was not valid and equally importantly held that the PTOMS Agreement with the LTTE which the Government of President Chanrika Kumar-atunge was about to enter into was invalid. That agreement would have given the LTTE not only access to the sea but also legalized their receiving of Tsunami aid worth millions of dollars and legalized their very existence as a subsidiary state party. Yes the CFA which recognized the LTTE’s control over territory, (we had conceded control of the sky over their territory) and the PTOMS agreement which recognized their right to have access to the sea, would have made ‘Eelam’ a virtual reality and the declaration of UDI a mere formality.