President M.R. cleverly used the new attitudes to terrorism arising after 9/11. He adopted the re-definition of terrorism pronounced by President George Bush in his war against terror.  But terrorism is only a method of warfare and it is adopted universally by the weak. Rebel movements all over the world have resorted to it such as Hamas or Hizbul Mujahideen, ETA in Spain, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) etc. The LTTE may have been the pioneer if we confined our purview to the recent times. But the Decembrists in Russia also resorted to terror tactics.

Terrorism must be examined in the background of the ‘Just War’ theory which underlies much of the Geneva Conventions and International Humanitarian Law which are binding on all nations. This theory points out that a war is just only if there is a ‘just cause’. In World War II, for instance, the war which started as a just war against German and Japanese aggression turned into an unjust war when the United State and its allies intentionally targeted German and Japanese civilians in the fire bombings of Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, and other cities, as well as the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Americans have no doubt violated the just war rules which are embodied in the Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan and Iraq in spite of euphemistically named "surgical air strikes" and their best intentions  But pointing them out will not excuse us from violating these rules. Unfortunately the powerful nations have got away with violations of the Geneva Conventions leaving only the weak to be hauled before War Crimes Tribunals. So the Serb leader and his generals were charged as the Nazi leaders after the Second World War.

The logic of war always tends towards total war; to win by whatever means necessary or perish. War is an ugly business and inevitably brings out the worst character traits in humans. The logic of war and the technology of war almost always trump the just war theory. But we as a weak country on the international arena cannot and may not be allowed to abandon the principles of the just war however much we feel justified ourselves owing to the provocations by the LTTE. People cite the bombing of the Dalada Maligawa, the killing of Buddhist monks at Arantalawa and the suicide bombs in the Anuradhapura Shrine. But we are bound to uphold the principles of the just war theory. Unfortunately we have not been able to win the understanding of the International Community to our difficult circumstances and the hired spokesmen of the government have not helped by heir intemperate verbal outbursts.  Geneva Conventions, the prohibitions against child-soldiers, etc. What is actually going on in spite of our best efforts, should not blind us to the ideals of the Geneva Conventions or make us overlook with impunity any violations of them, remembering the old adage that in war truth is the first casualty. The Army and the soldiers have been given training in the Geneva Conventions and how they treat prisoners and what warfare is banned. We like to believe that our Armed Forces have not violated any such rules. When the government says that it has stopped the use of heavy weapons we believe and accept it. But it is not our acceptance that counts. We can all cheer for our side but we have to be realistic as well.

The government has meanwhile appealed to the nationalist fervor of the people to show defiance of the International Big Powers. Group solidarity is a virtue and human beings when faced with external threats have to act together with group solidarity. But let us not forget that nationalism is a natural outgrowth of tribal passions and emotions. There are two nationalisms here—Sinhala nationalism and Tamil nationalism and they are in conflict.  Nationalism involves concepts of a homeland, shared language, common customs, a hostile surrounding, memories of battles fought and won or lost long ago and historical thinking. A

Sri Lankan nationalism was still born and doesn’t really exist. But one can be a nationalist without being xenophobic and chauvinistic. Liberal forms of nationalism offer people meaningful lives in integrated societies, a sense of belonging and pride, which need not be exaggerated and become jingoistic. World Cup Cricket, Football and the Olympic Games are organized around national teams and are in themselves quite wholesome. Competition, including competition among nations, can be a good thing. One of the more destructive forms of nationalism is when it is combined with Big Man Governance says William Grasse, a visiting Professor who was in Sri Lanka a few years ago. In these instances, the Professor says, the Big Man and his cronies use nationalism as a form of political legitimation and control. By controlling the power of the State, they are able to manipulate rewards and punishments to entrench themselves. An example of such nationalism arose with the Nazis and Fascists during the thirties of the last century. I like to quote further from Prof. William Grasse. So, after witnessing the terrible carnage of the Second World War the group of nations set up the United Nations Organization to promote peaceful solutions to disputes between nations which could end up in wars. The UN Declaration of Human Rights was signed by all the members of the UN including ourselves. So, the concern of other nations in wars and civil strife in our country cannot be brushed aside as purely an unnecessary interference with our national sovereignty. Just as there is no such thing as a fully autonomous individual human being, there is today no group which is a completely autonomous. We speak languages we did not invent; we use tools that we did not design; we benefit from a vast library of knowledge that we did not discover; and we are nurtured as infants and children into families and societies that we did not choose.

Nation-states are not really autonomous either, though national sovereignty is regularly invoked against interference in the internal affairs of others. The modern concept of national sovereignty as understood in the UN Charter is opposed to the Big Man concept of the sovereign’s rights as of the ancient rulers. It is instead derived from the concept of individual sovereignty. In other words, each individual is ultimately the king or queen of his or her own personhood. Government in this view is a social contract entered into to enhance individual freedoms – the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as stated for instance in the US Declaration of Independence.

Say what you will to justify what you may, but in the end neither the large and powerful, nor the small and less powerful nations of the world can escape what Martin Luther King, Jr. called "the inescapable web of mutuality"(King 1963), in which all of us are entangled today through global markets and global communications. We are very much a part of the global economy and nothing brings this more forcefully to our attention than the recent economic recession. We have had to go to the IMF for a Standby facility and have to take into account the reactions of other countries to our war and how it is fought. We are both morally and legally obliged to follow the norms of International Law relating to war, how it is fought and the need to safeguard the lives and health of non-combatant civilians. We have to convince the International Community that despite immense difficulties we are doing our very best to follow the rules of the Geneva conventions.