The very first BBC headline at the 8.30 am (Sri Lankan time) news bulletin on the 19th May read: "Although the Sri Lankan government claims that the rebel Tiger leader is killed there has been no identification of his body yet"! Accordingly, the readers need to note that Prabhakaran was not a "terrorist" leader for the BBC, but only a "rebel" leader, such as a group of university students who are on rebellion in a campus! Will the BBC ever use such terminology in referring to their arch enemy, the Al Queda leader Osama Bin Laden? But the main point one needs to note in this regard is that even at its news bulletin at 3.30 pm (Sri Lankan time) by one Charles Hevaland, the BBC was pessimistic whether it was the real body of the LTTE leader which the Sri Lankan government by then was allowing to be photographed! As the bitter truth (i.e., the death of Prabhakaran) was slowly but surely dawning on to their heads the BBC reporter Hevaland having reported about the Sri Lankan government releasing photographs of the dead LTTE leader, immediately went on to distract the audience by elaborating "destruction and devastation in the north of Sri Lanka need to be addressed", and then, by drawing the attention of the audience to the "terrible" plight of the Tamil refugee women who were reported as saying that they did not know where their husbands were! The same reporter also lamented that there was a lot of screening before Tamils in those areas were admitted to the refugee camps, yet another ploy to diverge the attention of the audience from the fact that the leader of the blue-eyed boys of the BBC was really dead.

Another crucially important characteristic which one needs to remember is that though the LTTE claimed to be fighting for the Tamils, ordinary Tamil citizens were not spared by them, a fact conveniently and meticulously ignored by the Western governments and their media allies. To begin with, the Tigers eliminated all Tamil splinter rebel groups (which originally took up arms against the Sri Lankan State in the 1980’s), simply because these groups did not toe the LTTE line. Thus, the TELO leader Shri Sabharatnam, the PLOTE leader Uma Maheswaran, the EPRLF leader K. Pathmanabah, …etc., were brutally eliminated and with them whatever clout they had in representing the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Then, they went on an assassination spree eliminating most of the top class moderate Tamil leaders who were democratically elected by the people. Thus, the TULF leader and one time Leader of the Opposition (the only Tamil to hold this post in Sri Lanka), A. Amirthalingam and many of his fellow TULF parliamentarians such as A. Thiyagarajah, A. Thangathurai, V. Yogeswaran, V. Dharmalingam,…etc. were murdered in day light. Promising Tamil political leaders who were also parliamentarians, such as Dr.Neelan Thiruchelvam and Lakshman Kadirgamar were brutally assassinated. Democratically elected Mayors of Jaffna, such as Alfred Durayiappah, Sarojini Yogeswaran, Ponnuthurai Sivapalan,….etc. were shot dead. Tamil Human rights activists and intellectuals such as K. Logeswaran and Rajini Thiranagama were murdered in cold blood simply because they did not approve the LTTE terrorist tactics. As if these acts of terrorism and intimidation were not enough, innocent Tamil parents were forced to send their children to be brain-washed, trained and then be made child-soldiers for the LTTE. Last but not least, during the last stages of the decisive war, when the Tiger leaders were trapped in a tiny piece of land, innocent Tamil civilians were kept as human shields against the advancing Sri Lankan forces, a practice the LTTE has been following all along during the war. So much for the special love and concern of the LTTE for the Tamil civilians on behalf of whom they claimed to be fighting! This is where the West badly needs to be educated because both the Western governments and their media allies simplistically pitted Tamils against the Sinhalese in perceiving the recent war in our country, as if the Tigers were fighting only what they themselves called the "Sinhalese government". They deliberately ignored that the LTTE was simply against anyone and everyone who opposed them, be they Tamils or Sinhalese.

The enormous international political clout behind the LTTE which was somewhat covert till the military annihilation of the LTTE was imminent, suddenly became overt. One has only to recall the threats of the so-called "international community" (which is a respectable term coined by the West to refer to themselves and their hegemonic activities!) against this tiny nation of Sri Lanka. The sudden interest in this island nation that was evinced by the West especially in sending here no lesser persons than the British Foreign Secretary David Millibrand and the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on a last-minute desperate mission meant exclusively to save the LTTE leaders from their militarily hemmed in position, was a case in point. It was the brave unprecedented patriotic stands taken by the government under the leadership of President Mahinda Rajapakse that told the West politely to mind their own business! It was precisely such brave decisions against those Western powers (who were the "god fathers" of the LTTE) as well as the courage to take the LTTE by its very horns that has created an eternal niche for our President in the hearts and minds of patriotic Sri Lankan citizens of all races, religions and castes, as shown consistently in elections conducted ever since. Of course, our brave military personnel of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, under the meticulous strategic planning of General Sarath Fonseka, ably lived up to the government’s bold decision-making, which eventually enabled that great victory against the so-called "invincible LTTE".

Although many self-appointed experts tried to portray the war against the LTTE as a civil war, there were marked differences from the latter type of a war. The Tigers not only held nearly one third of Sri Lankan territory with their own administrative bodies, courts of law and police, but they also had an army, a navy with sub-marines and ships, and were in the process of building up an air force with a few primitive type of planes, and had a few air strips, too. As such, practically, the Sri Lankan government was fighting a war against another "State" created by the LTTE, of course, within the one island-territory of Sri Lanka. It is in this sense that the Western governments badly need to be educated again that the LTTE terrorism was unique and could not be perceived as a civil war or a "rebellion", or compared with any other contemporary terrorist group fighting democratically established States elsewhere in the world.

Difficulty in finding those who opposed the War

Without contextually situating the gravity of the LTTE terrorist threat (that was) to our nation (as I have tried to do above), the final, decisive victory over the LTTE on that memorable 18th May 2009 cannot be acknowledged or appreciated. It is precisely those who refused and still refuse to situate the LTTE terror in its proper context, within its historical-political contours, who fail to acknowledge even today that 18th May 2009 was a great day to our Sri Lankan nation, in a way, "a Second Independence Day". Of course, there were those self-appointed political "pundits" (even those who were supposed to be alumni of the prestigious institutions like the Harvard University!) who kept on pronouncing solemnly that the LTTE dominance in the North and the East needed to be taken as an indispensable element in any possible political solution. It is those prophets of doom who kept on telling us not only in their weekly newspaper columns but also in each and every seminar where they spoke that since the LTTE had so much of territory under their control it was imperative on the Sri Lankan government to negotiate with them. It was precisely these pessimistic "pundits" who were even overtly supportive of the LTTE ideology who sang the never-ending chorus that it was impossible to defeat the LTTE militarily. Today, what amuses this writer most is that now there is no one who owns such positions, that is to say, today, it is very hard to find someone who would claim that he/she ever enunciated such a theory, i.e., the invincibility of the LTTE! While it is the government (and a few who opposed terrorism categorically) who even did not hesitate to defeat terrorism militarily for the sake of the common good of the citizenry, there were those who openly ridiculed all military efforts to defeat the LTTE, and went around the world campaigning against the Sri Lankan government. But amusingly, today, it is very hard here in Sri Lanka to find a single person who would admit that he/she opposed the war against the LTTE! Even the UNP which openly opposed war on terrorism and engaged in a treacherous international campaign against Sri Lanka with regard to the war on LTTE terror, today seems to have conveniently forgotten that strong, unwavering stand which they themselves took to reverse the government’s war against the terrorists. This was more than evident when recently in order to hide their political bankruptcy, they did not hesitate to stoop even as low as proposing and supporting the very Army Commander as the Presidential candidate whom they earlier openly ridiculed as a person not fit even to lead the Salvation Army! But the ordinary people of Sri Lanka have given their overwhelming verdict in election after election as to who really saved Sri Lanka from the LTTE terror but they have also shown that they have good memories, even disproving what Velupillai Prabhakaran himself was attributed as having said: "Sri Lankans in general have very short memories, as short as two weeks!"

Having said all the above, let us also not forget that a military victory is not the end of any terrorist movement. This is more than evident with regard to the LTTE if we were closely attuned to what has been happening ever since 18th May 2009, especially in the West with the powerful presence of LTTE supporters. If we as a nation, do not at least now address some of those social, cultural and political factors that gave rise to the LTTE fairly and squarely, we can be well assured that many other "LTTE’s" would be born even under other names and forms. This is because any real grievance or injustice that is not addressed fairly and seriously is bound to raise its head in the form of violence. We who have had such bitter, first hand experiences during the past 30 years or so, cannot simply go through it again. That is why it is imperative on the new government under the President to find a decent, just political solution to the legitimate Tamil grievances. To condemn and crush terrorism is one thing, but to condone injustices against one group of our citizenry is totally another. As a matter of fact, the so-called "international community" which has been at the throat of the Sri Lankan government ever since the crushing defeat of their blue-eyed boys, the LTTE, has made quite a few desperate attempts to resurrect the LTTE. The gaffe rattled off by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that rape was a tool used in the Sri Lankan offensive against the LTTE, the open support rendered to the Tigers not long ago by the British government and parliamentarians, the frequent threats waved at the Sri Lankan State by a no lesser person than the UN Secretary General himself (who is practically now a puppet in the hands of the Western nations led by the USA), the continuous Western allegation of "war crimes" against Sri Lanka, and last but not least the most recent comment made by a person of the calibre of the Chancellor of the Oxford University that the UN should have intervened in Sri Lanka during the last stages of the war,…etc. are nothing but the tip of the iceberg. The West, with its massive Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora (which means potential voters for the Western politicians), is just waiting for an opportunity to not just resurrect the LTTE but also to destabilize the Sri Lankan nation as we witnessed during the recent Presidential elections when they overtly supported the joint-Opposition candidate as part of a massive plan.

Now that the President and his government have got so much of power (almost two-thirds majority in parliament) there is no excuse to defer a viable solution to our Tamil issue which indeed is a national issue. To deny that there is an issue at stake is to condemn ourselves to go through the same cycle of terrorist history all over again. The best way to celebrate and perpetuate the great victory over LTTE terrorism on 18th May 2009 is to promptly and directly address the very issues that historically and politically gave rise to the Tigers and their so-called "just cause". Given the volatile way Sri Lankan politics have been moving ahead during the last two or three decades, this is the most opportune time when a massive, unprecedented, popular mandate has been given recently to the present government under President Mahinda Rajapakse who is extremely popular among our masses. We as a nation, cannot simply afford to miss this opportunity. Those who deny this vital need to address this national issue (both within the government and without) are sadly out of tune with our history. They need to read, learn by-heart and meditate what is written on the walls of Aushwitz concentration camp: "Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat that history"!

We need to use this Second Independence as an opportunity to seriously get engaged in nation-building. In the period after our First Independence in 1948, we failed miserably in this all-important task of nation-building. What we witnessed was the petty politics both by the Sinhalese and Tamil politicians who were engaged in narrow communal/racial politics that divided our nation. We need to mature, at least after all the bitter experiences we have had, and this is the ideal moment in our history to do this, i.e., when we celebrate the Second Independence of our Sri Lankan nation!

Concluded