by Janaka Perera

"I shall never get over this"

-Air Vice Marshal d' Albiac, Officer Commanding British Royal Air Force in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) on hearing the RAF's failure to act swiftly when Japanese carrier-based planes attacked the Ratmalana airbase during their World War II bombing raid over Colombo and suburbs on April 5, 1942 ('The Most Dangerous Moment' by Michael Tomlinson).

Now, 59 years later the Sri Lanka Air Force top brass will probably have to repeat the RAF Air Vice Marshal's words 10 times over.

The Katunayake SLAF base was attacked not by an Asian superpower as in 1942 but by a band of home-grown desperadoes (with no Air Force) who have been fighting the combined strength of Sri Lanka's three Armed Forces and the Police for nearly 20 years.

That Katunayake was a sitting duck for the enemy is clearly exposed by the July 29 `Sunday Observer' lead story, which says: "Heavily armed LTTE suicide commandos walked a full quarter mile, undetected, across an open football field to reach the point in the base perimeter where they cut their way through to launch their assault on the Katunayake Sri Lanka Air Force base and the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) on Tuesday."

Once again Pottu Amman has beaten the combined intelligence services of the Armed Forces and the Police.

During the past decade, the LTTE's strategy has been to attack the nerve centres of the country's defence establishment as well as economic targets. Such attacks obviously cripple the Government's offensive capability in the long run and thereby minimises the threat to Tigers in the areas controlled by them.

The question that frequently occurs in the public mind therefore, is why has the Sri Lankan Security Forces have so failed to develop an effective strategy to counter this enemy challenge.

Responding to a question at a media roundtable in Colombo on July 10 on the possibility of increased military aid to Sri Lanka, U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Dennis C. Blair said: "I think that will depend on the way events unfold."

And events are unfolding in such a way that our defence establishment will have to do some serious rethinking on the way the war is prosecuted unless it wants the LTTE to be on top if and when peace talks take place. The other most likely target is the Colombo Port. It must not be forgotten that the Tigers in fact made an unsuccessful attempt to blast the Port some time ago. A second terrorist attempt at the Kolonnawa oil tanks or an attack on the Sapugaskande oil refinery are other possibilities.

It may be recalled that the Katunayake attack came not long after the ICRC claimed that the LTTE was not keen on observing the Law Of Armed Conflict (LOAC). It is therefore a small wonder that the Tigers destroyed civilian aircraft and sparked off a situation that endangered the lives of civilians - both locals and foreigners - at the BIA.

No country in the world as far as we know has a military airbase next to a civilian airport. Yet no one here seems to have had the foresight to shift one or the other for the past 18 years.

The silver lining in the dark cloud is that the Katunayake attack has virtually dashed hopes of Tiger sympathisers in getting the LTTE ban lifted here or elsewhere.

"It is totally out of the question mainly by the international community," said Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar on Monday, commenting on the issue of lifting the ban.

The disaster has also strengthened the Government's hand in pushing for a Tiger ban in countries like Canada and other countries which have so far not taken a clear stand on the issue of banning the LTTE.

"Material support given to a terrorist organisation can be used to promote its unlawful activities regardless of donor intent. Once the support is given the donor has no control over on how it is used."

A U.S. Appeal Court in California made this observation in delivering the judgement in a case where the LTTE and another organisation sought to overthrow the U.S. Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 on the ground of constitutional invalidity.

In another development U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O' Neil, testifying at the start of a Special Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing recently, said that he was setting up a Foreign Terrorist Tracking Center to develop government-wide strategies to counter terrorist financing and incapacitate their holdings within the U.S.

It was U.S. Appeals Court Judge Irving R. Kaufman who said sometime ago that once the terrorist is universally accepted as a moral outlaw, he would come to realise that his actions are a liability to his cause, even if he cannot accept their immorality.

Moral backing for terrorist causes has become an equally effective LTTE weapon. In the context of the ongoing Northeast war, human rights and peace campaigners, wittingly or unwittingly, have often become channels for furthering LTTE goals than meeting genuine objectives. There is no better proof of this than the deafening silence of some vociferous `peace crusaders' and `human rights activists'on Tiger atrocities.

Foreign Governments however, are increasingly becoming aware of the LTTE's attempts to hoodwink the international community by playing the human rights card . The allegations of HR violations made by the Tiger lobby against Major General Janaka Perera (who has been appointed Sri Lanka's High Commissioner in Australia) is part of this LTTE strategy.

Responding to the charges made against the HC, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said: "We have been made aware of claims, and we have sought to indicate the circumstances of the High Commissioner's military service meant that he was likely to have served in areas where human rights abuses were alleged to have occurred, but none of these claims, my department advises me, has been backed by any direct evidence of his involvement."

In fact it was Major General Perera, who initiated investigations into the rape and murder of schoolgirl Krishanthi Kumaraswamy and three others on September 7, 1996 at Chemmani in Jaffna. It was these investigations that eventually led to the uncovering of the so-called `mass graves' in Chemmani.

Today, peace and human rights for some people are as much a business as war and weapons.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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