LTTE’s impatience to start the war and the confused government Posted On: Sunday, December 25 , 2005

It is unfortunate that the security situation in Sri Lanka is deteriorating day by day as the country is slowly but steadily slipping in to war. Peace loving and powerless innocent people of Sri Lanka, who are brimming with fear, are waiting for a miracle to happen especially at a time when the world is celebrating Christmas symbolising the peace and harmony among fellow human beings. Impatient to start the war It seems like the LTTE is impatient to start the war. In fact they have already started it as they have begun to attack the security forces using their hallmark guerrilla tactics. LTTE is trying their best to drag the security forces and the government to war by enticing them to exceed the threshold of the red line by provocation of first class. When analysing one could see that LTTE attacked Army, Air Force and Navy respectively in the last few weeks, expecting that at least one of the stones they threw would do the job. They know very well that out of the all the forces attacking Navy is one of the best tactics to ignite the fire due to the sensitivity and the importance attached such an attack based on their past experience. Motive One might think that despite the escalating direct attacks on the security forces LTTE have failed to drag the government into war. While the violence against the security forces is an invitation to war, LTTE has multiple motives behind this tactic. They intend to unsettle the mind set of the Tamil people particularly living in North and East, who are increasingly getting addicted to peace since the signing of the Cease Fire Agreement in December 2002. In fact the best breeding ground for LTTE is the unsettled North and East. With the escalation of violence LTTE expect the security forces to tighten the security measures thereby making the life difficult to the civilians and as a result making it easy for the LTTE to revamp its ideological base and support. They also strategically use other civil groups, over which they have a control, like the Jaffna University and students to collide with the forces with a view to gain the publicity especially in the international arena. Further, in response to escalating violence when the government intensify counter security measures, it’s easy for the LTTE to define those as oppressive actions of the Sri Lanka government as in fact any counter security measure would bring some sort of uneasiness and fear to the minds of Tamil people in addition to making their life difficult to some extent. The prime motive of this concerted effort of the LTTE is to gain the physiological advantage over the government and the bargaining power in any future peace talks. Their motives have given them courage to ignore the warnings given by the most powerful sates in the world including the European Union and the recent threat from the co-chairs of the peace process representing USA, Japan, Norway and the EU. Response To a grater extent Sri Lankan government is still confused with regard to its response to these gross violations of the CFA by the LTTE. President Mahinda Rajapaksha never expected a sudden deterioration of the security situation at this rate especially after the LTTE leader praised the president as a practical man in his annual speech in November this year signalling a respite for the president to put his acts together after being appointed in the same month. As a natural consequence of peace, complacency sets in and it seems like that the government, which in fact, is a continuation of the previous one headed by former president Chandrika Bandaranayake Kumaranatunga, failed to devise a proper responsive mechanism to this scale of violence. With a few options in hand, it is apparent that the government is trying hard to concentrate on the peace path. The big question is that how long it could remain this calm without retaliating to gross provocations of the LTTE? Today, when the world is celebrating Christmas, the wish of every peace loving person is that Santa would bring them the gift of peace, not from North Pole, but form North of Sri Lanka.

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