The security forces have scored yet another decisive victory over the LTTE terrorists by recapturing Elephant Pass, the gateway to Jaffna, thereby clearing the only highway linking the mainland to the Northern peninsula.

It is now clear that the LTTE's fighting capacity is in tatters. It will have to fight its last battle in Mullaitivu before surely, throwing its final dice in urban guerrilla warfare in the cities of the south.

The clearing-up operations will also need to be surgically handled as the withdrawing LTTE cadres have infested the land space with mines and booby-traps. To the armed forces, and those who spearheaded the determined effort to eject the LTTE from its strongholds, and thereby liberate the civilians in these areas, goes the gratitude of the entire nation.

What is unfortunate, however, is that the military victories have got thoroughly entangled in the parochial politics of the country. The Government is determined to convert victories in the military battlefield into victories on the political battlefield; the Opposition equally determined to ensure that this is not done at its expense in what is, by all expectations, Parliamentary election year. What began as sniper fire has now turned into political artillery exchanges. Accusations and counter-accusations involving the top brass of the Forces have unfortunately taken the shine off these heroic deeds. Asking for a ceasefire from politicians of all sides is not asking for too much.

Political agendas have been the bane of the counter-insurgency measures taken for more than two decades in combating the LTTE. The LTTE has thrived on political differences in the 'south'. Often, the LTTE has changed the political history of this country by setting the agenda itself in the south through assassinations, by feigning peace talks, by boycotts of elections and a host of other measures. This Government, after great restraint initially, learnt the lessons of the past and did not falter in its prosecution of the war. It had the backing of the people who have had enough of this miserable 'war'. Now, it must not fall prey to allowing the inevitable divisions of a democratic multi-party system, and elections that are part and parcel of this representative democracy to be exploited anymore by the LTTE.

The President's address to the nation on Friday, following the recapture of Elephant Pass, in many ways referred to this very point. He said there were elements that tried to rob the gains made by the security forces and the Government by acts aimed at tarnishing the image of the forces and the Government. And he referred to external and internal forces at work in this task. His address came against the backdrop of a military-style attack on the MTV/MBC TV station, and more heinously, the despicable murder of the editor of The Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickrematunge this week. These back-to-back attacks clearly were orchestrated and synchronized, and epitomised the state of the nation.

The phrases 'Don't kill the Messenger' or 'Where's the smoking gun ?' and that 'Truth is the first casualty of war' have almost become meaningless to Sri Lanka's media practitioners who ask whether the Government wants them to fly the white flag and surrender their independence in the face of this ongoing onslaught. Then one can be done with this façade of a free press in Sri Lanka. The President no less says that criticism is accepted, even expected, and his only request is that the media do not demoralise the troops at the battlefront - a reasonable request.

But the fact is that in the absence of anyone being questioned, leave alone arrested or brought to justice not only for this week's twin attacks, but a string of previous cases, does not the finger point in the direction of the Government, as the Editors' Guild statement had reason to say. The President surely must be a concerned leader if he does not know who is trying to discredit him; and worst still, if he does, and can do nothing about it.

That is why we say that it is unfortunate, that coming at a time when the Government ought to deserve the credit for dislodging the LTTE and raising the hopes of millions of people that the curse of terrorism is nearing its end, that a new terrorism is being spread. Being a southern politician, the President will be familiar with the old local saying to throw a little cow-dung into a pot of curd, which would aptly describe such a situation. That is exactly what has happened this week souring the great military achievements in Kilinochchi last week, and Elephant Pass this week.

The great war-time Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill told the British House of Commons (Nov. 1947) shortly after the British Forces had defeated a fascist enemy and the war was over: "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." . We have to reiterate that a free press and the freedom of the people to choose their choice of media are nothing but the fundamental rights of the citizenry in such a democracy.