With the show of military hardware and personnel at this week's Independence Day parade, and the exhibition thereafter in Colombo, one would have wondered as to who was left to do the fighting in the last remaining areas of Mullaitivu.

The Security Forces must have dearly wanted to mop up proceedings and report 'Mission Accomplished' by Independence Day. But it seems that the LTTE's last stand has been at the town of Puthukkduiyiruppu, north of Mullaitivu and south of Chalai, the main 'Sea Tiger' base from which the terrorists launched most of their deadly operations and monitored major arms shipments. The capture of Mullaitivu itself was unexpectedly swift, and this week, troops were successful in entering Chalai. The fall-back plan of the retreating LTTE seems to be now in place. Expecting the assault on Mullaitivu, LTTE cadres have withdrawn into Puthukkuduiyiruppu.

Not long ago, this was a small township. In the 1981 Census, population figures for the AGA (Additional Government Agent) Division of this town stood at 28,461 persons. That was the last official census conducted there because at the next census in 2001, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), clearly at the behest of the LTTE, opposed any enumeration of the population in areas under LTTE control, and one wonders why so.

In the absence of such a census, the 2008 statistical handbook issued by the District Planning Secretariat of the GA's Office gave the estimated population for Puthukkuduiyiruppu as 89,784.

The issue is not whether the LTTE shepherded civilians living in areas hitherto controlled by it to this town or whether the civilians voluntarily went with the guerrillas, but it appears that Puthukkduiyiruppu has, over the past decade or so developed from a small township into a full grown town, about half the size of Colombo.

Recent satellite pictures, when compared to those taken ten years ago show a spread-out township with several concrete houses and buildings. Most of the people shifted to this area around 1991 due to fighting between the Security Forces and the LTTE in and around Mullaitivu. In 1998, the LTTE overran the sprawling army garrison there, killing nearly 1,200 soldiers and its propaganda wing collected funds for the LTTE war machinery from 'Eelam' sympathizers showing massacre footage in London, Toronto, Paris etc.

With the ceasefire in 2002, people living in the town began returning to their original homes. However, when the tsunami hit the coastal areas of Mullaitivu, people started returning to Puthukkuduiyiruppu, and enormous amounts of foreign aid poured in for the development of this already fairly developed town, 16 km interior from the coast. It has been the refuge of Mullaitivu's hapless civilians from man-made disasters to natural disasters.

Over the past few years hospitals, roads, community centres etc., came up in this new town, and this is the place the LTTE picked to make its final sling of the dice knowing that there was a ready civilian population to hide behind. Air Force footage provided to the media to indicate that the hospital was not damaged by aerial bombardment, shows a substantially big hospital.

Did the INGOs and NGOs wittingly or otherwise coalesce in this exercise of building up an area where the LTTE could retreat to when it was cornered, or was it their sympathy for the unfortunate civilians caught up in the fierce fighting that prompted them to do so.

The UN and the ICRC say that 250,000 civilians are trapped, most of them north of the Paranthan-Mullaitivu road, and moving north-east by road. The Government contests this figure and puts it rather at 150,000.

There is no doubt an issue here. Whether 150,000 or 250,000, or a number in-between, the large majority of them are innocent Sri Lankan citizens who must be protected. On the other hand, the Government is asking for the world's understanding to end the misery that a population of 20 million people has endured for nearly thirty years. It is against this backdrop that one reads the joint statement of the US and British Foreign Secretaries, and the donor Co-Chairs, who keep Sri Lanka's economy afloat to some extent. That they are confused is an under-statement. Undoubtedly, under pressure from different lobbies in their own countries, they don't seem to realise what effect these statements calling for an end to military action and the protection of innocent civilians have when read together with their own governments' actions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan where thousands of civilians, according to UN figures, have died due to on-going aerial bombardments and artillery fire in the pursuit of the Taliban and al-Qaeda elements.

On the Government's part, the 'macho' approach to the terrorist problem need not necessarily be translated on how it tackles the INGOs and NGOs, or for that matter the international media. These institutions will see things from their perspective, and not entirely from that of the majority of Sri Lankans who want this festering insurgency to end. While they must be handled firmly, it must not look as if Sri Lanka is another Zimbabwe harbouring an anti-West phobia. Victory is success, and history is always written from the perspective of the victorious. There is no need to spoil it with ham-handed handling.