Editorial

25th February 2001

What ban?

The British government's "ban'' on the LTTE turned out to be the classic damp squib (pus vedilla), and both the British Home Office and the Foreign Office in Colombo which talked of "strained relations" and all that, seems to have gone back to workaday business.

The British seem to be hung over from a time when foreign policy was but an extension of domestic policy, and albeit to use a cliche, an era when Britannia "ruled the waves and waived the rules.''

There are consequences to all countries as a result of global terrorism, which is why the global fraternity of nations should coalesce in the task of combating terrorism in all its manifestations. But, that obvious reality notwithstanding, many Sri Lankans do not understand why the British harangue the global club of nations, and in particular the UN , to retain sanctions on Sadaam Hussein while taking the soft option on Vellupillai Prabhakaran who is now on an Interpol arrest warrant.

Prabhakaran - sponsored terrorist operations in the UK are officially receiving the tacit sanction of the British government, because shorn of all the technical hair-splitting on definitions, this is what the British Home Office decision not to name the LTTE as a terrorist organization amounts to. It's exactly this kind of duplicitous policy that is keeping countries such as Sri Lanka in misery, due to the continuous assault on its resources as a result of having to combat terrorist activities originating from Britain and other nations of the Western Hemisphere.

Britain's act of studied indifference will now convert LTTE sympathizers to Labour sympathizers, and it is interesting to see how Blairite Labour will live down this latest accolade. But, that's secondary, compared to what the British political establishment will soon learn. This is the lesson that anybody who consorted with the LTTE such as the Sri Lankan Tamil parties and some Sri Lankan leaders learnt fast, which is that "those who ride the Tiger, are condemned to end up in its belly.''

No LTTE watcher needs an endoscope to study the belly of that beast, when all that is needed as reference is the statement of the LTTE's doctor of words, Anton Balasingham, who said just the other day that "Britain will learn the true meaning of terrorism if the British government chooses to ban the LTTE" or some words to that effect.

Spoken like a true LTTEer, even though Balasingham's acid-dipped warning was withdrawn when Scotland Yard questioned the man. "Caustic'' transmogrified into the comic, and Balasingham is said to have told the Yard's sleuths that he was only "speaking in jest.''

But considering the British government's non-event non-banning of the LTTE last week, it seems the British have got the message from the LTTE's spokesman, who incidentally said in another recent interview that "in the course of fighting for a cause, it is natural that liberation fighters commit atrocities.'' At least now we have it from the Tiger's mouth that the LTTE has a cool and casual proclivity towards "atrocities.''

Sri Lanka's own Foreign Office mandarins are yet to pronounce on whether Britain's continued friendliness towards the LTTE is an unfriendly act towards us or not. Maybe a knowledge of the rudiments of causation should have told us that a damp squib (pus vedilla) ignites amid a deafening silence.

But Foreign Offices don't have to mimic each other, and a renewed condemnation of the British government for its indifference towards the raw, cold-blooded terrorism of the LTTE is called for. First, it is needed for the record, and second, for purposes of exposing the hypocrisy of the British Establishment, which pays egregious lip service on the world stage to the cause of combating terrorism, and then goes home and does absolutely nothing about practising what it preaches.

The Political Column

Editorial/ Opinion Contents