Which side is using the complacency of the other to the maximum advantage? True, that the Sri Lankan conflict is not one which you can keep score of, or grade according to a system of points.

But yet, is any party taking advantage of the complacency or the jadedness of the other?

UTHR (J) in its latest report, states that the LTTE is on an inevitable confrontation course with the Muslims in the Eastern province. Wide publicity was also given to the fact that Bishop Kingsley Swampillai has warned the LTTE against abducting children.

Once upon a time, for anybody to 'warn' the LTTE would have been to show that they have strong suicidal tendencies. Have things changed? Or is Bishop Swampillai truly suicidal, and will his death warrant come to him sometime, maybe later rather than sooner?

The LTTE meanwhile was asking for the Sri Lankan army to leave its territory ( 'homeland territory of the Tamils') forthwith. Given that the LTTE was also probably playing to its constituency, was the LTTE however showing some real impatience over the fact that the people of the Northern peninsula cannot settle in some areas that used to be their homes, even though the LTTE had struck a ceasefire, and a tentative peace deal with the Sri Lanka government?

Look at the situation as clinically as possible. The LTTE says the UTHR cannot be trusted. The LTTE says people such as Swampillai do not have the correct information. But yet, stories keep cropping up about LTTE abductions of children for beefing up the strength of the cadre. The latest such story appeared not too long ago in a report by Amy Walden in the New York Times.

Common sense would say that even though there is an information overload, the credibility odds are stacked against the LTTE version. In plain terms, which we hope the LTTE can understand, how can the UTHR, Bishop Swampillai and the New York Times be all wrong at the same time?

But strangely enough (at this point you need to invoke the magical "believe it or not") the LTTE has been able to convince a lot of people that they are all indeed wrong at the same time. The LTTE does wonders with credibility gaps. It was asserted at the Thailand peace conference, that the LTTE is not abducting children anymore, and that the LTTE is in fact returning some children to their parents. This was given wide publicity, and who is going to believe Amy Walden of the New York Times, the UTHR and Bishop Swamipillai against this kind of publicity which has been disseminated by all news agencies, and every newspaper which has a correspondent in the region?

Can the Sri Lankan government close credibility gaps as fast as the LTTE does? The LTTE might say the Sri Lankan government is clever at doing so. For instance, the LTTE argument that the occupying Sri Lankan army is not letting Tamil civilians return to their homeland, creates a 'credibility window'' which will be seen as a credibility GAP for the government. To some extent, the government was able to close this credibility gap in Thailand as well. The government had the Norwegians saying that troops cannot withdraw from high security zones, as there is a balance of forces that needs to be maintained. The government managed to completely debunk the LTTE position that the troops in the high security areas need to move out for the urgent re-settlement of civilians, and if there was any credibility gap involved in the government not cooperating in letting civilians resettle as a step towards concretising the peace, that gap was fairly nicely closed in Thailand.

But the LTTE moved beyond Thailand. All the stories about the LTTE abducting children (all three stories referred to above ) appeared after Thailand. But the LTTE insisted at its Pongu Thamil celebrations -- the latest round --- in Jaffna, that the Tamil people resent the presence of the occupying Sri Lankan army in the Tamil homelands.

If the LTTE wants to point out a credibility gap on the government's side, the LTTE keeps hammering at that task relentlessly. The Tiger's own credibility gap may have worsened too, but that is because Bishop Swampillai, suicidal or not, has helped.

What is the bottom line then? Is the LTTE using the complacency of the government to the maximum advantage, or is the government letting the LTTE stew in its own juice?

Well, that's one way of looking at it. If the government does not point out anything that seems to be wrong about the LTTE, the New York Times is doing it, Bishop Swampillai is doing it, and the UTHR is doing it. At the end of the equation, the government is allowing the LTTE to stew in its own juice right?

But the LTTE uses its own propaganda machines to debunk the government. The LTTE says the government on the other hand uses others to debunk the LTTE. Between these two positions, a lot of people would believe that a government can do insidious things - such as get others to do their dirty work for them. A lot of people might believe that the government would get the UTHR to trash the LTTE, especially if the government rarely carries out a sustained effort to counter the LTTE by itself. Doesn't the LTTE position seem to win by default?

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