Thoughts from London

Those who abet terrorism live to regret it
Terrorism came to London on Thursday. Not that Londoners and the UK have not been accustomed to such dastardly violence. There was the time when the IRA carried out terrorist bombings in the capital.

Perhaps the most notorious of those attacks was the attempt to kill the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher and cabinet ministers when the IRA bombed the hotel at which they were staying during the Conservative Party’s annual conference.

But there is a qualitative difference between the IRA attacks of two or three decades ago and the perpetrators of Thursday’s simultaneous bombings that claimed the lives of so many innocent people.

Today’s Frankensteins create monsters that one-day turns round on their creators. If al-Qaeda, the terrorist group suspected of the 9/11 massacre and other terrorist acts, is also responsible for last Thursday’s bombings, it would be best for everyone to reflect on the genesis of such organisations.

Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned the bombings and later the leaders of the G8 who were attending the Gleneagles summit did so in a joint statement read out by Blair.

If it was indeed an al-Qaeda operation as those who monitor that organisation claimed within hours, it is pertinent to ask who created these organisations.

Those acquainted with Cold War history know that it was the West that armed and financed the Mujahideen after the then Soviet Union went into Afghanistan. The Mujahideen was the Afghan resistance that was aided and abetted by the US and its western allies and had a haven in Pakistan territory that bordered Afghanistan.

After Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev decided to withdraw from Afghanistan, much to the joy of the western powers, the armed and trained Mujahideeen claimed Afghanistan as their prize. It was this struggle for power in the newly liberated country that gave birth to the dreaded Taleban and its brand of Islamic ‘fundamentalism’.

Today the US and Britain condemn the Taleban and the atrocities they commit, but fail to acknowledge their role in it or that Taleban leaders were once invited to the US in the hope of furthering western foreign policy interests.

The al-Qaeda also is an outgrowth of western foreign policy imperatives of the time. But the first Gulf War and the subsequent bombings of Iraq and the long running sanctions that led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis mainly children, had turned these organisations against western powers.

Closer home, India acted in the same short-sighted manner. Although at first New Delhi vehemently denied, it is now well established under Indira Gandhi’s premiership, India armed, trained and financed several Tamil armed groups fighting the Sri Lanka Government. What were then seen as foreign policy and security considerations prompted Gandhi to act that way. She did not realise then that she was creating a monster that was to devour not only other Tamil people but, more importantly from India’s standpoint, her own son and a one-time prime minister.

Until the LTTE killed Rajiv Gandhi, India did not realise the danger of releasing such latent forces. Like Frankenstein, New Delhi learned too late it could not control its own monsters.

President Bush and Tony Blair went to war against Saddam Hussein, ostensibly because he was considered a danger to their countries. Once again they are silent about the role played by the US and Britain in helping Saddam build chemical and biological weapons and launch his nine-year war against Iran. Post-revolutionary Iran was the West’s new bete noir.
Saddam became a monster only after the West lost ‘control’ of him.
There is a lesson in all this for nations that aid, abet or mollycoddle those who use terrorism to further their political aims.

Some are beginning to learn those lessons with tragic consequences. Today it is Britain that has to mourn its dead. If such mourning ultimately leads to sober reflection and the correct conclusions, then perhaps one might say the sacrifice has been worth it, though it would be near impossible to convince the families of those who paid the price.
It is easy for politicians and their closeted officials to make decisions because, most often, it is not they who suffer the consequences of their short sightedness but the citizens.

Those of us who have witnessed the tragic results of unbridled terrorism know the nightmares we have to live with. I was not in Sri Lanka when LTTE suicide bombers killed and maimed hundreds in their attack on the Central Bank. But I have seen what happened when terrorists attacked the CTO. I rushed out of Lake House and was on the spot within a few minutes. I saw blood-splattered people staggering out of the building and later bodies being brought out.

I saw the results of the bomb attack at the Pettah bus depot, the killings at Anuradhapura, Habarana and the bodies of villagers, including infants and women, slaughtered at Arantalawa. Even today those memories return to haunt whenever there is a terrorist attack, no matter in which country.
Thursday’s attack in London is a reminder, if a reminder is indeed necessary, to all those who create such monsters or tolerate them in their midst.

The British Government enacted anti-terrorism laws five years ago. It named several groups as terrorist organisations and made it illegal to be members of them, promote those groups in any way including raising funds, publicly espousing their cause or display their symbols.
Despite these grand gestures, the British Government turns a blind eye when organisations it has banned continue to violate the very laws it enacted with such fanfare.

Outlawed organisations such as the LTTE acts with such contempt for the British law because it knows the British Government will not move a finger to stop them. The same is happening in Canada despite the protests of the Canadian security organisations and the public security minister who is leant on by the external affairs ministry.

Why? Because the LTTE is aware that the British and Canadians have political interests, the political survival of governments or the members of the ruling party. While the British and Canadians thus make a mockery of their own laws, the LTTE continues to thumb its collective nose at them because British and Canadian diplomats (and indeed others) pay regular pilgrimages to the Wanni and kowtow before the LTTE leadership.
The less said of the Norwegians the better.

Whether Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar’s recent strictures on the dubious conduct of the Norwegians are personal or the views of the government, they reflect increasingly the opinion of Sri Lankans, except perhaps some local NGOs who have become Oslo’s Kroner cronies. One would not wish even one’s worst enemies to be victims of the kind of indiscriminate terrorist attacks the world has seen in the last three or four decades. The UK has seen it now.

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin was at the G8 summit when it happened. If the resolve to fight terrorism expressed by the G8 leaders is genuine, then Martin’s government should let the Canadian people see tangible expressions of that resolve.If countries such as Norway continue to feed violent organisations and pursue a policy of appeasement will surely experience one day what others are experiencing today.
If the Solheims and Helgesens of this world have not heard the wise saying about biting the hand that feeds, they could ask New Delhi.

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