They are LTTE. That makes them different from Hamas?
Why is Hamas being 'hamashed' for its violent ways, when the LTTE with a history of egregious violence, is treated internationally with kid gloves?

If the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, consider the plans of George W. Bush and Prabhakaran. Bush wanted Palestine to embrace democracy so that its people will turn back on Islamic radicalism, and violence.

What happened in the end would have made George Bush look more like a mouse than a man. It's as if he asked for beef tenderloin flambé and got an erupting volcano. The Palestinians voted with their feet for Hamas, which represents the radical face of Palestinian self-determination. Bush's plan for democratizing Palestine hence Americanizing it and thereby neutering it of violent Palestinian resistance completely bombed.

In a different election, Prabhakaran laid plans for a war that rode on the back of imagined Sinhala extremism. He imagined that he could determine the outcome of the Sri Lankan election - - cry 'hardliner' - and justify his campaign for more blood and more lives.

His idea burned worse than a volcano, courtesy Nicholas Burns. Burns, the US Under Secretary for political affairs, used standard English to boot when condemning the LTTE while fairly rubbing Prabhakaran's nose on the ground. So now for the first time, we have somebody saying the LTTE is way out of line, and saying it in the tight State Department lingo that carries the message like a laser beam to the international community.

Burns was the exception however. Before him, we've rarely seen such strong condemnation of the LTTE. Instead we have seen a great deal of kissing upto Prabhakran on the part of the European Union officials and other such potentates.

Why these kid gloves? A donor delegation almost landed in Kilinochchi this week, a move that kept confusing Sri Lankans. Burns calls the LTTE "a reprehensible terrorist group'' and next week there is a receiving line in Kilinochchi to shake hands with Western donors. Is that to say 'who is afraid of Burns?'

But, what keeps us more confused is that its Hamas that gets a black eye from the international community. There is nobody in the West who does not want to deliver himself of a lecture to Hamas. "We do not want any truck with these terrorists'' is repeated in the manner of a religious incantation.

But its Hamas that came into the democratic process, not the LTTE. Hamas ran for office, and won. We know it will be snowing in hell the day the LTTE runs for elections.

But, contrast the way the world treats the democrats, Hamas, and the truants, the LTTE. The amenable, Hamas, gets lectured to and lambasted. The extremist, LTTE, are invited to an international cocktail session in Kilinochchi with Western donors, who spare any sort of pep talk to the LTTE, as if to say "who is afraid of Nicholas Burns?"

What's message does this send to the world at large?
We Sri Lankans are being given the message in the words of Burns that the LTTE can be 'reprehensible' but can get away without so much as a rap on the knuckles, while getting an invite for the cocktail also.
But that's not unusual. In this country we are used to being shafted as a matter of routine by the international community.

But why should the world also be shafted LTTE? In the final analysis, that's the result of treating the LTTE with extreme civility while bludgeoning Hamas, in the week that this organization, however violent it maybe, had entered the democratic process, won a free and fair election and received the mandate of the people?

While on the subject of elections, it's pertinent why Hamas runs for office, and the LTTE specializes in skewering the elections process. Isn't Prabhakaran secure about a majority in his homeland, the way Hamas was confident of securing a majority in theirs?

Hamas got something of a landslide - - certainly an unexpected majority. But yet, Hamas got only a majority, and not the whole slice of the electoral vote, or the entire Palestinian voter strength. The difference between the LTTE and the Hamas is that while Hamas is satisfied with a majority, the LTTE wants every vote to the last man woman and dog…

Since dogs don't vote and there will always be more than one man and woman who will not vote for the LTTE even in its 'homeland', the LTTE never wants elections.

The US administration apparently wants to find a way to take forward the peace process without dealing with Hamas. It would be a stretch to imagine this happening in Sri Lanka. Imagine the European Union for instance, calling for the Sri Lankan government to find a way of suing for peace without dealing directly with the LTTE?

What's the message of the West then, which includes the donors, and the international caravan of Sri Lanka's friends? That the LTTE are "our kind of terrorists'' while the Hamas are the not "our kind of terrorists?" even though they have the democratic mandate of the people which the LTTE doesn't?

What's the special reverence that the LTTE commands? Is it the one obtained by blowing up political opponents? Or is it the one obtained by blasting Claymore mines to wreck a ceasefire?

We do not know, but the logic of the international community defies us. Its potentates say that they will not deal with terrorists, Hamas, even as they go into the den of another group of the same brand, the LTTE, and enjoys coffee and Nelli juice while backslapping their hosts presumably for not entertaining any thoughts about entering the democratic process and getting the people's "yes'' the way Hamas did?

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