Editorial

11th October 1998

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Time to act

Today we carry several stories following the rounds made by The Sunday Times reporters this week of the hospitals to which the war wounded have been brought in. They have attempted to look fairly at how the country's soldiers, who have so bravely put themselves at the frontline of the northern war, are being treated back home. What we have are mixed reports - both negative and positive - on how doctors, nurses and all representing the support services of the state along with the voluntary participation of the public are making wonderful efforts in rendering yeoman services to the wounded. However, our impression overall is that much more could be done. There appears to be a lack of a sense of urgency by the Government to galvanize the public to come in more fully to do its part.

One of the stories reported today is that of a soldier who nearly had his face blown off and had lost his mouth as a result of a mortar blast. It was 'The Sunday Times' which had to track down his family. It seems these men both young and old - even called " heroic soldiers ' by the Deputy Defence Minister - deserve better.

How in the meantime, are our politicians responding at this critical hour ? Little if anything of significance, except that we see them wrangling and going at each other bitterly. Friday's debate on the emergency did not produce much more than a war of words, accusations and the trading of insults. The Government for its part continues to lie through its teeth on the casualty figures from the Kilinochchi debacle. It's in the end nothing but lies, damn lies and vapid statistics.

On the question of statistics it will be of interest to see the 'Situation Report' on the page opposite, wherein our defence correspondent has clinically analysed the Government's own figures. What emerges is a kind of new maths, a new trend in this country, While this is so the Opposition keeps shooting in the dark, giving inflated figures and scoring points as it were. What needs to be done even at this late stage is for the Nation to get together to combat the common enemy and the menace of terrorism. The time for such action is surely long past. Now, not any later is the time to act.

Yet we know that whatever we may say on the need for concerted action, will probably not happen as long as the political leaders we have today put power before service and party before country. Our leaders don't even want to talk to each other. They have to obtain the services Foxes and Fatchets back from Britain simply to get our politicians together, or at the least to sign a document promising to talk to each other. All this at a time the country is celebrating the Golden Jubilee of its political Independence.

It is surely no exaggeration to say what is taking place is nothing but a national disaster, if not a national disgrace. Sans a common political approach, sans a common political strategy, how can we ever think of winning this war ? It is a war being fought against a guerrilla group that began as a bunch of niggardly ruffians, but who have now grown not just into a ruthless fascist guerrilla organisation with tentacles stretching throughout the world, but into a force capable of fighting a conventional war, able to check an armed force of over 200,000 battle-trained men and women in uniform.

True, the LTTE is throwing even children into battle, sending them remorselessly to their deaths. Still, it is also true that they can never win this so-called Eelam war on the battlefield. At most, they have got as far as setting up an Eelam Incorporated - a multinational organisation based in the West comprising people leading happy lives in those affluent climes, while at home child-soldiers die to enable them to thrive in a chimerical Eelam abroad. No doubt the onus is always on the incumbent Government to initiate a rapport with the opposition. But that is as much an illogic as the envisaged state of Eelam.

In Colombo we see the sufferings of the wounded soldiers, the anguish of mothers, sisters and brothers who do not even know if their loved ones are in the land of the living or are simply said to be missing in action, a mere statistic in this long and protracted war. We can only ask how much longer politicians are going to bicker, while this Nation bleeds slowly to death.

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