Tiger terrorist leader Piribaharan, the self-proclaimed "sole representative of the Tamils", is to deliver his so called “Great heroes’ day” or ‘Maaveerar Naal’ address in 27 th of November which is in the following day of his birthday. In the south, his media and political agents are busy setting due mentality for his address. In the past, Piribaharan’s address used to be the high note after intensifying terror attacks by the LTTE carders. It is “Great heroes’ day” speech that LTTE used to disclose their political demands after successful surges of physical and mental terrors in the south.
This is good time for peace loving people in the country to contemplate on this vicious terror cycle that had been in practice for two decades.
TER + ROR + ISM
Definition:
"The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.“**
**Source: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
One can see that the word TERRORISM itself has the emphasis on TERROR.
The whole game of terrorism is based on this terror factor and the success or failure of terrorism is fully depended on effectiveness of imposing psychological aspect of TERROR in the society.
It is very important to understand terrorism as a vicious cycle and the whole cycle has different flavors of TERROR imposing fear on people’s mind.
1. Mass murdering and Killing (invoking physical threat)
Terrorists do various types of attacks on civilian targets to invoke physical threat to the people. In Sri Lanka, the large scale mass murdering started by attacking Sinhala villages namely Kokilai, Nayaru, Kent Farm, Dollar Farm, etc. Terrorist prefer mass murdering to isolated killings because it create fear in the society in macro level. They use sharp weapons like knives and swords rather than shooting in this type of attacks. It increases the bloody nature thereby imposing greater psychological impact on the people. These mass murdering create panic and terror in society in immediate vicinity resulting fleeing mentality while increasing the fear level of the society or nation as well.
The bomb blasting in populous towns and public transportation systems are aimed at increasing the fear level of certain segments of the society. Those are mainly targeted to middle class people who daily travel for their livelihood in public transport systems and urban communities.
The bombs on economic centers like Central Bank/Seylinco, Galadari Hotel etc were targeting upper class and business community. It target imposing direct fear on their lives and indirect fear on their investments.
Finally, terrorists target political and military leadership. This is not only to eliminate their enemy but also to send strong signals to others in similar capacity, especially to weak political characters.
2. Media/Public campaigns (Invoking mental/psychological fear)
Invoking physical threat is just one part of the cycle of terrorism. After each and every terrorist act follows the media/public campaign to convert this physical/material threat into psychological fear in the society. This front can be identified as the white collar terrorists and they are operating in the south in the island or in the western countries. They identified themselves as professionals and affiliated either with media or INGOs.
The second surge of terror comes from the media. Their role is to exaggeratedly report the terror attack to transmit the terror psychology into the nation. They love to publish pictures of the dead civilians, destructions, coffins of fallen military heroes, the success story and valiant nature of terrorists involved, etc. These so called free lanced political/military analysts are funded by INGO’s and they are not at all dependent on the salary of the media company. Their ultimate aim is to convince the general public that “The (miserable) war can not be won by either party”, “Guerilla wars are never crushed by military means”, “County can not afford the war any more”, etc... This in fact is the psychological war front of the LTTE terrorists.
3. Cash in with political gains
If the media campaign (psychological war) is a success, then it comes the direct INGO surge in the forms of pickets, peace meditations, peace marches, etc. There are number of INGO established for this and they are organized under umbrella organizations for different themes. These rallies serve two purposes. Locally, they can market these so called peace demonstrations back to the nation as the common peoples voice against the war and internationally these media oriented pickets and rallies are broadcast to create tarnished image of human rights and media freedom, etc. of our mother land.
With the international and national mindset created under the psychological warfare, they are now ready to cash in with political gains. The demands come in different flavors ranging from devolution of power, demarcating so called ‘rebel held territories’, providing mechanisms for terrorists to rule their areas and ultimately forcing the people of both north and south to co-habitats with the terrorism.
Current Reality
In 2005 presidential election, despite all the national and international plots, people of this country voted to give a mandate to break this vicious cycle of terrorism and preserve the territorial integrity of the emerald island and we are getting dividends for that matured and brave decision of the nation.
LTTE’s military mechanism is no longer effective and SL Navy has completely frozen their supply from the sea and Wanni jungle is encircled by elite commandos and long range brigade of SL Army. Piribaharan is no longer having guts to come out of his bunker to deliver his so called “Great heroes’ day” speech due to threats from SL Air force. The government is winning the war against LTTE terrorist’s military wing and this is time to expose the white collar intellectual wing of the LTTE that is still trying to play with TERROR psychology in the south.
This is good time for peace loving people in the country to contemplate on this vicious terror cycle that had been in practice for two decades.
TER + ROR + ISM
Definition:
"The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.“**
**Source: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
One can see that the word TERRORISM itself has the emphasis on TERROR.
The whole game of terrorism is based on this terror factor and the success or failure of terrorism is fully depended on effectiveness of imposing psychological aspect of TERROR in the society.
It is very important to understand terrorism as a vicious cycle and the whole cycle has different flavors of TERROR imposing fear on people’s mind.
1. Mass murdering and Killing (invoking physical threat)
Terrorists do various types of attacks on civilian targets to invoke physical threat to the people. In Sri Lanka, the large scale mass murdering started by attacking Sinhala villages namely Kokilai, Nayaru, Kent Farm, Dollar Farm, etc. Terrorist prefer mass murdering to isolated killings because it create fear in the society in macro level. They use sharp weapons like knives and swords rather than shooting in this type of attacks. It increases the bloody nature thereby imposing greater psychological impact on the people. These mass murdering create panic and terror in society in immediate vicinity resulting fleeing mentality while increasing the fear level of the society or nation as well.
The bomb blasting in populous towns and public transportation systems are aimed at increasing the fear level of certain segments of the society. Those are mainly targeted to middle class people who daily travel for their livelihood in public transport systems and urban communities.
The bombs on economic centers like Central Bank/Seylinco, Galadari Hotel etc were targeting upper class and business community. It target imposing direct fear on their lives and indirect fear on their investments.
Finally, terrorists target political and military leadership. This is not only to eliminate their enemy but also to send strong signals to others in similar capacity, especially to weak political characters.
2. Media/Public campaigns (Invoking mental/psychological fear)
Invoking physical threat is just one part of the cycle of terrorism. After each and every terrorist act follows the media/public campaign to convert this physical/material threat into psychological fear in the society. This front can be identified as the white collar terrorists and they are operating in the south in the island or in the western countries. They identified themselves as professionals and affiliated either with media or INGOs.
The second surge of terror comes from the media. Their role is to exaggeratedly report the terror attack to transmit the terror psychology into the nation. They love to publish pictures of the dead civilians, destructions, coffins of fallen military heroes, the success story and valiant nature of terrorists involved, etc. These so called free lanced political/military analysts are funded by INGO’s and they are not at all dependent on the salary of the media company. Their ultimate aim is to convince the general public that “The (miserable) war can not be won by either party”, “Guerilla wars are never crushed by military means”, “County can not afford the war any more”, etc... This in fact is the psychological war front of the LTTE terrorists.
3. Cash in with political gains
If the media campaign (psychological war) is a success, then it comes the direct INGO surge in the forms of pickets, peace meditations, peace marches, etc. There are number of INGO established for this and they are organized under umbrella organizations for different themes. These rallies serve two purposes. Locally, they can market these so called peace demonstrations back to the nation as the common peoples voice against the war and internationally these media oriented pickets and rallies are broadcast to create tarnished image of human rights and media freedom, etc. of our mother land.
With the international and national mindset created under the psychological warfare, they are now ready to cash in with political gains. The demands come in different flavors ranging from devolution of power, demarcating so called ‘rebel held territories’, providing mechanisms for terrorists to rule their areas and ultimately forcing the people of both north and south to co-habitats with the terrorism.
Current Reality
In 2005 presidential election, despite all the national and international plots, people of this country voted to give a mandate to break this vicious cycle of terrorism and preserve the territorial integrity of the emerald island and we are getting dividends for that matured and brave decision of the nation.
LTTE’s military mechanism is no longer effective and SL Navy has completely frozen their supply from the sea and Wanni jungle is encircled by elite commandos and long range brigade of SL Army. Piribaharan is no longer having guts to come out of his bunker to deliver his so called “Great heroes’ day” speech due to threats from SL Air force. The government is winning the war against LTTE terrorist’s military wing and this is time to expose the white collar intellectual wing of the LTTE that is still trying to play with TERROR psychology in the south.
