Barbarity at its worst
The massacre of Muslims who were engaged in repairing an anicut at Radella is shocking. The LTTE stands accused of having committed the heinous crime, which bears its trademark, while SLMC Leader Rauf Hakeem and a section of the media have pointed an accusing finger at the STF. The LTTE has, true to form, denied any involvement.
We are wary of giving character certificates to either the police or the armed forces, as we are aware of their capability of committing excesses. It was only on Monday that we, in these columns, refused to buy the government’s claim that the violence against the Tamils in Colombo is being perpetrated by the LTTE. In a culture of indemnity, as is common knowledge, anyone can commit anything and get away with it.
But, why should the state forces resort to massacres at a time when they are doing extremely well on the battle front? The identities of the victims were known to the state intelligence as ordinary civilians and the Muslims are not suspects in the eyes of the STF, which maintains close links with them. So, is there any need for the STF to target Muslims?
Mr. Hakeem has called for a UN probe into the crime. He is entitled to his views and has a right to call for a high level investigation. His predicament is not difficult to understand. He cannot afford to confront the LTTE like other Muslim leaders. (Minister Fowzie has not minced his words in blaming the LTTE for the massacre.) Mr. Hakeem has to juggle with three roles as a Muslim leader, liberal in the Colombo-based NGO circuit and signatory to an MoU with the LTTE. If he admits that the LTTE is the perpetrator, he will prompt his rivals to ask him about the pact he signed with the Tigers in the wake of the CFA to protect the Muslims of the East. He got himself photographed with Prabhakaran and came out of Kilinochchi flaunting the MoU, in which, Mr. Hakeem boasted, the LTTE had promised to return the land captured from the Muslims. Having to eat his or her words is a difficult proposition for a politician.
The contention of Mr. Hakeem notwithstanding, the Radella slaughter needs to be put into perspective. Before that massacre, twelve casual irrigation workers, who were all Sinhalese, had been slaughtered by the LTTE in the same execution style at Welikanda in May. They, too, had been returning after repairing an irrigation canal. A few weeks later, a group of irrigation workers escaped death at the hands of the LTTE at the Mawilaru anicut, which the outfit captured.
The LTTE strategy is clear. It is all out to take control of the irrigation network in the Eastern Province, the be-all and end-all of its Eelam. It would not stop at the Mawilaru anicut, we pointed out in the aftermath of its capture, if the government took it lying down. Had the government baulked at recapturing that anicut, the LTTE would have been emboldened to capture many other irrigation schemes. The LTTE therefore had to be stopped in its tracks, though the outfit took the battle to Muttur, causing suffering to the Muslims in that township.
The LTTE has learnt a bitter lesson from the Mawilaru battle and may not want a repeat performance. But, it has not given up and if it cannot capture irrigation schemes, it will at least try to disrupt their operations and drive the people away from the areas surrounding them. Ethnic cleansing, it should be recalled, is part and parcel of the LTTE strategy. In 1990, the LTTE drove over 50,00 Muslims out of Jaffna, having plundered their properties. It tried its hands at ethnic cleansing in the east by massacring Muslims at Eravur in July 1990 (121 killed), in Batticaloa in July 1990 (103 killed), at Eravur in August, 1990 (122 killed), and at Palliyagodella in October 1992 (161 killed), to name only a few.
If the Muslim leaders shut their eyes to the real danger to the Eastern Province Muslims and continue to play politics with the situation, they will only be driving those hapless people to disaster. The string of battlefield debacles and the prospects of a bleak future have made the Tigers step up its brutal violence, out of desperation. Nothing constitutes a bigger obstacle to the LTTE’s campaign to annex the Eastern Province to its terror empire than the Muslim community, which refuses to live in a merged North and East under the LTTE. The price they have had to pay for their resistance is huge as evident from the LTTE’s sustained violent campaign against them.
While independent probes are called for into the killing of civilians, especially barbaric massacres like the one at Radella, and the culprits, be they members of the armed forces or the police or anyone else, must be hanged, if found guilty, it behoves the Muslim leaders to be wary of playing into the hands of the propaganda Tigers, whose mission is to provide the LTTE with escape routes.
The massacre of Muslims who were engaged in repairing an anicut at Radella is shocking. The LTTE stands accused of having committed the heinous crime, which bears its trademark, while SLMC Leader Rauf Hakeem and a section of the media have pointed an accusing finger at the STF. The LTTE has, true to form, denied any involvement.
We are wary of giving character certificates to either the police or the armed forces, as we are aware of their capability of committing excesses. It was only on Monday that we, in these columns, refused to buy the government’s claim that the violence against the Tamils in Colombo is being perpetrated by the LTTE. In a culture of indemnity, as is common knowledge, anyone can commit anything and get away with it.
But, why should the state forces resort to massacres at a time when they are doing extremely well on the battle front? The identities of the victims were known to the state intelligence as ordinary civilians and the Muslims are not suspects in the eyes of the STF, which maintains close links with them. So, is there any need for the STF to target Muslims?
Mr. Hakeem has called for a UN probe into the crime. He is entitled to his views and has a right to call for a high level investigation. His predicament is not difficult to understand. He cannot afford to confront the LTTE like other Muslim leaders. (Minister Fowzie has not minced his words in blaming the LTTE for the massacre.) Mr. Hakeem has to juggle with three roles as a Muslim leader, liberal in the Colombo-based NGO circuit and signatory to an MoU with the LTTE. If he admits that the LTTE is the perpetrator, he will prompt his rivals to ask him about the pact he signed with the Tigers in the wake of the CFA to protect the Muslims of the East. He got himself photographed with Prabhakaran and came out of Kilinochchi flaunting the MoU, in which, Mr. Hakeem boasted, the LTTE had promised to return the land captured from the Muslims. Having to eat his or her words is a difficult proposition for a politician.
The contention of Mr. Hakeem notwithstanding, the Radella slaughter needs to be put into perspective. Before that massacre, twelve casual irrigation workers, who were all Sinhalese, had been slaughtered by the LTTE in the same execution style at Welikanda in May. They, too, had been returning after repairing an irrigation canal. A few weeks later, a group of irrigation workers escaped death at the hands of the LTTE at the Mawilaru anicut, which the outfit captured.
The LTTE strategy is clear. It is all out to take control of the irrigation network in the Eastern Province, the be-all and end-all of its Eelam. It would not stop at the Mawilaru anicut, we pointed out in the aftermath of its capture, if the government took it lying down. Had the government baulked at recapturing that anicut, the LTTE would have been emboldened to capture many other irrigation schemes. The LTTE therefore had to be stopped in its tracks, though the outfit took the battle to Muttur, causing suffering to the Muslims in that township.
The LTTE has learnt a bitter lesson from the Mawilaru battle and may not want a repeat performance. But, it has not given up and if it cannot capture irrigation schemes, it will at least try to disrupt their operations and drive the people away from the areas surrounding them. Ethnic cleansing, it should be recalled, is part and parcel of the LTTE strategy. In 1990, the LTTE drove over 50,00 Muslims out of Jaffna, having plundered their properties. It tried its hands at ethnic cleansing in the east by massacring Muslims at Eravur in July 1990 (121 killed), in Batticaloa in July 1990 (103 killed), at Eravur in August, 1990 (122 killed), and at Palliyagodella in October 1992 (161 killed), to name only a few.
If the Muslim leaders shut their eyes to the real danger to the Eastern Province Muslims and continue to play politics with the situation, they will only be driving those hapless people to disaster. The string of battlefield debacles and the prospects of a bleak future have made the Tigers step up its brutal violence, out of desperation. Nothing constitutes a bigger obstacle to the LTTE’s campaign to annex the Eastern Province to its terror empire than the Muslim community, which refuses to live in a merged North and East under the LTTE. The price they have had to pay for their resistance is huge as evident from the LTTE’s sustained violent campaign against them.
While independent probes are called for into the killing of civilians, especially barbaric massacres like the one at Radella, and the culprits, be they members of the armed forces or the police or anyone else, must be hanged, if found guilty, it behoves the Muslim leaders to be wary of playing into the hands of the propaganda Tigers, whose mission is to provide the LTTE with escape routes.
