Adopt tough measures to stop bomb attacks

by S.M. Uvais

(August 31, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) With repeated terror attacks on civilians and civilian targets, the authorities apparently have still not realized the need to detect and destroy lethal weapons hidden in Colombo and its outskirts. It is believed that some Tamils are forced to conceal bombs and guns in their gardens or in their ceilings. If inexpensive equipment operated by radio waves is imported to detect bombs and guns buried or stored in ceilings, we can prevent wanton killings.

Regular search operation conducted by trained and intelligent officers will unearth the weapons that are concealed by terrorists to be used against civilians and VIPs. The Prevention of Terrorism Act may not in itself provide sufficient teeth. The Government should enact special legislation to deal with people harbouring lethal weapons and terrorists. The punishment for possessing or concealing lethal weapons such as bombs, firearms or claymore mines should be death. In addition, the house and the property in which such weapons are concealed should be confiscated.

These penal provisions should be made public regularly through the electronic and print media, rather than confining them to the statute book. The death penalty and confiscation of property will largely discourage people who are forced by the LTTE to conceal such weapons. Even if they are threatened to hide these weapons, the house owners will, for their own safety, give information to police.

Apart from these measures, the fact that the LTTE and its leader smack of stark cowardice should be given enough publicity. They never attack the enemy from the front. They stab civilians in the back.
On the war front, the Security Forces must take the following measures:

1) Find and destroy the LTTE's facilities where rocket launchers and long-range artillery guns and shells are kept.
2) Destroy LTTE hangars where its light aircraft are kept
3) Damage the runways to such an extent that repairs will take at least six months.
4) Locate LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran's several bunkers and defoliate areas surrounding them.
5) Enlist mercenaries from Israel for an Entebbe type operation.
6) Although bunker busters are banned, procure them and once and for all destroy this menace called Prabhakaran.

The Government must clearly portray that Prabhakaran is keeping this war going to protect his life and his family. Fighting for the Tamils is absolute balderdash. Some gullible foreigners are bluffed by this nonsense.

It is clear that the so-called Tamil intellectual diaspora are really unintelligent. They just do not understand that the money they provide to procure weapons only prolongs the agony of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. What the diaspora cannot comprehend is that Sri Lanka's Security Forces will never permit Prabhakaran and his family to live happily. The more money the diaspora provides, the greater the misery heaped on the Sri Lankan Tamils.

Legislation should be enacted to net in and have this diaspora extradited to stand trial for treason, for assisting Prabhakaran to commit mass murder. Their properties too should be confiscated.

The Government must act with a great degree of intelligence and not like a bull in a china shop. The PTA was in force up to the signing of the CFA but that did not deter the LTTE from resorting to violence.

What has to be enacted is special legislation that will make harbouring and possessing lethal weapons punishable by death, and confiscation of houses and property. To deter supporters of the LTTE from giving assistance, these measures should be given full publicity.
- Sri Lanka Guardian