A Reply to Somini Sengupta of the New York Times

by Charles.S.Perera

(December 19, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) This is to put into a correct perspective, the information given by Ms.Somini Sengupta, in a report she had published in the New York Times website of the 5 December,2008, on "Sri Lankan Army is Pushing for End to 25-Year War Against the Tamil Rebels" ( Read: External Link), which gives a wrong interpretation to what actually is taking place in Sri Lanka, and discredits the government and the Government Forces .

I am just an ordinary citizen of Sri Lanka and in that capacity I write to correct any wrong impressions in the minds of the readers of Somini Sengupta's article, about the Government of Sri Lanka and the present prevailing situation.

Ms.Sengupta speaks of the "Government Forces military action" against the terrorists , as Asia's longest- civil war which had extracted a high cost for the divided country's civilians. Here Sengupta tries to portray Sri Lanka as a country divided according to the communities, whereas Sri Lanka is a united nation of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim Communities. The terrorists with whom the government is at war, want to divide the country to have their own Separate State, and the government is attempting to stop them from doing it. Therefore Ms.Sengupta's " divided country's civilians", is a misnomer.

Ms.Sengupta, in her attempt to down grade Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapakse , neither explains the "hard-strategy", nor does she describe correctly Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapakse, who she says is responsible for it.

Mr.Gotabhaya Rajapakse, is the younger brother of the President of Sri Lanka. When Mr. Rajapaksa was elected the President of Sri Lanka by a popular vote, he promised to the people, that he will rid the country of the terrorists who had infiltrated into the north and east and had for the last thirty years inflicted damage to the country and its people spreading terror through out the country.

In order to fulfil his promise, the President brought down , his younger brother Gotabhaya Rajapakse, who had left Sri Lanka for security reasons, and was residing in South California. The younger Mr.Rajapakse, is a battle hardened veteran of the Sri Lanka Army. He had been commissioned by the Army, as a second lieutenant in May,1972, and went up the ranks to be the Second in Command of the First Regiment. He led many battles against the terrorists for twenty years and liberated large areas that had been occupied by the terrorists. He was promoted to the rank of a Lieutenant Colonel. He left his Regiment in 1990, to be the Commandant of the Kothalawela Defence Academy and retired in 1992 after 20 years of distinguished Military Service.

This is the Valliant battle hardened Gotabhaya Rajpakse who fought against the terrorist for twenty long years. He understands Prabhakaran's terrorist tactics more than any one else. That is the man Ms.Sengupta introduces to your readers as "an American who once worked as a computer systems administrator in Southern California."

Mr.Rajapakse left Sri Lanka after his retirement, as his life was not safe in Sri Lanka as the terrorists had a grudge against him for their defeats in many war fronts, and went to South California where he worked as a Computer System administrator, which Ms.Sengupta adds only later to suit her " journalistic strategy" of giving the possible discredit to the army, by specifying how the "civil war" is conducted in Sri Lanka by a Computer System Administrator from South California,

Ms.Sengupta, describes a surrealist landscape, creating the impression of a land abandoned by the people driven away by the government bombardment, leaving the place in ruins to soldiers and birds. The monotony of description creates in the mind of the readers the damage that has been caused by an army with a callous indifference to suffering. In order to make Rajapakse brother more satanic she adds that he is determined to crush the "rebels" ( deliberately avoiding the word "terrorists") militarily and therefore ended the peace negotiations and violated human rights.

But it was not the Rajapakse brother that ended the peace negotiations. It was the terrorists that walked out of the negotiations refusing to sit with the Government delegation, and demanded a separate territory to set up their Eelam State. There had been no death or damage to the Tamil civil population in the bombardments and artillery fire by the Government forces. There were no scattered bodies and human skeletons in the surrealist landscape Ms. Sengupta, describes. The violation of human rights by the government forces have not been proved, except images of one or two wounded civilians shown in the terrorist websites.

Sengupta does not say that the Tamil Civilians in Kilinochchi are kept by the terrorists as a human shield and driven into areas under their control against their will. A large numbers of civilians escaping into the government controlled areas have confirmed that they had been kept in the terrorist controlled areas under threat.

The "rebels" (terrorists), had been fighting to carve out a home land in the Island for Tamils according to their own planning, without a popular demand by the Tamil people . More than 50 percent of the Tamil population in Sri Lanka live in the south with the Sinhala and Muslim Communities. They are not sympathisers of the terrorists, nor do they recognise the terrorists as their liberators, nor do they call the terrorists 'rebels'. The terrorists are not representative of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka

It is only the group of terrorists, supported by the Tamil diaspora that is fighting to carve out a homeland for Tamils. Ms. Sengupta does not present the whole situation to the readers of the New York Times, but presents only distorted parts of the story suitable to discredit the government, making out the terrorists as "liberators", fighting against a despotic government.

The Government is democratically elected, and does not flout the freedom of the people. It is in the process of preparing a viable political solution to solve some of the endemic problems within a multi ethnic society, in consultation with all parties representing different communities.

These proposals will be presented once the terrorism is brought under control. As the terrorists continue to detonate claymore bombs, and use suicide bombers massacring civilians , there is an absence of normal living conditions, and a peaceful political environment, for the successful devolution of political power . One has to live under these conditions to really understand the situation.

Ms.Sengupta's reporting is imperfect as she does not come to her own conclusions, from her observations and investigations, but states what friends and associates of the persons concerned as facts. For instance Mr. Rajapakse's satisfaction that the terrorists ( which Sengupta always calls "rebels" ) have been weakened, and the moral of the forces have been bolstered, and more importantly the public opinion is in favour of the war against the terrorists Sengupta says is because " privately Mr.Rajapakse's friends and associates say that his resolve is deeply personal : the Tamil tigers tried to kill him two years ago."

The facts Ms.Sengupta had kept away from the readers of the New York Time, are that the terrorists profiting from a cease fire agreement signed with a previous government, had strengthened their forces, stock piled heavy arms, artillery, and war items. They had procured communication equipment aided by the Norwegian Embassy , bought 10 ships, and air planes, from large sums of money ( said to be 300 million Dollars a year) collected and transferred to the terrorists, by their front organisations among the Tamil diaspora in Canada, USA, UK, Australia, Norway, Germany, France and Thailand.

The terrorists are well organised, and during the Cease Fire the government forces were reduce to stand and watch while the terrorists continued strengthening their forces terrorising the people and killing and massacring their opponents, politicians, and Officers of the Security forces. They were also kidnapping children to increase the numbers of their terrorist forces , and trained young girls and boys to carry out missions as suicide bombs-the black tigers.

No one then thought that the Sri Lanka Army will ever be able to defeat the terrorist forces. It was in that climate that Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapakse the battle hardened retired Colonel of the Sri Lanka Army then living in California was called by his brother the President Mahinda Rajapakse to come back home to plan strategies along with the Commander of the Sri Lanka Army to fight the terrorists, who had refused to negotiate, but continue terrorism until they are given the north and east for a separate Tamil Homeland.

When Ms.Sengupta arrived in Sri Lanka to prepare the report for the New York Time, the Government Forces assisted in the planning, and the supply of military equipment by Mr.Rajapakse , were able to reduce the terrorist forces, who no one thought would be defeated, to a disorderly groups scattered fighters..

Therefore, there were very good reasons for Mr.Rajapakse to offer a look of immense satisfaction when asked by Sengupta at her interview, and to say that the government forces had proved that they can defeat the terrorist forces the people had said was "invincible".

Those are the true facts of the situation and the "war" against terrorism was not a personal vendetta of Mr.Rajapakse, but the fulfilment of a great necessity to free the country of a terrorist menace that had benumbed all forms of normal activity in the peoples lives, and brought to a stand progress and development projects. Mr. Rajapakse is doing what is best to stop terrorism in all its forms. There is no special hard-line approach that requires apology to any one for the stepped up military effort to end terrorism.

The International Community continued a game of double standards, while fighting terrorism in their own countries, continued to ask the Government of Sri Lanka to negotiate a peace settlement with the terrorists, who did not want to negotiate for any thing less than a separate home land, and swore to continue their terror tactics.

Sengupta in her twisted reporting, calls the President of Sri Lanka a veteran of Sinhalese populist politics. The President was elected by the votes of the Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities, under a democratic system, and though he is from the Sinhala Community he does not draw his popularity from only the Sinhala people. He is a President of all communities, and definitely against terrorists and terrorism. He was fighting for human rights long before Ms.Sengupta became a reporter for the New York Times.

Mr.Gotabhaya Rajapakse the Defence Secretary, a battle hardened veteran, is a good strategist, who is doing what is necessary to end terrorism in Sri Lanka. There are certain of his actions only a man experienced in war and direction of armies may understand.

Therefore, Ms. Sengupta's criticisms and insinuations are that of an uninformed civilian.

The terrorists have hidden stocks of suicide bomb equipments every where in Sri Lanka. This they did when they could transport them undetected when the road blocks were removed by the Government on the Orders of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka.

Thereafter, the terrorists had only to send the trained suicide bomb carriers the black terrorists to Colombo. Once in Colombo they find accommodation in Colombo shanty areas as ordinary citizens. After that they are contacted by the "helpers", who provide them with the explosive jackets and each one of the black tiger is placed by them in a place which had been already selected to target an important person and detonate the jacket of explosives, the black tiger carries under the blouse or the shirt.

That is the modus operandi of the terrorist bomb carriers. Therefore, as a security measure these places in shanty areas are checked to assure that there are no black tiger terrorists among the occupants. That type of checking is done even in UK, Germany, France and in USA in search of Al Queida terrorists. Therefore, it is not a means to harass the shanty dwellers, it is only a security measure.

Mr. Rajapakse is the Defence Secretary responsible for the conduct of the defence of the country, and he cannot be held responsible for extortions, abductions and extrajudicial killings in government-held areas, which are the responsibility of the Police Force. There have been several arrests fro those criminal ctivities, and action is being taken on these issues by the authorities concerned with them. It has become a habit in certain quarters to blame the army personnel for what ever criminal affair that takes place from time to time. It is means resorted to by many, to discourage the valiant soldiers in their war effort against terrorism.

The humanitarian aid sent by innumerable NGOs have to be checked as they have been held responsible for anti government propaganda, and helping the terrorists. Even packets of food sent by UN Agencies to areas controlled by the terrorists were said to have contained explosives and war like material for the use of terrorists. Ms.Sengupta's report is based on information collected at random without proof or details, and from unnamed persons, perhaps from those who oppose the government, and its war effort.

Unfortunately the foreign journalists have not taken well to the government's effort to end terrorism. BBC is openly supportive of the terrorists, putting in doubt all announcement of victories of the government forces against the terrorists. Ms.Sengupta herself doubts the capture of Pooneryn by the government Forces. There is on the other hand images of areas captured by the Government Forces circulated in the government websites. When one looks at things through the coloured glasses of prejudice the truth is veiled.

The terrorists with a US Dollars 300 million annual income are unable to use the money, and they are therefore using large sums of their money to get journalists, NGOs , INGOs , anti war lobbies, human rights activists, UN and Amnesty International to carry out pro terrorist propaganda describing them as rebels and freedom fighters rather than terrorists, to win over the sympathy of the International Community, and many of the Western countries that have banned the LTTE as terrorist Organisation. If they could get that sympathy from the International Community, and get the government to agree to a cease fire, it would give the terrorists a lease of life, to regroup, buy military equipment to re start the campaign of terror.

NGOs and INGOS working in the terrorist controlled areas spent lot of money, and transported material like iron bars and cement to these areas for construction work they said they were carrying out, but when the areas were cleared by the Government Forces, they had found that the NGOs and INGOs had not constructed any buildings , roads, or bridges. The material they had transported to these areas had been utilised for construction of under ground bunkers for the terrorists.

When the NGOs and INGOs left the terrorist controlled areas, on the request of the government, they left behind vehicles and heavy machine. The terrorists have utilised these machines to build earth bunds to protect the areas where they had their headquarters. The Norwegian NGOs alone had left behind 38 heavy vehicles for the use of the terrorists.

I do not want to write further as I have given enough information to contradict Ms.Senguptas's report, and given the good readers of the New York Times enough material facts to reflect and to understand that terrorism is the same whether it is against the Western Nation, or the poor nations else where.

I make a special plea to readers of the New York Times, to understand that the Government of Sri Lanka against all difficulties and false accusation of violation of human rights is doing what any government would do to end the menace of terrorism within its territory. The Government Forces are now on the verge of ending the terrorist menace in Sri Lanka, with least damage to the civilian population. Your moral support will be a great encouragement to our valiant soldiers.
- Sri Lanka Guardian