Stop the Double Standards- Call it a Brutal Hostage Situation

By Nacholibre

(March 14, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is nothing but a brutal hostage situation of gigantic proportions. The LTTE can no longer defend any of their brutal actions against the Tamil civilians and hide behind their time-tested lie of being a so-called liberation movement. Liberators do not kill their own people who they want to liberate. The LTTE are the perfect antithesis to the liberation of the Tamils. They have been the problem from day one and they are continuing to be so showing that they are the perfect enemies of the Tamils by entrapping thousands of innocent Tamil civilians in a small stretch of land on the North-Eastern border of Sri Lanka.

There is no other logical way of describing it other than that. The world probably may not have heard of a more ruthless hostage situation like this in the entirety of the recent history. We have of course witnessed many hostage situations in the world before and subsequent counter-terrorist operations that have been launched to save the hapless people, but for heaven’s sake, not anything as bizarre as this one. No sane layperson can say that it is not so. The majority of the world may have finally seen through the fabricated terrorist propaganda and understood what the ground situation really is and what really is happening in the small pocket of land of mere 40 odd square kilometers adjoining the nearly 12 kilometer long Puthumattalan sea cost in the Maritimepattu and Puthukudiyiruppu DS divisions of the Mulaitivu district of Sri Lanka . Those who have followed the terrorist insurgency in Sri Lanka over the past few decades may be finally beginning to see the dire situation taking shape in that besieged strip of land, where the remaining few leaders of the LTTE and its die hard cadres are effectively blocking the evacuation of the trapped civilians to safety. Not stopping there, they have begun killing those civilians too.

The humanitarian organizations such as ICRC, world powers such as the USA and regional powers like India have already fathomed the plight of civilians trapped by the LTTE and had earlier offered to help the State security forces to execute a joint hostage rescue plan only to be defiantly rejected by the LTTE. Therefore, none of those efforts ever materialized. All that had to be abandoned due to LTTE’s non-compliance. The US simply had to announce the abandoning of the US-led evacuation plan. They all failed in their proposed attempt to evacuate the hostages because of one major reason. The LTTE is simply not prepared to let that happen. The latter is now prepared to kill all the civilians before letting them get away from their open human prison.

The LTTE is not prepared to release the civilians from their entrapment under any circumstances. That is understandable. They are just plain terrorists, not liberators, so, they need the civilian cover; they need them as their buffer. That has become all too clear now. Therefore, any humanitarian operation plan that tries to separate the marooned LTTE and the trapped civilians will be as dead as a dodo from the very point of conception without the consent of the LTTE terrorists. Thus, by the LTTE’s blatant refusal to accommodate a humanitarian approach to prevent hundred thousands of Tamil civilians getting killed in a crossfire, the world has come to realize the situation for what it really is; A huge hostage situation by a group of brutal terrorists. However, the sad thing is that a few governments around the world, their diplomats and some officials in the United Nations are still dragging their feet to call a spade, a spade. They still attack the government and go soft on the LTTE asking the latter to adhere to international norms of warfare, which the LTTE never observed in their three-decade long terrorist insurgency. The LTTE is proving beyond doubt that they are plain terrorists with no humane concerns, yet even when that is stark clear, some factions want to pacify them. The irresponsible actions of these few twisted minds of higher-up positions in world organizations have given oxygen to dying terrorist organizations such as the LTTE, to prolong the human suffering they are masterminding by holding onto what they know best; Terrorism.

What should the world do in hostage situations? Simply put, the world should not cut any slack for the terrorists.

The most recent example is the Mumbai terrorist attack. The Indian government very correctly used whatever military power they could use to bring the hostage takers down and rescue the hapless civilians. No offers were made to negotiate with the hostage takers. Crack commando teams were sent in, fighting erupted between the hostage takers and the security forces. Finally, the majority of the trapped civilians were evacuated to safety. Some unfortunate civilian victims found themselves in the line of fire and were killed, as what could invariably happen in such a desperate scenario. Did we hear any country, any organization or any expert calling on the Indian Government to stop attacking the terrorists for possible co-lateral civilian casualties in the crossfire? Did we see any UN High Commissioners expressing concern for human rights violations by both parties? No, we did not. Did we hear any US State Secretary or UN humanitarian Chiefs or any UN expert calling the Indian Prime Minister and asking not to shoot at the terrorists because they might be holding the civilians in the line of fire? No, we never did. We never saw anybody trying to give oxygen to the terrorists by preventing the Indian government of doing the right thing in taking out the perpetrators. The world was right in distinguishing the terrorists from the fighting government and whole-heartedly supporting India in its hour of despair from the actions of the terrorists. That is how the world should tackle all hostage situations. No hostage situation needs to be treated differently. They are all alike. The only difference is the number of hostages in each case. Thus, depending on the seriousness of the issue at hand, the counter-operations have to be planned.

Nevertheless, cut to the Sri Lankan scenario, we see a lop-sided approach from many irresponsible people from around the world. Even after 30 odd years of history of nothing but violence perpetrated by the LTTE that nating in hostage taking of thousands of Tamil people in a stretch of land, these so-called “world authorities” have not learnt their lesson. Is it that albeit knowing the truth, they do not want the State of Sri Lanka to defeat the LTTE and rescue the civilians? Otherwise, why would they want to foot tackle the government and bring the humanitarian operations to a halt by safeguarding the terrorist LTTE?

These apprehensions are not the result of seeing any crocodiles in a water basin, so to speak. How else would one otherwise understand the continuing expression of lukewarm reactions and statements by such irresponsible parties among the world’s top organizations towards the blatant acts of violence against humanity by the designated terrorists LTTE? Gone is the era when the LTTE could masquerade as a liberation organization for a besieged Tamil minority of Sri Lanka. That myth has exploded in the face of their naive believers. The brutal act of preventing the very same Tamil civilians they said to be representing from leaving the battleground and killing those who manage to escape has laid bare to the world the true face of the LTTE. No more can anyone ignore the proven fact that the LTTE are the real destroyers of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka, not the Sinhalese, as the LTTE so conveniently went about lying before in front of the International Community. Yet, the fact being that, we are puzzled to see some of the personalities, who represen some of the World’s highest governing bodies try to find fault with the Sri Lankan government for fighting such a brutal terrorist organization to end its hostage taking of the innocent Tamil Civilians. Tamil Tiger terrorists have always thrived on hoodwinking the world and seeking solace from the unsuspecting world to save themselves from annihilation. Yet, they are cornered now with all their lies being exposed. They have proved to the whole world the fact that they are nothing but a brutal terrorist organization with scant regard for humanity.

With all these exposures about the gruesome nature of the LTTE atrocities they commit on a regular basis, some people of authority think and act in a lopsided fashion when it comes to issuing statements aimed at the Sri Lankan conflict. For example, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights did such a generalizing act yesterday. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanetham Pillai issued a statement and asked the Sri Lankan government to stop committing war crimes. She further asked “both parties” to obey humanitarian law. The question is, is the High Commissioner that naïve to believe that the LTTE will obey any law at this juncture of fighting out of all time? Why does she not ask the LTTE hostage takers to lay down arms and surrender to the Sri Lankan Government? Is she not convinced that it is a legitimate government fighting a ruthless terrorist organization to free thousands of hostages? Moreover, why do these officials try every time to give parity to the LTTE terrorists by calling on “both parties” to do this, that and the other? Do they want to tacitly emphasize that they are treating a terrorist organization holding on to hostages and a legitimate government fighting them alike? Why did the UN High Commissioner not ask the Indian commandoes to obey humanitarian law and stop hostilities in order to stop the loss of life that may have occurred in the firefight that ensued between the soldiers and the terrorists? Does she in the belief that the LTTE is an organization, which should not be taken a tough stand against? If not so, why does she not recognize the current phase of fighting that is happening in Sri Lanka as one against a real terrorist organization that does not have any ethics nor obey any human laws? Yet again, in another instance, the US secretary of State Hilary Clinton was reported by Reuters to have said the following regarding the Sri Lankan conflict. It said that during a phone call Clinton told President Rajapaksa that the Sri Lankan Army should not fire into the civilian areas of the conflict zone. Hilary Clinton, however, did not say the same to the Indian Prime Minister when the Indian commandoes were shooting at the hostage taking terrorists in Mumbai!

The evidence is so clear that the situation in Sri Lanka is a pure hostage situation of a grand-scale. World powers wanted to intervene to evacuate the trapped civilians but had to roll up their plans due to non-corporation of the hostage takers, LTTE. Yet, with all these solid evidence pointing against the LTTE terrorists, UN fails to identify the Sri Lankan situation as one that tantamount to grand scale hostage taking. Nor are they ever prepared to boldly say that they are firmly behind the Sri Lankan government in its fight against the world’s most ruthless terrorists. When all the evidence is there to prove that the LTTE is keeping the hostages from moving to safer areas outside the warzone, when all the evidence is there to prove that the LTTE is firing their big guns from among the civilians in the safe-zone, when all the evidence is there to prove that the LTTE is shooting to kill to prevent civilians escaping their diktat, what on earth is keeping the UN and its diplomats from issuing a final and a strong warning against the terrorist LTTE? Why is the UN High Commissioner dragging its feet to say once and for all to the LTTE that they have had enough putting up with the latter’s brutal terrorism for so many years and ask to let the civilians go or, otherwise they will take every step in their capability to help the State to finish off the terrorism and save the people that the LTTE is keeping trapped in the warzone.”

Why on earth are these diplomats cutting slack for the LTTE terrorists? What is holding them back from supporting a legitimate government in its fight against the latter? Why are they not accepting that the LTTE are creating a virtual hostage situation trapping the unwilling civilians in the warzone? These are the legitimate questions that arise in everybody’s minds when we see and hear the bogus drama played by all these world players tacitly upholding terrorism perpetrated by the LTTE. -Sri Lanka Guardian