Enough is enough

THE Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have done it again. Hardly had the ink dried on the joint statement where the Government and the LTTE pledged to uphold the ceasefire in the true spirit and two weeks before the next round of talks in Geneva when a Navy vessel has been sunk with eight Navy men missing and feared dead and 11 other sailors including an officer injured in what the military claims was a suicide attack.

Even the LTTE which stretched the imagination of the southern public with claims that attacks against servicemen was the work of civilians against military repression we are sure this time around would not test the elasticity of that imagination to its very limits by such claims.

This brazen act of hostility tantamounts to an overt declaration of war and also comes in the teeth of LTTE claims that the Government had failed to disarm paramilitary groups in the North East. What gumption.

Here is a terrorist organisation requesting the country's legitimate army against whom it had declared war to risk life and limb of its members to disarm a rival faction who were its ex-members and then goes on to decimate those very security men it calls upon to do its dirty work.

Can the LTTE be taken seriously any longer as an honourable partner in any ceasefire agreement? Has the LTTE taken it for granted that Government would not dare retaliate for fear of breaking the truce and earning the displeasure of the international community and emboldened itself to carry out attacks against the forces?

The memory of the Sri Lankan public needs no refreshing to recall the time when the LTTE sank two naval ships while talking peace with Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1995.

It is this same duplicity that it carries to this day as proved by the latest attack. This also demonstrates the utter contempt the LTTE has for any agreement reached under international supervision. This time too it has thumbed its nose at the international community.

Where does the Government go from here? The LTTE has now revealed its hand. By provoking the government into retaliation is it preparing for war?

The Government should be alert to such a situation and make contingency plans. At the same time it should steadfastly explore avenues for peace and not abandon the current path it has set upon with international support.

It should take this opportunity to strongly lobby the co-chairs to draw up a mechanism to put an end to provocative acts as witnessed on Saturday off the Puttalam seas, during the next round of talks. The Government last week claimed that the LTTE had violated the CFA on 31 occasions post Geneva.

It obviously did not make a strong case of this not wanting to create any hiccups before the next round of talks.

However it is now time the Government took the bull by the horns and LTTE told in no uncertain terms that enough is enough.

There is no excuse that the LTTE could trot out for this most brazen violation of the CFA at a time every effort is being taken by the Government backed by the International community to jump start the peace process.

Committed as it is to the peace process the Government should be firm that the other party should reciprocate its goodwill. The LTTE should be told that attacks on the Security Forces must stop.

The next round of talks should solely focus on this matter. A guarantee should be extracted from the Norway facilitator that there will be no repetition of incidents as that witnessed on Saturday.