Time for world ban on LTTE

President Mahinda Rajapaksa's condemnation of LTTE degeneracy, manifested amply in the brutal slaying of the Sri Lanka Army's Deputy Chief of Staff Major General Parami Kulatunge, is most revealing and touches on some of the most salient issues in this despicable crime.

To begin with, we have fresh proof here of the LTTE's mindless and maniacal commitment to violence and terror. The Tigers seem to be having an unquenchable lust for human blood and those championing a political settlement, locally and internationally, may be way off the mark when they conjecture that the Tigers will willingly enter the political process if an opportunity is afforded them.

The painstaking travails of the world community over the past few months in getting the LTTE to meet the Government face-to-face at the negotiating table are solid evidence that a negotiated, just peace is not on the minds of the LTTE. As the President said the Tigers seem to having aims "which are far removed from the actual needs of the Tamil people".

This amounts to hitting the nail on the head. Rather than sit at the negotiating table with the State and work towards a political settlement which would meet the legitimate needs of the Tamil people, the Tigers seem to be hell bent on carving out a separate state in and only for themselves. That is, the LTTE is on a ruthless pursuit of power.

The interests of the Tamil people and their well being are of no importance. What matters to the LTTE is the self-aggrandizement the exercise of power would bring. The Tamil people would be subjected to the worst horrors for this purpose.

Now that the lid is off these dark designs of the Tigers, the world should lose no time in taking the LTTE to task. The EU has done well to join the US and several other perceptive countries in banning the LTTE on their soil.

Now that it is amply clear that the LTTE is being driven by an insatiable blood lust, the rest of the world needs to join those far-seeing states which have already said 'no' to the Tigers, in clamping a stifling ban on them. If the LTTE is banned by the whole world, we would probably see its recalcitrance crumbling and its resolve wearing out.

The horrors visited on the country by the LTTE should strengthen the resolve of the people to defeat these forces of terror. While the law and order machinery should be in fine trim in the face of the terror threat, the people should remain calm and collected.

It must be remembered that it is also part of the Tiger game plan to trigger another round of communal blood-letting. This is one of the means through which the LTTE could get into the favour of the world community. The people need to deny the Tigers this opportunity by remaining peace-loving and united.

The aim of the State should be to continually expose the Tigers to the world. The latter in turn should come down hard on the LTTE if Sri Lanka is to be helped.

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