LTTE atrocities hit economy by US $ 20,000 billion

Do powerful nations play double standards?:

*Mumbai 26/11 caught the world attention on the terrorism issue in India

* SL must market that the military strategy is a part of the peace process of the country

*Private sector must be convinced to practise Language Policy

ROHANTHA ATHUKORALA

I was on board a Military aircraft on route to Jaffna to organize the 1st Industrial Exhibition and was watching the soldiers who were travelling with me. The sense of purpose and determination was an example of men with a mission.

The only mission being, how the most ruthless terrorist organization in the world - the LTTE, can be defeated so that the people can continue with their lives.

When we achieve this I am sure that the Sri Lankan economy can be a Rs. 50 billion Economy in the near future. After all it was Lee Kwan Yu in 1960’s who said that he wanted to make Singapore be like Sri Lanka, one day and my mind went through the thought if Sri Lanka had done enough to market the atrocities of the LTTE to the world to garner a stronger support so that we could have put a stop to economic terrorism much earlier. As we speak today, Sri Lanka is estimated to be almost thirty years behind Singapore.

An international exhibition held portraying the LTTE cruelty

After landing at Palaly airport I was eager to visit the Jaffna bazaar as being a marketer for almost 15 years, I can make a judgment on the health of a market within a 10 minute time duration.

What I saw was retail outlets packed to capacity with grocery items, vegetables, stationery items and even cake ingredients for the Christmas season. I asked them how things were. One particular comment that echoed in my mind even today was, ‘We do not want the security forces or the LTTE. Allow us to lead our own life and build our business. We can be a stronger economy than the Western Province”.

This statement is so true, as the Northern economy currently contributes only a 3.5 per cent to the national GDP though it boasts one of the highest potential geographical areas that quadrupled during the times of the ceasefire period.

To name a few, the Dairy Industry, the Agriculture and the Fisheries sectors given that it’s a peninsular. Once again highlighting the opportunity cost due to the delay in eradicating terrorism in Sri Lanka. The question is it that we did not get world support due to poor marketing of LTTE attacks or was it that powerful economies had a double standards based on the importance of the economy to that country and in that context Sri Lanka being negligible.

KEY ISSUE - MARKETING

The biggest obstacle that Sri Lanka had on its war against terrorism was that the world never believed that LTTE was a terrorist organization. It was perceived globally as freedom fighters fighting for the rights of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka.

May be after 9/11 in New York and the more recent Mumbai attack on 26/11 that was able to capture the attention of the world to the fact that Asia has a brewing terrorist problem and that global support is required to fight this menace and protect the world from this cancer that is terrorizing the world.

I strongly feel that we as a nation has failed to market to the world the atrocities of the LTTE that has killed over 70,000 people in Sri Lanka and wiped away almost $20,000 billion US dollars out of Sri Lanka’s economy.

On the other hand the power of media and creativity of broadcasting of channels like NDTV in India, was able to elucidate world attention and even achieve a behavioural change that resulted in global leaders making a visit to the country whilst little Sri Lanka has been attacked 7 times by the only terrorist organization that has air power goes unnoticed.

I feel we need pick up a few strategies from India on how they sensationalized the Mumbai attack with a continuous flow of information that kept the interest of the viewer almost to the likes of a James Bond Movie.

India was able develop a brand name and register it in the minds of a global viewer called ‘Mumbai 26/11’. Whilst expressing this thought I will not pass that may be powerful economies practice double standards based on the principle of comparative advantage of the Indian Economy vs the relatively small Sri Lankan. 26/11 AND THE LTTE

Most marketed event in the month of November is the terrorist attack on Mumbai that took away 193 lives. We saw the whole world waging war on Pakistan with even Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice making a hurried visit to India and calling for Pakistan to hunt down the terrorists organizations who are operating on home soil.

Sri Lanka on the other hand has been under threat of the LTTE for the last 24 years with a recent analysis revealing that LTTE has carried out 1/3rd of all suicide attacks in the world and it is the only terrorist organization that has air power capability that has attacked the capitol of the country 7th times but we have never had the response from powerful economies that we now see that India is getting which points us in the direction of poor marketing of the LTTE and its activities than the duplicity of powerful Economies.

If I may pick up the most horrifying facts on the twenty four years of life of the LTTE - Killing 120 devotees in the Buddhist sacred city in 1985, 110 people in the bomb blast in Pettah, 70 Muslims in the Kattankudy mosque, the Central Bank attack killing 86 people and injured 1338 which far exceeds the Mumbai casualties on 26/11 can be named. It will be interesting to analyze the media space that Sri Lanka was able to get in the worlds media to determine if an opportunity had been made to slip by.

A point to be highlighted is that even when the LTTE assassinated one of the greatest sons of India Rajiv Gandhi or in 2007 a group of diplomats accompanied by a cabinet minister came under fire in Batticaloa by the LTTE we could not garner the global support to stop the collection of funds by the LTTE in countries like Switzerland, France, Germany, Australia, Canada and the U.S for funding this terrorist organization’s activities. Some estimate that the last LTTE P&L has recorded a profit of 200 million dollars.

Whilst pointing the argument in this direction, I am not fully convinced that if it was our poor marketing efforts in highlighting the atrocities of the LTTE that we have failed to get the eye of the global leaders or was it the double standards of the powerful economies based on its economic significance because even with the strong awareness of the LTTE terrorism activities in the UK on the 26th of November a demonstration was allowed to be staged in the heart of London to commemorate an LTTE landmark.

Incidentally on that very day Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a visit to India to express support to India against the terrorist organisations that originates from Pakistan.

Sri Lanka in its 24 year bloody history of the war with the LTTE has never had any of these visits from either the UK or the US administrators. If at all we receive were reports stating that LTTE being freedom fighters for the Tamil people of Sri Lanka than a terrorist organisation.

May be we will never know the actual reason but I am sure of one thing with the forty odd key business people that visited Jaffna and pledged their support by way of brand new cars, tractors and motor cycles to the winner of the Jaffna Dream Star and the main sponsorship by a leading mobile phone operator for broadband service sure convinced me that the private sector was strongly behind the war with the LTTE. They were also committed to bringing back normalcy to the people of Jaffna.

DOES THE WORLD KNOW?

Even if the world is unaware, if we take a look at the cost of the war on the Sri Lankan economy it exceeds a $20,000 billion. On tourism -in 1983 Sri Lanka enjoyed 337,530 visitor arrivals whilst a country like Cambodia had around 200,000 tourists at that time.

Today Cambodia has over a 2 million tourist arrivals whilst Sri Lanka is at around 0.5 million with a revenue of 43 billion rupees whilst actually Sri Lanka should have had around 1.8 million tourist by now if not for terrorism and earnings touching a 200 billion rupees.

On a GDP contribution basis it would have contributed almost eight percent to the country. Some one could argue that by marketing the ruthless activities of the LTTE would have hurt the tourism industry but given the marginal growth numbers we can easily determine that collateral damage being very limited.

The impact of FDI’s that Sri Lanka could have attracted is around 3000 billion rupees which stacks up to the cost of the war due to terrorism.

If we hypothetically take the 400 billion rupees that has been spent on the war in the last 3-4 years and divert it to the investment that can be made on Research and Development (R&D) it will be almost 7 per cent of GDP which will be way able the 4 per cent spend by Industrialized countries like South Korea who have produced power brands like Samsung to the world beating brands like Sony of yesteryear.

This gives us an idea of the opportunity cost that Economic Terrorism has done to our beautiful country Sri Lanka which are points that the world must know by way of strong marketing through media vehicles like Discovery Channels and Talk shows. India in particular must take cognizance of the economic costs to Sri Lanka’s Economy, as some of the hardcore LTTE cadres had been trained in Indian soil.

Whilst India wages war on Pakistan it continues to accommodate the sympathy vibes of South India LTTE activist just for political reasons which is absolute double standards. India having realised the cost of the war on LTTE should at least help us build our economy so that we will have the money to fight terrorism but even this is not happening. Exports from Sri Lanka has declined by 13 per cent as at end September and it is the 3rd year running that exports from Sri Lanka declining.

There is no entry of the strategic exports of tea or garments to India from Sri Lanka due to non tariff barriers. Once again we see the double standards by powerful economies for a small country like Sri Lanka fighting one of the most ruthless terrorist organizations in the world - the LTTE.

SIX CEASEFIRES

Given that I am reading for a doctorate and serving the country whilst I study, I strongly feel a case study must be written on the history of ceasefire agreements that the Sri Lankan governments has entered into and may be we need to market this to the world.

It should be the starting point for all universities that teach conflict resolution. If I may take you back the 1st ceasefire was the famous ‘Thimphu talks’ where LTTE came in solidarity with 5 tamil groups - the TULF, PLOTE, EROS, EPRLF and TELO. It ended with LTTE unilaterally walking out but during this time LTTE strengthened themselves and secured total control on the Jaffna peninsula which was called `Operation Liberation’. The 2nd ceasefire was championed by Lalith Athulathmudali from the 11th to the 17th April 1987, for the Sinhala/Tamil New Year.

The LTTE reciprocated by ambushing three buses in the Polonnaruwa district, separating the Sinhalese passengers from the others and murdering every one of them and in total 127. Sri Lanka never saw a Condoleezza Rice or for that any global leader wanting to stop the funding operations globally. The 3rd ceasefire came into effect with the so called Indo Lanka Accord.

The LTTE, which pretended to surrender arms (while surrendering only their defective and unusable arms) used the confinement of the Sri Lankan troops to barracks in terms of that ceasefire to engage in an anti Sinhalese/Muslim program by murdering about 200 Sinhalese and Muslim civilians along the Eastern seaboard between the 1st and 7th October 1987. Once again the world just watched.

The fourth ceasefire was orchestrated by the then President Premadasa from the 1st June 1989 and ‘Peace Talks’ commenced. The LTTE once again used that ceasefire to strengthen themselves and then abrogated the ceasefire by attacking all police stations in the east on the 11th June 1990 and murdering about 678 unarmed police officers who had laid down arms and surrendered to them.

The fifth ceasefire came into effect under the leadership of President Kumaratunga in January 1995 that once again resulted in the LTTE sinking two naval gun-boats anchored at Trincomalee, murdering 12 sailors and thereafter murdered 264 members of the security forces and 57 civilians in 27 separate attacks over the next 39 days.

Subsequently the LTTE with surface to air missiles brought down two Avro aircraft on the 28th and 29th April 1994 murdering 99 persons including two journalists which once again the world watched with the Sri Lankan Economy reeling.

The sixth and last ceasefire that Sri Lanka saw was in 2002 under Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe that once again the LTTE violated that ceasefire murdering Sri Lankan security force personnel, informants and political opponents and led to the act that LTTE will never forget - shutting off water at the Mavil Aru anicut in August 2006.

This was when the turning point to the LTTE atrocities in Sri Lanka came to a grinding halt with the Sri Lanka becoming one to fight the LTTE whilst the world once again watched.

Today as we speak the LTTE is being confined to a very small geographic area and with war on terrorism in Sri Lanka coming to a pinnacle with the eminent capture of Kilinochchi and subsequently Mullativu.

This performance has earned Sri Lanka the right to be a country that can fight terrorism effectively but the real victory is when the world supports Sri Lanka by stopping all funding globally and then helps Sri Lanka build the Economy through Tourism, Agriculture and Dairy Industry in the North East so that we can be a 4000 dollar per capita income earner boasting a GDP growth of 10 percent plus.

May be this can be part of a new curriculum for a University specialising in Economic. It can be called Economic Terrorism.

MILITARY STRATEGY - PART OF PEACE

I strongly feel we need to market the elements of a Peace Process in a country. Language Policy, Governance structure, Economic Development, Human rights and democracy, IDP Resettlement and the Military Strategy must go hand in hand so that with the development in each of these areas we can drive a terrorist movement towards Peace talks.

If I may explain this from a Sri Lankan context unless each of these aspects are addressed in the North East we cannot expect only from the current military strategy to bring peace into Sri Lanka. Whilst we implement this it has to be marketed to the world so that a bigger picture of the ongoing war with the LTTE is understood by every Sri Lankan and the world at large.

LANGUAGE POLICY - Private SECTOR DRIVEN

When ever I address a forum the private sector keeps asking how a company can contribute to Peace building. I strongly feel that one of the most practical steps that can be implemented is to operationalise language policy.

The telephone operator must be fluent in all 3 languages. All circulars/notices must be in 3 languages. We need to make the minority feel that they are part of the country. This needs to be implemented at all police stations and government institutions so that as a nation we are friendly to every community of the country. This should be highlighted to the world media so that the focus is not only on the military front.

NORTH/EAST ECONOMY - Private AND GOVT DRIVEN

Another area that can be marketed is that the taxes that had been levied on the A9 road by the LTTE, when the private sector transported goods from the South to the North is in fact against the governing structure of the country leaving aside the perspective of Economic terrorism.

The strife ling of the agricultural and dairy industries in the North East economy was very evident as in the time of Peace Dividend between the periods of 2002 -2004, the GDP in the Northern Province quadrupled to 12.6 per cent while in the Eastern Province it doubled to 10.1 per cent.

As per the World Bank report even though this growth did not have a major impact to the national economy, the fact remains that this is the opportunity cost in these two economic suffered due to terrorism. With the liberating of the Eastern Province from the LTTE many leading private sector companies have invested in its support to providing livelihood whilst exploiting business opportunities.

CIC has invested Rs. 500 million and Haleys Rs. 250 million on agriculture. The Brandix clothing giant has invested on a manufacturing plant at an investment of Rs.400 million where USAID has joined in with partnership for capacity building which needs to be highlighted to the world.

MARKETING IS KING

In conclusion we see that marketing is a key

element when a country is at war with a terrorist organisation specially an organisation such as the LTTE which has its tentacles across the world.

The Api Wenuven Api campaign sure helped change the perception of the forces by the general public of Sri Lanka but, what is required is a more holistic approach from all fronts - highlighting the atrocities of the LTTE, Economic Terrorism and cost to the country, History of the Ceasefire violations and governments efforts of peace making.

Finally one needs to explain the different elements of the Peace Process and how Sri Lanka is working together on all fronts but the key requirement is for the world to support not only large nations but also small ones like ours.