Tea, terrorism and Mr T

The conscience of the western world has been stirred by the bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi, Dar Es Salem and last of all in Omagh in Northern Ireland. The outrage, fury and anguish felt can be gauged from the speeches made by leaders such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

While it is natural that people are moved to a greater extent when horrendous disasters of such magnitude occur to people near and dear to them, western leaders should constantly bear in mind that there are unfortunate people like Sri Lankans who have been living with a far more vicious and brutal kind of terrorism for 15 years and that their countries have helped such terrorism to flourish, although unwittingly. Sympathies of Sri Lankans should go out to all to the relatives of the civilians dead and those injured in the three recent explosions.

A notable feature about the tragedy at Omagh has been that leaders of all parties and factions- British, Northern Irish, Irish, Republicans, Ulster Unionists and even IRA leaders such as Jerry Adams- have not been hesitant in condemning the brutal and senseless killing of people at Omagh and demanding that those behind this foul crime be found out and punished.

Sri Lankans will however note that these reactions are somewhat different to reactions here when tragedies of even greater proportions occur. While there will be condemnation comingforth from many quarters, Tamil political leaders, while condemning the act ,will fail to identify the killers even though the identity of the group of killers needs no guessing. Even when TULF's own leaders are killed by the LTTE there will be no condemnation of this terrorist organisation.

Whatever the reasons arefor this failure to identify the killers, this lapse and inability to give leadership against the terrorist movement are among the main reasons why terrorism is still with us.

Recent events indicate that the LTTE is now engaged in a strategy to gain control and paralyse the hill country. Recent attempts such as to to blow up a tea factory, bomb a train and yesterday's reports of the discovery of a 100 kgs of RDX explosives in a house at Aludeniya and Kandy are indications of new terrorist intentions. The objectives of these terrorists by committing such acts of vandalism appear to be to wreck the tea industry - setting factories on fire, disabling the transport system etc.- and thereby ruin the Sri Lanka economy.

These acts of economic sabotage while it will adversely affect the government and help terrorism further will also have other ill effects such as depriving the livelihood of the tea plantation workers. Those interested in the welfare of the plantation workers, even though they may not be interested in the tea industry or the country's economy, will be expected to eliminate such threats at their embryonic stages.

Thus, the question arises whether the leaders of the plantation workers, such as Mr. Saumyamoorthi Thondaman are concerned with the spread of terrorism to the plantation areas and the possible effects it would have on the tea industry.

Mr. Thondman has not only failed to condemn terrorist activities of the LTTE all along, but has gone much further by proposing that the LTTE be given in charge of the Northern and Eastern Provinces for 5 years. Whether Mr. Thondaman is prepared to hand over the hill country , the greater part of which is covered by tea plantations, is not known but if Prabakran takes control, neither the CWC of Mr. Thondaman nor Mr. Thondman himself will survive , considering the fate of Jaffna Tamil leaders at the hands of the LTTE.

If terrorism gets a foothold in the plantation areas it can happen only with the connivance of plantation workers. LTTE terrorists cannot survive in the plantation areas unless they get the corporation of plantation workers. If the blight of terrorism does spread, it would be the end of the tea industry and also the livelihood of the hundreds of thousands of plantation workers.

In this context Mr. Thondman and other leaders of the plantation workers have the choice of asking their workers to cooperate with the authorities and stamp out terrorism before it gets a foothold in the plantations or let terrorists rule the Thottam.

Informed sources say that for a considerable period of time, there have been intelligence reports of the LTTE infiltrating the plantations. President Kumaratunga should ask her cabinet minister ,Mr. Thondman, where he stands on this issue.

No head of state can tolerate a cabinet minister who is lukewarm on terrorism.