Planning for contingent happenings that bode ill for peoples and nations is now a well-practised art. Those living in earthquake-prone zones anticipate disaster and take practical steps to make buildings safe from the shakes and tumult that afflict the earth’s crust from time to time. We in Sri Lanka are fortunate in that we live in a region of tectonic stability and are spared the worst of those cyclonic storms that ravage other parts of the world. While enjoying this bounty that nature has so kindly condescended to give us, let us not forget the man-made disasters that assail us on all sides and more than match those of Nature’s doing in the magnitude of the depredations that ensue.
The disasters we have in mind are, of course, authored by a single villainous individual - the redoubtable Vellupillai Prabhakaran (or Pirapaharan). He has killed and destroyed on a scale that bears comparison with carnage unleashed by the conquistadores of the Iberian Peninsula some five centuries ago. While the latter is shameful history, Prabhakaran’s bloody mischief is ongoing and its eventual denouement is unknown. This much can be said safely the better part of the violence he is destined to unleash on the ill-fated population of Sri Lanka is yet to come. While hollering for peace is understandable, the possibility of war calls urgently for contingent planning. This view is in contrast to the rosy humoured panegyrics of the peace-gobbledegooks who write (and speak) as if the Tiger is now a tamed beast that demands no more than its fair share of sustenance. It is their fond belief that the beast has irrevocably pushed into its past the age of roistering when the use of the beloved bomb was an essential part of its way of life.
If the Peace Wallahs alone held these naive views, the danger to the country would not have attained the daunting magnitude it currently has. Most unfortunately for our fair land, the ruling elite is as jelly-bellied as the Peace Wallahs and its entire strategy (if it does, indeed, have a strategy) is based on the assumption that the Tiger’s killing days are over.
There is nothing to substantiate this unbridled optimism- it is obvious to all except the wilfully purblind that the Tiger continues his war preparations on the entirely logical supposition that there is the odd chance of failure and a recourse to the use of his well-honed killing machine is not merely a viable option but the trump-card in the power-game he is so skilled at.. Indeed he has - in recent weeks and months - given a fair indication of the reach of his weaponry and his disposition to use it if provoked.
In reaction to this truculence of a formidable enemy, is it only prayer and peace that we can offer? Knowing the mind-set of Prabhakaran, can we rule out the possibility of a pre-emptive strike on a scale that may well exceed that seen in the infamous attack on our Air Base in Katunayaka? The latter event was a defining moment in the history of the Prabhakaran-Sri Lanka conflict. Simply put, we capitulated and the Claim to Eelam moved from the realm of wishy-washy idealism to something eminently attainable through the use of force. We live under the shadow of this calamity.
We can have a ‘Second Katunayaka’ that will destroy forever the State of Sri Lanka as we know and love it. We spoke earlier of ‘Disaster management’ as part of the prescience of the prudent and well-managed state. What are the strategic hammer-blows that the wily Prabhkaran can inflict on a state in pathetic disarray as well as in the throes of a political melt-down for which there is no remedy in sight? Here are some possibilities -
1. A sudden move to overwhelm the military establishment in Jaffna using the people of the region as a human shield under the protection of which the massed cadres of the Tigers can regain control of this Tamil heartland.
2. The strangling of Trincomalee by bolstering the military power of the bases and encampments that already form a noose around the great harbour. This stronghold in the East will become another Jaffna with the expulsion of its Sinhala population.
3. A Tet-type offensive in Colombo. Except for crass simpletons and ostriches of the political kind, all know that Colombo is a haven for the covert operatives of Eelamism. That weapons and explosives are stashed away in safe-houses is beyond question - the police will be the first to acknowledge this with the caveat that they can do nothing about it. Can we rule out the possibility that a simultaneous attack on select targets in the metropolis will cause such havoc that the leaders will run away and the white flag of surrender will flutter from all public buildings?
4. The assassination of key figures in the political establishment of this country. This is a tried and tested method of getting ‘paradigm-shifts’ in political perspectives when the going is not to Prabhakaran’s liking. Currently, things are decidedly awry and he must be mulling over the use of this favourite weapon.
5. The opening of a ‘second front’ in the Hatton, Nuwara-Eliya area using the disaffected Tamils in the central hills will be a major achievement for Prabhakaran and will give a whole new dimension to the conflict. Already the region swarms with political lackeys of the Northern tyrant and the eventuality we speak of ranks very high in the list of dangers confronting the Sri Lankan State.
The five dangers listed are not mere forebodings of a prophet of evil - they are real dangers in the same broad category as earthquakes and storms. We prepare for the latter, even if the danger is not imminent. Why is the discussion of these scenarios (hypothetical as they are) shunned by those who, in a proper scheme of things, should be the first to warm us of such outcomes? A partial answer is given by the observation that our leaders have only one foot in their native country. The other is poised over a promising and bountiful terrain in a distant land, ready to receive the entire body weight if the first feels the heat of the local habitation. They can run away leaving the poor natives to sort out the mess.
