29 December 2000
Media Release
Tamil Tigers (LTTE) shatter their own bogus peace offer
Sri Lankan government has issued a statement reiterating their determination and willingness to bring genuine peace to Sri Lanka. The government has also categorically rejected the Tamil Tigers’ demand (in the guise of a peace offer) that the security forces cease operations in the North and East of Sri Lanka. Many a time in the past the Tamil Tiger terrorists successfully used the ruse of appealing for a cease-fire and infiltrating the liberated areas to mount surprise attacks on unsuspecting security force encampments and isolated villages. One of the worst debacles was in1994 when the newly elected Sri Lankan President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga trusted the Tigers and ordered the soldiers into barracks. The few week old "cease-fire" was rudely shattered when the regrouped terrorists who had infiltrated strategic locations and collected valuable intelligence mounted simultaneous surprise attacks on security bases, harbours and villages killing nearly a thousand soldiers, over 1500 villagers, sinking three battleships and downing two aircraft.
The rejection of the Tigers’ demand on this occasion is a welcome sign that at least one powerful section of the Sri Lankan Government led by the Prime Minister Rathnasiri Wickramanayaka have learnt from past mistakes of various Sri Lankan leaders. Only obstinate idiocy would allow democratically elected national leaders to repeatedly give the world’s most brutal terrorists the upper hand by way of a cease-fire that they long for.
SPUR wholeheartedly thank the Government of Sri Lanka for having taken the right decision at a very crucial moment in the country's history.
While declining the demand to cease all operations during the entire period of the Norwegian sponsored "peace talks", the Sri Lankan Government unilaterally declared the Christmas day as a complete no-hostility period. Within the first four or five hours of the holy day, the terrorists replied to the kind gesture of the Government by lobbying a grenade at the security forces at Kaithady, seriously wounding one trooper (ABC News 25 Dec 2000 and Times of India, 26 Dec 2000).
The government statement says that they are prepared to talk peace without any conditions from Tamil Tiger Terrorists. This model was approved by the countries and organisations that were involved in the Sri Lankan peace moves including Norway. Rather than proceeding with the modalities accepted, the phoney cease-fire request has been made via Tiger propaganda machine and some peaceniks. At last, a powerful and popular section of the Sri Lankan government, at least, seem to have realized the real agenda behind the Tigers’ demand for the cease-fire: that of gathering intelligence, regrouping the cadres, and strategic positioning of terrorist brigades and heavy caliber weapons for their next large scale surprise kill. No well-meant appeal for a cease-fire would be made during a time of heightened terrorist activities in Sri Lanka: an unprecedented level of forcible recruitment of Tamil children in the Wanni, escalation of massacres of Sinhala and Muslim villagers in the North and the East and a marked increase in suicide bomb attacks in the cities. Military observers are unanimous in the opinion that the "Peace overtures" are only for the consumption of the gullible international community.
Let Sri Lanka avoid falling into Tiger Terrorist trickery again. Let the world realize warlord Prabakaran's true intentions. Let us get together and put an end to the Tamil Tiger regime of Terror. This is the only way for lasting and meaningful peace in Sri Lanka.
Yours faithfully