Mumbai terror strike and Prabhakaran's expectations of India's support
By Col R Hariharan
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) chief Prabhakaran's usually much hyped Great Hero's Day 2008 speech on November 27 became a casualty of the daring terror strike on the same day in Mumbai. Holding the city to ransom for three days the terror story hogged headlines and only few of the Indian print media carried Prabhakaran's speech on the sidelines, while the visual media ignored it.
And this time he needed the ears of New Delhi, more than Tamil Nadu, to act upon his strong plea for India's support for his armed struggle and lifting the Indian ban on the LTTE. Actually this was the central theme of his, otherwise recycled, annual speech.
The Manmohan Singh coalition is fighting a battle to survive the ground swell of criticism for its abysmally poor performance in handling the Mumbai terror strike. In a knee jerk reaction so typical of New Delhi, long standing proposals to strengthen the counter terror apparatus at the Centre and the states are hurriedly being resurrected. With the general elections in another three months, no Indian political party can afford any more to soft pedal terrorism of any hue ? religious, ideological or ethnic. The national impact of the Mumbai terror raid is so strong that policy makers from now onwards can only take a hard line on activities of terrorist organisations. And in India that includes the LTTE, whose conduct had qualified it to be banned as a terrorist organisation. Only recently the Delhi High Court has upheld the ban on the LTTE.
The first counter measures against terror are already in the pipeline and relate to coastal and marine terrorism. Stricter control of illegal entrants, tightening of security at airports and harbours, tightening of shipping and fisheries control, and tougher vetting of visitors from neighbouring countries would probably follow. The proposed federal agency for integrating the national response to terror attacks and expansion of the reach of the counter terror force - the Natinal Security Guard (NSG) to the metros might take a little more time to come through. But surely come they will, for the government had been dithering on these issues for years now.
And all this is bad news for Prabhakaran's mission to win friends and influence people in India.
Happy at the resurgence of political support in Tamil Nadu for the LTTE, Prabhakaran called it a 'great changes taking place in India.' Prabhakaran is probably expecting greater acceptance of the LTTE in Tamil Nadu encouraged by the revival of pro-LTTE elements in Tamil Nadu as the 'dormant voices in support of our struggle' re-emerging aloud again, as he termed them.
Perhaps in a bid to save the face of Tamil Nadu leaders who are demanding immediate ceasefire, he explained his readiness to talk peace, after listing out the record of failed peace efforts in the past. He stressed that Tamil genocide was taking place as a result of the war, to strike a chord among Tamils everywhere.
It is significant that Prabhkaran wants India's help on his own terms as there is not a word of regret or remorse in the speech for his own betrayal of India when it had actively intervened in support of the Tamil cause in the past. He has not even provided a fig leaf of apology for the role of LTTE in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, former Indian prime minister on the soil of Tamil Nadu.
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