Re: How to tackle militancy?
This is a fact that Pakistan is neither Sri Lanka nor Israel. But they say if there is a will, there is a way. Sri Lanka and Israel may not offer us a plug-and-play strategy, but they can still serve as a good precedent.
The biggest problem in Pakistan’s case is country’s establishment. What Pakistan has become today is a direct result of working with two mindsets. We lay more trust in proxies than going by the book of self-defence.
As for weaponry, Sri Lanka got lots of military supplies from China. Even Pakistan supplied Colombo with heavey and
It’s true that the LTTE had no fallback as the Taliban have in Afghanistan, but top LTTE leadership regularly used Tamil Nadu of India for retreating in critical situations. The LTTE also used Tamils of TN for support, funds and supply of arms. We are also aware of India’s role in Lanka-LTTE clash. Indian Air Force used to airdrop aid to the LTTE. In our case, Afghanistan is playing Tamil Nadu.
Puthukkudiyiruppu, the power-base of the LTTE, was actually fully encircled before the final assault got under way. This is the place where Prabhakaran was finallly killed while trying to take the sea root out of the country. Encircling Puthukkudiyiruppu also made sure that arms’ supply will stop fully. Northwestern areas under the LTTE’s control had a population of over 350,000. Lankan military established a safe zone within those areas to house fleeing civilians. We can clearly see how they planned the attack.
One of the major successes of President Rajapaksa was his drive the get the international funding channels choked. Canada and Norway were the top suppliers of funds to the LTTE. The US, the UN and the EU were all taken on board for stopping funding channels. Once the issue was raised on international platforms, every country had to come forward to help Colombo.
We also need to remind ourselves how a politician, initially backed by the LTTE in his election, put his country first when he came to power. He had the political will to take on his one-time supporters. There were no ifs and buts about that.
As far as Israel is concered, you don’t need the most sophisticated arms for target-killing. Israel always knows about the whereabouts of top leadership of Hamas. We don’t.
As I said earlier, if properly studied, we can take a lot of cues from Sri Lanka and Israel. I also believe it’s not that our military doesn’t understand all this, the problem is that they are working with two mindsets.