Sri Lanka's Foot, Meet Bullet.

A series of depressing articles have come out of Sri Lanka over the last three days. All of them have focused on the alleged kidnapping of residents in the embattled North and East provinces of the island. A few days ago, The Island reported that 24 students and two teachers were kidnapped by LTTE cadres during a tuition (tutoring) session in preparation for the O-Level exams which will take place at the end of this year. Apparently, the militants entered a classroom, hoarded the victims into a van, and drove them to a remote LTTE camp in the north. This was after 300 students held a public protest against the LTTE's infamous tactic of kidnapping children, and forcing them to enter their ranks against their will. The students and teachers were released yesterday while the LTTE and GoSL continued to sling semantical mud at each other. While the government maintains that the students were illegally taken, the LTTE continues to claim that the six male students had previously agreed to join the movement.

Meanwhile, the search for Vice Chancellor S. Ravindranath of Eastern University in Batticaloa continues. The VC of the university, who disappeared from his home two weeks ago, is rumored to have been taken by the Karuna faction of the LTTE. The Karuna faction, headed by a disenchanted former LTTE general who broke off from the main movement, is waging a quasi-Civil War among the Tamil populated areas of Eastern Sri Lanka. As the search enters the second week, Government officials have begun to admit that the likelihood that VC Ravindranath surviving captivity with the notoriously vicious Karuna faction is "slim".

These developments hint at the quality of life in the North and East, and the utter immaturity that is the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. The LTTE has been flagged by human rights watch groups since the mid-1990s because of their kidnapping policies. The BBC reports that over 450 children were taken by the LTTE this year. Kidnappings have been on the rise as of late, which perhaps shows the financial and ideological troubles of the LTTE. By all accounts, the LTTE is on the run in the north, as GoSL forces push them deeper and deeper into the jungles. Reports also claim that the LTTE is nearing bankruptcy, given a series of military defeats, and crackdowns on terrorist cells (that continue to fund the LTTE) by the USA and EU. The LTTE, assumedly, kidnaps these children not only to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation in Jaffna, Trinco and Batticaloa, but also because they are having an increasingly difficult time recruiting individuals to champion the cause. More than ever, the LTTE looks to be nearing the point of collapse.

This doesn't mean that the GoSL isn't without blame as well. Operations to resuce these kidnapped persons were non-existent, while the press secretary spouted patriotic drivel about SL Army forces establishing "a chokehold" on the embattled areas. If there is such a confident military presence, why aren't the kidnappings ending? Meanwhile, Mahinda Rajapaksa continues to be silent about the ethnic conflict, falling back on to his platform/crutch of economic progress before territorial conflict resolution. Rajapaksa has focused his attention on the opening of Sri Lanka's second internation airport (they don't need another) and improving the suburbs of Colombo. Anyone who doesn't think the war in Sri Lanka should be the number one priority in terms of politics and governance is a fool. Unfortunately, the GoSL is full of these fools, the biggest one being the president.

What to do? There's no question that the SL Army could probably overwhelm the LTTE at least in the North at this point. Perhaps a sustained attack (rather than joint-guerrilla warfare) to completely subdue the LTTE is the best idea. I would hate to think about the civilian loss that would be a result of such an operation. My guess is that both sides will first try to secure capital and supplies. for the LTTE this means tracking down more individual donors in India, Europe and North America willing to provide money and arms for the armed forces. Meanwhile, the GoSL will have to keep convincing donor chairs that there is tangible progress being made in the ethnic conflict, Tsunami reconstruction, and general development procedures in order to stay afloat. After this happens, I expect to see another spike in violence before cooler heads (hopefully) prevail.

It hasn't happened yet.