This is war

Over the last few weeks (months?) I've read how the Sri Lankan forces a "few days away' from wiping out the LTTE once and for all.

In those same weeks I've read and heard about the efforts taken by the GOSL to ensure the safety of those Sri Lanka's caught in between the Sri Lankan army and the the LTTE cadres as both sides edge up to a final confrontation.

While the LTTE has no obligation except for perhaps a moral one to ensure that no harm falls upon the very people on who's behalf they claim to be fighting for, the GOSL certainly does have an obligation, be it to those in the South, West, North or East of the nation.

What the actual ground situation is, very few of us know. Independent reporting of the situation is in fact virtually non existent and hardly anyone outside of the corridors of power and those at the front itself have an idea of the extent to which Sri Lankans have become causalities - in both a physical and mental sense

War has casualties, and what the Sri Lankan army is doing is something which should have been done a long time ago, an all out offensives to wipe out the LTTE who have over the last three decades brought so much misery upon all Sri Lankans. BUT this effort will be of no use unless there is solution to the core issues that brought us here.

That independent reporting is not allowed will more likely than not give rise to claims of severe civilian casualties, of atrocities, of gruesome deaths at the hand of the Sri Lankan armed forces. There is so much that 'Official' reporting can do after all

The most recent claim that of "The silent horror of the war in Sri Lanka" By Arundhati Roy

Understandably the GOSL has come back with a strong response questioning the source of her claims.

But is there getting away from the reality that Sri Lankan's are dying? If you happen to browse the site that carried Ms Roy's article, you will come across images most disturbing, of women and children and old people dead, killed in such a manner that screams out loud STOP!

Be warned, the images are disturbing, they are shocking to those of us cosy in our homes anywhere else but the theater of war

But it cant can it? And more people will die before this ends, more will be come traumatized and mentally disturbed before there is a light. I only pray that its not in vein, that at the end, we will find away to live together as Sri Lankans.