Boston bombings: A taste of reality - Editorial

It was a comment in our dailymirror.lk website by a reader, in response to the Boston bombing story the web team had posted, which grabbed our attention. The reader had asked the US not to grumble about the bombing because terrorists have their own problems which compel them to commit acts like this. He or she further reminded the US that terrorists also have human rights and urged the US to settle the matter peacefully! But, despite the very progressive counsel by this Sri Lankan reader—the type of advice the US and other European countries had been generously giving to Sri Lanka when we were dealing with a ruthless terrorist organisation—US President Barack Obama promised to bring those who committed this heinous crime before justice.

It is clear that this Sri Lankan reader had put a lot of irony into his or her comment to bring out the double standards practised by the US when dealing with terrorism. If someone is deriving a wretched satisfaction of this bomb blast, as Sri Lankans we should all pity him. But if someone in the third world, Middle East or Latin America finds these

terror attack on the US amusing, we are certain they have their reasons to feel so.

According to CNN, three people including an eight-year-old child who was waiting for his father to finish the famous Boston marathon have succumbed, while over a hundred people have been injured. It was further reported that doctors have conducted a number of amputations on the injured.

For about thirty years, news items like this had been a part of everyday life to us, Sri Lankans. The only difference was that the numbers of the dead and injured were shockingly high. Civilians were massacred by the LTTE in public buses, trains, religious places etc. We presume not many Sri Lankans can recall more than two or three bomb attacks by the LTTE, simply because there were too many!

In fact, the world’s first bomb attack during a sporting event took place in Sri Lanka, where a national marathon champion and a government minister got killed.
As President Mahinda Rajapaksa very correctly told the United Nations Assembly once, there can’t be good terrorists and bad terrorists. Terrorists are terrorists and the US should comprehend that.

Though it has not yet been officially confirmed, the Boston bombings could be the deadliest terrorist attack on the US after 9/11. We Sri Lankans do feel the suffering and the mental trauma of those who underwent this attack and survived and of those who lost their loved ones, because we were undergoing the same for about thirty years.

Hence, it is high time for the US to drop its double standards on terrorism and stop intimidating countries like Sri Lanka who successfully crushed a terrorist movement and achieved peace. If the US keeps on pushing their political agendas ahead of the war against worldwide terrorism—treating every country grappling with terrorism on

equal ground—the unsuspecting American public may have to undergo many
more deadly terrorist attacks in the future as well.