Missing the boat: " Not all boats are tigers, but all captured ones are "

Recent stories about boats captured by both Indian and Sri Lankan military authorities are so dubious that we have piled up several convincing jokes on all the stealth stories of these captures and the destruction. Readers have a recollection of the recent increase in the so-called 'captured' and 'drowned' LTTE boats on the mainland as well as in the island's international waters. The claims stating that the boats belong to LTTE are quite hilarious.

In this article we produce some obvious questions that the news reporting agencies ignored. Do all of these boats belong to LTTE? In the following we found some interesting facts.

The anti-Sri Lankan Tamil newspaper, HINDU, reported on May 16th, 2007 the following:

Sri Lankan boat seized
Staff Reporter - The arrested include two Sri Lankan nationals RAMANATHAPURAM:

The `Q' Branch on Wednesday arrested six persons, including two Sri Lankan nationals, and seized a Sri Lankan boat with 50 bundles of beedis worth Rs.2.75 lakh and a van. Two 25 HP engines and another 1.5 HP motor engine were also seized. `Q' branch Inspector P.

Thiagarajan said they were arrested while trying to load the bundles onto the boat at Valangapuri near Thamaraikulam. Xavier (33) and Roshanth (23) of Pesalai in Sri Lanka, Gandhi (33) of Ponkulam, owner of the van, Baskaran (31) of Servaikara Oorani and Selladurai (23) of Thamarai Oorani in Ramanathapuram were among those arrested. They purchased beedi bundles from a shop owned by Zia-ul-Hag (47) of Ramanathapuram, who was also arrested.

How come the above boat captured by the so-called Q-branch does not belong to LTTE? This was the only time in the history of the HINDU newspaper that they reported on captured boats belonging to Sri Lanka and not to LTTE.

Smelling a rat in the story, our staff officers called the HINDU newspaper to clarify the obvious and the Hindu newspaper refused to discuss the matter.

So was LTTE smuggling beedi bundles to its war-weary military officials? If not, how come the non-LTTE boat stories are always written by a staff reporter of the HINDU newspaper?

The answer reveals some interesting facts from the HINDU newspaper and other news agencies.

We counted more than 75 news reports on the so-called mid-sea battles encountered by both Sri Lankan and Indian military officials with LTTE during the last one year period.

One wonders: is LTTE really into the business of boat making rather than a self-determined fighting machine against a terror state?

And very recently, on May 17th, 2007 the news was buzzing again and this time the tiny coastguard of Maldives swung into action.

The Associate Press states, "The Maldives coast guard Thursday sank a boat suspected of ferrying arms for separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in neighboring Sri Lanka - and captured five men", a government spokesman said.

Maldives, an archipelago of 1,200 coral islands, is located 400 nautical miles (740 nautical kilometers) southwest of Sri Lanka - But before long the story takes another turn.

Reuters reports: "However, one man who threw himself overboard before the clash and surrendered spoke the south Indian language Malayalam and not Tamil, and officials were treating the alleged rebel link with caution."

So one wonders: are all the boat stories really true or not? Should the news agencies report on something that has no news value rather than just a rumor, should the news agencies ask the obvious questions from these so-called governments which are claiming victory over sea battles?

What are these vessels doing? At any given time there are thousands of marine vessels moving in and around the globe in international waters and the ones that are sunk are always LTTE vessels.

And the pathetic news agencies reported it as if they were news worthy and therefore they, too, profit from making news.

All in all, if you believe the tall tales from these news agencies, one thing is clear: not all boats are Tigers but the ones destroyed and captured are.

Now that is no coincidence. Interestingly, during the arms surrender by the militant groups soon after the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan accord, the late President Ranasinghe Premedasa asked the obvious, "How come we have so many weapons here and how did they all come here?" And now we know they all came from the sunken ships down in the deep ocean.

Source: Tamil Canadian