By Dayan Jayatilleka –
Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka
One good turn deserves another. Just as Mark Salter commends his book to me, I’d like to return the favor and commend one of mine that would provide a different perspective on the war and negotiations, namely ‘Long War, Cold Peace’ (Vijitha Yapa, 2014).
Salter is guilty of more than one category error. One is confusing terrorism with fascism. All terrorism is not fascist, but all fascism is terrorist. As Prof Walter Laqueuer, a world-renowned expert on fascism observed in his book The New Terrorism, which I quoted from and Salter chose to ignore, the LTTE was located at the interface of terrorism and fascism. When the war ended, The Economist noted that the Tamil Tigers were “almost classically fascist”.