Our guests in this edition of call-in show, Hello Washington were Professor Ali Riaz , Chair in the Department of Politics & Government , Illinois State University, USA and Professor Anindya Majumder from the Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University, Kolkata.
In answering questions from our listeners Both Professor Riaz and Professor Majumder said that while we need to do away with terrorism because that is not the ethics under which a freedom movement is conducted, it has also to be noticed that the rights of the huge Tamil population in Sri Lanka should be protected. They said that terrorism in Sri Lanka was used as a strategy , rather than an objective.
Professor Ali Riaz and Professor Anindya Majumder drew subtle differences between the fight in Sri Lanka and the fight with other transnational terrorists elsewhere. Both the guests said that both in nature and spirit LTTE fighters were very different from Al Qaida or Taliban. Hence a different strategy is needed to combat transnational terrorism as well as other terrorists’ movements like JMB in Bangladesh.
Both Professor Riaz and Professor Majumder strongly refuted the suggestion that the Liberation War of Bangladesh could have degenerated into a terrorist movement had it lasted long. They said that both legal and ethical grounds were strong enough in favor of Bangladesh Liberation war , it started with the denial of democratic rights and the massive genocide of innocent people.
