The peace initiative in Sri Lanka was dealt a deathly blow on 10 March, when the Tamil Tigers launched an explosive attack on the ceremonial state drive leading to Parliament in Colombo. As frightening as the results were—the blast cost no less than 29 lives and many wounded—it could have been worse.
The target was a motorcade returning to Colombo from Parliament after the passing of the defence votes in this year's budget and the monthly renewal of the state of emergency that has been in force for several years. The Tigers had assembled a killer squad of at least six suicide bombers and an arsenal that included general-purpose and multi-purpose machine guns, light anti-tank weapons, 40-millimetre grenade launchers and as many as six claymore mines. Had they succeeded in hitting the VIP motorcade, the victims could have included cabinet ministers, officers of the armed forces, police chiefs and many more. As one newspaper columnist put it, they would surely have stunned the nation and shocked the world.
But god smiled down on the VIPs, though not on lesser mortals who were victims of the carnage. It all began when the occupant of a tumbledown overgrown lot overlooking the state drive alerted the police upon spotting some activity by persons he thought were drug addicts. Three policemen who arrived to check out the place were gunned down by the militants who were thus forced to prematurely unleash their attack. While the targeted VIPs, including Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte who runs the war for the Colombo government, lived to tell the tale, the authorities were left to mull over the reality that the Tigers had been able to smuggle in enough men and material that would have successfully broken through the defence cordons of almost any of the vital installations in Colombo.
As one of the country's well-known LTTE watchers put it: "The Tiger plan on that day was uniquely unprecedented… The wholesale destruction of the upper echelons of the defence establishment was the objective…"