Broken News

Newspaper reports of an alignment of stars favourable to the government of Sri Lanka had a profound effect on the LTTE yesterday. The Daily Mirror had earlier quoted a leading astrologer as saying ‘The same configuration of stars occurred on February 4, 1948, which as we all know was the day that we gained independence. In harmony with the re-occurrence of the same star change we can expect a good period for the country. This could be a phase that sees the control of terrorism and general re-establishment of law and order within Sri Lanka’s borders’. The news sent shockwaves through the LTTE and within hours, they surrendered.

In a press release, the LTTE explained their surrender stating ‘When it comes to battlefield success, our weapon stockpiles and the fanatical devotion of our cadres are irrelevant when compared with the influence exerted by the subtle movements of large balls of gas hundreds of millions of miles away (tracked by men without telescopes)’. However, the notice of surrender was withdrawn this morning after it was learned that the auspicious time for an LTTE surrender was sometime in the year 2014.

The Sri Lankan Armed Forces announced yesterday that they were disbanding their intelligence units and would instead rely on the country’s media for the gathering of strategic information. Military spokesman Brigadier Suresh Wijedasa justified the move saying, ‘If you take the LTTE’s attack on the Galle Naval base last Wednesday, that attack was a surprise to everyone except for the readers of the Daily Mirror who that same morning read a front-page article about suspicious boat movements off the Southern coast. And the Situation Report in the Sunday Times has a far better account and analysis of LTTE troop movements than is available within the Forces. Clearly these journalist types know something that we don’t”.

Retired Army Commander Stanley Attygalle confirmed that such an approach was not new, commenting, “We tried something like this before; stepping down our intelligence divisions and instead using the media for military updates. The strategy might have worked if not for the fact that we chose the Daily News as our source of information; as a result, most of our officers stopped fighting as they believed that the war had already been won.”

After more than 50 years of bitter conflict, Sri Lanka’s two warring parties; the Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United National Party (UNP) have agreed to co-operate. The agreement marks the culmination of a series of peace initiatives by the government aimed at ending the hostilities that have plagued Sri Lanka since independence. UNP supremo Ranil Wickremasinghe said today, ‘We believe this agreement is the best way to safeguard the interests of our people; like anybody else, the people of the UNP crave peace, security and ministerial appointments (with perhaps a luxury Range Rover or two thrown in)’.

SLFP supremo Mahinda Rajapakse confirmed the pact and said, ‘the government is now free to focus on that other Sri Lankan scourge; terrorism. With the UNP’s help we hope to defeat once and for all the terrorist group that has terrorised this nation for the last three decades – mark my words, the JVP will be destroyed’.