COLOMBO, March 5: Sri Lankan papers have slammed the tendency in some quarters to use the 3/3 terrorist outrage against Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore, to demonise Pakistan and make it an international outcast.

“One should condemn the many TV spotlights attempting to demonise Pakistan. Sri Lanka too was at one time a victim of this ostracisation by countries, which affected our economy and damaged its good name,” said an editorial in the state-owned Daily News on Thursday.

Though no particular country or region was mentioned by the Sri Lankan papers, it was clear that the reference was to India, and to some extent the West, which slammed Pakistan for turning a blind eye to the scourge of terrorism and nurturing it for use against its neighbours.

“Those baying for Pakistan’s blood should instead strive to help that country out of its present predicament. These elements who are using Tuesday’s attack to drive a knife into an already battered and bruised nation should take a leaf out of Sri Lanka, which has conducted itself with equanimity towards a friendly neighbour despite being at the receiving end of a dastardly terror attack on its soil,” Daily News, which is the largest selling English language daily in Sri Lanka, said.

“Such name calling certainly would not augur well for regional cooperation that is often the byword at international summits. Besides, this can only antagonise Pakistan and place roadblocks in the campaign to defeat terrorism,” it added.

“No sooner had the Sri Lankan team been attacked that a sinister campaign was launched to discredit Pakistan, if some cynical remarks by certain regional and international TV stations were any indication. Let no contribution be made to that deplorable move,” said an editorial in the independent English language daily, The Island.

The best that Sri Lankans could do for a friendly but struggling country like Pakistan was to “avoid an adverse propaganda war”, the paper said.

Defending the Sri Lankan government’s decision to send the team to Pakistan when other countries like Australia and India had withdrawn, The Island said that Sri Lanka too had been boycotted earlier. An issue had been made of poor security in the island as a result of the war against Tamil Tiger terrorism. But Sri Lanka had gone ahead and organised several international events. In 1996, when many cricketing nations boycotted Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India had sent their teams to show the world that the situation in the island was not as bad as it was made out to be, the paper recalled.

“So it was Sri Lanka’s turn to stand by her all-weather friend, Pakistan, when she was invited to play cricket on the latter’s soil. And she did. Unfortunately, the least expected happened and now everybody is wise after the event,” The Island noted.

Recalling Pakistan’s role in helping Colombo maintain the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka in the face of Tamil Tiger separatism, the paper said that but for Pakistan’s support for Sri Lanka’s war on terror, perhaps there would have been no country for Mahela Jayawardene and others to represent in international cricket. It was because Pakistan had rushed Multi-Barrel Rocket Launchers that the Sri Lankan army was able to break the siege of Jaffna by the LTTE in 2002, the paper said.
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