The Nihilism Of The LTTE
Wow, you suck. Background image from the Fonseka bombing.
Today an LTTE suicide bomber blew herself up among refugees fleeing the warzone. Tamil refugees. They say 60 are wounded and an unknown number killed. What’s the point? At one point the LTTE’s destruction at least awed, like the Central Bank bombing. Now they just kill with no content, no end, and no point. Just small numbers that change nothing except for ending and ruining a few very real lives. Their mediocre ideologues are dead and now only the assassin and terrorist is left, and all he has to offer is destruction. Worst of all, in addition to failing to deliver anything for the Tamil people, the LTTE has enabled the Sinhala powers to frame this as a ‘with us or with terrorists‘ debate, thus marginalizing moderates of every stripe. So good fucking job guys. Congratulations on blowing up a bunch of Tamil refugees.
The LTTE is bad. They should be eliminated. The elimination can be crude like this or it can be subtle like the splintering off of the East via Karuna and the eventual buying off of other factions. Personally, I think that the LTTE could be eliminated without killing journalists and indefinitely suspending freedoms for Tamils and everyone else, but Prabhakaran himself enabled this path of war. You have to remember that Prabhakaran effectively voted for war by preventing people in the North and East from voting. So he chose this path. You have to wonder why, but now I think it makes sense. The LTTE is simply a nihilistic organization like Al Qaeda. It’s not designed to actually win anything, it’s just a sore loser. They slaughter to make a point, but never to win one.
And so you get LTTE suicide bombers, blowing up refugees. Presumably so they’ll be scared to cross over, so the LTTE can use them as human shields. God knows I don’t agree with the war fever and arrogance of power in my own government, but the empty nihilism of the LTTE, the callous disregard for ‘their’ own people. It’s something else.
Good post. Agree with pretty much everything.
It can be argued that the LTTE really hasn’t achieved anything at all in its 30 year history. A counter point might be to say that the 13th amendment and the provincial council system was a response to their fight, but they rejected it and it seems unlikely that they are going to be around to even enjoy that limited degree of regional autonomy.
There’s a genocide on you know. Look forward to a post on that in a few years time, when the world wakes up to the horrors it permitted, in the age of universal human rights. Or maybe not. The Armenian genocide has been conveniently forgotten, and given that there is no chance of journos allowed to take pictures in the wards of the Vavuniya hospital where women who are being systematically raped are being kept and forced to sign forms saying that the LTTE cadres raped them, and given that there are no pictures or reports even on the conditions of those in the camps set up for those who have been ‘liberated’, and given that we will never know the exact numbers of those who will have been killed in those camps because no one is being let in, not even the relatives of the ‘liberated’, and given that no journos are allowed into the Vanni jungles where hospitals are being targetted, perhaps this edition of the Sri Lankan genocide will also be conveniently forgotten.
Yes, the LTTE are really fucked up. No doubt about that.
Way to go on trivializing the term genocide.
Its funny, you find it hard to believe…as a Tamil…I find it harder to believe. As I sip my latte, and get a bit nostalgic look through pictures of paradise….this is too far from my reality and too unbearable to even imagine. A sinhalese friend with connections in the north and east is beyond frustrated that even Tamils are not willing to face the reality that some of these reports are not far from the truth. Today I am waking up to this reality as news from independent sources trickle through into cyberspace.
Just to make it clear…I am afraid anon’s comment is far from being a hysterical rant.
The Sri Lankan people are in dreamland. While people focus on the LTTE…the demolition of the Sri Lankan state and what it was supposed to stand for in the minds of its people is being conducted by its own government. Further more with this bloody millitary campaign, Sri Lanka is on its way to becoming a fertile ground for arms dealers and extreme, right-wing sectarian groups that could be far worse than a secular group such as the LTTE. The people of India are about to elect an extreme right-wing hindu government and flames of right-wing hindu sentiment and muslim sentiment are about to be re-kindled. You cannot assume that this will not spill over into neighbouring countries.
Isn’t it nice to have had the LTTE routed?