Mahinda On War Deaths
Photo from New York Times
Interviews with Mahinda Rajapakse are not so rare. Last week he’s been interviewed by TIME and the New York Times, the latter managing to file the story from a Cheddikulam dateline. What’s rare in the interviews, however, is any mention of the Sri Lankan dead. In fact, he repeatedly denies any civilian casualties or any violation of civil rights. This is, prima facie, false. I have personally seen a lot of people injured by shrapnel and almost all mentioned dead family, often from the same blasts. For Mahinda to say “Seven thousand? No way. In the eastern province, zero casualties. I won’t say there are zero casualties in the north. The LTTE shot some of them when they tried to escape” is simply not true. More to the point, it doesn’t help the grieving families or national reconcilation.
Whatever has happened in this war and for whatever benefit, people have died. Many innocent people have died, including many innocent civilians. I think the number is in the thousands, but I really don’t know. It certainly isn’t zero. I mean, I personally know a few wives, husbands and children who sorely wish that number was true. But it’s not.
Sri Lanka has ended this war in one of the most brutal ways imaginable. To quote Robert Kaplan (who’s been here and who I consider relatively well-informed and pragmatic):
The insurgents are using human shields? No problem. Just keep killing the innocent bystanders until you get to the fighters themselves.
Bad media coverage is hurting morale and giving succor to the enemy? Just kill the journalists.
The international community disapproves of your methods and cuts off military aid because of the human rights violations you’ve committed? Again, no problem. Get aid from China
So is there any lesson here? Only a chilling one. The ruthlessness and brutality to which the Sri Lankan government was reduced in order to defeat the Tigers points up just how nasty and intractable the problem of insurgency is.
TIME also sums it up as ‘Brute force works, negotiations don’t, collateral damage is acceptable, critics should shut up – or else.’ And then they’re all like America could never do this, or this is the wrong lesson to learn or whatever. Which is like, OK. The estimated civilian deaths in Afghanistan are like 12,000-31,000. And the violent deaths in Iraq are estimated between 150,000 and 1 million. Holy shit. And historically people seem to die in war, but I digress.
I think these guys are being a bit disingenuous. War is shite. It can still be right. However, as leader of Sri Lanka I think Mahinda should acknowledge that people have died. So we can mourn as a nation and move twoards reconcilation.
“Mahinda should acknowledge that people have died” – I am sure he does, not sure if it came out clearly in these interviews, but anyone who knows about a war will have to accept it. But the difference here is that SL army didnt kill any civilians for the sake of killing or for being of a certain race. Everyone knows and saw clearly that it was SL army that treated civilians to get out of LTTE grasp. This is something these innocent civilinas couldnt do for 20 odd years. So, it was clearly and as eveyone agrees, a war against terrorists, SL forces loved the civilians, they still do love them, however, as with any war, there will be a few helpless casualities. Thats all, the nation has moved on is reconciling and Tamils are happy, everyone is happy! :)
The more important thing is not ‘Mahinda should acknowledge that people have died’ but “you, we , sinhalese, tamils, muslims and the whole world should acknowledge that Mahinda defeated the threat against human kind in Sri Lanka” Ayu bo wewa maha rajaneni!
example: I am terribly sorry I ran over your mother. I was attempting to apprehend a serial killer. Surely, you can become a hard utilitarian for just a few decades and suck it up, no?
Because, as you have no doubt heard, Saddam would have killed all of those Iraqis anyways so it’s worth the million or so who died to make a change for the better, i.e. without Saddam. It’s magic! I swear!
what does it matter…if MR acknowledges it u people start another line in MR bashing
I think in the current world situation any leader will not dumb enough to accept even a single civilian death, unless one of them have complete meltdown like Mervin Silva. Then that is a deferent story. It is the cookie jar and the kid story. We all know the kid going to eat the cookie and we know he eat it too while we are looking away and kid knows we knows that too, but the kid have to keep on denying it to avoid punishment.
I agree that he needs to acknowledge that civilians died…if not now when the wounds are fresh then later when normalcy has been restored and we have time and space for introspection. I am still filled with wonderment when people imply that there is a non-brutal way to conduct a war. Do they have such an example of a successful war that was conducted cleanly and surgically (also taking into account the fact that we don’t have predator drones, etc)?
I still hear a lot of fancy footwork around peoples graves.
We should at least admit that these people are dead. Just acknowledge that they are dead without qualifying it. Everybody deserves a decent burial. Every family deserves some closure.
Indi, I commend you on pursuing this, but let me tell you, to a child that has lost a mother, to a mother that has lost a child – there is no closure, just unending pain that slowly submerges but is never gone.
Of course, some official recognition of the pain (and of reality) would be good.