ICG- Manufacturing Crisis
Our would be viceroy, Louise Arbour
The International Crisis Group issued a report. Lydia Polgreen of the NYTimes filed a report from New Delhi publicizing this analysis from Brussels. Which shows about how relevant this is to Sri Lanka. The basic allegation is that Sri Lanka’s conduct of the war was illegal. The recommendation is basically a UN occupation of the island to sort things out and prosecute the elected government. I thought this was over. It’s like a wedding anniversary with your ex-wife.
To quote a local idiom, ‘what are you talking, men?’ Yes there were horrors at the end of the war. Yes the truth was obscured. How do we get to it? International prosecution? That just buries everything further and makes it harder for the people that live here. The ICG’s response is just neo-colonial occupation that completely ignores the Sri Lankan people. May I quote:
An international inquiry into alleged crimes is essential given the absence of political will or capacity for genuine domestic investigations…
Across 15 points they essentially call for the UN and West to take over judicial functions in Sri Lanka, presumably prosecute and depose our elected government and then what, I don’t know what. This is, I think, neither realistic nor right.
They’re framing ending a war like it’s a war crime. They’re acting like the end of the war is something that should be prosecuted and, ideally, rolled back and done differently. I really don’t agree, I don’t know anyone that does agree and hence there is no ‘political will’ here for this external solution. Nor is there international will.
This is just bullshit posturing for their donors or whatever, it delivers no realistic result, it’s circulated within the same international circle jerk and has the end result of crying wolf and weakening possible responses when there is actually something they could do.
Louise Arbour of the ICG literally says ‘any national initiative in Sri Lanka would be bound to fail and certainly would carry no credibility’. Which I find astounding. Credibility with who? The diaspora, NGOs? Who exactly elected the UN here? The truth is precisely the opposite.
It must be a national initiative for it to have any credibility. And who is Louise Arbour? Can she even pronounce my name? I think there were atrocities that should be exposed and never repeated, but I support my elected President over impotent foreign intervention. And I didn’t even support him in the election. If people want to move on without proper reconciliation, then we need to organize people so that they do and care. It’s not something the UN can impose, nor is it something some random western funded ICG group can simply call for without any thought for the political will or mechanism of people on the ground.
What would I do instead? Dunno, but I think something more along the lines of a Truth And Reconciliation commission rather than a UN led investigation. The aim of the ICG seems to be punitive and setting example of Sri Lanka, literally “the need for an accounting to address the grievances that drive conflict in Sri Lanka, and the potential of other governments adopting the Sri Lankan model of counter-insurgency in their own internal conflicts.”
I don’t think this is especially worthwhile, especially if it involves prosecuting our existing stable government and replacing it with some UN protectorate. However, knowing the truth would be nice, offering compensation and apologies would be healing, etc. That’s only possible if people back off the impotent punishment and prosecution talk. There has to be immunity and some acknowledgement of the good that has come. And the ICG has to stop treating GoSL as an adversary if they want to get anything done. Or get guns and occupy a land that really doesn’t want them.
What will happen? Nothing much, we’ll move on and forget. The ICG will peddle its self-serving view and the GoSL will peddle their own. The truth is somewhere in between.
The ICG sounds like a joke. A quick glance at their board of trusties confirms this quite nicely. It’s difficult call yourself an NGO when the overwhelming majority of your trusties are former diplomats, politicians or soldiers. There are three deputy secretaries of state & two US national defence advisors, a four star general and an assortment of other politicians. Seriously!
All of that is partially besides the point. The government of Sri Lanka made a decision at that point in time that they will not back down because of the possibility of civilian casualties. This was a cognizant choice, a brutal choice, and in my opinion the correct choice. The alternative would be to play by the LTTE rules which would have protracted into a stalemate, and every tom, dick and harry from the international community would be doing there ga ga talk about reconciling with the LTTE. I still don’t see how this could have been any better for anyone involved because the Tamils would still be trapped with the LTTE. Soon enough the LTTE will be running out of supplies so they’ll start kidnapping all sorts of aid workers, steal food supplies and nothing would have changed.
Also these people are being hypocritical douches when they talk about war without collateral damage. When the allies fought the 2nd World War there were 1-3 million German civilian casualties, excluding the holocaust, and 600000+ Japanese casualties. Who do you think killed those people? on the tenth of march 1945 alone the american bombing of Tokyo killed 100000 people. And Hiroshima and Nagasaki were industrial centers, i’m sure the American did mean to see the little kids in those cities get vaporized but they died none the less.
I agree there are numerous problems with internationally-led human rights investigations and that these initiatives are likely to receive little support from the majority of the Sinhalese population. There are real questions marks surrounding the kind of impact this kind of investigation will have on the wider post-war reconciliation process, and I agree that the primary mechanisms to address these should be domestic (incidentally – I think ICG, HRW, Amnesty etc also recognise these points).
I think, however, that you are a little too sweeping in your dismissal the ICG report. First, they are not ‘framing ending a war like it is a war crime’, they are making quite specific allegations that the way in which both conflict parties conducted themselves in the final stages of the war. Second, they are not calling for the Sri Lankan government to be deposed, they are calling for an UN investigation into war crimes, initiated by the Secretary General. Third, I think the case for saying a domestic investigation won’t be credible is a strong one. You are right that different groups will judge credibility differently and for this reason, it is very difficult to see how many Tamil citizens from the North and East will be able to have much faith in a government-led process, particularly given this government’s track record of investigating abuses. Fourth, I think the evidence they present is serious and credible.
I think the primary reason behind the ICG’s decision to investigate and highlight these abuses is that there are a large number of Sri Lankan citizens who have experienced or witnessed abuses, but have no way of either voicing their grievances or seeking justice or recompense. On the contrary, as you are well aware, most of those who have spoken out have been jailed, tortured and in many instances killed. It would be better if these reports came from Sri Lankan groups, but I think it is not difficult to see why an organisation based in Colombo, Jaffna or Batticaloa does not engage in this kind of advocacy work.
The other main reason groups like ICG highlight abuses when they arise is with the aim of upholding international humanitarian law, which seeks to serves a wider purpose of inhibiting the global profusion of illegal wars and impunity. While I agree that in the short-term the pursuit of accountability and justice through these mechanisms may be unsuccessful (or at least may not make an obvious contribution immediately), in the long-term and by adopting a global perspective, the positive outcomes will outweigh the negative.
@Dave and others,
Reason 1:
“On the contrary, as you are well aware, most of those who have spoken out have been jailed, tortured and in many instances killed.”
This unfortunately is self perpetuated BS which is unrelated to the truth. It is either biased sampling or willful distortion, and if you don’t know you are being led up the garden path you know nothing about the games being played in Sri Lanka. My guess is you probably don’t know, or don’t have anyone to explain to you the subtexts of these claims. Which is very unfortunate.
We Sri Lankans make outlandish claims if there’s a benefit of doing so, and we do it in style. It would be only a fool or a foreigner who would take these at face value. Who now remebers the military coup that was going to happen in January, or, the fact that PE was rigged and the election commissioner was taken prisoner?
Reason 2:
“upholding international humanitarian law,.. inhibiting the global profusion of illegal wars and impunity”
This is an admirable goal, but why then choose Sri Lanka? Insecure nations like Sri Lanka are generally proxies for conflicts elsewhere, so why not start from the countries that orchestrate these conflicts, and are also the biggest rights violaters themselves in terms of numbers? So it is a question of ‘Who are they trying to kid?’. Pardon me, it sounds like ICG is making a virtue out of necessity.
Besides, these humanitarian laws evolved to their current state in countries that have had the luxury of time and money to to think about wars in terms of human suffering. Even for them it took many generations. Plus the fact that in recent times they didn’t have the kind of primordial terror Sri Lanka saw in the last 30 years. When USA briefly faced with terror on 9/11 they reverted to retaliation killing almost a million, and many European countries would not be any different.
The issue this report, and many others ignore, is that the war was fought in real time with a real enemey with no regard to the inevitable cost by both parties who had staked everything on its outcome. This ‘unwinnable’ war ended because of a coincidence of factors, and it never looked inevitable even a few months before the actual end. So like many other people I also think that any alternate ending would have cost more lives and limbs in the long run.
ICG wants to be seen as impartial, but this report shows that they already know the verdict.
If there were to be an open inquisition on the war, in all probability ICG’s backers and their counterparts would be exposed much more so than the few ‘expendable’ individuals in Sri Lanka given the international exposure this may have. So human rigthts show trial in Sri Lanka might not be a bad idea after all for the greater good. The world needs what ICG is doing, but we need them to do it with honesty.
So Dave, can you please make a list of the legal wars that have been fought so that people like my self can see the distinction?
Also, I’d like you to tell how you would have handled the situation any differently after the LTTE setup a human shield?
Thanks
If there is nothing to hide, then there is no reason why international / domestic investigation should not go on. But whats the chance of someone initiating this from Sri Lanka and not getting abducted or Killed? so this can only come from outside!
Not sure how far this would go, but I welcome the initiative. It is wrong for any goverment to kill innocent civilians! Now some of you will brag on about human shields & bull…but let the investigation go on…then we have a proof of what happened. If some one in your family get murdered, you don’t say…’oh! dead man is dead, let’s not mess up the current situation & look towards the future’….those people ordered & involved in mass killing & indiscriminate bombings should be brought to justice. We can’t let it go because some of you want to want to kiss their smelly back side!
And I like to know if Dodo was there at the situation when LTTE held people as human shields? or was he sitting on his lazy arse & reading censored state run news!
Evidence of what? Civilians getting shelled? we all know that happened. That doesn’t amount to war crimes, that’s just war.
I’m no expert, but designating an area as a humanitarian safety zone, and then bombing civillians while they line up for aid in that safety zone should be a war crime.
You forgot the bit about the the safety zone getting taken over by the LTTE and subsequently using civilians as a shield. What do you think the SL governments were at this point? Do you think the LTTE was going to wait for while and then surrender. Let’s face it the only way to resolve that situation was for either the SL to give up or fight the LTTE in the safety zone. If you had lived here for the past 20 odd years you will realize that the former was never an option. Which leaves us with the military option, and no matter how you cut it if you fight an enemy in a heavily congested area you will see large number of civilian casualties. Even with all the sophisticated precision weaponry of the American & NATO there were always alot of collateral damage where ever they fought wars. This is just an inescapable and sad reality.
Do people really believe that groups like the ICG give a flying fuck about civilians? 600 000+ civilians dead in Iraq in an illegal invasion but not a peep about that from the ICG and Louse Arbour. Wonder why?
Like I said earlier the ICG has three US deputy sectaries of state and two former US defense advisors in it’s board of trusties. Iraq is a no go for them
“‘any national initiative in Sri Lanka would be bound to fail and certainly would carry no credibility’. Which I find astounding. Credibility with who”
erm, if you recall the last commission of inquiry, which never published a report and from which the IIGEP withdrew – have a look at their statement here:
http://www.ruleoflawsrilanka.org/resources/IIGEPnbspSTM.pdf/view
Not to mention the many other failed police investigations, such as the killing of two boys in Angulana, the drowning of the madman in Bamba, the search for Keith Noyahr’s attackers etc
“Not to mention the many other failed police investigations, such as the killing of two boys in Angulana, the drowning of the madman in Bamba, the search for Keith Noyahr’s attackers etc.”
Rule of law is an interesting thing.
Sections of Chicago and New York have higher homicide rates than average for Sri Lanka. Many never get solved because Police are busy doing other things, and often these crimes don’t even get any public attention. In fact, parts of many American cities are not even patrolled by police, they have literally given up policing. So does that mean these cities have given up on rule of law?
It is easy to judge a country like Sri Lanka by focusing on bits and pieces, but that doesn’t serve the public interest. We have a limited amount of resources, and leveraging is the key. Of course nobody wants to pander to criminals but let’s not get bogged down on making sweeping judgements based on selected incidents and other unrelated agendas.
If you recall, those two boys were found dead after they were last seen in police custody. The madman was chased into the sea and left to drown by policemen from the Bambalapitiya station.
The authorities ignored both incidents until the residents of Angulana took to the streets and then appointed someone to inquire and then quietly shelved the matter. The culprits got away Scot-Free.
Also the ICG report on the Tamil Diaspora may be of interest:
http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/publication-type/media-releases/2010/asia/the-sri-lankan-tamil-diaspora-after-the-ltte.aspx
Indi, there are, as far as I can see, fifteen recommendations here:
http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-asia/sri-lanka/191-war-crimes-in-sri-lanka.aspx
Which of these do you read as calling for “a UN occupation to sort things out”? Now guaranteeing free access to the conflict area to UN-mandated investigators counts as an occupation?
For the record, I think the ICG’s recommendations are ill-advised and disastrously timed. For the first time in living memory – arguably in the history of independent Sri Lanka – an overwhelming majority of Sinhalese support a credible devolution of powers. This is a historic opportunity, and everybody ought to be doing everything in the power to push that process forwards. The worst possible thing anyone can do at a time like this is to publish a report like the ICG’s – Sri Lanka needs to look and move forwards, not backwards. There’ll be plenty of time for truth and reconciliation once a settlement has been reached. And, as TWOTD rightly points out, that the ICG’s not called for an independent enquiry into US war crimes in Iraq in any of the nearly 40 reports they’ve published on Iraq says a lot.
But still, there’s no call to distort what they say. What Sri Lanka *also* doesn’t need is more hatred of the international community – there’s plenty enough of that in circulation on the island as things stand, and that path leads to the Chinese embrace which is something you guys want to avoid.
This international-law hating, insular paranoia is super funny. There was nothing ‘colonialist’ about the UN and other countries banning the LTTE, was there? Same game, different player. You keep breaking the rules, you render yourself vulnerable, especially if you’re a little island with little or no natural resources. The international criminal law project needs an example to show that you can’t keep breaking the rules, and looks like Sri Lanka presented itself as a nice test case. That’s the cynical view. The optimistic one is victims, witnesses and communities need to know what happened, and there’s no space for truth-telling within the country. You know that Indi. So this is really about the people who suffered the atrocities, not those who, like yourself, supported them. Your protests are kinda irrelevant. Full accountability may or may not happen. But the pursuit of it, which is what the ICG has done, is commendable.
The UN never banned the LTTE, you retard.
The 1267 and 1363 regimes are implemented as bans by member states you retard. Let’s not get technical.
Fool, if they banned the LTTE, all UN organisations would have been prohibited from interacting with the LTTE. You call yourself a lawyer? Bwahahahaha!!
Did you cook that rule up just now? Never heard of a UN Charter provision or Resolution of the GA or SC that says that.
Has been a long standing rule, turd. The LTTE was NEVER banned by the UN.
If it was banned by the UN, Norway would not have even entered the scene.
long standing? haha. that’s a good one. when in doubt, say “long standing”.
^^ it’s certainly invasive and neo-colonial when the ICG tries to stuff standards down our throats that they can’t get their own countries to adopt.
but Sri Lanka has already agreed to those standards, so it’s just a case of implementing a multilateral contract in respect of one party. Sure implementation is lopsided, but when you sign up to treaties, you can’y cry blue murder, (and colonization), when people try to have them implemented.
Since when did we agree to these standards people getting caught in a crossfire
Since the day SL ratified the Geneva Conventions.
Geneva convention says nothing about collateral damage, after all NATO coined this term. The Rome Statues says Directly and intentionally firing on a civilian or civilians is a War Crime. That’s is all
Dodo: The ICG *is* talking about intentional damage, not collateral damage. The ICG’s saying that they have evidence (which they believe to be credible) that suggests the GoSL *intentionally* shelled civilians, hospitals and humanitarian operations and knowingly prevented adequate supplies from reaching trapped civilians. They also say that they have credible evidence that the LTTE *intentionally* shot and inflicted suffering on civilians, forcibly held and conscripted civilians and recruited child soldiers. They are not calling for prosecutions on the basis of the evidence they have, even though they believe it to be credible (and they are most certainly not calling for “a UN occupation of the island to sort things out and prosecute the elected government”) – they are calling for a proper impartial investigation of the allegations they’ve documented, and a *subsequent* prosecution if – and only if – the investigation reveals that war crimes were committed. If the army did not intentionally shell civilians, an impartial investigation will say that and that’ll be the end of it. If, however, an impartial investigation (and I stress, *impartial*) finds that civilians *were* intentionally shelled, I don’t see why there should be any objection to prosecuting those responsible.
That having been said, as I’ve said above, in my opinion, the ICG and others calling for an investigation need to seriously think about what it is the victims of the war really need – this sort of an enquiry so they can “know what happened”, or a fair settlement of the underlying conflict that meets their long-term needs. Because, although you’d be able to have both in an ideal world, in the context of contemporary Sri Lanka, going for option 1 will almost certainly destroy whatever chance there is of achieving option 2.
@Lotus eyes,
ICG makes these claims based on evidence they consider are legitimate. Well, unfortunately the new evidence is a rehash of the LTTEs positions during the war, and the same as propagated by many Tamil Ealamist fronts and are calculated to gain maximum traction with the West. Is there a war where an army faced a suicidal enemy and came away with a clean record?
And since government lacks any credibility with the West, selected nasty events have been dressed up to put the government in the most unfavourable light. Intention is very hard to deny, specially after the fact.
Casting Sri Lankan government as crazy cavemen is not hard any day of the week. Like Indi said our Sri Lankan NGO circles have made that in to a sublime artform (circle jerk… intellectual masturbation…). This is making the truth of what happened very difficult to find.
No doubt LTTE learned to manipulate humanitarian agencies to react in a predictable fashion. This softness encouranged Prabhakaran to use civilian sacrifice as a longstanding strategy in all his campaigns, not just the final one. The report conveniently overlooks that long history of blurring the boundary of fighter and civilian which LTTE did better than anyone else in the world.
Crux of the matter is what should an elected government do when faced with the choices that Sri Lankans faced.
Actually to be honest, I would really like to see an ICG style ‘humanitarian show trial’ in Sri Lanka if that means every conflict in the world is going to have a ’3rd umpire’. Just like in Cricket.
I think every army should fight on camera. Then We all get to judge sitting in our living room. That would be great television.
@I witness: The ICG’ve been pretty scathing about the LTTE in previous reports. For example, in their 2006 report on the collapse of the peace process they had this to say:
“Although the government promised an interim administration in the north east, run by the LTTE, this did not take into account the nature of the rebel movement, which continued to kill and silence opponents, recruit child soldiers and run the areas it controlled like a totalitarian regime. The LTTE was also unable to articulate a clear vision of its future. Its dream of a separate state – reiterated by its leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, in his 27 November 2006 annual speech – is unacceptable to the Sinhalese, and to the major regional power, India, and its rejection of democratic methods makes its eventual transition to pluralistic politics deeply problematic.”
And in a report from 2008:
“Much of the blame for the resumption in violence lies with the LTTE; its ceasefire violations and abuses of the population under its control pushed the government towards war. The Tiger strategy was to shore up internal support by provoking a Sinhala nationalist reaction; it worked, although the insurgents may come to regret their approach.”
That doesn’t give the impression of an agency easily manipulated by the LTTE – reading the ICG’s reports gives one an impression (or at any rate gives me an impression) of an organisation which fully understands the LTTE’s tactics and modus operandi. Which is why I think this report can’t be so easily dismissed as more propaganda.
I wish every Sri Lankan could share your confidence about ICG’s ability and commitment to feel their way through systematic misinformation around the war. I personally don’t think ICG wants to do that, but you probably think they do. Your quotes from ICG reports are good examples of how to maintain an image of impartiality but it is ICG’s actions that really speak the loudest. Being who they are, it is obviously in ICG’s interest to research and understand LTTE’s unorthodox tactics, considering that LTTE literally invented a new phase in modern terrorism. LTTE not only pioneered the casual suicide fighter, but it also pioneered the use of sophisticated propaganda for asymmetrical warfare. And if you are like many liberal Westerners (or just like play one like many reporters), you will have no clue that you are being suckered in to playing for the wrong guys for the right reasons.
One final comment. The ultimate problem is not about who wrote this final report, but it is about the highly tainted nature of the sources. In all honesty the ‘reality’ of the war that ICG wants to discover can only be addressed in the abstract, and I bet ICG knows that too. That is what makes this exercise as much about politics as about anything else to do with justice. It has been disgraceful to watch how the prejudices of those who mediate this information from Colombo inject their own agendas to the mix. Therefore when big foreign countries are taking an interest in the war like this, we can be sure that reasons beyond pure altruism are involved as well. The millions of people in Sri Lanka who had to live with this war didn’t have the luxury of waiting for ideal solutions, a fact our visitors tend to forget quite easily despite incidental mentions of the LTTE atrocities. If the international community had been interested in upholding humanitarian principles, the minimum they could have done is to arrest the cancerous growth of LTTE by curbing the billions of dollars sent here to keep this conflict going for 30 years. But they didn’t and we are here.
Anyway, I don’t know, maybe ICG should consider making that ‘Humantiarian TV Show’ on Sri Lanka. I’ll watch.
@I witness: I don’t know the ICG leadership, but I’ve met some of their footsoldiers and they are genuinely idealistic people who are actually keen to get around the disinformation – and, in relation to Sri Lanka, have no illusions about the LTTE. Of course, the final reports aren’t released by their case workers, and I have no idea about the extent to which politics influences the process at higher levels.
I’m not going to get into the long-term role of the West now – that’s a complex issue, and you’re quite right that the question of funding for terrorism in Asia and Africa wasn’t something countries in Europe or North America were particularly bothered about until after 2001. I would note in mitigation, however, that they bent over backwards to stop the flow of funds from the diaspora post-2006. Even Norway did.
@I witness
thanks for the comments and sorry for any hyperbole. Of course you are right to point out that there are complex subtexts attached to claims of human rights abuses, war crimes etc. The situation in Sri Lanka is hardly unusual in this regard. It seems to me that this is precisely the reason why an independent investigation is needed. As I said before, the claims in this report are serious and credible.
Thanks for responding.
“…the claims in this report are serious and credible.”
If I understand what you are saying, you agree that information may be inherently unreliable, but you still believe that ICG’s somehow managed to find “serious and credible” information. Wonder how they filtered out the misinformation and propaganda LTTE was very capably handing out?
One thing about credibility. Remember when Colin Powell went to the UN to convince the world that Iraq had WMDs. 7 years later we have a country in civil war, a region in chaos. All because, very serious, very credible people who had a lifetime of experience agreed that Saddam was developing WMDs.
But they were 100% wrong. Iraq didn’t have WMDs. What is justice to the many millions of innocents who are still paying the price of that mistake.
So much for serious and credible claims by foreign experts.
Dear I Witness,
1.The main thing here is – to investigate! Allegations have been made, we need independent investigations.
2.The police, which should be an objective and neutral body, that should investigate these things is filled with Sinhala extremists and will never do a job to bringout the-whole truth. That’s why we need independent investigations.
3. If the GoSL did a humanitarian operation what’s to hide? Why all the fuss?
Dear I Witness,
You are right about the U.S. case for war.
But independent investigations by the media have revealed some of the truth. For example: What Bush said in his state of the union address about ‘yellow cake(uranium) from Niger being sent to Iraq’ this was a lie, but thanks to investigations by the media or other sources some of the truth was able to come out.
As a Sri Lankan citizen, I ask for an independent investigation by a commission, appointed by the Public Service Commission. Thank you.
[...] his cats and pussies. But he seem to pull his head up these days. I am glad he wrote about ICG the crisis manufacturing company. Having said all these things, I do not hate anyone, I just do not agree with them. What prompeted [...]
This extinct bird makes me sick… Those were people you asshole. Human beings. Men, women, kids, hopes, dreams.
Why don’t you just go and vomit on your mother’s face if you feel sick, instead of farting here?
Blah blah blah, how about you make a point with yapping like an overweight twelve year old.
Any idea who is “manufacturing” the pictures? Isnt that your Hero Fonsy’s people?
Photos were taken by Sri Lanka Army. So they are the ones “manufacturing” this crisis for the Sri Lankan state, not ICG.
“Several of the photos also show what appear to be dead women in LTTE uniforms with their shirts pulled up and their pants pulled down, raising concerns that they might have been sexually abused or their corpses mutilated. Again, such evidence is not conclusive but shows the need for an investigation.”
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/05/20/sri-lanka-new-evidence-wartime-abuses
Which part of “such evidence is not conclusive” you don’t get?
To be fair, all these may have happened, but it was not because the Army went out in search of civilians to abuse in peacetime. LTTE was actively using every civilian in their control, children, women and old people, to fight to the death.
So if you want to blame someone, why don’t you start with the people you know who sent money and support to the LTTE to fight the dirtiest war in the world.
Dear I Witness,
1. the cause for this dirty war is the GoSL
2. the symptom is the LTTE
3. GoSL attacked and abused Federal Party MPs back in 1956
4. GoSL created a riot to attack innocent Tamils, back in 1958
what have you to say?
No the LTTE used those incidence as an excuse to do what they did. Not every Sinhalese supported the riots. infact, the overwhelming majority despised what had happened and a large number helped to hide the tamils when this was going on.
So even if the 50s’ Sri Lankan government created the riot, which is a blatant lie, this wouldn’t be an excuse to fight a war against Sri Lanka at large. Because the vast majority of us wanted to live peacefully & didn’t give two hoots about sinhala jingoism
Dear The Way of the Dodo,
Thanks for your reply.
1.
*How do you measure support?
*How do you know that a majority of Sinhalese didn’t support the riots?
*Because not everyone wants to do the dirty job since you would have to get your hands dirty.
*Some in the privy of their homes kept silent but supported it.
*Yes, you are right that many Sinhalese helped Tamils and safe-guarded them.
*Why didn’t the GoSL bring in measures to satisfy the grievances?????
*If grievances were satisfied then there would be NO LTTE!
2.
*Not only in the 50s but also 60s, 70s ,80s,90s and 2006!
*There have been smaller riots against Tamils and Muslims in these periods.
*You say blatant lie, but government officials have accepted this at least from Chandrika’s time
* When people are being killed for being Tamil, then Tamils will begin to rise up just like the Sinhalese, Muslims, and all other people.
*The GoSL after 1983 has been better at keeping a check on sinhalese hoodlums going berserk.
*In 2006 there were riots in Trincomalee where Sinhalese went on a riot after a bomb in a market and the armed forces(who were there every 10 meters) stood by and watched. HNB, the bank was attacked.
* How do you know vast majority wanted to live peacefully? Or do you mean wanted to dominate the Tamils peacefully???
How many Sinhalese have you met in your lives that actively condone the violence against Tamils in those riots? I have met none. Maybe that’s because of the people I associate, but that is why I believe that Sinhalese people at large didn’t support those actions. Have you ever seen Si Lankan politicians going on stage and saying we shouldn’t reconcile with the Tamils, do you think a Sinhala politician can get Sinhala support if he says something ethnically divisive. Even the JHU doesn’t dare go there. That alone shows the prevailing ethos in the country.
And no subsequent government has ever said the SLG cause those riots, I don’t know where that comes from. And caused is definitely the wrong word, yes it was a pathetic and shameful failure of government but that doesn’t mean they caused it. The US government failed to respond properly to Katrina, but that doesn’t mean they caused it.
As for grievances, while some grievances were definitely legitimate others were ridiculous in my opinion. Stuff like the protest against the universities act is obnoxious and exceedingly selfish. Were you expecting the government to keep an education system that completely excluded the overwhelming majority of its constituents? And I feel the same about the official language as well; running the country in English completely disenfranchised a large number of people. You can’t effectively run a country in two languages, one has to adapt this practical solution not a racial one. It’s not like the Malay & Burger people are talking about their own languages. They understood that living in a country requires a certain degree of conformity.
If all the grievances were satisfied the LTTE may not have sprung up but your augment borders on black mail. If the leader of American civil rights movement had taken the same militant stance as the one which you are describing do you think any progress would have been made over there? You talk about Sinhala domination, but where is this Sinhala domination. Are there laws prohibiting Tamils from getting jobs or into national universities? Do you see university acceptance rates of Tamils as being any less than their demographic percentages? Same goes for finding jobs, do you find Tamils being underrepresented in the Sri Lankan corporate society both at entry & management level? What about Doctors and Engineers, are Tamil underrepresented there? Are Tamils being underrepresented in the judiciary? What about sports, why are the racists Sinhalese allowing so many minority players to get into the national cricket team?
The ICG probably keeps making noise because of reasons stated in this:
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16167758
If there are no reprucussions for Sri Lanka over the way the govt. fought the way, it says to other countries that they can quash rebellions anyway they feel like it without worrying about civillian casualties. It’s a pretty dangerous precedent to set…
and really, if the Burmese junta is looking at you for inspiration, how fucked up must Sri Lanka be?
That argument is just a red herring. Civilian casualties in this conflict is pretty unlikely to be repeated.
How likely is it that a terrorist group like LTTE will turn in to a conventional military that can dominate a large territory. They systematically used the civilians, and in the final grand assault LTTE commanders treated civilians like a walking berm.
Anyways, LTTE had the worst suicidal tendency of any terrorist group, and by a long shot. Didn’t they use pretty unconventional tactics, like sending suicide formations in to battle, and everyone carrying a cyanide capsule to evade capture etc etc. We know how they trained hundreds of women and men suicide bombers to attack civilian targets. I am not sure any government in the world will face such a threat for some time.
LTTE counted on human rights groups to raise a stink, to put preassure on government. That was successful except when it didn’t, and that ended the war last year.
i didn’t mean this (sri lankan) conflict, but other states copying sri lanka’s tactics in their own internal conflicts (e.g. burma, thailand, india)
Sorry, what Sri Lankan tactics?
Let’s see, If you mean,
1. if your democratically elected governments are being pushed to the brink by a so called ‘invincible’ terrorist group, which had the covert support from the next door neighboour and the tacit support from every ‘liberal’ government in the West for 30 years
2. if you are constantly being condescended to by Western governments who preach that the only solution is political, even when all your democratic leadership is shellshocked in to paralysis by the constant fear of death from a suicide bomber,
3. Or, how about 3 powerful European foreign ministers wanting to visit the country to check up on the wellbeing of the terrorist leaders under the pretext of humanitarian concerns?
No, it won’t happen again.
No, I don’t think Sri Lankan conflict is going to be a model for anyone else to follow.
[...] ICG- Manufacturing Crisis [...]
@zion… I already did that on your mother’s face. Thanks for the suggestion anyway. (the other liquid I’m capable of producing, produced you)
Lame comeback. Try harder.
Your mom was the lame one, when she went back home crying after Lefroy spunked all over her ugly face.
@zion… I’m not gay. Ask the extinct bird.
So you admit, you’re a zoophile! :)
Which brings us to the proposition that Zion is an animal, given the axiom that the “other liquid you produce” produced him. Might I ask what kind of animal zion is? Is he a lion or an iguana?
Of course, this also means that Zion’s mom is either a lion or an iguana.
Louise Arbour looks like the stereotypical paedophile in this here picture.
In one of the novels I’ve read, “Rangouk”, was a Goblin. That explains his poor understanding of human languages.
What’d I say wrong? Enlighten me, oh great zoophile.
Or so does the goblin think.
You are a disgusting display of human slime. Bow down to the goblin and I shall spare thee.
The picture of the witch at the start of this post is scary.
Sorry to see that the last 2 weeks have seen at least three Indi posts licking the ass of Mahinda or the powers to be.
If you are doing this so you don’t want to die like Lasantha, we can understand.
Actually you can do that in a better way…write about something different. Write about photography. Write abt quantum mechanics. Write about the wonder of schrodinger’s cat. write about love. about confusion. about family. about srilankan landscapes. even about sex.
But, don’t write kissing somebody’s foot.
It doesn’t look good Indi.
Here’s an interesting development.
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Clinton-Prods-Sri-Lanka-on-Reconciliation-Commission-95128309.html
I guess no one really takes ICG seriously
I take them seriously!!!