Responsibility To Protect Does Not Apply in Sri Lanka Situation
by Jorge Heine
Lakshman Kadirgamar, the former Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, was one of the most incisive legal minds of his generation. A former president of the Oxford Union, he made significant contributions to the ILO and the World Intellectual Property Organisation, among other entities. Whoever met him, as I did, could not help but be impressed with his knowledge of international affairs, his passion for peace in his homeland, and his razor-sharp intellect.
An ethnic Tamil, he was proud to serve as Foreign Minister in the Cabinet of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, a Sinhala, though he knew in so doing he put his life on the line. And, like so many others of the best and brightest Sri Lankan Tamils of our time, he paid for it dearly. He was gunned down one evening in August 2005 in his own home in Colombo, by a sniper using an infra-red-telescope-equipped rifle. As customary, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), one of the deadliest and bloodiest terrorist organisations ever seen, never acknowledged authorship, though it is widely accepted no one else could have pulled off such a complex, high-tech task.
As terrorist attacks spread from Baghdad to Bombay to Baluchistan, and the Afghan war spills into Pakistan, one would think that the end of the 25-year-old war in Sri Lanka in May 2009 would be widely greeted. In the South Asian cauldron, where for too long India has been the only anchor of stability, one war less to contend with is a great relief.
Moreover, the LTTE, banned in 32 countries, was among the worst terrorist outfits. Combining moral turpitude with high-tech savvy, it invented the suicide bomber-vest, pioneered the deployment of female suicide bombers, excelled in the recruitment of child-soldiers, killed one President at home and a former Prime Minister abroad, and developed the extortion of the Tamil communities abroad to a high art, accumulating, according to some estimates, a $ 300 million to $ 400 million war chest. Uniquely, it set up both a Navy and an Air Force, and a specialised suicide bomber unit, the so-called Black Tigers, whose career high point was the “last meal” (vegetarian) they had with LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabakaran before departing for their final mission .
The LTTE’s end should thus be welcomed. Yet, inexplicably, instead of being praised, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been criticised in many western quarters, particularly in Scandinavia and in western Europe. Even before the war was over, the Sri Lankan government was under pressure to allow a ceasefire — presumably to allow the LTTE high command to escape unharmed from its last bastion, on a small sliver of land behind a lagoon in Sri Lanka’s Northern tip, Wanni region.
As usual, the LTTE used human lives as a shield, and surrounded its high command with some 275,000 civilians. The LTTE heavy artillery was set up in the midst of this civilian population. It was to protect those innocent civilian lives that the Sri Lankan government would suspend for a few days the ongoing military operations, first on January 29 and 30 and then on April 13 and 14. Yet, it found that, on doing so, the flow of civilians out of the LTTE-controlled area would diminish from the 1000 or so a day who would escape regularly, as the Tigers, freed from the need to return fire, were able to turn their guns on these innocent hostages.
Even so, and responding to the concern of the United Nations, represented in situ by the U.N. Secretary-General’s chef de cabinet, Vijay Nambiar, as late as early April, the Sri Lankan government was prepared to compromise. A preliminary understanding was reached: the U.N. team would be allowed to go into the LTTE-controlled area, under the auspices of the World Food Programme, to negotiate an end to the conflict, offering full amnesty for the rank and file of the Tigers, and due process of law for their leaders.
This was overtaken by events. On April 20, the Sri Lankan Army broke the security perimeter of the LTTE area, and in 72 hours 105,000 civilians managed to escape, even under Tiger fire. From there on, things moved fast. On May 18, it was over.
The argument has been made that the international community, invoking the concept of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), should have intervened to stop the fighting earlier, since “the Sri Lankan government is as responsible as the LTTE for civilian deaths.” Others, like my good friend and former Norwegian official, Vidar Helgesen, have argued that the outcome of the Sri Lankan conflict shows “conflict resolution the Post-American Way,” one in which the brute use of force would replace “emerging international norms and architecture for human security, the responsibility to protect, peace mediation, peace-building, etc.,” making them “obsolete before they even got started.”
The resolution of the Sri Lankan conflict would thus fall into the same category as tragedies such as the Rwandan genocide, the Srebrenica massacre, and the “killing fields of Cambodia.” The first task now, therefore, would be an international investigation into what happened, and how to allocate responsibility for eventual war crimes or crimes against humanity between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE.
This does little favour both to Sri Lanka and to the very valuable Canadian–initiated concept of R2P, one of the most exciting and innovative notions in IR and international law today. R2P has triggered resistance in many countries of the Global South precisely because of its potential misapplication to situations such as the Sri Lankan one.
In Sri Lanka, what obtained was a straightforward civil war, initiated by a separatist, terrorist organisation, which cost up to 70,000 lives during the quarter century it lasted. During its duration, Sri Lanka remained a full-fledged democracy: five general elections were held, and the government changed hands three times, though the LTTE killed one President, at least one Foreign Minister, and the Army Chief barely escaped from another suicide bomber.
Though the war took its toll, press freedom suffered, and human rights violations were committed on both sides, the most remarkable thing is how well Sri Lanka’s democratic institutions withstood the terrorist onslaught. Parliament had to be moved from its prime location in downtown Colombo, overlooking the sea, to the suburbs — to a building that, like a medieval fortress, is surrounded by water to protect the country’s elected representatives from suicide bombers — this in a country with such a peaceful tradition that it did not even have an independence movement: Britain granted it independence in 1948 almost as an afterthought, after India’s the year before.
During these 25 years, Sri Lanka called on the international community for help through a variety of peace-mediation efforts, both from India and the Scandinavian nations. All of them were taken advantage of by the LTTE to continue to pursue its objectives of a separate, independent Tamil Eelam through its policy of indiscriminate killing of all those it considered stood in its way, be they Sinhala or Tamil, and thus came to naught. Time and again, as early as 1987, the LTTE rejected the many offers just short of independence that were made. Not surprisingly, after some two decades of this, President Rajapaksa realised that only a military solution could bring peace to Sri Lanka.
One of the great successes of the LTTE was its manipulation of western public opinion. It masterfully played on the identity politics prevalent in advanced democracies, and stayed away from targeting non-Sri Lankans (except, of course, closer to home, Rajiv Gandhi, which was its undoing). Prabakaran died with a side arm in one hand and a satellite phone in the other, gambling to the last minute that the international community would rescue him and his acolytes.
While 64 years after the end of the Second World War the Allies continue to celebrate with great fanfare the end of a war that lasted six years, Europeans now have the nerve to accuse the Sri Lankan government of engaging in “triumphalism” — this a bare month after ending a war that lasted 25 years and inflicted great suffering on Sri Lanka.
The main task for the international community today is to help Sri Lanka in its reconstruction effort in the North and the East, and in addressing the very legitimate grievances of the minority Tamil community. The last thing South Asia needs is a finger-pointing exercise aimed at questioning the Sri Lankan state’s legitimate right of self-defence and of using military force to respond to a separatist uprising to protect its territorial integrity. To confuse this with a genocidal exercise like that of Rwanda would have made the international lawyer in Lakshman Kadirgamar cringe.
The end of the Sri Lankan conflict should be seen for what it is: a victory of one of Asia’s oldest and most established democracies over one of the great scourges of our time: terrorism.
(Jorge Heine holds the Chair in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and is a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Waterloo, Ontario. He served as Chile’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka from 2004 to 2007.)
24 Comments
A very good analysis that shines among shit load of crap presented nowadays as enlightened thoughts from the West.
Right wing crap load, what about Tamil minority's right of self-determination? Writer only articulate George Bush's 'War-on-Terror' ideology that gave States license to kill people in the name of fighting terrorism
I have never seen such a clear articulation of ignorance of what is happening in Sri Lanka. The need for the right to protect is increasing by the day. The end of the LTTE is clearly not the end of fascism in Sri Lanka. The next few weeks will show just what things have come to.
.
Very poor half baked analysis. Some people do analysis just by reading other analysis.
Please talk to the affected people.
I wonder, if LTTE is good at manipulating western countries as this author says, how come 32 nations banned LTTE?
If civiians escaped from clutches of LTTE as this author says, how come during peace time people did not escape? Did the people escape from LTTE or they just ran away from shelling and bombing?
:-)
Mr.Heine represents the ignorant, statist, establishmentarian view of this war, much the same way many in the Indian establishment view it. Little wonder,then, that The Hindu gave prominence to this article, while downplaying human rights atrocities, the white van abductions, the executions, including that of Wickrematunga, the incarceration of Tissainayagam and attacks on Poddala Jayantha, the unnecessary slaughter via the use of heavy weapons at the last stages of the war, etc. In the warped minds of Mr. Ram and Mr. Heine, all these point to "how well Sri Lanka’s democratic institutions withstood the terrorist onslaught." Is Mr. Heine really so stupendously ignorant or a charlatan who comes from Pinochet's Chile?
The R2P doctrine should be held sacrosanct and Sri Lanka was a clear case where the international community failed to uphold this doctrine. Tamils, espeically Canadian ones, should bombard Mr. Heine at his university offices with facts and figures and expose him for being such a charlatan. R2P must be made an inviolable, sacrosanct concept. In a secular-humanist world, it should be upheld almost religiously. These charlatans who say otherwise should be isolated and exposed relentlessly, regardless of the positions they hold.
From the contents of this article, you can guess from where this author is coming from!! If Sri lanka is called a "democracy", then every country in this universe can be called a democracy!!! The authour has not mentioned anything about the killings done by the government!! Mr. Pararajasinham, Raviraj, Maheswaran, Lasantha, The 17 aid workers, 5 trincolmalee students, teenage girl Chrisanthy and her entire family and neighbours, several thousand other Tamil civilians. No mention of the white van which prowls around Colombo amid security check points at every nook and corner and abducts, tortures and kills Tamil men and women for ranson or political reason. No mention of political prisoners held without charges for years!! The latest joke is the imprisonment of a astrologer who predicted the change in the government in the near future!! No mention of schools, hospitals, civilian properties and livelihoods destroyed by aerial bombardment for the last twenty years in the North and East!! If these acts c an be called a democratic act then the authour must be living in a different planet!!
No mention of the several pogroms against the Tamils organised and unleashed by the Government since 1956!! No mention of how the government helped to swell the ranks of LTTE by its action against the un-armed innocent civilians since 1956. Tamils who were affected by the aerial bombardment, killings, torture, imprisonment, rape, robbery, arson joined willingly.
If the government is not guilty of GENOCIDE it should allow interanational bodies into the camps to find out the truth about the final days. It should allow free movement of the people "imprisoned in the concetration camps"!! Why is the government afraid of truth!!!!
Jorge Heine has FAILED TO STATE WHAT WAS LAKASHMAN'S SOLUTION for the " in addressing the very legitimate grievances of the minority Tamil community
Jorge Heine you are talking so much about territorial intergrity of the Sinhala nation, How about the territorial integrity of the Tamils ? They have been Displaced into camps encircled by barbed wire fences and Sinhalese army.
In the end Kadigamar's ideology (I stand to be corrected but I reliably understand federal structure or solution within united SL was Kadigama's solution ) and loyalty to Srilanka did not prevail. If the current situation then existed even the Oxford educated intellect as claimed by Jorge Hein, would not have able to ban LTTE in so many countries.
It is the Gotha- Sartah Ideology of conquering North and East in colloaboration with the Indian trio and the rest of IC that prevailed in the end.
Jorge Heine what a joke when you say "To confuse this with a genocidal exercise like that of Rwanda would have made the international lawyer in Lakshman Kadirgamar cringe."
You did not utter a word about the Tamils who went through so many periodic cringes before 1983. Further the permanent cringe for Tamils have started again with Gotha- Sarath army establishing permanent army camps to occupy the NE for ever with the help of India, China and the IC.
Everybody knows Mahinda regime is struggling badly in the economic front and need aid from the West and the East and in particular from the West.
Are Jorge Heine in chorus to prop-up Mahinda regime economically first by ignoring the execesses Gotha-Sarath carried out on the Tamil civilians so that IDP issues and political solution can be dragged on to frustrate the Tamils further and give up their legitamte struggle even through democratic peaceful means ?
If Mahinda regime survives and thrives the Indian Trio and their mis-deeds to can be burried in the sand for ever like the un armed Tamil Civilians who perished because of the war and the excesses carried out by the parties involved in the war.
I am suprised to read that a person claiming to be an expert on good governance attempting to whitewash killing of innocent Tamil civilians by the Srilanka Government.The biggest terrorist organisation in Srilanka is the Government and its security forces. Under the guise of fighting LTTE, they have committed atrocities against the Tamil people, which could be proved if there is to be an international inquiry. Government has paid scant respect to the lives of the Tamils leave alone their properties. Law has to be equal to all and no one including the President of Srilanka should be above the law. There is an accusation against certain government officials of committing war crimes and they should be brought to justice soon. Perhaps the writer could use his good offices to make this happen. His ignorance of what happened in Srilanka is evident in his statement that the Parliament was shifted to prevent attacks form LTTE. The former one built in Greeko-Roman style by the sea was inadequate to house the rising number of deputies. Also the capital was shifted from Colombo to Kotte ( SriJayawardenapura) and hence a new one wss built there in the Sinhala style in a picturesque location in the middle of Diyawanna lake. So please get the facts correctly before writing such falsehoods.
Its obvious the author is a pen for hire.
No obvious insight into the past or present situation of Sri Lanka.
He does not deserve the space to publish his "Analysis"
For sometime now I have felt GoSL is hiring the support of costly Washington-based Lobbyists to boost its declining HR image and its growing paranoia of possible War Crime charges.
Those who had provided notes to the writer have not been too fair by him – as one sees many holes in spite of his being here for sometime as the Chilean Ambassador. He foregoes his role as a neutral commentator as there is no reference at all on the attacks, de-housing and other crimes on nearly a million Tamils, Concentration camps, mass murder of Tamil civilians in the country in the last 3 and more decades – something even a novice student of the Lankan story does not fail to note initially.
Few question the war on the LTTE but our friend fails to censure collateral damage and civilian casualties in the conflict zone, which is the point at which the entire world’s condemnation finds convergence. Neither does he make comments on a Govt firing missiles from the air, sea and land that can kill or maim its own civilians and widely condemned by the whole world.
The ex-Ambassador misdirects himself in crediting paternity for R2P as “Canadian-initiated” I am afraid Gareth Evans, the ex-Aussie F/M, will take issue with him for the world recognizes GE as the father of R2P. He is completely off the mark, despite his long stay here, when he wants the world to believe our “Parliament had to be moved” from Galle Face to J’pura/Kotte, “to protect the country’s elected representatives from LTTE suicide-bombers” If his payment has not been made yet I suggest that it is not.
But if indeed the cheque has been issued, pronto stop it. Because, the need to shift Parliament that originally housed 95 + 6 MPs to a larger number envisaged later, was taken by the Govt of Mrs B in mid-1970. VP, the Cyanide culture and the suicide bombers came into the picture very much later, as we all know but the Chilean gent. As to the Kadirgamar killing, this is still a mystery although the LTTE is credited with the expert killing. Charles Gnanakone was taken into to satisfy public anger and lower the heat on the Police.
The poor diabetic Australian-citizen in his mid-60s had to be released on a Court order. He is said to be planning to sue GoSL for illegal arrest to the tune of several millions of rupees. But then, some believe the LTTE and the Tamils are responsible for the Dengue attack, the garbage mountains in Cbo and the failure of Sangakkara and his men in the 20-20 in London as well. But I am entirely with him when he concludes “the main task for the international community is to help Sri Lanka in its re-construction efforts in the North-East and address the very legitimate grievances of the Tamil community” Thank you for those illuminating words after imposing your own share of collateral damage on the suffering Tamils of Sri Lanka.
ISS
One of the great successes of the GOSL was its manipulation of the media. Jorge Heine would have done well to have varied his sources a lot more. It's still not too late Jorge, do some more reading on the history of the conflict before writing your next piece on this issue and don't rely just on the pro-govt sources.
"peaceful tradition" ...
British Divide & Rule worked very well in Lanka.
We can probably expect to see Jorge Heine appointed as an election observer in the North. He's fond of high class parties and the Sinhalese are very good hosts. I'm sure his hosts will dangle the offer of a comfortable retirement in Galle.
Ceylon's Kristallnacht: A Reassessment of the Pogrom of 1915
GEORGE ROWELL
The author is a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford [MA (Oxon) and MA (city)]
In 1915 the south-western quadrant of Ceylon was convulsed by a week of rioting in which the Buddhist Sinhalese majority attacked a Muslim minority known as the Moors. The consensus amongst historians has long been that the pogrom (as it is best described) was the spontaneous result of religious tension and/or economic grievances at the popular level, with no leadership beyond the uncoordinated activities of local agitators. The consensus ignores significant evidence of wider orchestration, including the activities of itinerant gangs and other mobile agitators, the deliberate propagation of identical false rumours throughout the affected area, and the activities of individuals and societies associated with the Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist movement. Although the picture is far from complete, the best interpretation of the evidence is that this movement orchestrated the pogrom, albeit with varying degrees of success in each locality. That it was able to do so shows that Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism (as opposed to non-communalist, Ceylon-wide nationalism) was more deeply entrenched than is usually thought, which helps to explain Sri Lanka's political direction later in the century.
Do not tell us about Baghdad to Bombay to Baluchistan, whole world know the story.
Sri Lanka Government took advantage of LTTE to avoid speak/act about Tamil grievances. Hands and mouths of Sri Lanka Government have been free to act and speak of Tamil Grievances. Sri Lanka Parliament passed so many acts and whether LTTE was there or not. If it is to pass any legislation regarding Tamils issue, then there was LTTE and Sri Lanka Parliament could not do anything! You would not see the flawed logic here.
Your twisted mind considers the killing a president or PM outweighs tens of thousands of Tamils killed by these president/PM? Lakshman Kadirgamar would not cringe with your this twisted logic but your mother would, I hope.
What is the difference in effects of firing heavy cannon shells into a crowd of 300,000 and imploding a human bomb in a crowded place? result is obvious and that is why no one is still not allowed into Vanny, and the internment camps.
About Nambiar, there is a lack professional of ethics there. I am a professional and my professional governing body wants me to avoid the issue conflict of interests. Vijay Nambiar should have informed the Secretary General of UN and that his brother was an advisor to the Sri Lanka Government/institutions and should have requested to be excused from the affairs of Sri Lanka. He did not do that. Where is the professional ethics? When I was in the University one of my lecturer did not correct the exam paper; reason: his cousin was in the batch.
Democracy has no meaning when it passes acts inimical to one group while favouring other. South Africa did that beautifully, everything was to the law. Even slavery was to the law. Democracy and rule of law have no sense when it is without human dignity. Sri Lanka democracy is a farce, a ritual to kill Tamils without witness, with the help of hired PRs.
K.Easwaran
"Though the war took its toll, press freedom suffered, and human rights violations were committed on both sides, the most remarkable thing is how well Sri Lanka’s democratic institutions withstood the terrorist onslaught."
I didn't realise that it is possible to classify a nation as democratic when there is lack of press freedom and violation of human rights by a state. Four brothers in government, three in the most key positions--does that not suggest family rule rather than democracy? What democratic institutions still remain intact? Equal rights for citizens? The rule of law? Transparency? Meritocracy?
You say the Responsibility to Protect does not apply to Sri Lanka. In what circumstances and in which type of societies does it apply then? I would like to know the answer to that question.
Why do you start the article with talk of a Tamil luminary? Is it to cover up the fact that your sympathies are entirely with the Sinhalese--that Kadirgamar is just a red herring here?
This is truly unbelievable in its one sidenness.. General Pinochet would be proud of this fellow ....
these forums have become you have one side (ISS, Nndasena, Easwaran et al) that claim that what happeneing in the North is nothing short of Germany in 1943 and then you have the otherside that claim its business as usual and it was a standard war against terror just like the Allies V. Taliban, end of story.
The truth is somehwere in the middle and to get to the truth can we all stop insulting each others intelligence end the endless hyperbole, then maybe people will take these forums (&commentators) a little bit more seriously.
I am just a layman & I don't understand all those sugar coated words. I have a simple question from the respected author – select only one answer
What is the utmost prime duty of legitimate government?
1. Protecting its territorial integrity
2. Protecting its citizen
When a rabbit wonders into the Lions den, it will get ripped apart. I'm not surprised the readership here is unhappy. They only see one side here.
Dear Mr Heine, We, Tamils have seen so many people similar to your right wing credentials, You are not here to convince us that LTTE was a terror Inc, It was alright to decimate terror group for the sake of Citizens of Srilanka. Where did you get the Idea of Territorial integrity was lawful enough to commit crimes against one segment of society that does not belong to majority community? You are pathetic right wing sadist that lives in era of Might is just and fair always right.You are from different country, simply can't understand underlying problems of Tamils in Srilanka. In future, please refrian from making opinions about others' problem that you don't have good grasp on it.
You obviously have proved to be a ‘hired assassin’, for the Sinhala Fascist Conquistadors in Colombo. The noble people of Canada come up with the concept of R2P, even by your own admission. Why is a Fascist like you, entrenched surreptitiously in the system, who clearly does not believe in humanitarian values, be allowed to undermine the application of R2P in Sri Lanka?
It took Gen. Pinochet 17 years to kill 3000 civilians. By contrast, however, it took less than 17 days for J R Jayawardene and his Oxbridge educated senior Cabinet colleagues to kill more than 3000 Tamils – including women and children – and to inflict extensive damage to Tamil owned properties.
Is Colombo trying to make you the answer to many ex-diplomats who have shown sympathy towards the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka, on a humanitarian basis? If so, they have made a very poor choice. All you have done is to emphasise the need for R2P of small communities around the world who could not fend for themselves, from Fascists.
Is this some kind of a throwback to your Conquistadorian legacy? Sinhala Fascist Conquistadors are continuing to occupy Tamil homeland illegally and unleashing untold hardships on the Tamil populace. The international community that pampered Sinhala governments against the Tamils for decades to become world’s worst fascist aren’t helping the Tamils in anyway to kick the Fascist Sinhala army out of Tamil homeland.
It is the Chinese who are literally walking away with the bounty without sharing it with the international community who were hoping to take it for themselves. The Chinese have furtively provided Sri Lanka bomber aircrafts to barbed wires to fence those illegal Concentration Camps for free and a bit of pocket money for the senior government ministers to acquire a concubine or two. But, appeared to have forgotten to provide latrine facilities for those poor Tamil people illegally interned in those odious Concentration Camps – Chairman Mao must be turning in his grave!
In any event, as you vultures who feed on corpses know only too well, Conquistadorial spirit being what it is, the Sinhala Fascists are moving full-throttle to expropriate Tamil homeland – chunks at a time – and kill as many Tamils in the process under one pretext or another. Rest of the Tamils too would gradually but surely be PROSELYTIZED into becoming Buddhists!
I am glad the Chilean people have moved on and embraced progressive values despite the presence of a few Fascists like you amongst them. People everywhere seem to agree that this is a genocidal war against Tamils in Sri Lanka, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. But, what action has been taken by anyone to put an end to it? Absolutely nothing!
*** what about Tamil minority's right of self-determination? ***
And what exactly is that Mr. Selvam???? I hear a lot of you LTTE Sympathizers and Tamil Nationalists throw that phrase around but when asked to explain it you quickly change the Subject.
Funny how in the Diaspora countries to which you people have now willingly applied for and accepted CITIZENSHIP in you don't go around lobbying for this So-called Minority Right to Self-Determination?
Why not ask Canada for it for the Tamil-Canadian Minority in Toronto???
Does John Alwis thinks that the Tamils are tress passers in Sri Lanka? He dismisses the 61 years of human right abuses which culminated in the massacre of 20,000+ innocent Tamils and imprisonment of 300,000 innocent Tamils behind barbed wire, torturing, raping and starving of unknown number of Tamils in one sentence!! He must be patting his own back thinking that he is smart!!
Gamini, why is your government not letting independent observers into the war zone and the concentration camps, so that the whole world can find out what happened in the final days and what is happening to the Tamils now!! What is the government hiding? They are afraid of evidence and witnesses. That is why they have imprisoned the doctors and the vanni population and isolating them as they don't want the truth to come out. Why are they not allowing the people to join their families? The government prefers to starve them in the camp than allow them to join their kith and kin!! A government which bombed, shelled, starved and deprived its citizens without food and medicine has no authority to govern them!!
Gamini,
Sri lankan, President, Prime Minister and the Cabinet had been saying for a longtime that there were only 70000 people in Vanni. The amount of food sent by Sri Lanka Government to Vanni was not even adequate for 40000. You can check the ICRC records about the food sent to Vanni. Now there are 300000 in the camps and about 50000 perished in the war during the last two years. That is, for more than two years only about 15% of the food requirement was sent to these 350000 people. No cultivation was possible and the people were on the run. How do you categorize it? No measurable Sinhala population has expressed its outrage at this slow starvation. We are no fans of VP. Since 1986, I have been against VP. I used to tell my close friends that If Sri Lanka Government offered separate state to VP, he would not accept it. The reason; then India would directly go to him to finish the unfinished business. VP survived so far because he had been in Sri Lanka. I got agitated only when Sri Lanka security forces started shelling the area full of crowded people. Even a hand granade would take about 30 to 40 people's life. I never wrote anything till the end of February 2009. I thought that some sort of decency would be with the elected Government. From the pictures of the Vanni folks, I have seen only one family without emaciated body frame. That is the Soosai family. All others were pathetic sight and there was no mass sympathy expressed by the Sinhala population. They celebrated, instead.
You can solve the Tamil issue tomorrow. How? Are you interested to know? Abolish the IGP system. Give the police power to Municipalities, Town Councils, no need to the provincial governments. Let the mayors, chairmans control the police. It is the indecent politicians, thugs and the monoethnic security forces created this mesh. Half the politicians and their thugs will be arrested by the police forces as there is no IGP/DIG to influence them. Colombo will thrive as there will be almost 30% Tamil police, 30% muslim police and the balance will be Sinhala police. You may have the Federal and Provincial police to deal with less developed/less populated areas. It is the illtreatment that made the Tamils to find safe haven in the NE. You want everything and you are not willing to prosper by mutual sharing. Your ideas is that there would be an eternal shortage and we should keep everything to Sinhalese. It is not the common Sinhala folks that the Tamils are trying to avoid, but the Sinhala thugs and their political thugs with the political and the will power to use the Security forces against them.
Very simple thing, Lord Buddha walked away from the throne where as you made Buddhism the state religion. It is an insult to Lord Buddha. Whatever you have given in the constitution cannot be enjoyed by the Tamils under MR and his kiths and kins. Sri Lanka constitution is not worth the paper on which it is printed. Someone told me about 3oyears back that the best constitution in the world was that of Nigeria. I did not read it and I am a technocrat too. Nigerian Nira fetched about 1.25British Pounds in the sixties and seventies. You know where Nigeria is now! There is power but there is no check nor balance.Sarath Fonseka is making political statements. Have you ever heard of an Indian army chief ever making a political statement? There were many Anandians in my batch. At least about 200 must have gone to University from Ananda College at that time. Fonseka must be of that period. Could you ask him where he learned these political statements. Actually Canada, America are police states. They keep the rule of law and politicians have no thugs to swagger around with them. Common Sinhala people never participated in anti Tamil pogroms but their Government did and the common Sinhala people could not do anything about it. Out of loyalty , some try to defend it. When Tamils are safe and sound under your system then I will be irrelevant. I will go back to my pre February 2009 disposition and you will never hear from me, as good as dead.
Easwaran
This article is extremely one-sided and is certainly not right...a lot of things amiss here, and the writer does not focus on the reasons that led to militant Tamil nationalism.
No assessment of the failure of peace negotiations due to problems emanating from the government of Sri Lanka, and the current situation of internally displaced persons. Even the former Chief Justice of SL has affirmed that the government is doing an act of high injustice on the northern people.
All in all, as a Sinhalese, and a Buddhist, and a Sri Lankan, I see this article as extremely irritating, disrespectful, and as a piece of writing that deserves the contempt of right-minded Sri Lankans.