A crucial role for India Praful Bidwai As the Sri Lankan Armed Forces (SLAF) maintain their unrelenting—and largely justifiable—offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), three trends have become apparent.
First, the battle is taking an unacceptable toll of Tamil civilian lives.
According to the international civil liberties group, Human Rights Watch, 2,000 Tamils have been killed and 5,000 wounded since the fall of Kilinocchhi, the LTTE’s administrative centre, in January.
The civilian death toll is now running at 25 to 35 a day.
Both sides are targeting civilians—the SLAF through indiscriminate bombing and shelling, and the LTTE by firing on them to prevent them from fleeing to safety.
This constitutes a complete violation of the laws of war and of international humanitarian law, which grant immunity to civilians.
Second, the SLAF is keen to finish the war and declare victory before Sri Lanka’s New Year in April.
This is likely to lead to a sharp increase in casualties among the 250,000 civilians trapped in the war zone in the Northeast.
As if to cover this up in advance, the SLAF is deliberately playing down the number of civilians originally living in the zone to 70,000.
The Mahinda Rajapakse government in Colombo claims that half of them have already fled, although the actual number may be only a few hundred.
In the coming days, Colombo may declare that all the civilians have escaped and the SLAF should legitimately launch a no-holds-barred final offensive, including firebombing and slash-and-burn methods, to finish the LTTE.
This is liable to lead to mass slaughter or a holocaust.
Third, international pressure is mounting on the Rajapakse government to declare a ceasefire and allow aid workers to return.
The European Union has called for “humanitarian aid to be safely delivered and allowing civilians to leave the conflict area” even as it has asked the LTTE to lay down arms and renounce violence.
It has also asked the government to “engage in an inclusive political process which addresses the legitimate concerns of all communities.” The International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International and various other organisations have made similar appeals India too demands an end to civilian killings, and a political settlement of the Tamil question, although not a ceasefire.
New Delhi doesn’t seem to be pulling its full political weight vis-à-vis Colombo.
It continues to provide military assistance to the SLAF, including radar surveillance, logistical support, armaments and helicopters.
As if to ensure India’s continuing support to the military operations and stave off its pressure for a political settlement, Sri Lankan army chief Lt-General Sarath Fonseka has in an interview highlighted the “threat” that the air wing of the LTTE poses to India.
Referring to the February 20 attack by two LTTE aircraft on Colombo, the eighth such attack since April 2007, he has warned that the Tigers’ planes could penetrate 150-170 km inside Indian territory, and probably deeper if they are on a suicide mission.
The Lankan humanitarian crisis is deepening by the day.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW): “The Sri Lankan government has indicated that the ethnic Tamil population trapped in the war zone can be presumed to be siding with the LTTE and treated as combatants, effectively sanctioning unlawful attacks.” This is a licence to commit heinous crimes.
The SLAF have “repeatedly and indiscriminately shelled areas crowded with displaced persons”, including government-declared “safe zones” and “the remaining hospitals in the region.” The SLAF is herding civilians into internment camps, masquerading as “welfare villages”.
“The displaced persons, including entire families, detained in these military-controlled, barbed-wire camps are denied their liberty and freedom of movement,” says HRW.
“The plight of the region’s civilians has been made worse by the government’s decision in September 2008 to order most humanitarian agencies out…”.
The government has thrown a blanket of censorship over the war zone.
It has failed to bring in enough food, medical supplies, and other relief and has only allowed a minimal role for the United Nations.
Continued fighting, lack of oversight, and manipulation of the delivery of aid “have all contributed to the continuing humanitarian crisis”.
While it wages an open war in the North, the Sri Lankan government has launched a dirty war in the Sinhalese-dominated South.
Critics of the government are harassed, taken into illegal confinement, and “disappeared”, or like “The Sunday Leader” editor Lasantha Wickrematunga, shot and hacked to death by gunmen.
On its part, the LTTE has proved ruthless towards the Tamils, in whose name it claims to speak.
It’s in terminal retreat and confined to a 100 square-kilometre area.
With each battlefield defeat, it treats civilians with ever-greater brutality and uses them as human shields.
According to a district official quoted by Reuters: “When people occupy particular places, the LTTE sends shells from that area, and then the army also targets the same area.” It also subjects civilians, including children, to forced recruitment and deadly labour on the battlefield and has few compunctions in shooting those trying to flee.
The LTTE is a dangerous group which deserves to be wiped out.
It has a long history of assassinating all those who disagree with it.
Its victims include Rajiv Gandhi, progressive Sri Lankan Tamil intellectuals such as Neelan Tiruchelvan and Kethesh Loganathan, and its own dissidents.
It is probably the most murderous and pathologically militarised group in South Asia, the closest in our region to Cambodia’s Pol Pot.
In the past, it has used ceasefires and negotiations as mere intervals after which to attack the SLAF and extend its territorial control.
The LTTE cynically capitalised on the plight of Sri Lanka’s Tamils after the infamous Colombo pogrom of July 1983, in which 2,000 Tamils were killed by state-sponsored mobs.
Faced with the onslaught of Sinhalese chauvinism, which wrongly regards the Tamils as “outsiders” (though they have inhabited the island for 2,000 years), and wants a unitarian state, many Tamils began to believe that a military solution alone could work.
The world’s bloodiest civil war has since raged in Sri Lanka, with terrible consequences.
The LTTE is one of the best-armed militant groups in the world, and has amassed aircraft, submarines, a flotilla of boats, armour-plated vehicles, mortar launchers and sophisticated transmission equipment.
It has built chemical-bomb factories, underwater fuel tanks, multi-storeyed bunkers with one metre-thick walls and bullet-proof doors, and seven airstrips and two hangars.
It’s probably the world’s first sub-state group to develop underwater weapons.
Until recently, the LTTE was a formidable military force, but had a poor political strategy.
In 2005, it played a key role in bringing President Mahinda Rajapakse to power by forcing the Tamils to boycott the election, thus strengthening the forces of Sinhala chauvinism.
Thus began its undoing, and its increasing international isolation.
Country after country imposed a ban on it because of its terrorist methods and what was seen as its sabotage of the Norwegian-brokered peace process in early 2006.
In some ways, the LTTE’s spectacular military successes became its worst weaknesses.
When its talks with the government broke down, it was forced to defend a huge territory by fighting in defensive conventional war in which the SLAF held the upper hand thanks to greater resources, international support and relative legitimacy.
A major setback to the LTTE was the interception by the US of anti-aircraft missiles which it was trying to smuggle into Sri Lanka.
Another was the defection of its Eastern commander, Col Karuna, which greatly weakened it.
Meanwhile, the Rajapakse government under the leadership of hardline Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse, the President’s brother, greatly stepped up the military offensive and managed to drive the LTTE out of a militarily critical area in the North.
By mid-2008, the Tigers were on the run.
And by December, they were militarily cornered.
India bears a special responsibility in respect of Sri Lanka.
It looms as a giant neighbour with a large Tamil population, and has a history of intervention in Sri Lanka.
India committed a grave blunder in the early 1980s by training, arming and funding the LTTE, which soon turned against India for forcing it to negotiate a devolution package with Colombo.
India committed a second blunder in 1987 by sending the Indian Peace-Keeping Force to Sri Lanka.
This was a disastrous misadventure, which failed to accomplish the objective of disarming the Tigers.
The LTTE joined hands with the Premadasa government in ensuring that the IPKF left in 1990.
After Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, India followed a hands-off policy, but in recent years, it covertly provided military assistance to Colombo.
Without India’s radar and logistical support, the SLAF couldn’t have neutralised the Sea Tigers nor made big territorial advances.
At stake today is the very survival of the Tamils as a political community.
India must launch a diplomatic campaign to insist that the Colombo government verifiably stop attacking civilians, declare a ceasefire under international monitors, create safe corridors, and permit relief delivery.
Above all, it must implement the promised devolution and merger of the North and the East within a federal structure with a bicameral parliament.
Nothing less will do.
Exam fever and cure..! Robert Clements Today’s piece is for all you youngsters who’re being bitten by the examination bug and are reeling under stress and tension.
Would you take a few minutes off my young friends and listen to what I say? A small boy was trying to lift a large stone, just like you all are doing with your exams, but he could not manage to make it budge an inch.
His father who happened to be passing by stopped to watch, and after a while said to his son, “Son, why don’t you use all your recourses?” “Daddy can’t you see I am!” the boy replied exasperatedly as he pushed and shoved and heaved.
“No you aren’t my child,” the father said calmly, “You haven’t asked me to help you!” When the father lent a helping hand, the child was thrilled; it seemed to him the stone had lost weight and became as light as a feather.
There in the person of the father stood the resources the little fellow hadn’t used till then.
And in the same way, in God are the additional resources you can use to help make your exam burden as light as a feather.
Try it! Of course there are many who only try to use God during the exams.
That’s the time they visit church and mandir or go diligently to their masjid; to such as them another small story: A young man wanting to get across a huge wide lake got into the boat of an old fisherman.
He noticed that both the oars the fisherman used had inscriptions painted on them.
On one was written ‘PRAY” and on the other, ‘WORK’ The youth looked at both of them and remarked a little sarcastically, “You’re a little behind the times old man, why should a person who works, pray, and why would a person who prays, work?” The old man did not reply, but let go of the oar on which was written the word, ‘PRAY,’ and started to row with just one oar.
He rowed and rowed and rowed, but all that happened was that the boat went round in circles, without going anywhere.
“Stop!” cried the youngster, “I understand! I do understand! Both the oars are needed together to propel the boat forward, WORK and PRAYER!” And when they were used together they pulled the boat across the stormy lake effortlessly onto the other side.
Work hard my young friends, study all your portions, but just before the question paper comes on to your table ask God for peace and calm.
You’ll be astonished at how a calm mind delivers; from inside its depths it will bring out the answers and you’ll come out smiling.
And without taking away from the power and holiness of prayer, but to bring a smile to your serious lips may I end with a bit of humour: A boy in South India was about to take his exams and in quiet desperation prayed, “Our Father who art in heaven, help me to pass my examinations.
May my whole class pass.
May the whole school pass, and may the whole world pass away..!” bobsbanter@gmail.com About us | Advertise | Other Publications | Subscriptions | Weather | Letters | Send Mail Disclaimer: Information is being made available at this site purely as a measure of public facilitation.
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