A couple of weeks ago, I was in London. As I walked past the parliament building, I saw a small but potent protest upset with “the genocide in Sri Lanka.” I was incensed; I kept trying to tell my travel companion, a sweet, well-rounded girl who therefore couldn’t have been less interested in the complicated political situation on an island thousands of miles away about why it made me mad. Realizing the futility of the situation, I gave up and resolved to write about it in my blog, and we had a delightful lunch (at a pub, nonetheless).
Tamil ex-patriots worldwide have continued trying to portray the events in Sri Lanka as a terrible atrocity by the government. I haven’t been this stirred up since a well-meaning friend of my cousin joined “STOP the Georgian aggression against Ossetia.”
For those of you who don’t follow every conflict around the world, Sri Lanka has been in a civil war since 1983, officially costing 70,000 people their lives. The Tamil Tigers (or LTTE) fight for an ethnic Tamil minority against a Sinhalese-controlled government. Both sides have committed atrocities. Recent military gains by the Sri Lankan government have retaken the vast majority of the country, and for the the first time in decades, lasting peace is on the horizon.
There are difficulties, of course. First off, the Tigers still control a small patch of jungle, where they’re holed up with between ten and fifty thousand civilians. The US and the UN have both called on both sides to watch out for civilians (on the government to quit using indiscriminate shelling and on the Tigers to quit threatening any civilians who want to leave), and I agree with them. That being said, personally, it’s hard for me to condemn the Sri Lankans for trying to finally win a war that has plagued them for 25 years. Of course, how they win matters. A massacre of civilians will make it much more difficult to patch up the old wounds (a task that may already prove impossible).
Secondly, as the US has learned in recent conflicts, winning the war may be easier than winning the peace. Patricia Lee Sharpe from Whirled View explained this better than I can, click here to read it.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. For another interesting point of view, check out Swarnajith Udana’s article, “The Masterpiece of the Masters: Tail Metamorphoses into the Dog, Dog to the Tail,” a meandering, poorly-written post with this gem, “Foreign service is a mean of giving extended holidays, paid by public purse, to political and personal cronies who facilitate dirty dealings.” Oh yeah.
What do you think? Am I being too hard on the Tamils? Am I being too understanding with the government? Let me know in the comments below!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m very, very tired of hearing the word “genocide” thrown around every time there’s a situation in which civilians get killed. It’s not the same thing. Genocide is the intentional attempt to exterminate a group of people, and overuse of the term is leading to a “boy who cried wolf” scenario that is gradually sapping our political will to do something about it when genocide actually does occur.
Innocent Sri Lankans being caught in the cross-hairs in a war zone is tragic, but it’s obviously not a genocide. My impression is that the Tigers are trying to use the plight of these people to hamstring the government, even though their actions make it clear that they have no real regard for the lives being lost. I hope this all ends soon.
I was in Canberra two weeks ago and the expatriate Tamils were camped outside the PM’s residence, The Lodge. They went through the standard playlist of wailing and hunger-striking, and turned a lovely park into an eyesore. Fortunately, they were moved on after two days.
The worst part of this episode was the cynicism of the demonstrators, who strutted deep newfound commitment to human rights only now that the LTTE is losing so badly. My wife perceptively remarked that she hadn’t noticed any such demonstrations when the Tamils were winning, or at least putting up stubborn resistance, in the civil war. It was also irritating that the expat Tamils completely ignored the fact that the LTTE is holding civilians captive, ready to use as human shields should the army attack.
The expatriate Tamil community in Paris has taken over Trocadero for the past two weeks. Same scene as described by Anonymous from Canberra, except the tolerant French government allows it to go on.
The worst is that 5 young men are carrying out a hunger strike…they are now in beds, wrapped up in blankets, under a tent.
I was so upset about this that I went home and boned up on recent events in Sri Lanka. I fully agree with your point of view, Hegemonist.
The LTTE is one of the most fascist organizations in the world. It doesn’t brook dissent and has successfully wiped out all other competing voices among the Srilankan Tamils. It has killed 2 heads of states, has conscripted child soldiers and has slaughtered countless innocent civilians using suicide bombers.
Unfortunately, the Srilankan government now has no credible opponents to negotiate with since the LTTE (thankfully) is at the brink of extinction. I believe that India can be a credible facilitator in bringing about peace between the Sinhalese and Tamils. But peace has to wait until the elections in India get wrapped up.