I should begin by admitting that, as Sri Lankans waged civil war over the past 30 years, I never resolved whether my sympathies lie more with the Singhalese Buddhists who governed the country; or with the Tamil Hindus who claimed to be fighting a war of liberation and self-determination.
This was due only in part to the fact that the government enforced a virtual ban on reporting from the war zones in the north and the east of the island nation.
Because I suspect even the most objective and comprehensive news reports would have left me wondering whether the Tamil Tigers were more like the Contras – who the US supported and regarded as freedom fighters in their 11-year civil war against the Nicaraguan government; or more like the IRA – who the US condemned and designated as terrorists in their nearly 100-year civil war against the British government in Northern Ireland. Especially since the only thing that distinguished the casus belli of the Contras and the IRA in this respect was patented US double standards.
At any rate, it’s an indication of how little coverage the Sri Lankan civil war has received in Western media that I was shocked when Tavis Smiley featured guests talking about it on his talk show earlier this year:
Being the only Tamil in the Western media I have a really great opportunity to bring forward what’s going on in Sri Lanka… And there’s a systematic genocide going on… I’ve turned into the only voice for the Tamil people … the 20 percent minority in my country.
(M.I.A., hip hop artist, Tavis Smiley Show, January 28, 2009)
M.I.A. is a great artist, and we wish her well. But I’m sorry, I think she is misinformed and it’s best that she stays with what she’s good at, which is music, not politics. There’s a whole complex situation on the ground. There’s a group of terrorists, the Tamil Tigers, challenging the government for a long time. They control territory… now in the last two years, the government has rolled them back.
It’s a matter of time before they, the Tamil Tigers, are overrun and the entire country restored to normalcy. The Tamil people are our brothers, our sisters, they live amongst us. And I don’t think there’s a problem the Singhalese have with the Tamils. They do have a problem with the Tamil Tigers, the terrorists, who are, you have to remember, proscribed in most of the democracies of the world as a terrorist organization.
(Dr. Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Secretary, Tavis Smiley Show, February 18, 2009)
For what it’s worth, no less a person than British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has acknowledged “very grave allegations” of war crimes on both sides of the conflict, which should all be properly investigated. But I doubt the Singhalese government will be held to any greater account for the atrocities it committed during this war than the US government will be held for those it committed during the Iraq war.
In the meantime, I hope the Sri Lankan government is correct in declaring “mission accomplished” after a decisive battle over the weekend, during which it claims to have killed the entire Tamil leadership, including the separatist leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Prabhakaran’s body is among the 300 terrorist bodies that we captured… Now the entire country is declared rid of terrorism.
(Sri Lanka’s army chief, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka)
Alas, all the Tamils have to show for their cause is nearly 100,000 killed and hundreds of thousands misplaced. Not to mention the systematic discrimination they’re bound to be subjected to for years, if not generations, to come.
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