The Civil War in Sri Lanka

Out of sight, out of mind.  That seems to be the bottom line when it comes to the crisis in Sri Lanka.

 

A civil war has been raging in the former Ceylon since 1983, despite several attempts by outsiders to diffuse the tensions and to put an end to the conflict.  The rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and referred to as the Tamil Tigers, has adopted a violent approach to achieve an autonomous homeland for the ethnic Tamils who, it alleges, are discriminated against by the majority Sinhalese.  The Sri Lankan government, over the years, has attempted to squelch the rebellion without much success.  

Until recently.

 

For the first time after many years, the Tamil-dominated Jaffna Pensinsula, in northern Sri Lanka, is now under the control of the Sri Lankan army and government. The Tamil Tigers are now boxed into an area of just over 200 square miles—much smaller than the area that they controlled up until the latest military offensive.    

 

International groups watching the war rather helplessly from the sidelines are worried about the fate of civilians, which is my concern too.  The government, sensing that an ultimate military victory might be within reach—something that has been quite unimaginable over the 26 years—has apparently banned aid groups from entering the war area and assisting civilians.  

Reuters reports that “aid agencies say there are about 230,000 refugees in the war zone, where rights groups say the Tigers are keeping them as human shields.”  

Of course, the Tamil Tigers flatly deny that civilians are being used as shields. 

 

It is not only Tamils who are being caught in the crossfire.  A Sri Lankan newspaper editor, Lasantha Wickrematunge, a Sinhalese himself, was shot dead while he was on his way to work.  Ironically, it was not the Tamil Tigers who killed this journalist, even though he has described the rebels as “among the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organisations to have infested the planet.”  

While the killers are yet to be identified, it is believed that Wickrematunge was a target because he was highly critical of the government’s handling of terrorism in his country.  Wickrematunge predicted his end in an editorial, where he wrote that "When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me."

 

Wickrematunge’s death and the ongoing war highlight how much the ferocious fanaticism of the rebels is being matched by the government's, and how civilians—Tamils and Sinhalese alike—are paying a huge price for this mano a mano behavior. 

 

Over the Christmas break, I was in Chennai—the capital of Tamil Nadu, and the largest city in the state.  “Tamil Nadu” means the “land of the Tamils” and, as one would surmise, there is, therefore, immense sympathy for the Tamils in Sri Lanka.  There were public demonstrations urging the government—at the state and federal levels—to act in order to help both the Tamils and the Sri Lankan rebels. 

 

Of course, while there is enormous sympathy for the Tamil civilian population in Sri Lanka, the same cannot be said for the Tamil Tigers—after all, this same rebel group was responsible for assassinating India’s former prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, back in 1991, at an election campaign rally only a few miles south of Chennai. 

 

Yet, I find that there is very little coverage in the US of this serious development.  I do not think there has been a statement on this from our State Department and White House, either.  

Granted that this news item has to compete against updates on the global economic meltdown, the presidential transition, or the situation in Gaza. But, even the controversy over Russia turning off the flow of natural gas to Ukraine and other European countries gets more coverage, not to speak of the hours that were spent on the recently concluded Golden Globes. 

 

I would think that the Sri Lankan situation where hundreds of thousands of civilians are caught in the crossfire merits our attention.  However, and unfortunately, it turns out that the importance of destruction of life and property depends on the geographic area where that happens. 

 

William Shakespeare said it best, although in a different context: “there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.”

update: this was published in the Register Guard on January 19, 2009, under the title "Sri Lanka flies under the radar"