Economic status of Sri Lanka

Answer 1

Published on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 by The Guardian/UKSri Lanka's Untold Story

The Tamil cause still lives - growing global awareness will ensure Sri Lanka is held accountable for the slaughter of civilians

by Suren Surendiran

Sri Lankan military killed thousands of Tamil civilians over the past few months (not to mention the years before) using the full might of its fire power by way of artillery and air strikes. It has, with intent, starved its own people by refusing to send food and medicine in sufficient quantities and in adequate frequencies.

Crucially, this genocide by the Sri Lankan state has been enabled by the international community, including Britain.

What is deeply disappointing is the fact that powerful liberal states which have long espoused human rights, the Geneva conventions and, most recently, the responsibility to protect, have all allowed thousands of innocent lives to be lost unnecessarily and with full knowledge.

The slaughter went on every day, with many women and children being killed not just by the shelling but due to starvation and lack of medical care. Yet the international response, especially those of the UN and western liberal states, has been pathetic. Mere statements after statements were released by heads of states like Gordon Brown and Barack Obama and institutions such as the UN, EU and various non-governmental organisations such as Amnesty, HRW and Crisis Group. No one showed real leadership in stopping this genocide which took place in broad daylight.

Even now thousands of displaced young Tamils are being abducted and disappeared, the wounded and injured are not given medical care and families are separated and abused in overcrowded barbed-wire-fenced camps. Thousands are still lining up at check points which have no independent observers present. International media has no way of reporting without government interference.

Sri Lanka is conducting this war beyond its means. Its economy is in a mess due to mismanagement, as stated by the World Bank. Sri Lanka's Central Bank is seeking an emergency loan from the IMF due to its fast depleting reserves. Yet, year on year defence budget has been consistently rising by huge percentages. Regional powers and others have assisted financially and otherwise to continue with this government's war with its own people. Unemployed youth from Sri Lanka's rural south who could be put to more constructive development use were being used for destruction and killing.

Pretending to promote human rights and high moral values, western governments are turning a blind eye to the state terrorism in Sri Lanka, but also incentivising such horrendous violations by granting large sums in loans and grants. Hypocrisy of the international community is obvious as they argue any sanctions against such financial assistance will hurt the wider economy of Sri Lanka. The same wasn't true it seems for the poor Zimbabweans or the Palestinians of Gaza City.

In 1977, after three decades of discrimination and state-backed mob violence, the entire Tamil political leadership united behind a demand for an independent state comprising the Tamil homeland as the only way to escape oppression and discrimination in Sri Lanka. This fight for freedom followed another three decades through armed struggle. Today, Sri Lanka believes that it has crushed it, forgetting the 1.5 million Tamil diaspora from Sri Lankan decent living around the world, and the strength of over 60 million Tamils living just next door in Tamil Nadu of India.

Since independence, over 61 years, successive governments of Sri Lanka have demonstrated to the Tamil people that they have no genuine intentions of resolving this fundamental problem through a just and reasonable political power-sharing agreement. Institutions and the world powers, including regional players, have pretended to believe successive governments and their supposed sincerity.

However the liberation struggle has taken a turn beyond anyone's wildest imaginations in the recent months. People locally and internationally have decided to take the struggle forward, with or without the support of international governments and institutions. An initially non-violent struggle turned to an armed struggle, and has now taken a further shift - with the active involvement of people around the world. The lack of political will and the military aggression by the government of Sri Lanka has converted the unconvertible - particularly the second generation Tamils overseas - towards the separatist movement. World media has woken up to report the untold story of more than half a century. These developments cannot be quashed by the military might of Sri Lanka or the very people and governments around the world who have been assisting such brutal suppression.

A day will come that will see a new and free nation being born in the Indian ocean, just as Bangladesh was created and others around the world such as Kosovo, East Timor and Eretria.

© 2009 Guardian News and Media Limited
Suren Surendiran is the spokesman for the British Tamils Forum

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Posted in civilians dead, Human Rights, sri lanka 10 Comments so farShow All Comment viewing optionsFlat list - collapsedFlat list - expandedThreaded list - collapsedThreaded list - expanded
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10 comments per page30 comments per page50 comments per page70 comments per page90 comments per page150 comments per page200 comments per page250 comments per page300 comments per pageNimal May 20th, 2009 3:28 am

Shokku Masta

In any case, don't hold your breath while a new Nation is formed on the territory of Sri Lanka. It may happen but not without a lot of blue faces.

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Nimal May 20th, 2009 3:25 am

Shokku Masta

The story of the plight of the Tamils in Sri Lanka caught in a war is a sad one. To make out that an army killed civilians is also to ignore the reality of a war, civilians were killed in large numbers by both protagonists. It is futile to argue who was right in killing which group of civilians. The LTTE used terror,and that is a fact, the cause does not wash it clean nor absolve it, neither does pointing out that the Sri Lanka army caused civilian deaths. It is not simply the story of a majority inflicting death and destruction on this population but also the choices made by leaders and spokespersons of the Tamils both in Sri Lanka and abroad that resulted in methods and practices that cannot be condoned by anyone who is committed to the well being of people. A large and traumatized population of Tamils need a helping hand to build their lives and take decisions about it. Those who supported the machinery that used this population as instruments of war, children as soldiers, women as bombs should reflect quietly on what they unleashed. We are all caught in international posturing by agencies and countries all seeking to do good, to build their institutions, puffed in their self importance. Perhaps it is necessary to reflect on the fact that despite the war where poor families have sent their children to fight, in the same villages that encountered terror, collections are being made quietly and shipped to where Tamils need food clothing and would welcome human comfort. Many Tamils, the author included tend to imply that any method is appropriate to reach an end that is deemed good. This may be a misreading but that notion is conveyed. There is a term for that approach and rule.. and what was practiced under the LTTE was that form of rule. From the comfort of the west with the hard won freedoms gained by war and destruction, we should be modest about which we comment on. In the end. things that we cannot agree on and what we wish not to see even when in front of our noses gets sorted out in the field of battle, this is what we humans have found out (apologies to Orwell)The call for international intervention, international agencies is an interesting issue. Obviously some help is necessary but it would be wrong to imply that there is something afoot where a majority will oppress and harm a minority unless an international group acts to manage the process of development. The experience of the efforts of the "international community" on this type of work is mixed at best.

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jimmyjazz May 20th, 2009 1:43 pm

"The story of the plight of the Tamils in Sri Lanka caught in a war is a sad one."

Yes. But somehow you seem to extrapolate from this that there wasn't one side which was right and one which was wrong in this fight--at least, that's how your post sounds to me. There *was* a right side and a wrong side, and it is not decided by what tactics were used by each one, but by what started the conflict. No government has the right to deny national self-determination to a people who want it, nor to deny equal civil rights to groups that want to remain part of the country but merely receive equal treatment.

The historical amnesia of some peace-loving people is astounding to me. I love peace too, but that doesn't mean I forget the origins of a conflict, and who was in the wrong. It's as though the Sri Lankan government was able, merely by dragging out this conflict into three bloody decades instead of ceding a simple demand for national liberation, to make everyone forget that they started it. In the 1950's-1970's anyone in the world would have sided with the Tamils in their struggle for civil rights and, later, national self-determination. But after a few decades of ugly fighting no one seems to see with much clarity the origins of the conflict--origins which are a matter of history and have not changed.

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logansafi May 20th, 2009 1:23 am

Who let this fascist minded guy onto the site?

Labelling those who are leaders of oppressed national groups as mere terrorists and then saying that all terrorists should be exterminated and that's that has almost a Hitleresque quality to it, Liberdade.

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rfloh May 20th, 2009 3:02 am

The LTTE are ONE group. One group that had no hesitation assassinating other Tamils.

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Liberdade May 19th, 2009 11:49 pm

Dead terrorists, and the LTTE were nothing but terrorist scum, are always a good thing.

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jimmyjazz May 20th, 2009 1:46 am

You must love dead U.S. pilots, soldiers and CIA agents.

And Sri Lankan artillerymen:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=7549214

I, on the other hand, take a more nuanced view of the world and don't consider the death of anyone "a good thing".

I think you're a troll, though, so I won't respond more.

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jimmyjazz May 19th, 2009 8:43 pm

The Tamil Tigers are a good reply to any idiot who knowingly or unknowingly supports the U.S. war on "terror" by claiming that Islam is inherently worse or more violent as a religion* than any other religion. The Tamil Tigers invented the suicide explosives belt, yet the Tamil people are Hindu and Christian (mostly Hindu), and the Tigers themselves have actually been accused of anti-Muslim atrocities.

That said, of course I am not implying that Hindus or the Tamils are violent; I entirely sympathize with the Tamil people and believe a wide range of options for resistance should be open to them in the face of systematic disenfranchisement and brutal repression. I'm apt to quote one of many quotes that we all know, all in a similar vein, such as JFK's well-known maxim that, "those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." Blame ultimately must always lie with the oppressors, and any attempt to morally equivocate between oppressors and oppressed is repugnant and absurd.

If you followed this final defeat of the LTTE in the mainstream press, you probably noticed the Sri Lankan politicians' constant framing of the massacre as one of a battle against "terrorism". Yet more evidence of the damaging legacy left by Bush's mindless idiocy, and the handy cover it provides--and will continue to provide for years to come--for state terrorism and state-perpetrated atrocities. The guise of "anti-terrorism" serves the same function as the older "anti-communism", giving a virtual carte blanche to any government in any part of the world that utters it in connection with their actions. Quite sad.

Funny how Western governments have historically been so concerned about the welfare and human rights of citizens in Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, etc., but not so much about the citizens of Rwanda, Sudan, South Africa, Guatemala, Chile, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and other places. I wonder if anyone can spot a pattern.

*as distinguished from Islamic ideas being used to provide support for a fight with overwhelmingly political ends

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maxpayne May 19th, 2009 3:25 pm

Don't count on the west to show their sympathy for Tamilians in general. If they had to pick between Al Quaida and Tamil Brahmins, both the right and left would pick the former any day.

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rfloh May 20th, 2009 3:00 am

*rolls eyes*.

One, they are Tamils, not "Tamilians".

Two, Tamils are not necessarily Hindus, especially not Brahmins.

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Answer 2

The economic status of Sri Lanka has just been dropped to a double AA rating,as recently as 6 days ago.