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Freedom Denied: The Crushing of
Sri Lankan Tamils
Mike Cowie
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Freelance writer and commentator Mike Cowie questions the wisdom
of the West and the UN bodies to pick and choose their friends
and foes. In the light of the decimation of the armed struggle
of Eelam fighters, the author vehemently implores the world
community to recognize the right to self determination. |
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 So,
with the war in Sri Lanka now over and the Tamils having been
crushed and brought to their knees, I'd like to ask just one
question: Are we happy now? With the Tamils' decades-long struggle
for self-determination quashed and their dreams of an independent
homeland shattered, are we fully satisfied? Should we give ourselves
a pat on the back?
Because there's
no denying that this result is largely due to us here in the
freedom-loving West. Specifically, I'm referring to how the
governments of Canada, America, Australia, and the European Union
all decided to take sides in this civil war—this brutal ethnic civil
war.
Not only did we
impose an embargo on one side—the Tamil minority—while fully
supporting the other - the Sinhalese majority - but we even went as
far as to label the Tamils as "terrorists", while actively working
to shut down all of their overseas funding and their ability to arm
themselves. Both sides may have clearly been guilty of committing
some pretty heinous atrocities, but for some reason we decided that
the best thing to do was to condemn the one side, while cheering on
and supporting the other. Worst of all, we sided with the wrong
side.
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So, again I ask, with the Tamils of Sri Lanka losing their de
facto independence of the past two decades and the Sinhalese
majority once more in absolute control of the whole island, are
we happy? Are we satisfied? Are we proud of ourselves for
helping put the Tamils back in their place? |
I'm not about to
try and argue that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or
Tamil Tigers, were/are a cuddly democratic bunch (few liberation
movements are), nor am I about to defend their use of suicide
bombings against civilian targets or their forced recruitment of
child soldiers. However, I will most definitely argue that the
Tamils have every right to a homeland of their own on the island of
Sri Lanka.
Casualties of
9/11
The truth is
that by the beginning of this decade the Tamils had, in fact,
already won a homeland for themselves in the north and east of the
island. The two sides had fought to a stalemate, signed a ceasefire
and entered into peace talks. But one very significant event on the
other side of the world changed all of this—an event that had
absolutely nothing to do with Sri Lanka. I'm talking about 9/11.
In the wake of
the attacks on New York and Washington and in the rush to launch an
all-out "Global War On Terror", Western countries, under intense
pressure from
America,
took specific aim at the Tamil Tigers.
How they figured
their so-called war on terror had anything to do with a civil war on
a small island in the Indian Ocean is beyond me, but the
consequences were devastating to the Tamil's cause. With one side in
this conflict now fully armed and the other embargoed and
isolated—with all of their overseas fundraising shut down—the
eventual result was inevitable.
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Why do we here in the West pick and choose who has an
inalienable right to self-determination (the people of Kosovo,
East Timor, Ukraine, Lithuania, Slovenia, Croatia, etc.) and who
doesn't (the Chechens, the Kurds, the Tamils of Sri Lanka,
etc.)? And where do we get off labeling those who we've deemed
undeserving of their own homeland as "terrorists"? |
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Now, 9/11 or no
9/11, picking the Sri Lankan government as "the good guys" and
labeling the Tamils alone as "terrorists" was not only ridiculous
when you consider the historical causes of the war (that is, that
the Tamils rose up after years of oppression, persecution and some
outright massacres), but it was also quite ridiculous when you
consider the war crimes carried out by the Sri Lankan military
during the course of the war: the mass slaughter of civilians,
particularly in the early stages of the conflict; the death squads;
the killing of aid workers; etc. All of this is well documented, yet
somehow we in the West decided to label the Tamils alone as
terrorists.
Then there's the
fact that the Tamils—living largely in a concentrated area of the
island and making up about 15 percent of the total population -
obviously have as much of a right to self-determination as the
people of France, Germany, Portugal, Holland, Hungary, Poland,
Ireland, or Greece. Or the people of Kosovo, East Timor, Tibet,
Palestine, Chechnya, or Kurdistan, for that matter.
An
Inalienable Right
Which raises an
obvious question: Why do we here in the West pick and choose who has
an inalienable right to self-determination (the people of Kosovo,
East Timor, Ukraine, Lithuania, Slovenia, Croatia, etc.) and who
doesn't (the Chechens, the Kurds, the Tamils of Sri Lanka, etc.)?
And where do we get off labeling those who we've deemed undeserving
of their own homeland as "terrorists"?
The armies of
the nations we in the West have decided to support are often guilty
of committing much worse atrocities than the rebel groups we've
arbitrarily decided to label as "terrorists". It is government
forces that carpet bomb rebel-held areas. It is government forces
that often wage scorched-earth policies, killing thousands—or tens
of thousands—of innocents. But for some strange reason, we're
totally fixated upon any and all rebel bombings.
Now if these
rebel attacks are aimed at innocent civilians then there's no
denying that we're talking about war crimes, but my point is that
the government forces are usually far more guilty of these crimes.
What's up with the hypocrisy? That's what I really want to know.
Some will say:
"But the government forces never intentionally kill innocent
civilians". To which I say: From Dresden to Hiroshima, and from
Vietnam to Chechnya, military forces know damn well who they're
targeting when they carpet bomb, or nuke, civilian areas from above.
Or, as we've
watched in recent months in
Sri Lanka,
government forces know exactly what they're doing when they rain
down rockets and mortars on civilian areas, causing horrific
civilian casualties. The UN now believes that nearly 7,000 civilians
may have been killed, and another 13,000 injured, in just the past
four to five months of the Sri Lankan army's all-out push for
victory.
Twisted and
Absurd
If the West's
decision to pick one side in a civil war seems quite arbitrary and
more than a little farcical, that's because it is. But this is
nothing new and of course it's hardly limited to just us here in the
West.
The Russians
slaughtered at least 200,000 Chechen civilians in a few short years
in a scorched-earth campaign, but—according to them, and some here
in the West—it was the Chechens who were, by some bizarre form of
twisted logic, the actual "terrorists" for wanting an independent
homeland.
The Indonesians
caused the deaths of 200,000 people over a 20-year period in East
Timor, yet, according to the Indonesians, it was the Timorese who
were in fact the real "terrorists".
The Soviets
invaded and occupied Afghanistan back in 1979, but when the Afghans
decided to resist the Russians labeled them as, you guessed it,
"terrorists".
Further back,
when the Irish fought a guerrilla war for their independence,
between 1919-1921, they were written off as nothing but "murdering
terrorists" by the occupying British, who themselves most certainly
could have been tagged with that label.
And, let's not
forget that, in more recent times the Americans invaded and occupied
Iraq, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent
Iraqis, but, of course, it was those who fought back in defense of
their country who were labeled the "evil terrorists".
It's really
quite absurd when you stop to think about it. And this list could go
on and on and...
A Job Well
Done?
So, again I ask,
with the Tamils of Sri Lanka losing their de facto independence of
the past two decades and the Sinhalese majority once more in
absolute control of the whole island, are we happy? Are we
satisfied? Are we proud of ourselves for helping put the Tamils back
in their place?
Just because we
deserve our liberty and freedom, that doesn't mean the Tamils
deserve theirs, right? Again, the situation leading up to the civil
war there may be well-documented and few (outside of Sri Lanka)
would disagree that the Tamils had just cause in rising up, but as
long as we can continue convincing ourselves that they were nothing
more than sinister "terrorists" then we can go on fantasizing that
justice has been done. Right? And the fate of the Tamils be damned.
Island
Paradise
I should mention
that during our three-year backpacking trip across
Asia
earlier this decade, my wife, Sonoko, and I spent three incredible
months in
Sri Lanka and,
while there, we made some really good friends.
Our time there
on the island was unequivocally one of the greatest experiences of
my life. In all the years I've spent traveling, few places have come
close to Sri Lanka for sincere warmth and hospitality. The people of
that tropical paradise are simply among the friendliest in the
world. And that goes for both the Sinhalese and the Tamils we got to
know.
Of course, every
one of our Sinhalese friends would strongly oppose just about
everything I've said above, but that is to be expected. As in most
war zones, they have been bombarded with years of government
propaganda and nationalistic claptrap and have predictably become
convinced of their own righteousness and victimhood, à la America in
the years following 9/11.
Tragic
Finally, let me
just state the obvious: that, with over 80,000 people losing their
lives, this war has been absolutely tragic. However, that doesn't
mean its conclusion is any reason for celebration. The fact is that
a people who have had their own homeland for the past two decades
have just had it stolen away—all largely due to our unnecessary and
unjust involvement.
Freedom once won
is now once more denied. And this fact makes the whole brutal war
even more tragic. For anyone who believes in justice and
self-determination, this is a truly sad outcome indeed.
Mike Cowie is
a freelance writer who writes about politics, music, film, travel,
and much more. Read more of Mike’s views on www.mikesanddislikes.com
27
May 2009
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