Warfare in Sri Lankan style

By : Gomin DAYASRI
Gomin Dayasri is a leading Sri Lankan lawyer who was a delegate to the peace talks in Geneva with the Tamil Tigers

25th November 2008
It is incredible, it is unbelievable. It happens only in Sri Lanka.

Where in the world do you knowingly treat your enemy before engaging him in combat? It is happening all the time in Sri Lanka, hardly any one talks about it any more. It is time those interfering meddlesome foreigners and our ‘greater than god’ human rights angels learn of it. Probably they do know, but pretend not to know. Unfortunately, in the war effort, we have not learnt the skills in blowing our trumpet nor are we pied pipers who have mastered the art of playing that signature tune, which is played to perfection by the LTTE. Though in politics, we surpass many.

Who else feed the enemy troops, maintain a network of roads for their troops to move, provide the asphalt to build roads which they extend to runways to fly light aircrafts, provide hospitals and supply medicine to rehabilitate and rejuvenate the injured terrorists and make them return to the battle ground? We pay for the doctors and nurses ministering the terrorists. The children in LTTE controlled areas are provided with an education for which we pick the bill including the salaries of teachers. The state pays the salaries of public servants to provide for welfare services including child care and maternity and infant mortality services for the families and children of the terrorists. Public works including sanitation and the administration for the North is paid for by those taxed in the South. It has happened under every administration during the 30 year war. Indeed it is an old story that needs to be retold.

Do these Human Rights screamers ever murmur a word of the contributions we make both to civilians and terrorists in areas under LTTE control? Do they stricture the LTTE for siphoning the provision meant for civilians being transferred to the combat zone? Those who play Santa to terrorists would not mind if the sledge carries contraband to the LTTE dreamland provided they hitch a ride. In fact some were in the business in disguise traveling in 4×4 foreign funded NGO vehicles ostensibly to serve the civilians but to provide a pipe line of funding to the terrorists. Inquire which other country maintain an armed force to fight terrorism and provide the infrastructure for the terrorists to fight the government forces. Test their limited IQs by asking them to name another country? Those suffering from NGO delusions can only pique.

We are fulfilling our obligations to our citizens in the North but the terrorists stealthily grab the provision for themselves. In the uncleared areas the distribution is still in the hands of the LTTE-so to transfer it to their own pocket is elementary. Eventually, except for the leadership in the LTTE most of the LTTE cadres will be rehabilitated and become peaceful citizens. They will with time realize the folly of the LTTE in damaging the Tamil community killing and harming their own people. In parliament today sitting as members are former terrorists who have become model democrats, having benefited from the hospitality in prison and enjoyed an amnesty, they have been enlightened and voluntarily converted themselves. Most are now from the South but traffic in the future will be heavy from the North. Today the former terrorists in the democratic process hate their former comrades in the LTTE most. If any country is in need of experienced trainers to prolytize terrorists to democrats ask an NGO to set a recruitment agency here in Sri Lanka.

We are not a bunch of zombies to be ignorant of this sequence of events but stand helpless watching at least a fraction of the supplies percolate down to the people. Otherwise nothing will reach the people as there is no other corridor to touch base for the moment and we are compelled to watch the LTTE loot. We have to ease the desperate plight of our own people in the North however unscrupulous the LTTE are known to be. This can be overcome by only chasing the Tigers away from their own den and saving the people in the North trampled under their heavy boot at whatever cost.

Why don’t the defenders of human rights demand that the LTTE permits provisions dispatched for civilians reach destination unobstructed? They don’t and they want not to, for they care more for the LTTE than for the civilians trapped in the North as a human shield to protect them. LTTE depends on the civilians for their own salvation. In other parts of the world the complaint is that provisions sent to distressed persons are forcibly acquired by state authorities and government troops. In Sri Lanka there is a reversible reaction in operation-the government sends the provisions supervised by the armed forces delivered under the auspices of UN/Red Cross protection. There is never a complaint of our troops pilfering the provisions destined to the North.

Why could not the NGO community living along with the LTTE in Killinochchi persuade and convince them to resist from such highway robbery without preaching to us on human rights. The human rights interventionists if so concerned, as they assert-should have formulated a mechanism where the aid flow could have continued without hindrance to the North especially the essential items before they left Killinochchi. Their misplaced priorities are located elsewhere.

Undoubtedly, the conditions of the civilians would improve once the LTTE is comprehensively defeated as the banditry will be no more. Presently LTTE kill or imprison those who disobey, drive the innocent to the battle field to be maimed, capture those refusing to join and inflict punishment as a deterrent to others, arrest parents if they prevent the conscription of their children, seize the goods meant for the people, destroy property built for public benefit as they retreat, deny education for the children, separate forcibly children from their parents ,lift young girls from homes and dispatch them to camps for military training, place a gun in the hands of kids dress them in battle fatigues and position them in the war zones to be human fodder. Are those champions of human rights suffering from a blurred vision that the see nothing? Are these prohibited topics in their human rights lexicon to remain silent as dumb mutes? Are they wittingly or unwittingly deaf, that they do not hear the plea of the innocent Tamils? Of course those in the academic mafia are in the counting house counting out their dollars with their human rights passport as a cover.

Those western human rights exponents who fault Sri Lanka forget to examine the scenes closer home. It is interesting to compare the situation in Iraq when the US Forces invaded the city of Faluja in 2004.The US Army began its ground attack with the infantry conquering the Falluja General Hospital. The front page of the NewYork Times(8.Nov 2004) reported “patients and hospital employees were rushed out of hospital rooms by armed soldiers and ordered to sit or lie on the floor while troops tied their hands behind their backs”. A supporting photograph was also published and presented as a gallant accomplishment of the US Forces.

Instead we treat their soldiers at our expense and send them back to the battle field after recuperating. They enter the hospital for surgery at Killinochchi in civilian clothes with gunshot injuries but knowing well they are LTTE cadres does not mean the doctors paid by the state; in a hospital maintained by the state, turns them away. Without a trace of discrimination surgery are performed gratis, medicine given free and nursing provided at no costs for the LTTE wounded.

It was confirmed by BBC and Reuters in a report by Dr Sami al-Jumaili of US war planes bombing the Central Health Care Centre in Falluja killing 35 patients and 24 staff members. Dr Eiman al Ani of the Falluja General Hospital stated the entire Health Centre shortly after the attack collapsed on the patients. If this happened in Sri Lanka, the dignitaries in our foreign embassies would have engaged themselves in a talkathon.

The leading medical journal of UK Lancet in October 2004 reported the death toll associated with the invasion and occupation of Iraq may be higher than 100,000.World Food Program reported “significant countrywide shortages of rice, milk and infant formulas”. Acute malnutrition doubled within 16 months of the occupation of Iraq to the level of Burundi, well above Haiti and Uganda, a figure that translates to approximately 4000000 Iraqi children suffering from ‘wasting’, a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of proteins .We provide food, childcare, maternity care( amidst the warfare infant mortality rates record improvements) and a free education to the children in LTTE controlled areas. If the LTTE provided more space all the facilities offered to the people in the South would have reached them. Sadly the LTTE rob their own people of what is provided by the government and charitable organizations both local and foreign. This is not an unusual phenomenon among terrorist organization worldwide for their survival.

Here in Sri Lanka under UN/ICRC supervision we transport food supplies to the affected areas in our vehicles at our expense to our citizens. This is amidst the attempts of the LTTE to disturb the supplies and create a situation to get international attention. We ferry the food provisions supplied by concerned India to the people in the LTTE controlled areas.

The US military denied access to the Iraqi Red Crescent to Falluja which amounts to a gross violation of international humanitarian law. Sir Nigel Young CEO of British Red Cross condemned it as a dangerous precedent.

The bombing campaign in Falluja was directed to empty the city but not the male population between ages 15 to 45; they were not permitted to flee Falluja to ensure the bombing reached the required target. . In Falluja babies and pregnant mothers unable to leave were killed because the attackers who ordered their flight thereupon cordoned off the city, closing the exit roads.(Micheal Byers- War Law: An Introduction to International Law and Armed Conflict page 85).

We provide safe passages for the civilians to make the crossing to government controlled areas and on arrival make them welcome and provide facilities which they admit are superior to what they had to endure under the LTTE.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Right to Food Jean Zieglar accused US and UK troops in Iraq of “breaching international law by depriving civilians of food water in besieged cities as they seek to flush out the militants”. He also alleged that US forces “cut off or restricted food and water to encourage residents to flee before the assault”. He further stated” using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population {in} flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions” Reuters 15 October 2005; also Los Angeles Times and Boston Globe and London Independent 15.Oct 2005.The ruined city of 250000 in Falluja was devoid of electricity, running water and schools.

After a 30 year war in a highly affected economy, we still have the strength and the determination to provide welfare facilities to people in LTTE controlled territory. Compare it with the facilities the LTTE are providing the Tamil people? Is it fair criticism to fault us for human rights violations especially when we have freed the people in the East and provided them with an opportunity to enjoy the benefits of democracy and launched on a campaign to usher development and rehabilitate the people. Why cannot those who criticize ask themselves have not the conditions in the East improved after the LTTE were ousted? Compare life then to now.

The government must be criticized and condemned for its lapses for democracy to flourish. It cannot be limited or restricted or truncated. The priority is to free the people from the menace of terrorism. Are you with us or with them, the terrorists?

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