Keith Ng has a chilling report from one of the world’s forgotten but bloody civil wars – the endless LTTE campaign for Tamil independence in Sri Lanka.
“The Future. Today.” boasts a rusty billboard in Batticaloa.
The coastal town in Sri Lanka’s troubled eastern province is at the centre of a renewed military campaign to drive out the separatist forces of the Tamil Tigers (LTTE). From bases around the district and from the town itself, government artillery bombard suspected LTTE positions day and night. For every new area levelled by the artillery, an influx of refugees arrive in the town with nothing but the clothes on their back.
The heavy military presence has done nothing to stop the killings and abductions of civilians that occur with terrorising frequency; the streets are dead quiet after dark, punctuated only by the pounding of artillery and the roar of rocket launches. The cellphone service advertised by the rusty billboard has been shut down as a security risk. With the 2002 ceasefire now broken in everything but in name, the future is not here today, and many Sri Lankans fear that it will not come tomorrow.
But maybe the Sri Lankan civil war does represent the future – a future of weak states and long wars.
The government is under pressure to solve the refugee problem in Batticaloa and to re-populate areas captured by the military. They want to see the refugees returned as soon as possible. But despite government assurances that Vaharai has been cleared of the LTTE, many refugees believe that the LTTE are simply hiding, and will resurface once the civilian population returns.
These refugees understand their political value. In LTTE territory, they are human shields. If the government tries to avoid killing them, this gives the LTTE a tactical advantage; if the government does not, their deaths give the LTTE a propaganda victory. In government territory, their flight is trumpeted as an escape from the clutches of the LTTE and a vote of confidence in the government; their return will be confirmation that the government is in control.
After reading “Children At War” and learning about the specialized children battalions the LTTE utilize (and how one of them handed a humiliating arse-kicking to a government special forces team), I’m at the least, intensely curious about the nature of this conflict. I remember reading about the failure of non-violent resistance and protest on the island decades ago and how it devolved into war, but I’m curious if anyone could suggest some reading material (books, essays, etc.) for understanding the Sri Lanka conflict.
From the gist I get thus far, I would count the ongoing conflicts in Colombia (over drugs, territory and elite hatred and distrust of native Indians), Nigeria (the rebellion in the delta over the environmental devastation wrought by international and government oil drilling and exploitation) and Sri Lanka (divided ethnic groups fighting over land, resources and power) as indicative of the dark future much of the world faces at this point. All three point to the enduring problems that the West has failed to adequately respond to;
1- disenfranchisement of minority groups (ethnic, religious or political) by the majority that results in insurrection. (Colombia)
2- inability of equal or near-equal groups to share power and compromise (Sri Lanka) within a nation.
3- the excessive, corrosive exploitation of the poor and the powerless by the powerful (Nigeria’s river delta rebellion).
Left by Eddie on April 22nd, 2007