The civil war in Sri Lanka was both brutal and a human tragedy. The United Nations estimated that the death toll from the Tamil Tigers’ long secession struggle might exceed 100,000. The Tigers were brutal in their tactics. Their kidnapping and exploitation of young Tamils was not unlike that perpetrated by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda. Like radical Islamists, the Tamil Tigers exploited a culture of martyrdom to promote suicide bombing. Like Hezbollah, the Tamil Tigers received technical assistance from North Korea (making Condoleezza Rice’s recommendation to remove North Korea from the state sponsor of terror list indefensible).
In May 2009, the Sri Lankan army did what hundreds of diplomats and UN pronouncements over more than a quarter century had failed to do: They defeated the Tamil Tigers and finally liberated Sri Lanka from the nightmare of terrorism and insurgency. No civil war is pretty, and the conclusion of Sri Lanka’s bloody struggle was no different. Britain’s Channel 4, for example, has acquired footage purporting to show the execution of the 12-year-old son of the rebel leader son of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tamil Tigers’ leader. If he was executed, that was wrong. But given Prabhakaran’s use of children and his glorification of suicide bombing, it would be unfair to ask any Sri Lankan soldier to risk life and limb to take prisoners. Had the Tamil Tigers cared an iota for the Geneva Conventions, perhaps it would be different, but if they eschewed the Conventions in life, then they should not seek their recompense in death.
Enter the United Nations: After decades of trying to talk to terrorists and legitimizing the Tamil Tigers, the United Nations now seeks to condemn Sri Lanka and force it to reopen old wounds. Rather than build toward a peaceful future, the United Nations Human Rights Council seeks an inquisition for Sri Lanka, a move that will set the country’s future back years and could ultimately reopen conflict.
Now, enter the Obama administration: Even as the Human Rights Council demonstrates repeatedly that it stands for anything but, and rather shields dictators, condemns democracies, and glorifies terrorist groups past and present, the Obama administration has chosen to side with the Council and undermine Sri Lanka’s future. Maria Otero, Secretary of State Clinton’s Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, has confirmed that the United States will support a Council resolution this month which will demand greater Sri Lankan support not only for the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendations, but also greater “accountability,” a catch all term that will paralyze the Sri Lankan government and its efforts to rebuild. Internationalizing reconciliation may provide the human rights community with billets to fill, but it often undermines true reconciliation.
Rather than meddle, the White House should celebrate Sri Lanka’s win in the war against terrorism and cheer the Tigers’ demise. The Sri Lankans did against the Tigers what the United States seeks to do against al- Qaeda. Instead of seeking to force the Sri Lankans to rehash the past at this point in time, the United States should help the Sri Lankans rebuild their country with aid and investment. Rather than spending tens of thousands of dollars to send diplomats to Sri Lanka to lecture Colombo, the Obama administration should rather spend that money conducting lessons learned to determine whether years of diplomacy and mediation emboldened the terrorists rather than resolved the conflict. Absent a coherent strategic vision, perhaps Mrs. Clinton should simply leave Sri Lanka alone.
Mr. Rubin and the like are globalizing every struggle to drive their own agenda. I have suspician that the private mercenery firms dearly paid by the Sri Lankan missions also may have a hand in his writing. n nMr. Rubin might be one of the confused lots about the ongoing Syrian dilemma (and Libyan too) n nRubin, probably has no problems regimes killing their own people calling armed thugs or terrorists, as long as they belong to his enemies of his state. n nIs he calling the western nations to arm civilians in Homs or glorifying the students and children who took arms in Bengazhi. n nArab Spring is good thing. We do not need to beat around the bush. n n
The U.S. is promoting more horror. The Tamil Tigers were the inventors of flying passenger liners into public buildings. Their failure (couldn't fly a large plane accurately) served as a model for Bin Ladin's later success with the NY Twin Towers.
Twin Towers were attacked in 2001. nLTTE flew the plane in 2008.. n nOf course LTTE used utter violence. nCan you envisage the state oppression that arouses such violence?
Thanks Mr. Rubin, great article.
It is unfortunate that the President failed to take the opportunity presented by Independence Day to show the nation and the international community that it had already begun to implement the LLRC recommendations, and make a break with the past. The LLRC itself thought fit to mention in its final report that its interim recommendations made about a year earlier had yet to be implemented''- National Peace Council, 9 February 2012 n nOn Independence Day the National Anthem was sung only in Sinhala though LLRC recommended that it is sung in both languages, Sinhala and Tamils – the mildest of recommendation.
part 1: Great article and a man of courage to talk the truth. Not many in today's world that have the courage to talk truth at any cost and many of them lie for an agenda. nAs Mr. Rubin rightly observed, US is seeking to do exactly what Sri Lanka did in 2009, but hypocrisy has taken over the foolish heads of US government. They already killed over a million civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan (war crimes!) and UK said they don't even have numbers of the civilians killed in Libya by their air strikes (nice !), and the puppet UNHCR is silent, or else their funding will be cut-off by US and EU. Arab spring is good for arms dealers not for civilians. It is also good for terrorists where they can get the upper hand in the countries concerned.
Part 2: Today Libya, Syria, Egypt are all less stable and poorer than when they were under "so called dictators". What did the new democracy through "Arab spring" brought? Death, poverty and misery. Iraq and Afghanistan will take 30 years to recover from the war crimes US and allies committed there. nWestern politicians were taken for a donkey ride by Tamils in those countries. Those Tamils get together and laugh about those politicians they continuously mislead. They also talk how gullible those western politicians are and how easy to sneak through their noses without them knowing.
Mr Rubin nYou have seen the blood and guns of ''terrorism'' of the oppressed(1974-2009) nPlease learn about the state structural terrorism(1948-2012) that created LTTE and continues unabated: as the journalists have been forced to become self-censored, an inter-faith group called Watchdog has started to report the atrocities in the army-occupied Northeast. nAs regards the whole of the country, this President appointed 7 commissions and 7 committees in the last six years to ward off national and international pressure on various matters and the President refuses to make the 14 reports public. nPlease help the Sri Lankans. n n
Mr Rubin is not the only one who knows about the terrorism of the oppressed in Sri lanka and who doesn't know about the terrorism of the state that continues to oppress is own people: nJayantha Dhanapala’s submission to Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission(LLRC), August 2010: ‘’Each and every Government which held office from 1948 till the present bear culpability for the failure to achieve good governance, national unity and a framework of peace, stability and economic development in which all ethnic, religious and other groups could live in security and equality. Our inability to manage our own internal affairs has led to foreign intervention but more seriously has led to the taking of arms by a desperate group of our citizens.’’ (Dhanapala is a Sinhalese and was formerly UN Under-Secretary General for Disarmament) n''But that truth cannot excuse human rights violations that currently afflict the nation as a whole; or for that matter obscure the looming threat of the cultural and political colonisation of the north by the Sinhala Buddhist majority'' – Biased and Prejudiced Collection on Sri Lanka, *Gananath Obesekere, Economic & Political Weekly, Mumbai, 28 January 2012 n(*a Sinhalese and Professor Emeritus, Princeton University)
never read such a brain-dead article ever in my life!