Causing Untold Suffering

There is an incredible disconnect of mind and memory over reality and responsibility when diplomats of one country take it upon themselves to lecture another country on human rights and national responsibilities when those taking the others to task are more guilty of neglecting human compassion and restraint in prosecuting war than their criticized targets. So when one reads that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saw fit to criticize the Sri Lankan government's military campaign against the Tamil Tigers because of the very real problem of civilians falling prey to the military, it somewhat rankles.

There are unavoidable conflicts and there are those which simply cannot be avoided, in the final analysis. When the United States invaded Afghanistan in retaliation for the assault by al-Qaeda within the very heart of America, it was an understandable and needful response. Afghanistan was host to the very terrorist group responsible for that epoch-shattering assault on 9-11, giving them succour, finding common cause between the Islamist Taliban government and the Islamist jihadists; two of a kind; one enslaving a people, the other determined to conquer another.

There was far less reason to invade Iraq, a country that had no connection to al-Qaeda, irrespective of its horrendously vicious government and its vile human rights abuses. This was quite simply a vengeful ploy on the part of the Bush administration to somehow 'get back' at a country that he felt dishonoured the elder Bush, who, in defending Kuwait against the Iraqi invasion, decided on his own initiative that American troops and their allies would not march on to Baghdad.

In invading Iraq, Bush junior and his administration were responsible for the loss of far more lives than now is the case in Sri Lanka, with the government's determined final show-down with the Tamil Tigers and their disinterest in the fate of hapless innocent Tamil civilians caught in the cross-fire. Most certainly if the world were not looking on in alarm, the Sinhalese government of Sri Lanka would exercise far less caution than it now does, in protecting the lives of Tamils.

This conflict is one where there are no heroes; both the government of Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tiger terrorists are villains. The government of Sri Lanka for its tradition of oppressing and victimizing its Tamil population, and the Tamil Tigers for violently assaulting those who they claim are the enemies of Tamils. Apart from the fact that the Tigers themselves are responsible for civilian Tamil deaths, using them as human shields, and threatening them with death as they attempt to flee the combat zone.

Because of world pressure, and because expatriate Tamils living in Canada, the United States and Europe have engaged in loud and desperate public displays of outrage over world inaction in putting diplomatic pressure on the Sri Lankan government, that same government has been forced to exercise a modicum of care in sparing civilian Tamils; a care they would otherwise not undertake to perform, given their traditional hostility toward the Tamil minority.

As a result, it is now estimated that some 100,000 Tamil civilians, men, women and children desperate to flee the area, have managed to escape. Not without great human cost, as it happens, since among them are many who have been severely injured in the fighting, some of whom have expired on the way to freedom, more of whom are being treated in inadequate hospital facilities.

Though the government of Sri Lanka is responsible for the plight of the Tamils who felt, understandably, only a homeland of their own would bring them safety, security and justice, and for whose sake the Tamil Tigers were originally organized in an effort to obtain that end, no country can suffer a 25-year-long conflict within its borders without finally determining to end it, regardless of the blood shed.

The other options available to combatants, one a duly constituted government, the other a vicious terrorist group, would be to engage diplomatically. Success in arriving at peace between the protagonists would only be available through the Sri Lankan government capitulating to the demands of the Tamil Tigers. That necessitate that the Sri Lankan government willingly surrender a portion of its territory.

And that, quite simply, is a solution that few governments would agree to; surrendering their territorial imperative, the national integrity of their geography to a violent army of psychopathic heroes of a disadvantaged minority. Not only would this be precedent-setting, but it would be no guarantee of peace between the two, even with separation and the eventuality of side-by-side nations.

We have only to look at examples like India and Pakistan, and then Bangladesh - more latterly, Serbia and Bosnia, to view, in retrospect, the proof that antagonisms of religion, ethnicity, politics and traditions do not evaporate so readily.