Sri Lanka and war crimes

    June 17, 2011 3:20 pm by Gideon Rachman

    Will the Sri Lankan government be able to shrug off the persistent allegations that war crimes were committed, in its successful assault on the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) in 2009? I have always assumed that the answer to that question was – probably Yes. But now I’m beginning to wonder.

    My reasons for thinking that the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa would probably shrug off the human-rights charges against it, were various. First, the LTTE’s own record of human-rights abuses and terrorism had hardly endeared it to most of the rest of the world. Second, it was clear to most outsiders that the Sri Lankan civil was had exacted a terrible toll, over decades – so a government offensive that definitively ended the conflict would gain approval, even if it involved excessive brutality to civilians. Finally, Sri Lanka is a small country. If India, its own vast neighbour was prepared to turn a blind eye to accusations of human-rights abuses, the West would probably follow the Indian lead.

    However, calls for an international inquiry into the events of 2009 have not gone away – in fact they have been renewed, in Britain at least, following the screening of a widely-viewed television documentary with new footage of the fighting. These calls now seem to be getting some resonance with a wider public. Mike Atherton, a former England cricket captain, has just suggested that England might reconsider plans to tour Sri Lanka.

    The kind of Sri Lankan government that has emerged in the aftermath of the military victory – intolerant of the free press and dominated by the Rajapaksa family – has also damaged the country’s image. Certainly the Rajapaksas present an awful face to this world. Take a look at this memorable clip from the BBC Hardtalk interview with Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the defence minister, in which he threatens to hang a Sri Lankan general who had fallen out of favour with the government.

  1. Report wcm | June 17 4:20pm | Permalink

    | Options

    A much-overlooked concern and and shame on the US-led "West". Gideon’s comment should be read together with Philip Stephens’ spot-on column today about the west and the rest and the rest and the rest.

    In 2009, as noted in comments in this blog, the US chose to ignore obvious and hideous crimes committed by the Sri Lankan government under pressure both from China and India. The latter’s relationship with the island of Ceylon represents a troubled history, and the Hindu-centric government in Delhi has hesitantly favoured the Buddhist regime, which inherited a British-imposed mandate over the hsitorically valid (Hindu) Tamil claims. At best, India has a symbiotic relationship with anyone on the island.

    China was the driver of policy in 2009, and here one must look to Burma. China’s hegemony over Burma has grown through its exploitation of successive corrupt regimes dating back to Ne Win in 1962, and, more recently, the weakness created by self-righteous US-directed sanctions, which arose out of ignorance of this resource rich nation more than strategy, except distrust-rooted containment vis-à-vis Southeast and South Asia.

    Stephens justaposes US designs on Cam Ranh Bay on one side of Asia’s belly with supposed Chinese designs along the Paksitani coast. Burma remains a wild card in this Indian Ocean-Andaman Sea-South China Sea boardgame. Tooo many analysts easily overlook Burma’s pivotal role in the region’s strategic, economic and cultural history. One of the most Buddhist countries on the planet, Burma was until WWII the world’s largest rice producer, until the Mountbatten-directed Brits sought to revenge their ouster by Aung San Suu Kyi’s father, General Aung Sun, whom they are long suspected of having assasinated.

    Returning to thread, Sri Lanka’s Tamils deserve a bit of Western justice.

  2. Report Lakbima | June 17 4:33pm | Permalink

    | Options

    I say sue the so called lovers of selective human rights lovers for the suffering inflicted on all Sri Lankans. As terrorism needs military and administrative components and as the military side of the ltte was terminated the only one remaining is the admin side (and its supporters). As they are calling themselves something like transnational clowns of terror or most excellent intergalactic terror lovers or some such thing, they should be held liable for crimes against humanity, don’t you think.

    In any case our writer and the poor misguide captain seem to be the newest in the lib/prog entertainment-media Borg. Resistance is futile, indeed?

  3. Report rasak | June 17 4:35pm | Permalink

    | Options

    here we go again….tell me what are the difference in "allegation" (mind u that no one is yet to provide any evidence of war crimes by the govt forces un like th us) against lankan forces and NATO or us forces including the death of bin laden….im pretty sure u r yet to come to a conclusion as with sri lanka agaist us isnt it?and again just show the utter immaturity of u in judging gotabaya on his out burst in hardtalk, yes he may not be the perfect communicator specially in english but if u have listened to it with a neutral mind(without ur preconceived ideas and looking thing to prove ur ideas), he was telling that he would be punished for treason which is hanging as in many countries…..just look at ur self in a mirror before pointing fingers on others!

  4. Report rasak | June 17 4:45pm | Permalink

    | Options

    western justice??? must be some thing similar to libiya,iraq, and afganistan….after failing miserably in their terror project these terrorist tamils now trying to get the high moral ground like they were born yesterday…if west is really cared about human rights they would have taken cared of this tamil terrorists and their financiers without harboring them!

  5. Report Felix Drost | June 17 5:00pm | Permalink

    | Options

    Again a subject dear to my heart and I am pleasantly surprised it has managed to gain traction.


    As for why it wasn’t pursued at the time, it rather coincided with a similar anti terrorist operation in the Gaza strip which peaked in the news around the same time but garnered roughly 10 times as much media attention. At the time I made the same point that it was infuriating that while in Sri Lanka thousands of civilians were being killed on purpose the world was obsessed with the Israeli-Hamas war that in the end cost less than 4% the number of civilians their lives and which, according to the Goldstein report, was conducted with so much more care:

    The UN estimates that 20,000 civilians were killed during the final months of the civil war in Sri Lanka, largely due to indiscriminate shelling by the Sri Lankan army on a strip of land where tens if not hundreds of thousands of refugees were packed. Artillery shells were falling amongst tightly packed groups of unarmed, hungry and desperate men, women and children.

    It’s not that at the time the world was asleep at the wheel, it was that at the time the world was obsessing over its pet conflict. If there had not been a Gaza war would the world have acted sooner? Or taken better note? What happened on that beach in northeastern Sri Lanka is what the NATO air war over Libya tried to prevent from happening in Benghazi. For the Tamil population the world hardly raised a finger until it was over. Maybe 2 years makes that much of a difference although I think that if the same were to happen over again, little would be done to prevent it. We have no idea how bad things are in Syria except that they are bad, and probably worse than the estimates indicate.

    Part of the reason why organisations issue bad news on fridays is that fewer people pay attention. Also the news can’t really multi task, there’s only time for a few items, and even then international news is often limited to one or two items tops. Ths news myopia makes the business of representing human rights tragedies so terribly frustrating.

    In order to prevent more people from geting killed, politicians in nations with press freedom need to move, which means it must become a political item dear to the voters heart, which means the voter must care, which means the voter must know about it. And if they don’t know… Well, 6 million dead and counting in Congo, Gideon.

    And the Sri Lanka issue is gaining traction again why? Television images.

    Maybe Syria can clobber its people into submission merely because they don’t allow any of it to be reported. Control the presentation…

    Thank you for this blog post.

  6. Report wcm | June 17 5:03pm | Permalink

    | Options

    >>rasak — re: "western justice", your questioning is understood. I was thinking as it was written and once taught, and certainly not as it is trammeled by the US and its "Co-dependents" today.


    The Ousama bin Laden assassination certainly merits a day before the tribunals in Den Haag.

  7. Report Pandankaraya | June 17 5:37pm | Permalink

    | Options

    Government thugs:


    **The UPFA Rajapase goons were responsible for killing Roshen Rathnasekara

    **Hassina Leelarathne of the ‘Sri Lanka Express’ in California found death threats and sexually explicit messages on her answering machine because of a stray comment about the Sri Lankan Prime Minister’s wife’s rude behavior on a visit to the United States.

  8. Report Alex Caldera | June 17 5:40pm | Permalink

    | Options

    Gideon, what do you want me to do over the constitution:


    In Article 9, the constitution of Sri Lanka says: “The Republic of Sri Lanka shall give to Buddhism the foremost place and accordingly it shall be the duty of the State to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana . . . .”

  9. Report Alina | June 17 6:17pm | Permalink

    | Options

    I completely agree with you Felix. People can’t care unless they know. And the other big reason why there wasn’t more news coverage at the time was that journailsts (along with humanitarian agencies) were not permitted to travel to the region during the final stages (not legitimately anyway). Even now visits by journalists to that part of Sri Lanka are extremely controlled – an army officer will accompany them, usher them away from any citizen who starts to talk too openly, show them the best of the government sponsored resettlement, rehabilitation and reconciliation efforts in the war affected areas. The gritty stuff that gets viewers and readers is hard to come by, as I’m sure you could see by the quality of the footage on this documentary.

    Like you, I am pleased to see that the issue is gaining traction. The people who really need to know about the atrocities committed by both sides, and who really need to care, are Sri Lankans themselves. Their votes have the power to decide what is tolerated and what is not. But Sri Lankan political journalists are silenced on the worst of the conflict by bribery, intimidation and violence against themselves and their families, and have been since long before the Rajapaksas were around. That’s where it gets tricky when it comes to the case for foreign intervention.

    For either foriegn intervention or internal change, people need to know and care. The documentary is a step in the right direction. One of too few steps, but a step nonetheless.

  10. Report guna7 | June 17 11:41pm | Permalink

    | Options

    I am disgusted with Mike Atherton who I have mostly respected as a good guy because when he is the comentator he talk very sensibly not like other’s ,so I thought he is good guy to look at he is an idiot because when some idiot bark he put himself in the same van, go to hell Atherton, who carers if your team the mixed team South Affrica and England ,( because not all English players playing this team they all come from all over the world) do not wants to come to SL fine, then do not come. But before that think carefully there are two sides in a story not one side, open your green eyes and look then talk and keep your respect, may be you have been given good some of money to talk like that.

  11. Report maljoffre | June 18 8:16am | Permalink

    | Options

    It truly saddens one to see so many countries committing and being accused of war crimes. Why can’t they be more like the US and Britain, setting examples for the world to follow?

  12. Report wcm | June 18 9:34am | Permalink

    | Options

    >>maljoffre — Well put. My argument suggests that the US, NATO and its non-NATO Co-dependents colluded in deliberately delivering failed policy that put–and left–the Tamil population in harm’s way. There were no surprises here. Tamil victims were sacrificed for US-directed regional srtategic interests (and, as some will argue, the lack thereof in certain aspects).

    War crimes are becoming like date rape, but that doesn’t mean there need not be international accountability and sound judicial review and judgments.

    Why should the US or any other power not be in the dock when decisive policies carry the power of multiple nuclear warheads? We live in an age where there are deadlier weapons than ones with pointed tips activated by buttons, triggers and the all-too-occasional fools.

  13. Report dumindaam | June 18 11:22am | Permalink

    | Options

    how many people died in sri lanka for last 30 years (before 18th may 2009) and how many people kiled in last two years. then you have answer. Do you think it is bad for sri lanka that no bady died for last to year becuase of war. UN sposed WARS how many died upto now in afganistan and iraq.

    it is that simple.

    if you are sending back sri lankans back to sri lanka that mean UK GOVENMENT ALSO AGREES THAT SRI LANKA SAFE PLACE FOR EVERYBODY. SO DO WHAT IS BEST FOR SRILANKA AND SRI LANKANS.

      No comments yet

      To report this comment for the attention of our moderation team please enter the two words you see below. This helps us fight spam.

      Back to top

      Post your own comment

      To comment, you must sign in or register

      Rachman

      This blog covers a variety of topics from US foreign policy to European politics and the Middle East – and whatever else happens to be in the news or catch my attention. I joined the FT as chief foreign affairs commentator in 2006, after a 15-year career at The Economist which included stints as a correspondent in Brussels, Bangkok and Washington. I write a weekly column on foreign affairs, which appears in the paper on Tuesdays. Occasionally my FT colleagues contribute posts to this blog.


      Follow on twitter


      RSS FT.com latest world news

      • Germany concedes on Greek debt deal

      • Greek PM gives rival finance portfolio

      • Syrian refugees fear army reprisals

        Gideon Rachman’s blog: a guide

        Comment: To comment, please register with FT.com. Register for free here. Please also read the FT’s comments policy here.

        Contact: You can write to Gideon using this email format: firstname.surname@ft.com

        Time: UK time is shown on Gideon’s posts.

        Follow the blog: Links to the Twitter and RSS feeds are at the top of the blog.

        Schedule: Gideon’s column appears in the FT on Tuesdays and you can read an excerpt of it on this blog.

        FT blogs: See the full range of the FT’s blogs here.