Unfortunately I’ve been caught up with finals and ballroom dancing, but I’ll be back next week!
Sri Lankan Conflict: Of Tigers and Governments
Slaughter in Sri Lanka | Killing civilians | The Economist.
For the past couple months I have been reading a lot on the conflict between the Tamil Tiger rebels and the Government of Sri Lanka. It has been very difficult to discern the truth from what both the Tigers and government say. The above story and picture from The Economist summarizes the conversation with a doctor working in the “no-fire zone” where civilians are supposedly safe from conflict. Plainly, this is not true. According to this doctor (who is unnamed to protect himself) shelling still continues to kill civilians, even though the government denies that it has used artillery in the past couple weeks. According to this report, however, the government has conceded the opposite to international diplomats. I don’t understand what the government was thinking when it set up a “no-fire zone”. Of course the goal is to save civilians, but have they learned nothing from the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Isn’t it sensible to assume that the Tamil Tigers are going to take advantage of this no-fire zone, just as Hamas takes advantage of densely populated areas of Palestine? I understand the frustrations of governments in dealing with threats like this, thinking that killing civilians is necessary, but there must be other, indirect, more effective long-term solutions. The Economist seems to acknowledge this predicament, though not much opinion is given in this piece. It is clear, though, that civilians are dying, and that the Sri Lankan’s denial of this is disturbing and a disservice to its own people.
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2009/04/200947144334109872.html
Another source of information that I have looked to for another perspective on the Sri Lankan conflict is al-Jazeera English (unfortunately I don’t understand, nor read, nor speak any Arabic). It has a lot more comprehensive and interactive (i.e. videos, below) than The Economist, but both news outlets emphasize the isolation of civilians in the no-fire zone. al-Jazeera is much more blunt in showing speakers with opinions that there is a genocide being orchestrated and that the conflict has become a humanitarian disaster. From the video, it certainly seems like that. I also find it interesting that there isn’t really any talk of a two state solution, as there is in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The government seems to be very confident of their road to victory. I find this both dangerous and irresponsible. As Charu Lata Hogg said in the video, you can’t just stamp out a terrorist group through conventional means. The government is against a cease-fire because it claims the Tigers will have breathing space, which is not desired. But I’m very unhappy that the government has seemed to have forgotten about the civilians in the no-fire zone. This problem is one engendered by the government itself.
Part 1 of al-Jazeera analysis
Part 2 of al-Jazeer analysis
A final source I wish to look at is CNN. This one is a lot more like The Economist article in that people are actully consulted instead of experts, as al-Jazeera did. It is always useful to talk about issues from the street protester’s point of view, but CNN hasn’t really gone as in-depth as al-Jazeer has. This is one of the most important events happenning right now. The US could learn a lot from the result of the Tamil Tiger/Government conflict, especially when used in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The website has a lot of information, but when I watch the news on TV, I’m bombarded with mostly insignificant news. There are too many important events unfolding, too much analyisis needing to be done, to reserve air time for shows like Nancy Grace that stay on the same story over and over and over and over and over and over again. My condolences go out to the horrible tragedies that people on those types of shows have to face, but it’s frankly quite distasteful to use their misery as a plot for a pseudo soap opera type reporting I find so much on news networks such as CNN. Well, anyway, going back to the Tamil Tigers, nothing new was really gleaned from this article that you couldn’t find in the first two sources, but it did actually quote protesters. There were no quotes from the UK government, though. I would like to better understand on what grounds it supports the Sri Lankan Government, I assume it’s for the “War on Terror”. I’m not trying to justify what the Tigers have done, but I urge our governments to be more creative in dealing with groups such as the Tigers
Finally, this is by no means a complete analysis or critique. After looking at different sources, there seems to be much sympathy given to the civilians, and I would say the Sri Lankan government is losing out in the mass media right now. I wonder what the long-term consequences of the goverment’s actions will be.
If you have any suggestions for future topics that I should explore, please tell me (i.e. comment).
When I plan to post
Just so you know, I plan to at the very least update this blog once a week, on Saturday evenings. I would love to do more posts, though, if time permits me.
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Hello world!
I decided not to change the title of this post because I really want to say hello world! I intend for this blog to be mostly about my views on domestic and international issues, especially human rights, and comparing and contrasting different points of view from different sources of media. I never mean to offend but I do wish to be constructiveyly critical of issues. You’re just as welcome to be constructively critical of me. I hope this turns out well…
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