US President Clinton's Statement on Terrorism and its Application to the Sri Lankan Situation
TAMIL TRIBUNE, November 1998 (ID. 1998-11-01)
Minor revision: December 1998
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OUTLINE
Abbreviations
1. Introduction
2. Background of the Sri Lankan Situation
(Those familiar with the Sri Lankan situation may skip this section.)
3. Even-handed Solution to the Sri Lankan Situation
ABBREVIATIONS
LTTE - Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
UN - United Nations
UNP - United National Party (A major Sinhalese political party)
US - United States (of America)
1. Introduction
In his address to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on September 21, 1998, United States (US) President Bill Clinton spoke of his government's resolve to fight terrorism around the globe. He said that the root causes of terrorism should also be removed. A press release issued by his office on the same day stated: "President Clinton has also addressed the political and economic conditions that breed terrorism, encouraging development in Africa, promoting human rights in Asia, supporting independent judiciaries in Eastern Europe, and training law enforcement officials in Latin America".
We applaud the US President's stand on terrorism and his strategy to eradicate it by going to the root causes that breed it. We urge him to apply his strategy in its totality to the current situation in Sri Lanka.
Until last year, the United States government held that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a guerrilla organization fighting for the rights of the oppressed Tamil minority in Sri Lanka, may not be considered a "terrorist organization". (Almost every country in the world accepts the fact that the minority Tamils were and are oppressed and their legitimate rights were and are denied.) Then, in October 1997 the US government declared that LTTE is a terrorist organization and curtailed it activities in the United States. This action represents one facet of US President Clinton's strategy in fighting terrorism around the globe. As he pointed out in his UN General Assembly speech and in the press release, another facet of fighting terrorism is to remove the root causes such as human rights violations that give rise to terrorism.
Let us look at the root causes that gave rise to armed warfare in Sri Lanka and how the United States and other well-meaning nations may help end this.
2. Background of the Sri Lankan Situation
The current armed conflict in Sri Lanka is between the Sri Lankan government and the minority Tamils living in the northern and eastern regions of the island (their traditional homeland for over two thousand years); the Sinhalese live in the rest of the island (their traditional homeland). Sinhalese control the Sri Lankan government because of their numerical superiority.
Tamils did not start the violence; absolutely no one disputes this. Ever since the British ended their colonial rule over Sri Lanka in 1948, the Sinhalese majority discriminated against the Tamil minority in every sphere of life (very few would dispute this either). Tamils protested the discriminations in peaceful Gandhian ways under such Gandhian leaders like Chelvanayagam. These peaceful protests were met with police violence. Not only that, "angered" by these peaceful protests against discrimination, Sinhalese mobs attacked Tamils, murdering, torturing and raping Tamils as the police looked on without interfering and sometimes joined in with the mobs. Major riots occurred in 1956, 1958, 1961, 1974, 1977, 1979, 1981 and 1983. These are established historical facts. We will not go into the gruesome details of what happened to Tamil men, women and children; such details are available in archived newspaper reports and a few books. We simply present here a quote from a reputed, unbiased foreign eyewitness to one of these riots:
"In Sri Lanka, in 1958, programs were committed against Tamils, barely reported in the western media, but on a scale and with a brutality which compare to the worst in the annals of the Jewish people", so said Natanel Lorch, Israeli Charge d' Affaires to Sri Lanka (1958-1960).
The 1983 riots are the worst of all anti-Tamil riots, surpassing the 1958 and all other riots many fold. Checkout the newspaper reports of that time. After 1983, it is murder, torture and rape of Tamil civilians by the army and police. Thousands of Tamil civilians were tortured, thousands murdered in cold-blood (excluding those deaths by aerial bombing and army shelling) and hundreds raped by police and soldiers; all documented by human rights groups like Amnesty International.
Seeing that peaceful, non-violent Gandhian protests are not yielding results but are, instead, resulting in police and mob violence against Tamils, some Tamil youths resorted to armed resistance starting from about the mid-1970s. Their strength increased quickly after the fore-mentioned 1983 anti-Tamil riots. Remember that Tamils did not start the violence. There were massacres of Tamils long before the LTTE was formed. End the violence against Tamils (human rights violations against Tamils) and give them their legitimate rights and due protection under international guarantees, I am sure that the war will end and peace prevail.
Sri Lankan President Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga's stand is that the discriminations, massacres and human rights violations (that is, murders, tortures and rapes by army and police) are things of the past, things that happened before she came to power. Her often repeated statements to this effect are believed by some governments. But the fact of the matter is that things have not changed. Sri Lankan President Kumaratunga shows a smiling face to the world but what the Tamils see is an iron fist as ruthless as anything they have seen in the past half a century of discrimination, oppression and violence. (See the articles referenced at the end of this article.) We will not go into statistics or incident by incident descriptions here. These are documented in reports filed by unbiased, international human rights groups of great integrity. Here are a few basic facts:
1) UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances says that Sri Lanka has the highest rate of disappearances during 1997 (Ms. Kumaratunga was the President during all of 1997).
2) In July 1998, a soldier told that the Sri Lankan army buried about 400 Tamil civilian bodies in a mass grave in Chemmani, Jaffna. Four months have passed and the site is yet to be examined. The very army accused of the murders and burial are put in charge of guarding the mass grave all these months. It shows the extent of President Kumaratunga's commitment to human rights, justice and fair play! Sri Lankan President Kumaratunga's commitment to human rights should be measured by her actions not by her words.
While talking smoothly to the world, Sri Lankan President Kumaratunga continues with her oppressive policies against the minority Tamils. If not, why is she not allowing foreign reporters into army-held Tamil areas (except on a few conducted tours by the army)? Is it because she wants to hide to brutal reality of massive human rights violations by the army? (It has nothing to do with security. There have been no battles in Jaffna City and many surrounding areas for over two years. Battles are farther away from the City and environs.)
In order to cover up her army's large-scale murders, tortures and rapes, President Kumaratunga's government puts severe restrictions on entry of foreign relief agencies and human rights groups into army held Tamil areas. A few years ago Red Cross was threatened with closure of its operations after it reported the air force bombing of a church full of Tamil refugees. In 1998 President Kumaratunga ordered that all human rights groups should submit their reports to government censors before releasing (Absolutely no other government had ever censored the reports of human rights groups.) If Sri Lankan President Kumaratunga has nothing to hide about her army's behavior in Tamil areas, why the restriction? Why the censorship? The fact of the matter is that murder, rape and torture by her army are wide-spread in spite of her and her foreign minister's propaganda otherwise. If not, why censor human rights reports by foreign groups like Amnesty International, Red Cross and Peace Brigade?
We included this "BACKGROUND" section simply to show that torture, rape and murder continue in spite of Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga's emphatic and frequent assertions otherwise. Those readers needing documentation of human rights violations (torture, rape, murder) by Sri Lankan army and police under President Kumaratunga may visit the following sites of human rights groups of undisputed integrity and honesty (visit all their pages relating to SRI LANKA).
Amnesty International: http://www.amnesty.org/
Peace Brigade International: http://www.igc.apc.org/pbi/
British Refugee Council: http://www.gn.apc.org/refugeecounciluk/
International Red Cross: http://www.icrc.org/
US Committee for Refugees: http://www.refugees.org/
Human Rights Watch: http: http://www.hrw.org/
3. Even-Handed Solution to the Sri Lankan Situation
U.S. President Clinton has taken action against the LTTE after declaring it a terrorist organization in October 1997. The LTTE cannot raise funds in the United States either for their war effort (weapons purchases) or for humanitarian aid to Tamil refugees (food, blanket, shelter purchases). This action takes care of one facet of the U.S. Commitment to end terrorism around the world. There is yet a second facet to U.S. President Clinton's strategy to end terrorism, namely, the eradication of the root causes such as human rights violations and oppression of minorities that breed terrorism. As we discussed in the previous section, human rights violations (that is, torture, murder and rape) and the oppression of the Tamil minority abound in Sri Lanka.
We plead to U.S. President Clinton, in the name of humanity and human rights, to act effectively on this facet of his anti-terrorism strategy also. The United States and other nations should act equally vehemently and equally effectively both against terrorist acts and against human rights violations and oppression of minorities that are the root causes of terrorism. While the United States had acted vehemently and effectively against the LTTE, very little is done against Sri Lanka for its blatant violation of human rights (large numbers of torture, rape and murder) and oppression of minority Tamils. We suggest the following or other equally effective sanctions against Sri Lanka until it ends the human rights violations and oppression of minority Tamils. Sanction against the Sri Lankan government because of its flagrant violations of human rights should be comparable to those against the LTTE.
1) Stop all military/police equipment exports and military/police training to Sri Lanka. This should include the so-called "defensive equipment" also because an effective defense fosters an aggressive and uncompromising posture against the opponent. It is a myth to say providing "defensive equipment" to rouge governments is all right.
2) Stop all imports from Sri Lanka because the foreign exchange earned is used for weapons purchases. (This sanction is directly proportional to banning LTTE's fund raising activities in the U.S.)
3) Stop all economic aid to Sri Lanka including aid by the consortium of donor nations and loans by the World Bank. With these monies in hand, monies otherwise would be used for civilian needs are diverted for weapons purchases. Thus these aid monies and loans do help purchase weapons. (This sanction is comparable to banning LTTE's fundraising in the U.S. for humanitarian help to Tamil refugees.)
Associated with every set of sanctions are conditions upon which the sanctions may be lifted. We suggest the following conditions for lifting the above set of sanctions on Sri Lanka:
a) Allow foreign reporters into army-held Tamil areas so that the world may know the true human rights situations there.
b) Allow free access to relief agencies into army-held Tamil areas so that people may have at least the minimum of basic needs for life as human beings. (NOTE: Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has placed severe restrictions on relief agencies to operate in army-held Tamil areas. The only reason for such an action is to teach the Tamil civilians a lesson never again to oppose Sinhalese domination and oppression. If there is any other reason we would like to hear them.)
c) Allow free access to human rights groups to army-held Tamil areas and lift the government censorship on their human rights reports. (Sri Lanka under President Kumaratunga is the first and only country in the world to impose censorship of human rights groups.)
d) Lift the ban on food and medicine into areas held by the LTTE. If Sri Lankan President Kumaratunga's war is against the LTTE, why starve the Tamil civilians and deny them medicine? These food and medicine may be dispensed through relief agencies in order to prevent these supplies going to LTTE.
e) Start unconditional peace talks with the LTTE under third party foreign mediation. (NOTE: Even the main Sinhalese opposition party (the United National Party (UNP)) has urged President Kumaratunga to do so. The LTTE has said many times that they are ready for peace talks under third party foreign mediation. Many countries and individuals of great integrity have volunteered to mediate. Only one opposing foreign mediation is President Kumaratunga.)
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"The lovely peaceable island of Sri Lanka continues to suffer from civil strife in which death, rape, torture, detention and disappearance of civilians, primarily Tamils, are common occurrences. A recognition of the Tamils as a people with its own distinct ethnicity, and a cessation of brutality and a range of other serious human rights violations by security forces, and of armed and aerial attack on Tamil townships, are not too much to ask of the Sri Lankan Government. Neither is it unreasonable to ask that the Sri Lankan Government accept third party mediation. Neither would it be a threat to the sovereignty of Sri Lanka if journalists and other independent observers were permitted into every part of the country to examine the human rights situation of both Tamil and Sinhalese areas." - Justice Marcus Einfeld (Justice of the Federal Court of Australia and the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory), May 25, 1998. |
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