Satire

Double standards and the humanitarian hypocrisy

(1)“Similarly, the people of the north will see in this New Year propitious signs of a new freedom and prosperity that awaits them” — President Mahinda Rajapakse’s New Year Message, April 12, 2009.

(2)        “The 48-hour truce period is over, the security forces would continue with their humanitarian operation as usual” — Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, speaking in Horana on April 15, 2009.

(3)        “Shelling and cannon fire killed more than 57 civilians within the so-called safety zone on Thursday (16).... Nearly 1,500 shell explosions were …fired by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on Thursday and around 600 of them hit the safety zone while about 150 cannon shots hit the coastline” — TamilNet April 16, 2009.

The President promises signs and portents of a new freedom, the Prime Minister assures us of business as usual and TamilNet confirms that fresh shells have been fired at the “no fire” zone with the same riotous joi de vivre and gay abandon that we saw in the rest of the country during the lighting of fire-crackers celebrating the arrival of the New Year.

Of course, many would say that TamilNet disseminates LTTE propaganda, and they would not be wrong. However, whatever the source, such information is very troubling and needs to be verified. This is the crux of our problem on reporting and understanding the war. The government does not provide its citizens with any credible information about casualties and its own culpability in civilian injuries and fatalities. We have two extremes of propaganda to choose from and hence rumour and conjecture are rife.

The litany of LTTE violations is well-known and no sane person will deny them. Yet, should a legitimately elected democratic government measure itself by the standards set by a group that it calls terrorists? Surely, a higher degree of accountability and transparency is required by the Sri Lankan armed forces than the LTTE? And, anyway, whatever the LTTE’s particular perfidy at the moment, the government cannot and should not be drawn into tit-for-tat operations that compromise the safety and security of civilians.  

Huge casualties

The LTTE prevents civilians from leaving the no-fire zone, and the government forces treat them like criminals when they do. The LTTE, we are told, shoots them when they try to leave. The government, we are told, shells them when they stay. That there are huge casualties to ordinary people is a manifest fact. We may quibble over the exact numbers, and over who is responsible for what. It is patently clear, however, neither side gives a hoot for these civilians, except to use them for political or military mileage.

In this context, the President’s New Year message proved to be yet another disappointment, and an example of the government position on this issue. In it was no acknowledgement of the acute suffering and life-threatening danger that ordinary civilians in the conflict areas have been experiencing for at least the past four months.

There was no recognition that many people have died and been injured as a direct consequence of the war. There was not even a token statement about the vast numbers of people who have been displaced, or of others who remain trapped in the last area yet to be captured. There never is any of the above in government communiqués.

Salute the armed forces

However, the President did not forget to salute the armed forces and the police ‘who continue their great sacrifices for the country and the people.’ The implication is clear, but nonetheless difficult to accept: the population of the conflict area — displaced, traumatised, injured and worse — are not important in this equation. Hence, the regime can continue to use the obscenity ‘humanitarian’ to describe what is going on in the Wanni. Is it ‘humanitarian’ to wage a war in which thousands of women and children are hurt and die? And so on….

A clear example of these double standards, reminiscent of the US in Iraq and elsewhere during the so-called war on terror, is the government decision to pay compensation to the victims of the recent terrorist attack in Buttala. While this is commendable, why is there no similar move to compensate those killed and wounded by government fire in the north, including all the families occupying hospital wards in Trincomalee area hospitals?

These wounded include significant numbers of little children — some as young as two years, a few of whom have lost both a parent and a limb — kept under heavy military guard because they are Tamil (remember, as discussed last week, all Tamils are suspect) and because the government is in denial that these attacks ever happened.

Compensation and condolences

Alleged LTTE victims who are Sinhala will get compensation and condolences. Tamil victims are treated differently. If they have been attacked by the LTTE and are willing to denounce them, a few minutes of TV coverage serves as compensation. If they are victims of government shelling, the very best they can hope for is a hospital stay under prison conditions. No Presidential visit or general acceptance of responsibility.

No talk of future assistance. No future. They just need to be thankful to be alive; their dead, well, the government can always claim that the dead were all terrorists. The Defence Secretary has already gone on record that all Tamils in the war area are LTTE cadres — even, the two-year-olds.

This statement says much more about the government’s own position than about the civilians. It simply, clearly articulates the position — implicit in all that was discussed above — that the Tamil civilians in the war areas are the enemy: inconvenient, an embarrassment, even an obstacle, but not citizens with rights, certainly not our people. Our people are in the south, they vote for us, they support the war.

The terrible truth

The terrible truth is that the worse the war gets for the people caught in-between, the greater is the support from our people in the south. Now even the intellectuals are falling over themselves to bury the LTTE, crawling out of the woodwork to suggest reasons for its demise, or to discuss the next phase of post-war development, as if this carnage is inevitable and can be glossed over as the harbinger of a new freedom.

I am less hopeful. I believe that in vanquishing the LTTE, this government has refashioned itself in the garb of its adversary, and I fear that this change is irreversible.