Buried deep and largely unnoticed in the trove of diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks last December was an extraordinary note detailing the Sri Lankan government's alleged support of paramilitary groups involved in killing, abducting and raping Tamil civilians and in forcibly conscripting child soldiers.
The message sent home by then-U.S. Ambassador Robert O. Blake Jr. -- who is now Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs -- was all the more stunning for the revelation it included at the end: the political officer of the embassy, Blake wrote, had listened to a recording in which Defense Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa, the brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, "was effusive in his praise" for the most ruthless paramilitary group and the "benefits" it provided the government.
The cable helps explain why today, almost two years after the brutal end of Sri Lanka's 26 year war, so little progress has been made toward reconciliation. Culpability strikes too close to home, and the government clearly doesn't want a thorough, independent investigation that will hold people accountable -- an essential step for a durable peace. As current U.S. Ambassador Patricia A. Butenis wrote in a January 2010 cable: "There are no examples of a sitting regime undertaking wholesale investigations of its own troops or senior officials for war crimes. In Sri Lanka this is further complicated by the fact that responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country's senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa and his brothers."
Ignoring this unambiguous indictment, the United States and other countries continue deluding themselves with the claim that the "Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission" Rajapaksa empanelled to investigate the war needs more time to finish its work -- despite nine previous commissions in Sri Lanka that never held anyone accountable. This diplomatic cowardice is providing the cover and the time for a massive government program to build new military bases and colonize the Tamil homeland in the north and east of the island with Sinhalese -- a phenomenon graphically chronicled in a recent New Yorker magazine article. The longer this campaign continues, the more difficult it will be to ever reconcile the island's deeply divided population.
Meanwhile, Rajapaksa is rapidly creating an imperial presidency, appointing family members to key posts (one newspaper on the island tallied almost 100 government departments controlled by the Rajapaksa brothers), stifling a free press, jailing his main political opponent and abolishing term limits. The push to consolidate power is occurring alongside a willful inattention to the underlying causes of the war -- the marginalization of Tamils by the ruling Sinhalese.
In the aftermath of the war, this problem is clearly illustrated by the government's refusal to engage in power sharing with Tamils, grant greater local governance to Tamil communities, include Tamils in redevelopment plans or provide Tamils with equal access to government aid and services. The Tamil areas being repopulated with Sinhalese are experiencing a development boom -- particularly hotel construction along the island's pristine beachfronts that is ruining the livelihoods of local fishermen. But many other Tamil communities that were destroyed and displaced by decades of warfare desperately need new schools, houses, hospitals, churches and temples, ports and roads.
The problems in Sri Lanka have been festering for years. What's needed is the courage and conviction to solve them. Western and democratic powers should stop ceding the field to China and win back the confidence of the Sri Lanka people with serious redevelopment aid that can give well-meaning foreigners leverage over the government. International NGOs need to find their critical voices and stop hiding behind the fear that they'll be kicked out for speaking the truth. Businesses need to "know their client" and insist that their investments benefit all of the island's people equally, and do not empower a discriminatory regime. And the international press needs to recognize the hazards that their Sri Lankan colleagues live and work under, and travel to the island to report about what's happening there.
Everybody can be part of the solution in Sri Lanka. But first, while there's still time to heal the wounds, everybody needs to stop finding excuses for doing nothing. As recent events in the Middle East show, that's a poor substitute for a real policy.
Karunyan Arulantham, M.D., is a member of the Tamil American Peace Initiative, a group of Tamil Americans formed to help bring lasting peace, justice, democracy and good governance to Sri Lanka, and to focus attention on the destruction of Tamil communities and culture caused by the war.
Amarnath Amarasingam: The Problem with Karma: Notes from the Conflict in Sri Lanka
I disagree with your comment that "Sri Lanka is for the Sinhalese". Wrong. Citizenship isn't conditional on blood. Sri Lanka is for all Lankans, irrespective of their ethnicity. If you believe that, your stance is identical to that of the Eelamists.
How can you forget that Lankans of all ethnicities gave their lives and limbs to defeat the LTTE including Tamils, Burghers, Muslims etc.
Here’s Gota gifting a three wheeler to a disabled SLA veteran.
http://www.defence.lk/img/20101124_02p5.jpg
Another concern, if there is a list published on victims of war, the dead, locked in prison, missing to date. Two years gone since the war,never heard of such statistics on the Tamil people caught in this inevitable situation, all we hear is about the glorious military. Thanks to the author Karunyan and Huffington Post for publishing such real time news on neglected part of the globe as SL. Congratulations on the recent recognition and wishing Huffington Post every success to be the leader for facts at home and around the world.
The road to peace was achieved by the courage of ordinary Sri Lankans including many Tamils who proved their courage by resisting the LTTE, were murdered for their efforts and not by the morally compromised West. The West isn’t going to get your Eelam. Its dead. Sri Lanka won and Eelam lost.
If the diaspora is interested in helping SL Tamils, they put their money into reconstruction rather than destruction. Bricks, not bullets. Calls for boycotts, sanctions & war crimes probes by people who supported the LTTE’s aims is futile. It merely hardens the GoSL resolve and provides perfect justification for their paranoia.
When you lose a war, you don’t get what you were fighting for, through third-party interventions.
I wonder where his Third Force (thugs) will go.
When Sri Lankan military in Haiti were expelled for harassing local women, they went back to Sri Lanka to carry human rights in one hand.
I agree, dictatorial rule is good in one way if you look around beyond the well.
Donate your money to a charity please.
Bottom line is regardless how some of the Tamil terror disinformation machine goes on propaganda offensive, Sri Lankan people in all parts of the country are living without fear now. Washington Times also says "Perhaps the most important lesson is the debunking of the widely held belief that terrorism cannot be quelled militarily. The Sri Lankan military demonstrated that professionalism, strategy, discipline and unswerving commitment can beat terrorism".
Human greed knows no ends. The US, a country that prides itself in supreme principles continues its immoral practice of supporting and propping up dictators. With all its wealth it still looks to rob a people of its rights and lands, all for the benefit of more wealth.
It's no secret that it has become complicity in the immoral war in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan President and his regime adamantly on the defensive and work on the principle of burying the past as the best policy to avoid any surfacing of unhealed wounds. Ironically as far as the civilized world is concerned, such approach is not sustainable and is absolutely necessary to deal with the past to serve justice to the victims of political violence and mass murders. Thus it’s the International community’s overwhelming response that the real reconciliation between the communities in Sri Lanka would start only if Sri Lanka recognizes that inalienable truth of accepting responsibility to the atrocities the ruling regimes committed on the minorities. Further it will prevent other States of the world following the suppressive footsteps of ‘Sri Lankan Model’.
Recently the Asst. UN Sec Gen Catherine Bragg has still very "diplomatically" pleaded for more access time (the now one month to three month) to help the "returnees" in North-East of Sri Lanka.
Even the aid from Govt. of India to build 50,000 houses is being delayed to non-cooperation from Sri Lankan officials.
The people of Sri Lanka in North East are be treated with dignity by their own government.
Sri Lanka pioneers with its authoritarianism and 63-year old ultra-nationalism more than any of the North African Arab regimes who send their third force to quell protesters.
It is also worth noting that Sri Lanka shares (and exceeds) many features with the repressive regimes in the North African Arab world.
They all have long serving rulers, who had consequently built up powerful elite constituents in support of the status quo. They use nationalism to create an ideological base for their continuous family rule and are authoritarian at cracking down political dissent. They all had regular elections, always winning by overwhelming majority.
The Difference: 100% ethnic majority military has been oppressing and killing a 100% ethnic minority over more than six decades with leaders ordering 'kill everybody' with all heavy weaponry available.
SL has been a democracy since Independence, albeit a very flawed one since the LTTE started its campaign. The current govt has now won two genuine elections. Even those permanent whiners at the EU couldn't find any serious irregularities. Odd that the LTTE never held a plebiscite (even amongst the Tamils living under its control) over its right to speak for all Tamils in SL, no?
Anyway, keep on banging the drum for Tamil Eelam – I can give you a Lifetime Guarantee of Failure. As for Dr Arulantham's embarrassing begging letter to the West pleading with them to bring some order to the uppity natives in SL, I guess losing Eelam is making people lose their heads.