Civilians, Sovereign States and Extra-State Terror Actors: The Humanitarian Crisis in Sri Lanka

My comment #148. published April 17, 2009 1:40 pm Link
Civilians, Sovereign States and Extra-State Terror Actors
The civilian numbers involved here in Northern Sri Lanka eclipse Srebenica

Innocent women, children and men are presently caught in what appears to be a decisive phase in a murderous 60 year inter-ethno-nationalist conflict that has its origins in the colonial period of British and Dutch exploitation.

All of the “independent” ( including the Times Reporter and HRW) news reports appear to be saying the same thing — that the LTTE terrorists are holding TAMIL civilians as hostages and deploying them as human shields.

Let us understand that the LTTE terror acts have accumulated over decades, not just days. The Govt. of Sri Lanka has deployed its army to quell the rebel action. This is a war situation. Sovereign nation-states have the legal right to maintain law and order within their borders. The govt. and its army have the obligation to end the occupation of Jaffna by LTTE rebels, and end the LTTE claim of a separate ethnic Tamil ‘homeland’

Without a doubt, the Sri Lankan army and the Sri Lankan govt. must be held accountable for any alleged ethnic cleansing of Tamils, whether in Jaffna or elsewhere in the island nation-state. But it appears, once again, that it is the LTTE, not the Sri Lankan Government forces that stop at nothing to recruit Tamil child soldiers, use Tamil women as human shields, forcibly train Tamil civilians to carry out assassinations, coerce Tamil refugees abroad to send funds to pay for LTTE rebel terror separatist action.

So, explain to me, the Sri Lankan Govt. has to accept foreign ships delivering “humanitarian’ supplies? Where will these vital supplies end up? The strong possibility is they will will fall into LTTE terrorists’ hands, because the LTTE cadres need the supplies to continue the rebel action and because the LTTE still control the narrow wedge of land where reportedly hundreds of thousands of innocent Tamils are trapped — by the LTTE!.

Clearly, crimes can be committed under the guise of "humanitarian" relief.

Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
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New York Times copyright
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/is-the-world-ignoring-sri-lankas-srebrenica/?scp=2&sq=Sri%20Lanka%20massacre&st=cse
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Covert Aggression Under the Guise of Counterterrorism

Today, the NYTimes reported that a 2004 secret order had been issued authorizing U.S. attacks on suspected "terrorists" in 20 sovereign nation-states.

The New York Times published my comment on this report:

NYTimes blog

The U.S. has a right to defend its own territory against attacks.

But wait. What gives the U.S. the right to carry out attacks (which frequently end in the death of innocent civilians), into sovereign states that are themselves trying to curb extremist elements within their own borders?

Is this "secret order" an act consistent with ethical democracy or are these actions illegal, arrogant, futile, counter-productive and likely to unleash a backlash?

The perilous Cheney-Bush Ideology of Exceptionalism (" we are so special, there's nobody in the entire world quite like us so we can do whatever we want, invade, occupy, kill, threaten, impose sanctions, etc. etc."), has led the U.S. headlong into a dangerous and futile engagement OUTSIDE its own territory and WITHIN the territory of sovereign states.

This covert aggression has clearly inflamed civilian sentiment especially when local residents lose a family member who is not involved in any extremist activity.

Don't we by now know about the failures of U.S. "intelligence"? This lose-lose strategy will hopefully be halted, beginning in January 2009. Otherwise it will signal a continuation of the same failed policy of the Cheney-Bush regime.

Regime change, Bush-Cheney to Obama-Biden, cannot afford to be merely symbolic.

Chithra KarunaKaran

— EthicalDemocracy, http://www.EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com