Sri Lanka Ceasefire Needed to Save Civilians
Humanitarian "Catastrophe" Must Not Continue
Mar 24, 2009
After more than 25 years of fighting over autonomy for Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamils, the Sri Lankan civil war appears to be entering its final stage. Government troops, through a massive escalation of offensive tactics, have reduced the amount of territory controlled by the Tamil Tiger rebels to a mere 30 square kilometres and are committed to a constant military bombardment of the area until their goal is achieved.
The Tigers (or LTTE) have similarly committed to fight until the last, locking the two sides in a violent final fight to the death.
The problem is that tens of thousands of innocent, mostly Tamil civilians will die as well unless some external third party can convince both sides to sit back down at the bargaining table.
Ideal Third Party: Canada
Canada's major foreign policy objective in Sri Lanka is, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) website, to "help the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE put an end to the conflict and find a political solution that meets the legitimate aspirations of all the people of Sri Lanka."
Viewed as an ally to both sides of the conflict (though in different ways), there is no better way for Canada to achieve that goal than by offering to act as mediator in a new round of peace talks aimed at ended the fighting once and for all.
Background: Civilians Caught in the Crossfire
Government forces as well as paramilitary groups loosely affiliated with the government, routinely besiege Tamil-populated areas with planes, tanks and artillery shells. The constant attacks, which inevitably result in what the military calls "collateral damage" (meaning the death of innocent non-combatants), are justified as being legitimate operations against the Tamil Tiger rebels.
Also known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE, the Tigers claim (without any democratic basis) to represent all Sri Lankan Tamils in pursuing their quest for an independent state comprised of the northern region of the country where Tamils are a majority.
Despite their positive-sounding rhetoric, the LTTE are notorious for abusing the very people on whose behalf they claim to be fighting: forcibly recruiting child soldiers and banning anyone from leaving areas under their control as they impose ever-tighter restrictions on their rights.
The group has been designated as a terrorist organization by 32 countries including Canada, giving the Canadian government leverage with the Sri Lankan government in Colombo.
Humanitarian "Catastrophe" According to The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
The U.N. has recently warned that the civilians trapped in the shrinking conflict zone, estimated to number anywhere from 70,000 to 250,000, are at constant risk of being killed by government shells. But that if they try to leave the area they will be in danger of being shot by the Tigers.
T Sathiyamoorthy the chief medical official in the "No Fire Zone," a narrow 14km strip of land with a name that is largely symbolic, confirmed to the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper that civilians were being "repeatedly shelled for no reason." U.N. figures have confirmed more than 3,000 lives have been lost since the end of January 2009.
Despite thousands of serious injuries happening there every day, the region's last major hospital nearly shut down last week for lack of adequate medicine and supplies. The U.N. recently reported that supplies of food and water in the region are beginning to run dangerously short.
There could be no better definition of the term "Catch 22": those imprisoned innocents are dead if they stay, dead if they try to flee and doomed to live their lives in a state of constant fear.
So far the government has continued to ignore calls for a renewed ceasefire, claiming that the LTTE is "holding its own people hostage" in the hopes that massive civilian deaths will encourage the international community to intervene.
Being the representative of more than 200,000 Tamil-Canadians of Sri Lankan descent, most of whom have friends and family who remain stuck in the middle of the bloodbath, the Canadian government ought to be taking a more proactive approach towards ending the undue suffering of many thousands of innocent Tamils.
Canada's Unique Position to Help Break the Impasse
The military end-game scenario to this conflict would indeed involve massive civilian deaths, as the LTTE seem intent on fighting to the bitter end.
Not to mention the fact that a military victory by government forces would virtually guarantee that Sri Lanka's Tamils would gain no autonomous political powers beyond those they had in the early 1980s when the fighting first began (read: none).
Only through some manner of negotiated settlement can this outcome be avoided, and Canada's position on the issue is clear. "We continue to believe that there can be no military solution to the conflict," reads the DFAIT website, putting Canada in the perfect position to broker such a deal.
As the home to the world's largest Tamil population outside of South Asia, Canada can easily argue that it is working with the best interests of the Tamil people in mind.
Conversely, being one of the 32 countries to have listed the LTTE as a terrorist organization gives Canada leverage with the government in Colombo; as does the fact that Canada supplies Colombo with millions of dollars in aid every year and has long maintained an increasingly lucrative trade relationship with the island state.
Both sides thus have every reason to listen to what Canada has to say, and the March 21 editorial in the Toronto Star gave a good idea of what to tell them. Compromise by letting the Tamils have provincial-style autonomy in the region in which they are a majority. That way a 25 year-long fight will have been for something and the remaining rebels can lay down their arms with some dignity.
If only the Canadian government would actually say something.
