What kind of violence has the Sri Lankan state been committing against its Tamil civilian population as the island‘s civil war ended; on what scale and with what intentions? Martin Shaw explores the difficult terrain where war, atrocity and genocide meet.
The Eelam Tamil nation doesn’t need words to explain the current situation because everybody feels it in the core of their heart. This is a situation that warrants no one else but only the members of the nation to rise up to the occasion. Unprecedented catastrophe awaits unprecedented response from the nation.
The following is the full text of an editorial in the Japan Times titled “What price victory?”. Japan is Sri Lanka’s biggest bilateral donor.
The events of the past few weeks, while marking a dark phase of Tamil history and indelible shame on contemporary world leadership, have imperceptibly brought in new equations in global power politics.
The liberals have finally got what they wanted, the military defeat of the LTTE. But Sri Lanka is further from a liberal peace than at any point in its bloody sixty year history.
More than the massacre, maiming and incarceration, what causes the height of the trauma to Eelam Tamils is the utter disregard of the norms of civilization and shameful deceit committed by India, the International Community and the United Nations in the happenings of the island of Sri Lanka.
The next time you buy some lingerie, a T-shirt or a pair of rubber gloves, you may want to reflect on this: they were probably made in Sri Lanka. And like it or not, your purchase plays a role in the debate over how to respond to the Sri Lankan Government's successful but brutal military campaign against the Tamil Tiger rebels, which reached its bloody climax this week.
The UN Secretary-General must speak out about civilian deaths in Sri Lanka wrote The Times in an editorial on 1 June.
The silence of those who were warned of civilian deaths in Sri Lanka is shameful. They must speak out now to prevent future atrocities wrote The Times in an editorial on 30 May.