Washington Commentary: "Lay Down Your Arms and Let Civilians Go," President Obama Says to the LTTE

By Ernest Corea

President Barack Obama’s formal statement on the situation in Sri Lanka delivered to the press corps at the White House on Wednesday (May 13) afternoon is the first such intervention by a head of state.

His decision to comment publicly demonstrates the extent to which the country’s bloodshed has caught public attention internationally and reflects, as well, his personal interest in some of the issues at stake. He has always been deeply concerned about how any group of people interacts with and responds to "the other." He has also condemned the wanton loss of lives in conflicts.

Obama’s intervention elevates American concerns to the highest levels. It therefore implies that US policy can benefit even more from the potential future engagement of the president’s National Security Council where formidable expertise on Sri Lanka exists. It suggests that US policy making will not be influenced by neo-colonial bluster from across the Atlantic. Given Obama’s obvious interest in using the right words for whatever issue he is addressing, his engagement lessens the impact on US-Sri Lanka relations of bureaucratic fuzziness.

Not long ago, Secretary of State Clinton declared: "I think that the Sri Lankan government knows that the entire world is very disappointed that in its efforts to end what it sees as 25 years of conflict, it is causing such untold suffering." Never mind the syntax. The substance of the Secretary of State’s comment stands logic on its head, for it explicitly identifies the Government of Sri Lanka as the sole cause of “untold suffering” in the country. The Government of Sri Lanka, like its predecessors, has many infirmities and shares the blame for unremedied inequities. It cannot, however, be accused with any rational justification of being solely responsible for the terrible agony of Tamil Sri Lankans who have been conscripted by the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) as human shields.

Obama made this point when he said of the LTTE: "Their forced recruitment of civilians and their use of civilians as human shields is deplorable." The Security Council press statement of the same day confirmed Obama’s view. It said: "The members of the Security Council strongly condemn the LTTE for its acts of terrorism over many years, and for its continued use of civilians as human shields….." Some of the "human shields" have escaped, and continue to do so under appalling circumstances, only to face another kind of torment: life in internment camps under military management.

Consultations on Sri Lankan affairs between the Clinton State Department and Norwegian authorities also strain reason. Norwegian "facilitators" might have been well meaning – many observers assume they were – but their ignorance and ineptitude weakened Sri Lanka’s nascent peace constituency and diminished its impact. The Bush Administration, at the highest levels, was complicit, wittingly or unwittingly, in this process.

Ignorance of the kind that bedeviled the Norwegian-US collaboration was manifest again on Wednesday afternoon in Washington, as indicated by this answer from by the State Department’s official spokesman, Ian Kelly, to a reporter’s question:

Question: Yeah, just one more on – what did Secretary Clinton – well, the joint statement yesterday with the foreign secretary of Britain, they called for a political solution that reconciles all Sri Lankans and establishes a meaningful role for Tamil and other minorities in national political life. I mean, is there something more specific they’re pursuing there?

Mr. Kelly: Yeah, I think that statement speaks for itself. I think the – a lasting solution to this problem, this problem which has gone on for many years and has caused such tragedy, is full participation of all of Sri Lanka’s peoples in the political process, including ethnic minorities like the Tamil. That’s what we meant to say with it.

The British colonial government established universal adult franchise in Sri Lanka in 1931. In the intervening years, a robust political process has evolved in Sri Lanka – despite some aberrations and flaws. Tamil Sri Lankans have consistently been elected to parliament and to provincial or district councils, at elections held since independence. The country’s most distinguished and internationally respected foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, was a Tamil. He was, alas, assassinated by the LTTE. Thirty-one Tamil Sri Lankans are currently members of parliament. Twenty two of them are in opposition to the government. Of the nine who are in the government, two are Cabinet ministers, one is a non-Cabinet minister, and six are deputy ministers.

Tamil Sri Lankans have borne many burdens and suffered deprivations. Exclusion from the political process is not one of them. What has been missing, and continues to be missing, despite the existence of a robust political process, is the development of political, economic, financial, and social institutions that can give Sri Lankans of all ethnicities the assurance of equal protection, equal opportunity, equal recognition, and equal respect. This is the "peace that is secure and lasting, and grounded in respect for all of its citizens," that Obama prescribed as the long term goal for Sri Lanka. How can the country reach that goal when it is beset by "widespread suffering and the loss of hundreds if not thousands of lives"?

Obama himself proposed some specifics as a way out of the dilemma. He urged the LTTE "to lay down their arms and let civilians go." As for the government, he made three requests: stop the indiscriminate shelling that has taken hundreds of innocent lives, including several hospitals, and live up to its commitment to not use heavy weapons in the conflict zone; give UN humanitarian teams access to the civilians who are trapped between the warring parties so that they can receive the immediate assistance necessary to save lives; and allow the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross access to nearly 190,000 displaced people within Sri Lanka so that they can receive additional support that they need.

Contacted about the Government of Sri Lanka’s response to Obama’s proposals, Ambassador Jaliya Wickramasuriya, Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the US, said: "We are grateful for the concerns that President Barack Obama expressed Wednesday over the current conflict in Sir Lanka, and for his call for the LTTE to lay down their weapons and free the thousands of innocent civilian hostages it now holds. We have long said that the LTTE can end the suffering of these innocent civilians simply by setting them free. Instead, as the United Nations and other organizations have noted, the LTTE shoots those who try to escape." He added that in the 24 hours since Obama spoke, more than 5,000 trapped civilians fled from the LTTE.

Wickramasuriya said he "respectfully disagreed" with Obama’s statement that the Sri Lankan forces are shelling civilians. “They are not. Nor has the government blocked aid agencies from reaching civilians who need help. The UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross have always had open access to the conflict areas. There are now more than 50 aid agencies working with displaced civilians in northern Sri Lanka."

The actual situation on the ground continues to be hotly contested by both sides with contending accounts crowding cyberspace. In the absence of independent verification, each side’s accounts are disseminated until another contradicts it. Currently, a freelancer’s report from Colombo claims that the Sri Lankan army had captured a hospital that was said to have been shelled. This report said that advancing Sri Lankan troops found the hospital intact, and without a scratch

Meanwhile, BBC quotes Palitha Kohona, Secretary (administrative head) of Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry, as saying any halt in the army’s offensive would extend the war for another 25 years. Kohona also expressed his satisfaction that the Security Council’s statement, although non-binding, urged the LTTE to allow tens of thousans of civilians to leave the war zone.

A statement attributed to the head of the political wing of the LTTE, B. Nadesan, has been widely circulated via the Internet. The statement commends Obama for "passionately talking about plight of Tamil civilians." It ignores Obama’s request to the LTTE "to lay down heir arms and let civilians go." In what can only be described as a grim and failed attempt at humor, Nadesan expresses the desire of the LTTE to "support a permanent ceasefire." This would be comic if it were not tragic. For it is the LTTE that has repeatedly flouted or abrogated ceasefires, thus plunging Tamils and Sinhalese into years of harrowing bloodshed and loss of lives.

A "ceasefire" will not end the conflict; only prolong it as each side prepares to re-engage for the next round. Civilians will continue to suffer when armed confrontation resumes. At this point, if the LTTE and its supporters really desire to end the horrendous suffering that Tamil Sri Lankans are experiencing under enslavement as human shields, there is only one course to be promoted, and that is surrender. The Security Council statement outlined this position with clarity. It said: "The members of the Security Council demand that the LTTE lay down its arms and allow the tens of thousands of civilians still in the conflict zone to leave."

This approach, says Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative at the UN, Ambassador S. Palihakkara, "provides a humane framework for ending the conflict, ending the bloodshed, and ending the suffering that is being extended by the intransigence of the LTTE." The Security Council’s formulation, Palihakkara said, "in effect endorses the Government’s priorities, which are to rescue the thousands held hostage by the LTTE, terminate the conflict, not with a spurious ceasefire but with a genuine end of fighting that can lead to the next stage of reconstruction, reintegration, and renewal."

LTTE leaders are probably concerned, as they must be, about their fate following surrender and laying down of arms. They have been responsible for numerous murders, and must naturally fear for their own lives as the nemesis of retribution catches up with them. Even serial killers are entitled to due process where the rule of law prevails. The terms of LTTE surrender can surely be negotiated in good faith with the assistance of the UN.

- Asian Tribune -