At Risk in Sri Lanka's War

[Harold Schiffman]

At Risk in Sri Lanka's War

By James Traub
Wednesday, April 22, 2009



At this moment, at least 60,000 civilians trapped in a tiny strip of
land along the northern coast of Sri Lanka are being deployed as human
shields by the insurgent force known as the Tamil Tigers -- while
artillery shells fired by the Sri Lankan army land indiscriminately
among rebels and noncombatants alike. The United Nations asserts that
at least 4,500 civilians have been killed since January as the
government has sought to decisively end a bloody rebellion that has
lasted for a quarter-century. The army is said to be preparing a final
assault that, according to U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator John
Holmes, could produce a "bloodbath." Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has
spoken of "tens of thousands" of lives at risk. Yet the conflict has
barely been reported, and the international community has barely
stirred.

The fighting threatens to produce exactly the kind of cataclysm that
states vowed to prevent when they adopted "the responsibility to
protect" at the 2005 U.N. World Summit. This doctrine stipulates that
states have a responsibility to protect peoples within their borders
from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic
cleansing. When states are found to be "manifestly failing" to protect
citizens from such mass violence, that responsibility shifts to the
international community, acting through the United Nations. At the
core of this norm is the obligation to act preventively rather than
waiting until atrocities have occurred, as has happened too often.

Why, then, the silence? The most important answer is simple: "the war
on terror." Government officials have artfully, and relentlessly,
appropriated the language of the war on terror to characterize their
fight against the rebels, formally known as the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The group is one of the world's most ruthless
insurgencies: The Tigers perfected the technique of suicide bombing
long before Islamist jihadists did so (using it in 1991 to kill Indian
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, among many others) and operate almost as
a suicide cult. The United States includes the LTTE on its list of
foreign terrorist organizations. Any government that failed to
aggressively confront such a threat would be guilty of failing to
protect its citizens.

When we think of mass atrocities, we think of regimes -- or their
proxies -- massacring defenseless citizens, as in Rwanda or Darfur.
The situation in Sri Lanka is more complicated, morally and legally:
This is a situation of armed conflict in which both parties are acting
in ways that pose a grave risk to innocent civilians. The party that
is perhaps more culpable -- the rebels -- answers to no one. And the
Sri Lankan government has been able to operate with virtual impunity
because it is fighting "terrorists." Even Western states that usually
condemn violations of international law have given the situation a
wide berth.

But states engaged in combat do not have the right to perpetrate
atrocities; nor does the cruelty of armed opponents absolve states of
their responsibility to protect citizens. And there is no one better
equipped than we in the United States to recognize the cynicism behind
the language of the war on terror, which allows states to do as they
wish in the name of defeating supreme evil. Over the past
quarter-century, Sri Lanka has been accused of fighting the Tigers
with a policy of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and
arbitrary detentions. In the current battle, the army has engaged in
intense shelling and aerial bombardment of the combat area and an
adjacent "no-fire zone," set aside for civilians.

Colombo is in no mood for lectures. But we cannot accommodate its
ambition to crush the LTTE if doing so could lead to massive loss of
life among civilians. Quiet diplomacy by U.S. officials and by Ban and
others last week persuaded the government to observe a two-day pause
in the fighting, but the Tigers refused to let civilians leave, the
government continued to prevent humanitarian groups from entering the
conflict zone, and the battle resumed with equal or greater ferocity.

There is widespread agreement about what must be done: The LTTE must
allow civilians who wish to leave to do so; the government must agree
to observe a more extensive cease-fire, guarantee the safety of those
civilians and treat them according to international standards
governing internally displaced peoples. The Tigers may refuse to
release civilians, whom they view as the only thing standing between
themselves and annihilation. But the army must not use this as a
pretext to resume hostilities: The rebels no longer represent a threat
to the state, and most analysts believe that a Gotterdammerung on the
beach would spawn a new insurgency.

The time for behind-the-scenes diplomacy has passed. The Security
Council must take up the issue -- a move Colombo has fiercely resisted
-- and remind both sides that there will be consequences, in the form
of prosecutions for crimes against humanity. The council should also
demand that the government grant humanitarian groups and the media
access to the conflict zone, dispatch a special envoy to the region,
and consider imposing sanctions. Ultimately, it must help facilitate a
durable political solution to the fighting. In 2005, the United
States, along with the rest of the world, accepted the obligation to
protect civilians at risk of atrocities. The moment has come to redeem
that pledge.

James Traub is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine
and director of policy for the Global Centre for the Responsibility to
Protect.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/21/AR2009042102970_pf.html

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