U.S. imperialism backs slaughter in Sri Lanka

By Sara Flounders, Workers World, May 6, 2009

The government of Sri Lanka, with U.S. arms and military aid from Israel and Pakistan, is waging a brutal war against the Tamil people of Sri Lanka.

The Tamil population there is a nationally oppressed minority. They have waged a long, strong struggle for self-determination in Sri Lanka, a large island country of 20 million people located southeast of India.

The Sri Lankan government’s present campaign is justified as an effort to destroy, with a so-called “final offensive,” the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Yet the Sri Lankan army has opened a new attack against the entire civilian population.

The government has moved tens of thousands of Tamil into strategic hamlets and concentration camps. Hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians have been displaced. Recent military operations include mass arrests of civilians fleeing battle areas, torture and targeted assassinations. Many prohibited weapons designed to create terror among civilians, including napalm, white phosphorus and cluster bombs, are provided to the Sri Lankan military by U.S. military aid.

The Boston Globe reports: “The United Nations estimates that some 6,500 civilians have died and 14,000 have been injured in the government’s merciless offensive against the Tamil Tigers in the northeast of the country. ... 100,000 refugees need medical care, food, and shelter, and another 50,000 are under shelling in a five-square-mile war zone.” (April 25)

Sri Lanka’s military declared on May 1 that their troops had cornered Tamil Tiger rebels, who have been fighting for an independent homeland since 1983, in a five-kilometer-long strip of territory in the northeast and were poised for their final assault. The LTTE has said that they will return to guerilla warfare tactics if they are forced out of the area they have held in the north of Sri Lanka.

On May 2 the Sri Lankan Army fired artillery shells on the only remaining makeshift hospital at Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal, in a government-declared ‘safety zone’ in the Mullaittivu district of the northern war zone. The attack killed at least 64 patients and attendees, including a volunteer doctor, and wounded 87. The online news service TamilNet, the Associated Press and Reuters all reported on this civilian massacre.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is also commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces, and Defense Minister Gotabahaya Rajapaksa, his brother, have banned international aid groups, human rights monitors and independent journalists from the entire region. Defense Minister Rajapaksa has dual U.S. and Sri Lankan citizenship. He has often compared the Sri Lankan war against the LTTE to the U.S. “war on terror” against Islamic militants.

Imperialist policies of divide & rule

The problems of Sri Lanka today are rooted in the racist divide-and-rule policies established under British colonial rule of the island, then known as Ceylon. Along with the indigenous Tamil population, the British brought in more than a million Tamils as indentured slaves to work the tea plantations on the island in the late 18th and 19th century. Singhalese chauvinism was encouraged.

When British imperialism was defeated in the whole South Asian subcontinent in 1948, the British handed the government in Sri Lanka to the dominant Sinhalese nationality. The Sinhalese continued the policy of imposing their language as the only official language and limiting access to health care, schools, universities, civil service and all forms of political participation for the impoverished Tamil community.

Repeated attempts by moderate Tamils to effect change were met by fierce government repression. Communal violence by chauvinist Sinhalese, backed by the Sri Lankan government, killed thousands of Tamils in racist pogroms in 1956, 1958, 1977 and 1983. Tamil homes and small businesses were burnt in many villages. These systematic and government-sanctioned attacks led Tamil youths to take up armed struggle as the only means to defend their people.

Just as the U.S. government demonizes national liberation movements in Palestine, Lebanon, the Philippines, Nepal and Colombia as terrorist, the LTTE is on the U.S. list of “terrorist” organizations. But the real terror is the tactics used against nationally oppressed people to suppress justified resistance.

The Tamil diaspora in the U.S., Canada and Europe has condemned the atrocities by the Sri Lankan army against civilians and organized many demonstrations and protests calling for an immediate halt to the brutal offensive being waged by the Sri Lankan army against the Tamil people.

A statement by professor Jose Maria Sison, chairperson of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, “condemns the criminal use of chemical weapons, nerve gas, cluster bombs and other types of bombs and artillery fire by the Sri Lankan army against the Tamil people. Under the auspices of the U.S., the Sri Lankan regime gets open political support from India and its military acquires its war materiel from Pakistan, a notorious military proxy of the U.S. in the region. The blatant use of banned weapons constitutes a war crime under the Geneva conventions.”

As with many other struggles for self determination and sovereignty, this struggle of the oppressed Tamil nationality deserves international support. It is essential that progressive organizations raise their voices in solidarity with the Tamil struggle and against the brutal U.S.-financed repression in Sri Lanka today.
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Rioting in Belgrade; Grenades thrown in Kosovo

China 'concerned', Australia backs Kosovo split
AFP, Feb. 17, 2008

PARIS (AFP) - Australia on Monday became the lastest nation to welcome Kosovo's declaration of independence, joining the United States and several European powers, despite fierce objections from Serbia and Russia.

But China was among countries unhappy with Kosovo's breakaway from Serbia, declaring it was "deeply concerned" about the future of peace in the region.

"The unilateral approach by Kosovo may cause a series of consequences and lead to severe negative influences on the peace and stability of the Balkan region," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in a statement.

"China expresses deep concern about this."

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said diplomatic recognition of the new state would be offered soon.

"We've already indicated to our diplomatic representatives around the world that this (independence) would be an appropriate course of action," Rudd told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Russia angrily condemned Kosovo's announcement, and called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council late Sunday to discuss the issue.

But it failed to get backing for its call to declare "null and void" the decision by Kosovo's Albanian majority on Sunday to break away.

Russia has been Serbia's strongest backer in opposing Kosovo's independence, which President Vladimir Putin said last week would be "idiotic and illegal."

The United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy have all indicated that their formal recognition will come on Monday.

Those countries around the world with separatist problems however -- from Spain to Sri Lanka -- have expressed concern at Kosovo's split.

The United States and most European nations gave a cautious initial reaction to the independence declaration ahead of a crucial EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels on Monday.

But even as the international community called for calm, rioting broke out on the streets of Belgrade, and grenades were thrown at EU and UN buildings in the northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica late Sunday.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States "calls on all parties to exert utmost restraint and to refrain from any provocative act."

A significant minority in the 27-nation EU -- Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain -- oppose recognising Kosovo. Others like Malta and Portugal would prefer Kosovo's future be decided at the UN Security Council.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus warned that Kosovo's independence could unleash a domino affect in Europe.

"Some parties in other states could realise that they do not feel completely at ease within a big state in which they are now," he said in a television interview.

As if on cue, the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia immediately seized on Kosovo's break, saying they would ask Russia and the UN to recognise their independence, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.

"In the near future Abkhazia will appeal to the Russian parliament and the UN Security Council with a request to recognise its independence," self-declared Abkhaz President Sergei Bagapsh was quoted as saying by Interfax.

South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity made a similar appeal.

Some states see Kosovo as setting a dangerous precedent for other separatist movements. Cyprus is already split, with a Turkey-recognised statelet in the north. Spain has long struggled with radical Basque nationalists.

And the Sri Lankan government, which is battling separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, warned Kosovo's declaration could set an "unmanageable precedent" and was a violation of the United Nations charter.

The foreign ministry said it "could set an unmanageable precedent in the conduct of international relations, the established global order of sovereign states and could thus pose a grave threat to international peace and security."

Others are reluctant to recognise Kosovo because of their close ties to Serbia.

Slovakia said Sunday it would not recognise independence for the time being. Romania, which is traditionally close to Serbia, said its opposition was unchanged.

There is also anxiety on Kosovo's borders. Macedonia, which has a significant ethnic Albanian minority, said it was closely watching events.

Government spokesman Ivica Bocevski told AFP: "Whatever decision we are going to take, we will take care of the interests of our citizens, as well as the state and national interests of Macedonia."

Ethnic Albanians account for around 25 percent of Macedonia's two-million population. In 2001, the government and ethnic Albanian rebels waged a brief fight mostly in the northern and western parts of the country.

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