Civil war in Sri Lanka - bought and paid for with Canadian dollars. ⇒
10 May 2007, mid-morning
I've argued about this with my Tamil friends several times, but my general feeling remains this: when middle-class Tamils send money back to Jaffna they are never going to actually deal with any of the violence that comes from that money; as such, I don't think its right for Tamils in the West to support the war in Sri Lanka. That said, I think Michael's take on the situation is far too simple. The LTTE does more than blow shit up; they operate many institutions the Sri Lankan government doesn't care to operate in Tamil lands: orphanages, schools, and what have you. More so, if Canada and the West don't use their political clout to also push down on the Sri Lankan government, than I would say any sanctions against the LTTE are morally wrong. As it stands, the Sri Lankan government is essentially at war with the Tamil citizens of their country, who have no means of defending themselves beyond the LTTE. The army is the one that drops mortars on Tamil towns, and uses fighter planes to bomb them. There are several hundreds of thousands of people now displaced by the current fighting in the region. Giving the LTTE more money isn't going to fix that -- it will probably make things worse -- but allowing the Sri Lankan government a free pass to reign down terror on its citizens is also not going to fix that. Nothing is going to move forward so long as the West decides the LTTE is the lone trouble maker in the country. Calling the LTTE a terrorist organization is stupid, and doesn't help anyone. The ban is a simple solution to a complex problem.
This is a post from my link log: If you click the title of this post you will be taken the web page I am discussing.
Well said.
by Ananthan on May 10 2007, 9:27 pm #