Make the Facts of the War Public
Letter in the Tamil Circle, 28 April 1996

"I have been struggling in my mind against the conclusion that the SL government is trying to kill or terrorize as many Tamil people as possible; that the government is trying to keep the conditions of the war unreported internationally, because if those conditions were reported, the actions of the military would be perceived as so deplorable that foreign nations would have no choice but to condemn them. And this would be embarrassing to everybody. But it seems now that no other conclusion is possible. "

I have been reading reports about the SLA's northward march with mounting despair. At first, the reports coming from the SL military and from the LTTE appeared diametrically opposed. The military said that displaced Tamils were returning north to their homes voluntarily; the LTTE said they were fleeing across the lagoon to the mainland. The military reported that there were bodies lying around that the LTTE hadn't picked up, and the Tigers were chastised for being so disrespectful of their own dead. The LTTE responded with a brief silence.

Then the reports began to converge. The LTTE also reported that there were bodies lying around that, indeed, it had not had the capacity to bury properly. Not only LTTE bodies, but civilian bodies. Now according to the Reuters report (Mohan Samarasinghe) in Circle#749, the military says it has captured the key lagoon crossing, "to halt the flow of hundreds of Tamil civilians fleeing the peninsula."

The Defense Ministry appears to admit that the people travelling north were trapped and forced in that direction by the advancing army. The LTTE has reported that fleeing Tamil civilians have been subject to strafing and shelling by the army; military officials say that "hundreds of Tamil civilians are risking being shot at" to flee to safety across the lagoon. One may well ask these military officials who exactly is shooting at these fleeing civilians?

Meanwhile those who travel north into the Valigamam area are, according to the military, "screened to ensure there is no LTTE infiltration," while the LTTE reports that all young Tamil men and women entering Valigamam are being arrested and being taken in for questioning, which is the only thing (in this context, and in my view) that "screening" could mean.

No journalists or outside reporters or observers of any kind are allowed into the north. No aid of any kind is allowed into areas that are not "controlled by the military." Such areas are being shelled as enemy territory. Can we believe Samarasinghe's article? It seems intelligent and consistent with other knowledge received.

I have been struggling in my mind against the conclusion that the SL government is trying to kill or terrorize as many Tamil people as possible; that the government is trying to keep the conditions of the war unreported internationally, because if those conditions were reported, the actions of the military would be perceived as so deplorable that foreign nations would have no choice but to condemn them. And this would be embarrassing to everybody. But it seems now that no other conclusion is possible.

The SL military intends to end the war by "destroying" all Tigers *and* all *potential* Tigers. Does "destroy" mean kill? Or does it mean something worse? The army will not succeed in this task, but what will almost certainly happen is that the Tigers will again create a loud and possibly bloody explosion in Colombo, and the SLA will retaliate in its usual unendearing fashion, the Tigers will get more support from internal and external sources to fight the army, as the army gets new weaponry the Tigers will steal it from them, and so it will continue ...

The most important thing is not the number of people who die. The most important thing is the pain endured by those who live, including those who survive the death of loved ones. The pain spreads like poison and infects unborn generations in horrible ways. It is not impossible to stop this poison, I think, but it takes many people working hard to do it.

There are people in SL at this time who are risking their lives to convince specific terrorists (*real* terrorists, not "terrorists" in quotes) that it is not in their own best interests to inflict intense pain upon others. There are people giving their whole lives to staunch the flow of pain. But there are many others still, inside SL and outside, who profit from the war that makes the pain.

A ray of hope (alas - I am always looking for rays of hope!) consists in the fact that the SL government has revealed one easily targeted weak spot. It does not want the conditions of the war in the north to be made public. It fears that if its means of carrying out the war were known, it might have to stop doing whatever it's doing.

Some of the members of that government are among those who profit from the war, and I think they would like to have it continue for a long time, in just the way that it is continuing now. I for one would prefer that the war not continue. I would like the killing and torture, the terrorization, extortion and oppression to stop. There is an obvious way to help make these things stop. The warmakers themselves have shown us the way.

MAKE THE FACTS OF THE WAR PUBLIC.

Is there something wrong with this logic? Why are not more of us doing it then? I mean not only the obscure ones among us, but the highly placed ones among us, who have expensive skills and know how to get attention. The lawyers, the doctors, the prize-winning investigative journalists, the tenured professors with famous books to their credit.

My fear is that we are not doing what needs to be done because to act would be to alienate people even more powerful than us upon whom our smaller powers depend.

We would have to demand of our friendly MPs where they get their money from. We would have to demand of our governments that they not send military equipment to Sri Lanka. We would have to demand of our universities that they help refugees (Massey, my own! - demand that New Zealand milk powder be delivered directly to refugee camps in the north, regardless of whether they are under military control or not).

We would have to risk our careers, our reputations, maybe even our lives, by doing things that people who have a lot to lose won't normally do. We would have to go to the places we are forbidden to go, see the things we are forbidden to see, and report those things. We would have to put our bodies where the shells are falling - our own highly valued, foreign-educated, fair-skinned bodies.

We would have to mobilize our love, our anger, our fear, our faith and our power to bring a just peace in Sri Lanka. We would have to give up our security, our privacy.

We would have to join together and help one another. We would have to recognize that we have all already been poisoned enough and this is what makes us spend our energy scratching and biting each other. I think a lot of us are fully able to make the sacrifices we need to make to help end the war.

Maybe each of us is waiting because each of us knows that if s/he acts alone, s/he will be giving up everything for nothing. But we can't really wait much longer. I would like to go to the north of the island, despite the prohibition, to see and report the manner in which the war is being executed. A way can surely be found. Would anyone like to come with me?

Sincerely, Margaret Trawick Professor of Social Anthropology Massey University Palmerston North New Zealand