Human Rights Watch uses:
Barbed missiles against Sri Lanka
Prof. Rajiva Wijesingha
Like the proverbial pig sticking its snout into swill, Human Rights
Watch has leapt with glee onto the recent declaration by the Sri Lankan
Government that its Security Forces ‘have been instructed to end the use
of heavy weapons’.
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With the civilians coming to
Government controlled areas, Tigers no longer can use them
as human shields |
HRW has immediately concluded that “By finally admitting it has been
using heavy weapons all along, the Sri Lanka Government has shed light
onto its official deception as well as its brutal military tactics.”
This was the delightfully dense Brad Adams, who does not understand
that not only was the Government using heavy weapons, it has indeed
reported regularly on its achievements through such means.
The point the Government had been making was that it was not using
heavy weapons on civilians, and indeed its recent magnificent
achievement in breaching one of the walls the LTTE had built up, and
thus ensuring that over 100,000 civilians could get to safety, was
without the use of heavy weapons as pointed out at the time.
Had Brad Adams understood the use of the English language, he would
have realized that the Government has made clear that it will continue
with its efforts to rescue civilians, and this will involve the use of
appropriate, and proportionate, weaponry.
Though this had been the principle it had adopted in rescuing
civilians from the safe zone and elsewhere, previously it had not
eschewed the use of heavy weapons in defence.
Just a couple of weeks back it had publicized its removal of the LTTE
heavy artillery which had been firing out of the safe zone. This was not
done by snipers or even catapults, but involved precision bombing by the
Air Force, and there was no reason whatsoever to conceal such action.
Similarly, when the LTTE used its tank to fire on fleeing civilians,
the Forces had an obligation to stop such action.
Unfortunately they do not seem to have succeeded in this, but this
means that, if at any point the LTTE resorts to such tactics again, the
Forces too will have to respond in kind to save civilian lives.
However, since the LTTE has now announced a unilateral ceasefire, it
is to be hoped that they will refrain from using such heavy weaponry
against civilians and against the aid that is being sent in - there were
reports a couple of weeks back, it will be remembered, of firing on a
food ship, and all the ICRC said then was that they did not think the
ship had been actually targeted.
If the LTTE sticks to its word, there will therefore be no need for
Government to use heavy weapons at all. However, if the LTTE does use
heavy weapons, it would not make sense for Government to nevertheless
continue with its moratorium, and try to deal with anti-aircraft guns or
tanks with the slingshots and catapults that Mr Adams might advocate.
Offensive operations have stopped, as they should be while so many
civilians are being used as human shields. However that does not take
away from the moral obligation to release those civilians, and that is
what the Government has said it will continue to attempt.
Adams may think this his cue to engage in tendentious interpretation
that betrays his ignorance of facts, and his Luddite understanding of
what war means in the modern age. We can only hope that the visiting
Foreign Ministers, Kouchner and Miliband, the current Castor and Pollux
of NATO and of Western operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere, will not
fall in with this sanctimonious finger-pointing.
The writer is the Secretary General, Secretariat for Coordinating the
Peace Process |