Statistics, lies and half-truths

Mark Twain attributed to Benjamin Disraeli the statement ‘there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics’. In the context of the ongoing furore over Sri Lanka, this phrase might perhaps need to be modified to include half-truths.

The power of the half-truth should not be underestimated. It is with barrages of half-truths that Sri Lanka has been bombarded, forcing it to respond to loaded questions on the lines of the classic ‘when did you stop beating your wife’, any answer to which is self-condemning.

Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, MP has highlighted the use by vested interests of lies, spewed by what he terms their ‘auxiliary forces’. The most deadly untruths were spurious statistics, such as numbers of deaths, tonnes of food delivered and so on.

Statistics were used in plenty by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in their heyday. Their favourite was of course the numbers of Tamil-speaking people, all of whom they claimed to represent. Notwithstanding, of course, their ethnic cleansing of the Muslim population, which made this assertion about as truthful as Hitler saying he represented the Jewish people.

Pro-LTTE propagandists

In the last stages of the war, and in the years after, a favourite statistic of pro-LTTE propagandists became the number of civilians allegedly killed by the Sri Lankan forces. A figure of 40,000 was bandied about - originally for all casualties, inflicted by both the forces and by the LTTE. This later expanded slowly, at a rate of about 10,000 per year, so that it now stands at 70,000 - none of which, it appears the LTTE was responsible for!

The most effective half-truth, one which has been spread like jam on bread all over the thought processes of those in the West who actually know where Sri Lanka is, is that the LTTE was a guerrilla force. This makes the civil conflict appear to be a David and Goliath contest between a 21st century war machine equipped with the most modern of weapons and some rag-tag peasants with outdated rifles.

The LTTE was far more a conventional army than a guerrilla force. It is true that the LTTE, especially at the very beginning, relied heavily on guerrilla tactics and terrorist attacks. However, unlike a guerrilla force, it occupied and defended huge tracts of land, something abjured by such theoreticians of guerrilla warfare as Che Guevara, Mao Zedong, TE Lawrence and Vo Nguyen Giap.

If truth be told, from quite early on the LTTE was equipped with more sophisticated weaponry than the government forces. It introduced Kalashnikov automatic rifles, when the Army was still using outdated single-shot Self-Loading Rifles. The LTTE first used night-vision goggles, claymore mines and guided missiles, both anti-tank and anti-aircraft.

And it was the LTTE which, devastatingly, introduced multi-barrel rocket launchers during its ‘Unceasing Waves III’ (‘Oyatha Alaigal Moonru’) operation in 2000. Its programme of building submarines was interrupted by its defeat. In the final years of the conflict, tank and artillery duels took place, which are not generally associated with guerrilla combat.

LLRC

It should be remembered that the ‘genocide’ lobby was already accusing the Sri Lanka Air Force of ‘carpet bombing’ in the 1980s, when it possessed nothing bigger than helicopters (which were used to drop hand grenades on LTTE targets) and Italian-built propeller trainers.

The image which is projected by the ‘auxiliaries’ is of civilians and lightly armed peasants soldiers running away from ceaseless barrages from government heavy artillery. That the LTTE was a heavily armed conventional force holding civilians as hostages, while at the same time firing at the government forces, barely penetrates the discourse of the ‘genocide’ enthusiasts and indeed of the Western media in general.

The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) has indicated that there is evidence of wrongdoing by members of the armed forces. That this should be followed up is perfectly reasonable, and the government has indicated that it is doing so.

No conflict is free of abuses by fighters, from the Canadian forces in Normandy in the Second World War who were ordered to take no prisoners to the British soldiers alleged to have sodomised their prisoners on the Falklands. However, it is a long way from these individual war crimes to genocide - as one might describe say, the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Consider the Americans who have been guilty of war crimes in Afghanistan. The Western media paints a picture of the individual guilt of criminally insane soldiers. Those actually brought to trial are given light sentences; reminiscent of the reprieve granted to the sole convict of the My Lai Massacre. Why is Sri Lanka treated differently?

Trilingual policy

Consider the latest half-truth. The Tamil areas are undergoing ‘Sinhalisation’ we are told. The evidence? ‘Street names are being changed from Tamil to Sinhala ones’. What we are not told is that the street name boards which were hitherto only in Tamil and English, but not in Sinhala, were now being brought into conformity with the all-island trilingual policy.

Is Wales undergoing ‘Anglicisation’ because it uses English in its name boards in addition to Welsh? Note that the English part of England-and-Wales does not use Welsh in its street names.

The latest full-blown lie being spread by pro-LTTE lobby is that the government is not implementing the LLRC recommendations. It was this lie that lay behind the resolution at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

Acting Media Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena on Thursday pointed out that this could be done in a day:

‘Some LLRC recommendations have already been implemented and long term recommendations need time and cannot be implemented within two or three months. Recommendations such as decentralising power at grass root level need changes in laws...’

The ‘auxiliaries’ and their associates in the Sri Lankan Diaspora simply ignore this practical problem, and continue repeating their statistics, their lies and their half-truths. What is so sad is that they are believed by so many.