Is it wrong to defeat a deadly terrorist outfit?

UN report casts doubt on conventional wisdom

(By Tharindu Prematillake in Singapore )

In May 2009 when the Sri Lankan military defeated the LTTE, Sri Lanka became the first country in the 21st century to have successfully defeated a terrorist outfit. Yet, almost two years into that historical day, various allegations have forced Sri Lankans to wonder whether defeating a terrorist outfit is an ‘acceptable’ phenomenon to the international community. Even Americans can’t boast of a successful counter-terrorism campaign that has eliminated a terrorist outfit, despite fighting a ‘global war on terror’ on many theatres around the world. Is it wrong to eliminate a group regarded by the FBI as the deadliest terrorist outfit in the world? The latest allegations levelled against Sri Lanka by a UN report have left many Sri Lankans baffled.
The UN Secretary General appointed a panel to advise him on allegations of human rights violations during the latter stages of the war in Sri Lanka. A summary of the report compiled by the panel argues that there are credible allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the LTTE and the Sri Lanka Army, and that those responsible should bear criminal liability for these crimes.
The Nation turned to one of the world’s leading and most sought-after international terrorism experts, Professor Rohan Gunaratna, to get a better understanding of the latest developments regarding the UN Panel and its report on Sri Lanka. Professor Gunaratna is the Head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) in Singapore, and has in-depth experience and knowledge regarding the Sri Lankan conflict.

Following are excerpts:

Q: What are your views on the UN Panel and what its report is charging the Sri Lankan Government of?

Sri Lanka is the first country to defeat an insurgency and a terrorist campaign in the 21st century.
Terrorism is a tier one national security threat, it will continue to grow and affect the entire world. So rather than condemning and criticising a victory the UN should identify lessons that can be learnt from the Sri Lankan experience. Sri Lanka’s defeat of the LTTE is not a perfect victory, but there are certainly invaluable lessons that can be learnt from it.

What is important to understand is that when the Tamil Tigers blew up planes, set off bombs in Colombo, assassinated so many important leaders, and massacred border villagers, human rights organisations did not issue statements. The UN also did not do much. Many Western governments turned a blind eye to Tamil Tigers functioning very openly – actively raising funds and doing their propaganda and procuring arms, ammunition and explosives. So, in terms of fairness, most Sri Lankans will obviously view the few Western politicians and human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as not being fair.

The terrorists are the worst human rights violators, and most Sri Lankans have suffered as a result of this. The UN and human rights organisations should have issued messages of congratulations for having ended a terrorist group that was responsible for 30 years of human rights violations. There has not been a single act of terrorism in Sri Lanka after the government dismantled the LTTE.

In terms of accountability there is overwhelming evidence that the Sri Lankan Government as a policy did not deliberately target Tamil civilians. Nearly 11,500 Tamil Tigers either surrendered or were arrested after the war. Out of this number, 6,000 have been rehabilitated and released. This includes the senior most LTTE leader who succeeded Prabhakaran, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, also known as KP. This kind of treatment towards LTTE cadres would not have happened if the Sri Lankan Government had a policy of committing crimes against Tamils. Yes, like in any war, there were certain violations, but it was not the policy on the part of the Sri Lankan Government or the Army. In any war there are always individual soldiers who might stray from directives and commit certain crimes. But, this is not something unique to Sri Lanka. It has happened in every single war so far. As a proportion I want to argue that the number of civilian deaths in Sri Lanka was much smaller than it has been in Iraq or Afghanistan.

International Organisations, the NGO community and a number of countries were involved in sending humanitarian assistance to the Sri Lankan Tamils in the LTTE-controlled areas until the very last moment. The Sri Lankan Government established a very unique mechanism to provide this humanitarian assistance to the Sri Lankan Tamils even though the LTTE was taking a very significant portion of the aid for the sustenance of their terrorist outfit. There are very few examples in the world where the military itself would provide food, medicine and other supplies to a conflict zone knowing that most of it was going into the hands of the enemy. Despite this understanding the military went ahead and provided aid and assistance to the conflict zone to ensure that the civilians were fed and their basic necessities were provided. The ICRC has repeatedly praised the Sri Lankan Government on this, but has not been acknowledged in the panel summary.

Q: Many Western nations and their allies are involved in campaigns against terrorist outfits even in foreign countries, and these campaigns while not being in any way as successful as Sri Lanka’s campaign against the LTTE, have still resulted in the loss of hundreds and even thousands of civilian lives. Yet, none of these countries seem to face the kind of pressure from the UN that Sri Lanka is facing. Do you think there is a double standard in how Sri Lanka is being treated?

All wars have produced human rights violations. There is no war in the world that has not produced human rights violations. If you take World War II, the Americans using nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the British bombings of Dresden Germany, In Vietnam the Mai Lai massacre, in Iraq what happened in Abu Grahib, In Afghanistan what happened in Bagram, the list goes on. There isn’t a single war that has not produced such violations. Especially in the contemporary wave of terrorism and insurgency, where terrorists and insurgents deliberately use civilians as human shields, we have seen many civilian deaths.

So, it is important that the UN as a credible body, not to look at Sri Lanka in isolation but to look at the global context of insurgencies and terrorist campaigns. Compared to Sri Lanka, more civilians have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by US and British troops. Like in Sri Lanka, US and British troops did not deliberately target civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan. But will the UN ever conduct a commission of inquiry into civilian fatalities and casualties in Iraq?
If at all, there is going to be an investigation on Sri Lanka, the UN should first investigate the civilian killings, maiming and injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan, before they examine allegations of a small country in the Indian Ocean that fought a high-end terrorist group. Major powers have to be held to a higher degree of responsibility than a third world developing country.

Rather than criticise Sri Lanka, the UN should in fact use the model that was developed by Sri Lanka of declaring a no fire zone for civilians as a model that can be used for other countries. Although the LTTE infiltrated the no fire zone, it is a very useful concept, and the international community can use this mechanism to both protect and provide assistance to civilians in other conflict zones. There are many such positive things done by the Sri Lankan Government, which have gone unnoticed by this UN panel report.
Q: Due to various reasons, the UN Panel wasn’t allowed to enter Sri Lanka to conduct their fact finding mission. Therefore, they would have had difficulty in gathering first-hand information on what happened. As a counter-terrorism expert you have travelled extensively in the war-torn areas of Sri Lanka and have met with people from both sides of the conflict. From your experience do you think the panel would have been able to get an accurate picture of what happened, without actually visiting the areas where the war took place?
Unfortunately, the UN advisory panel could not visit Sri Lanka so they did not see the ground situation of what was going on. In my view, the Sri Lankan Government should have invited them, permitted them to tour the North and East, given them access to IDP welfare and LTTE rehabilitation centres, and met all the three communities, so that they would have understood the context of the conflict.
If you look at the UN panel it has largely been influenced by the human rights organisations that have been lobbied by the LTTE and by certain politicians in the British and US Governments who are driven by electoral and constituency pressure.

Much of the UN report is not based on the ground reality of what happened in Sri Lanka. It is based on two streams of reporting. The first is LTTE and selective reporting. As they did not get first-hand information by visiting the war zone, they relied on NGOs and human rights organisations to get their facts. Most of the reports of these human rights organisations were influenced by the sophisticated LTTE and pro-LTTE propaganda networks in Sri Lanka as well as overseas. In fact, some of the reporting by the human rights organisations, especially the numbers quotes of civilian fatalities and casualties, has been taken word to word from LTTE propaganda. Therefore, in the end the UN panel report will carry a lot of what has been publicised by the LTTE itself.

Although the Tamil Tigers were among the worst human rights violators in the world they also ran their own human rights organisations simply to discredit the Sri Lankan Government. This includes the TCHR, the Tamil Centre for Human Rights and many other organisations that refuse to condemn LTTE killings. In fact, in LTTE documents that have been recovered by government investigators found that they had allocated a special budget for human rights organisations and their activities. Government should publicise such material without holding on to them gathering dust.

The LTTE also developed a second method of pressurising the UN. They exerted pressure on key Western actors in the UN by using electoral votes. By identifying blocks of Tamil voters mainly in the US and UK, they provided campaign donations and participated in the political campaigns of some British and American politicians. Some of these politicians even when they knew the money was coming from a terrorist organisation did not return the money. Initially, without showing their hand the LTTE would work with Parliamentarians in Britain and the US who have Tamil constituencies and provide the guarantee that so many people would vote for them. In return, these officials put pressure on the American and British bureaucracy and make various statements that were very supportive of the LTTE and critical of the Government.
The full report of the UN advisory panel should be studied to identify how LTTE streams of reporting has impacted and influenced those who are now putting pressure on Sri Lanka.

Q: What kind of an impact would the UN report have on the ongoing post-war rebuilding and rehabilitation processes taking place in Sri Lanka? Should the government implement some of the recommendations the panel has made?

Sri Lanka has made tremendous progress after the war. After China, Sri Lanka has the fastest growing economy in Asia. It also has the best performing stock market in the world. Sri Lanka has emerged as a top destination for world tourism. There has been unprecedented socioeconomic development in the North East. If this pace of development continues, corruption is eliminated and ethnic and religious relations are exceptionally well managed, Sri Lanka will be a first world country in the next 10 to 20 years.

The model that is advocated by the UN panel is one of punitive action against LTTE cadres who have surrendered or have been apprehended. This is a very Western approach. The Asian approach to fighting terrorism is completely different; it is one of forgiveness and rehabilitation rather than revenge and punishment. Out of those 11,500 Tamil Tigers who were detained, 60 to 70% were forcibly recruited by the LTTE. It is true they have gone and killed Sri Lankan leaders, put bombs in public places, and massacred villagers, but they did not join the LTTE voluntarily. Forcibly recruited by the LTTE in the last two and a half years of the war, they have today expressed remorse, repented and they want to move forward with their lives. Those terrorists were exposed to a very vicious ideology and they had very limited space to think for themselves. They were trapped within the LTTE. It is also impractical to arrest operational leaders such as Karuna, Pillaiyan, K.P. as well as those advocates of terrorism from overseas Rudrakumaran, Father Emmanuel, and Nediyavan. Now when Sri Lanka is mainstreaming the ideology of those misguided terrorists and is willing to reach out to those faction leaders, the UN should be very cautious when saying that they must be punished. The UN should have a long-term approach and study the basics of rehabilitation. What the UN panellists are recommending is that these people who have been reintegrated should be apprehended and punished. This should not happen in any conflict, let alone in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka has adopted a far-reaching approach towards resolving this conflict. The UN panel report is saying that the LTTE leaders and cadres should also be prosecuted. The Sri Lankan Government has adopted not a retributive but a restorative justice model. As the LTTE leaders and cadres will eventually form a part of your society, rather than prosecute and punish, it is mandatory to guide and mainstream LTTE leaders and cadres, including those who have committed atrocities. They are the misguided sons and daughters of Sri Lanka. With a handful of exceptions, those rehabilitated and released have made their way to their homes. Today, they live happily with their parents, siblings and children, something the LTTE did not permit them to do. Today, they are very well-integrated. If Sri Lanka follows the recommendations in the panel report, what Sri Lanka has achieved in the last two years will be disrupted.

Since the war ended there hasn’t been a single terrorist attack, and it clearly demonstrates that the source of this violence has been removed. If Sri Lanka is going to comply with the UN panel report, there will be a resurgence of violence. Imagine the consequence of arresting 3,000 garment factory workers, mostly girls who served and were forced to serve in the LTTE? So, if Sri Lanka accepts the model proposed by the panel and goes down the road of prosecution rather than rehabilitation I believe the peaceful and stable environment that has been created in the North and East will be disrupted.

Q: Today terrorism is a phenomenon threatening many democratically elected governments. Yet, when Sri Lanka is the only country to successfully defeat a terrorist outfit, the actions of the UN seem to undermine that victory. Do you think this sort of action by the UN gives pro-LTTE groups or other terrorist outfits around the world a morale boost and a new lease of life?

The UN has done a lot to bring peace and security, but UN’s record when it comes to being a counter-terrorism champion hasn’t been that great.

It is because the UN itself is the voice of 192 countries. Despite valiant efforts by several Secretaries-General including Mr Ban Ki-moon, the UN has not been successful in coming up with a globally accepted definition of what terrorism is. In the coming months and years, the UN should build expertise and play a more decisive role especially to help countries that are suffering from terrorism. Rather than get lobbied by a few key Western politicians and advocacy NGOs and criticise a country which has achieved a decisive victory against terrorism, the UN should study how one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world was defeated by Sri Lanka, and introduce their findings to other countries facing terrorism and extremism.

The report itself has caused great jubilation and celebration among three LTTE fronts operating in the West. First is Rudrakumaran who was the legal advisor to the LTTE and who has now assumed the post of so called Prime Minster of the Transnational Government in New York. Second is Father Emanuel who was an LTTE propagandist and who has now taken on the leadership of the Global Tamil Forum, a conglomerate of LTTE fronts. Third is Nediyavan who was the deputy head of the LTTE international communications office and has now assumed the post of LTTE chief. Although these three leaders opposed peace when Prabhakaran was alive, the situation has today changed. As Sri Lanka moves from fragile peace and economic recovery to stability and economic prosperity, the UN should persuade these second and third tier LTTE leaders to abandon the Tiger flag, the armed struggle and Prabhakaran’s failed ideology. The UN should specifically ask the human rights lobbyists who have a one side picture and Western politicians who are susceptible to constituency and electoral pressure to help create jobs for Tamils who have suffered in the North and East. As it has been doing in the past in Sri Lanka, the UN can play a much more constructive role in contributing to future peace and stability in Sri Lanka.

Q. In the face of this report what is the best course of action the Sri Lankan Government can take?
We should remember that the UN report criticises not only the conduct of the GOSL, but also that of the LTTE. Having won the war, the Sri Lankan Government should have a large heart towards every one. The Sri Lankan Government should invite the UN panel and give them a briefing of the various aspects of the conflict and the facets of Sri Lankan traditions and culture that have not been considered. They need to understand the political, cultural, and socio economic environment in Sri Lanka and the great strides Sri Lanka has made in reconciliation, rehabilitation and redevelopment since the war ended.

The Sri Lankan Government must revisit and restructure its foreign policy decision-making process. While the security forces won the war, the Ministry of External Affairs and its missions overseas miserably failed to reflect the ground reality overseas. At least now Sri Lanka should produce a ‘white paper,’ a factual account of what transpired in the last no fire zone and recommendations to prevent a repeat of its tragic 30-year history. Had the Sri Lankan Government leaders taken this advice in 2009 and produced a White Paper, that would have prevented human rights organisations from buying into LTTE propaganda, and in turn putting pressure on Western governments particularly in the US and UK.

The government should respond to every single allegation and accusation made by the UN, Western politicians, and human rights organisations, however trivial they may be, and irrespective of the degree of credibility. One of the major failures of the Sri Lankan Government in the past has been its inability to counter propaganda and this has now come to haunt them. The government needs to strengthen its information capacity to project the ground reality, especially the government and NGO initiatives in the North and East to rebuild the lives of a community that suffered from a vicious and a cruel war. The failure to do so in the past has resulted in the LTTE’s lines of information being accepted as the truth. The Sri Lankan conflict clearly demonstrates that in future wars what really matters is not just achieving a military victory on the ground, but also ensuring that the information campaign that is associated with it is successful.

The greatest damage the LTTE inflicted on Sri Lanka was to cut the Tamil leadership tree at its base. The Sri Lankan President should make it his priority to grow the Tamil mainstream leadership tree with the help of moderate Tamil leaders like M. A. Sumanthiran. Otherwise, TNA, an erstwhile LTTE proxy, will remain to be manipulated by the three LTTE factions overseas. It is important for Sri Lanka to engage the TNA irrespective of its continuing LTTE position. The Sri Lankan Government should offer an amnesty to anyone willing to genuinely abandon violence, support for violence and the advocacy of violence. Rather than invest time building databases of LTTE activists overseas, the government must take a bold step and reach out to even the most recalcitrant leaders of the LTTE including Rudrakumaran, Father Emanuel and Nediyavan and give them a role in the national development of Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka needs to persist in its reconciliation efforts despite the pressure placed on the country by this UN panel report seeking to advice the secretary general on accountability issues. Sri Lanka must not blow the weightage of this report out of proportion and overreact. Irrespective of the rough ride Sri Lanka is likely to face in the coming months, every Sri Lankan and every friend of Sri Lanka should steadfastly work hard to preserve the costly peace it has fought hard to achieve. The President should declare a harmony day where every Sri Lankan should reflect on harmony and contribute to harmony by promoting moderation, toleration and coexistence. The President should also announce a national pledge where Sri Lankans irrespective of their ethnicity or religion will serve their motherland. To build an overarching Sri Lankan identity, the President should either educate or remove a few of his ministers and senior officials who are not in line with him in building permanent bridges of friendship across the ethnic and religious divide, appoint a Tamil or a Muslim Prime Minister, and recruit more Tamils and Muslims to the security forces and the civil service.