War Crimes in Sri Lanka
Human Rights Watch’s anti-Sinhalese agenda once again on display:
A US State Department report on possible violations of the laws of war in Sri Lanka made public on October 22, 2009 shows the need for an independent international investigation, Human Rights Watch said today. The report details violations of the laws of war committed by both government forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from January through May 2009.
“The US State Department report should dispel any doubts that serious abuses were committed during the conflict’s final months,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Given Sri Lanka’s complete failure to investigate possible war crimes, the only hope for justice is an independent, international investigation.”
Note how they cleverly mask their partisan, one-sided agenda behind a pretense of criticizing both sides in a fair-minded way. Very insidious.
35 Responses to “War Crimes in Sri Lanka”
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October 23rd, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Given the United States’ complete failure to investigate possible war crimes, the only hope for justice is an independent, international investigation.
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Well it is a good thing if this mini-flame war about the Gaza report increases the profile of HRW, and human rights organizations in general.
I just wonder, what is the credibility of the US State Department on this topic, as long American war crimes are not investigated? Talk about the “need for an independent international investigation”.
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Lame analogy luzer… everybody knows Hamas is a bunch of terrorist suicide bombers while the Tamil Tigers are freedo…uh…they invented the suicide vest? uh…never mind.
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Um, Matt, there are over four times as many Tamil as there are Sinhalese.
Moreover, the Tamil diaspora has been pretty much single handedly funding the war for a decade at least.
And the guy who led the Tigers was absolutely batshit evilcrazy.
This does not lessen the brutality of the Sri Lankans. But it’s an indisputable fact that the LTTE was suffering lots of defections because plenty of important folks got tired of working for that asshole.
I mean, we’ve done things that could quite definitely be described as war crimes, but I believe that they were, at times, justified because the people we were fighting had, were currently, and would in the future do way worse than we could on even the ugliest day.
October 23rd, 2009 at 7:16 pm
we’ve done things that could quite definitely be described as war crimes, but I believe that they were, at times, justified
Big of you.
October 23rd, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Re: Um, Matt, there are over four times as many Tamil as there are Sinhalese.
What is the relevance of that? Most of those Tamils live in India and are probably too poor to fund a foreign insurgency even if they wanted to. I suspect that most Tamils felt that their brethren in Sri Lanka were being treated shabbily, and perhaps deserved a state of their own, but I don’t think any more then a very few Tamils ever actually supported the LTTE.
Re: And the guy who led the Tigers was absolutely batshit evilcrazy.
No argument from me there.
Re: I mean, we’ve done things that could quite definitely be described as war crimes, but I believe that they were, at times, justified because the people we were fighting had, were currently, and would in the future do way worse than we could on even the ugliest day.
There I must quibble with you. Some things cannot be justified even in the face of an evil and barbaric enemy. The nuclear obliteration of Hiroshima, for example, can’t be justified on any reasonable interpretation of just-war theory.
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:11 pm
You don’t even have to invoke Hiroshima.
I mean, we’ve done things that could quite definitely be described as war crimes, but I believe that they were, at times, justified because the people we were fighting had, were currently, and would in the future do way worse than we could on even the ugliest day.
It really is stunning how casual the moral bankruptcy is here. The moral consideration seems to be, “let’s make sure we’re unambiguously the good guys”, which presupposes that there’s always a good guy and there’s always a bad guy. If you commit a war crime, you’re a bad guy. You may be less bad of a guy that someone who commits more or worse ones, but tu quoque is rightly regarded as a silly, childish justification for doing wrong.
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:30 pm
The SLA won the war, so I’d be tempted to think that the government could afford to take its lumps like adults, and open up to a war crimes investigation. It’s not like the World Court is going to take their country away.
Charitable reasons not to might include: pride, desensitization over the course of a long conflict, or that they’ve worked the Sinhalese nationalist angle to the point where the zealots they’ve created would turn on their masters in a moment… can’t turn that stuff off like a light.
Uncharitable reasons might include a general distaste for all things Tamil, despite the make nice words after the victory.
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Re: or that they’ve worked the Sinhalese nationalist angle to the point where the zealots they’ve created would turn on their masters in a moment
There actually was a Sinhalese leftist/nationalist terrorist group (the JVP) in the early ’80s who fought against the Indian Army and pro-Indian Sinhalese politicians. As well as government-backed death squads which fought against the Sinhalese extremists, and separate paramilitary group under the pseudonym of “The People’s Revolutionary Red Army”. Between the paramilitaries, the death squads, the Sri Lankan army, the Indian army, the LTTE, the rival Tamil insurgents, and apparently even a Muslim group, it must have been quite a scene of mayhem.
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Hey, Tim, go fuck yourself.
A hell of a lot of my family got killed in the meat grinder that was the Eastern Front, at least one of them by the NKVD chekists, and my Great-Grandmother got a ticket to a Siberian vacation for about eight years, until after Koba died.
And you know what? I absolutely believe that without the rampant brutality of the NKVD, the Sovs, and most definitely the Western Allies, would never have won the war. Nor do I think we could have won without wiping cities off the map.
By the way, Hector, I also most assuredly reject the idea that the Supreme War Council would not have fought to the last to prevent surrender absent the kind of annihilation the world saw at Hiroshima.
Even *after* the decision, the opponents came ridiculously close to a successful coup.
If Hirohito hadn’t the foresight to prerecord his radio broadcast, we’d have had Olympic and Coronet.
In Armageddon, I believe it was Helmut Schmidt (or maybe Kohl, I can’t remember off the top of my head) says to Hastings that you won’t ever hear him draw a comparison between what the Sovs did in East Prussia and what the Wehrmacht did in the Soviet Union.
Look, if you want to avoid most American war crimes, you need to end aerial bombardment as an acceptable tactic.
However, it’s never been banned by anyone, nor will it ever be. As long as we hit “military” targets, it’s legal. Well, I’d say that I believe any kind of such strike except at the very edge of the front line is going to have an unacceptable risk of civilian casualties.
But I’d say that our doing so was entirely justified in France, Italy, Germany, the Low Countries, the Philippines, and Korea. Even though every time we did so, we were committing a warcrime, even if it isn’t defined as such.
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:22 pm
No, see, HRW is going after Sri Lankan war crimes only so it can distract attention away from its own BIGOTED ANTISEMITISM. Really, evidence that they focus any attention at all on groups other than Israel is only further proof of how nefarious they are and how deep their evil Nazi genius goes!
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Greg,
I understand that. However, as a Christian I feel that we may not do gravely evil things so that good may come of it. I oppose the assault on Hiroshima for the same reason I oppose abortion. Whether the nuclear attacks ultimately resulted in a better and safer world with fewer civilian deaths does not change my view on the matter.
Having an unacceptable risk of civilian casualties, as all aerial bombardment does, is different then _deliberately targeting_ civilian targets. Part of the _point_ of the nuclear obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to kill civilians, and thereby to convince the Japanese that the war was unwinnable. This goes back to the old ‘doctrine of double effect’, which I think is eminently sensible: to kill innocent civilians as an unintended but predictable side effect is different then killing them as a direct means to your goal. That doesn’t mean aerial bombardment is a good thing, but it does mean that it is on one side of a line and Hiroshima is on the other.
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:46 pm
The Sinhalese certainly committed some nasty war crimes. But at least it’s over now. It’s time they eat their lumps and admit what they did. Maybe pay some reparations, too. Given the benefits of peace, they can afford to do that now. And to honest, we all could probably learn from the first successful anti-terrorism operation in history. A real accounting of everything, complete with a full truth and reconciliation commission, would probably help us all.
And as much as I don’t approve of Israel’s methods, I’d be a lot more willing to accept them if they worked. And that’s Israel’s big problem, they kill people without any positive effect to justify it. They seem to prefer war over peace. If they had a solution, they wouldn’t do it, because then they’d have to stop fighting.
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:40 pm
As for Hector’s complaint about Hiroshima, I split the issue. I think Hiroshima was unfortunately a necessary operation. Nagasaki was not. I think a few more days should have passed between the two bombings, and the Emperor should have been forced to see Hiroshima before we bombed another city. But given the situation, I’m willing to give Truman a pass on Nagasaki as well. It was overreach, but that was a really tough situation and people really were impatient over the war. I will not give anyone a pass on Dresden, however. That was just plain wrong. Although I don’t think anyone really expected it would be that bad. If anything good can come out of Dresden, it’s that we now know what it takes to create a real firestorm. Let’s not do that again.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:27 pm
And you know what? I absolutely believe that without the rampant brutality of the NKVD, the Sovs, and most definitely the Western Allies, would never have won the war.
That’s great, but what’s at issue is whether “Check with Greg!” makes much of a standard of conduct for war. I say no. You apparently think differently. Take it up with HRW and the other NGOs.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:43 pm
I mean, we’ve done things that could quite definitely be described as war crimes, but I believe that they were, at times, justified because the people we were fighting had, were currently, and would in the future do way worse than we could on even the ugliest day.
I mean, we Nazis have done things that could quite definitely be described as war crimes, but I believe that they were, at times, justified because the
Communist scum we were fighting had, were currently, and would in the future do way worse than we could on even the ugliest day….
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Greg,
Just a little more- you may be correct that the war couldn’t have been won without rampant brutality, but to say that something is “necessary” to achieve your final goal is different from saying that that makes it _right_.
Now I certainly think that in war, and in revolution, certain conventions must inevitably go by the wayside, and in this I think the human rights liberals are flatly wrong. I certainly don’t take the hard line on civil rights and liberties that Human Rights Watch or other NGOs would take, and in fact I have little but contempt for their views in this regard. For example, I don’t get too exercised over the fact that the French Partisans shot suspected Nazi collaborators with only rudimentary trials. That represents the stretching of normal peacetime concepts of justice, not their total negation. At least the partisans had some reason and presumably some evidence to believe they were really executing Nazis, and weren’t just blowing the heads off random Germans. It was a sad necessity but it wasn’t, to my mind, unjustifiable.
The deliberate targeting of civilians, and of people that you _know_ aren’t guilty of any crime, by either conventional, nuclear, chemical, or other weapons is something different though, and that’s a line that I don’t think we ever have the right to cross.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:51 pm
And you know what? I absolutely believe that without the rampant brutality of the NKVD, the Sovs, and most definitely the Western Allies, would never have won the war. Nor do I think we could have won without wiping cities off the map.
And you know what? I absolutely believe that without the rampant but completely justified brutality of the SS, the Einsatzkommando, and most definitely our Ukrainian allies, we would never have held the Communist hordes off as long as we did to save Western civilization. Nor do I think we could have done so without wiping cities off the map. Yes, we Nazis killed civilians — but we did so in a good, no, a great cause, the cause of anti-Bolshevismus…..
October 24th, 2009 at 12:07 am
Maybe not, but there’s no excuse for the Tokyo firebombing.
October 24th, 2009 at 4:02 am
I wouldn’t be shocked if there were war crimes – the Sri Lankan government pulled out all stops in wiping out the Tigers. That said, I’m not going to be shedding tears for that group – aside from major propaganda efforts, they practically invented suicide bombing, used human shields and the like, and exploited every truce to attack the Sinhalese after refusing to ever disarm. Not to mention that the Tigers’ now deceased leader was a psycho and a necrophiliac.
October 24th, 2009 at 4:48 am
“they practically invented suicide bombing”
It’s not clear to me why the suicide part of suicide bombing is especially problematic. Soldiers have been going on suicide missions forever. Presumably it’s the killing of civilians that’s the problem, a. but people have been doing that forever b. the Tigers actually found it militarily useful and to target top enemy politicians, not just to off civilians.
October 24th, 2009 at 5:03 am
Israeli methods not effective ?
The numbers terror casualties has gone down by 95% since 2002.
October 24th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Ygesias’s conscience has been pricked by the assertion that his attention has been selective. Which is good for him, actually. The title of the post remains defensive, which indicates that he’s still struggling over whether and how to assimilate the assertion and what it means.
October 24th, 2009 at 11:40 am
That’s great, but what’s at issue is whether “Check with Greg!” makes much of a standard of conduct for war. I say no. You apparently think differently. Take it up with HRW and the other NGOs.
Funny, because most people in this thread argue that Hiroshima was a war crime, yet fail to remind me where it’s forbidden by international law. Or where Bomber Harris’ dehousing campaign is forbidden.
Because I fail to note any prosecutions regarding that, only the fact that Air Chief Marshal Harris has a bang up statue in London.
I’d say that unless it’s forbidden by an international convention, or *possibly* has precedents from the Nurnberg Tribunals, then it’s not a war crime.
I’m amused that you mock me for having my own standard, and then hold up the standard of NGOs, which aren’t based in international law any more than mine.
October 24th, 2009 at 11:42 am
The Sinhalese certainly committed some nasty war crimes. But at least it’s over now. It’s time they eat their lumps and admit what they did. Maybe pay some reparations, too. Given the benefits of peace, they can afford to do that now. And to honest, we all could probably learn from the first successful anti-terrorism operation in history. A real accounting of everything, complete with a full truth and reconciliation commission, would probably help us all.
That’s essentially how I see the Marshall Plan. Part stopping Communist encroachments on Western Europe, and part rebuilding everything we bombed the shit out of for three years.
October 24th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Re: I’d say that unless it’s forbidden by an international convention, or *possibly* has precedents from the Nurnberg Tribunals, then it’s not a war crime.
International conventions have nothing to do with it. It’s forbidden by natural law, by the law of conscience, and by Christian law, which are higher laws then any international convention. If I recall correctly you’re a Christian, right?
October 24th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Oh boy, that’s some good snark.
October 24th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
I’d say that unless it’s forbidden by an international convention, or *possibly* has precedents from the Nurnberg Tribunals, then it’s not a war crime.
Nuremberg Principles, August 8, 1945: CHARTER OF THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL
AUGUST 8, 1945
ARTICLE VI
The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility:….
(b) War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;
October 24th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
I’d say that unless it’s forbidden by an international convention, or *possibly* has precedents from the Nurnberg Tribunals, then it’s not a war crime.
Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague, IV), October 18, 1907
CONVENTION RESPECTING THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF WAR ON LAND
The Hague, October 18, 1907
ARTICLE XXII
The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited.
ARTICLE XXV
The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.
October 24th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
I’d say that unless it’s forbidden by an international convention, or *possibly* has precedents from the Nurnberg Tribunals, then it’s not a war crime.
PROTECTION OF CIVILIAN POPULATIONS AGAINST BOMBING FROM THE AIR IN CASE OF WAR
Unanimous resolution of the League of Nations Assembly,
September 30, 1938.
The Assembly,
Considering that on numerous occasions public opinion has expressed through the most authoritative channels its horror of the bombing of civilian populations;
Considering that this practice, for which there is no military necessity and which, as experience shows, only causes needless suffering, is condemned under the recognised principles of international law;
Considering further that, though this principle ought to be respected by all States and does not require further reaffirmation, it urgently needs to be made the subject of regulations specially adapted to air warfare and taking account of the lessons of experience;
I. Recognizes the following principles as a necessary basis for any subsequent regulations:
1) The intentional bombing of civilian populations is illegal;
2) Objectives aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be identifiable;
3) Any attack on legitimate military objectives must be carried out in such a way that civilian populations in the neighbourhood are not bombed through negligence;
October 24th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Interesting.
A bloody civil war rages for decades. Countless people die and are injured. The international response is to call for temporary ceasefires and the granting of concessions to the separtists while they resort to terrorist tactics.
The international response basically guarantees that the civil war will never end and the bloodshed will go on for ever.
The Sri Lankan government finally takes the necessary action to actually win the war, a action which results in the final ending of bloodshed and the international response is behave as if the Sri Lankan government has somehow cheated and needs to be punished. Of course the Sri Lankan government doesn’t want to cooperate with international investigations clearly designed to stir up trouble and accuse them of crimes.
The Sri Lankans are not infected with liberal self loathing, they are not going to play along with that game.
This just highlights bankruptcy of internationalism and drippy liberalism. As long as bloody conflict continues the sanctimonious liberals get to wringe their hands and feel self righteous. As soon as the necessary action is taken to actually end the conflict, those same liberals act like they have been cheated and become indignent.
Now contemptible.
October 24th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
I’m not a lawyer. But since in many cases whether or not a particular military action constitutes a war crime turns specifically on whether or not that action was “justified by military necessity” — something which in many cases would be difficult to determine one way or the other after the fact (or even, given the confusion of battle, at the time) — quoting from international bodies or conventions or tribunals, without attempting to show how they apply, is simply begging the question.
October 24th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
International conventions have nothing to do with it. It’s forbidden by natural law, by the law of conscience, and by Christian law, which are higher laws then any international convention. If I recall correctly you’re a Christian, right?
I am, which is why I believe that we should do things like abolish the Air Force, because, as I said, outside of essentially divebombing targets, pretty much any mission will necessarily result in civilian casualties. Bombing civilians, even accidentally, is a war crime, in the same way that Manslaughter is still a criminal offence, even if not on the same level as Murder.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:41 am
I’d say it’s more that the international laws are a basically a mess of contradictions and vaguely worded idealism. I especially love those bits about “disproportionate force”. What the hell is proportionate force? The exact same amount in return? That necessary to stop the attacks temporarily and/or permanently in the eyes of the defender?
Plus, there’s the “must prevent civilian casualties at all costs” tendency, which has its heart in the right place but introduces all kinds of difficulties and complications.
I hear police occasionally shoot people on accident, or artillery shells accidentally get blown in the wrong direction by the wind, or bullets occasionally go through an area and hit civilians by accident. Should we abolish all of those? If we’re in the Department of Absurdly Idealistic Solutions, why don’t we just ban weapons while we’re at it?
There’s trying to minimize civilian casualties, and then there’s “absurd mania blinding someone to the facts of warfare”.
Why not? Hiroshima actually suffered less casualties and destruction than some other cities that were being hit by heavy conventional bombings.
To be honest, I always found the “just-unjust” war distinction to be idiotic. Wars are wars, whether they are fought defensively or offensively, and the goal is always to achieve the objective of victory.
I don’t suppose you have a convenient Book of Natural Law? Or “Law of Conscience”? Don’t project your religious beliefs on the rest of us.
Personally, I’ve always believed the goal and rules of war should be to minimize the outbreak of war, but when it occurs, to have the war end as quickly as possible. I’d vastly prefer a short, brutal war that creates heavy casualties over a protracted conflict over years and decades. The former is a major shock and devastation, but people can rebound remarkably well from it – ask post-World War 2 Germany and Japan. The latter creates generations that know little but conflict, distorts societies to all hell, and often simply breeds masses of hatred and animosity while creating a self-perpetuating conflict with no decisive end.
October 26th, 2009 at 10:54 am
aha, the famously well-informed progressive commentariat!
The JVP was brutally put down in the late seventies, starting around 1977 (in the 80s, the leaders were repatriated and tried to do it again–same result but lower magnitude)
The HRW can’t be reasonably portrayed as having an anti-Sinhalese bias but an anti- Sri Lankan one. For all their fulminations about war crimes and the lack of official attention paid to such by the responsible parties, there is no guide for upstanding citizens to pressure the relevant parties into redressing grievances. This is because it’s impossible to do so without getting death threats and being assasinated, imprisoned for political speech or forced to leave the country.
this is the central perversity of the human rights regime, HRW in particular, that they are speaking to multiple choirs without offering any substantial assistance to accountability advocates within the subject countries.
Everybody inside SL knows that 237k people are still in the IDP camp camps and of the 60k released, 16k are merely being shuffled around to other camps. They know all of the details contained in the HRW report. What they don’t know, and rightly so, is of what utility this white paper is to the IDPs currently within the camps–in light of an administration which is wildly popular and disregards even the meager standards for free press that predominate in Lankan polite society/people of means.