Gaza: The Precedent of Sri Lanka
26 August 2024
Gearóid Ó Loingsigh
Terror in Sri Lanka.
The armed forces of Israel continue with their genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people, whilst the governments of the world wash their hand of the affair. They announce measures they never take, partially take, or take when it no longer matters. Meanwhile liberals talk as if this were something strange in the world. The Palestinian people know this is not the case, the genocide against them began with the Nakba in 1948 and never ended. They are now living through another episode on a long path of violence, massacres, rapes, imprisonment, apartheid and more.
Liberals also expect that once this latest episode has been concluded, presuming that Gaza is not another one of these Forever Wars so in vogue in the centres or power, that the governments of the world will act and punish those responsible. The Palestinians’ own history tells us that we can’t expect anything from them. There is a precedent for what is happening in Gaza now and it is Sri Lanka and the genocide against the Tamil people, particularly what they went through in 2009. In 2002, the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) following their unilateral ceasefire agreed to a permanent cease fire with the Sri Lankan government as part of a peace process, supported by various governments. However, after four years of the ceasefire and the functioning of a supposedly independent monitoring system the EU placed the LTTE on its list of terrorist organisations and the USA announced it would only contribute to reconstruction funds controlled exclusively by the Sri Lankan government. Encouraged the Sri Lankan armed forces launched a bloody war, expelling the LTTE from many of the zones it controlled.[1]
It is in this context that the Sri Lankan government ordered 400,000 Tamils to take refuge in a “safe zone” a so called “No Fire Zone”. Once there, the soldiers began to bombard them. They murdered 70,000 civilians, tortured many before murdering them, raped many women. They imposed a food, medicine and water blockade. We know this because, the soldiers just like the Zionist soldiers in Gaza filmed it all with their mobile phones and shared the images. Many of the images used in Callum Macrae’s documentary No Fire Zone come from those soldiers. I highly recommend seeing the heartbreaking documentary[2] in order to see the similarities with Gaza.
In the midst of the genocide the Presidency of the European Union issued a mealy-mouthed declaration whose language is not that different to what they now say about Gaza.
The EU strongly condemns the killings of civilians and calls on all parties to take all necessary action to avoid further civilian casualties. The EU condemns in the strongest possible terms the LTTE for the use of civilians as human shields. Both the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE must fully comply with international humanitarian law and ensure the protection of civilians at all times.
The EU welcomed the two-day ceasefire declared by the Government of Sri Lanka.[3]Throughout the entire declaration they put the LTTE on the same moral plane as the government of Sri Lanka and basically absolved the government of its responsibility, as it was the government that declared a no fire zone and ordered the population to go there. They finished off their declaration stating,
The EU calls on the Government of Sri Lanka to make steps towards an inclusive and peaceful political process. The EU believes this is the only way in which lasting peace in Sri Lanka will be achieved. It encourages all stakeholders in Sri Lanka to urgently engage in such process in a responsible way to enable progress be made in finding a lasting political solution to the concerns of all communities in Sri Lanka. The EU repeats its earlier calls for the LTTE to renounce terrorism and violence.[4]In other words, the LTTE that had begun a peace process with the Sri Lankan state that led directly to a full-scale war by the government, should return to the negotiating table and moreover they demanded that the LTTE renounce violence. Of course, they never asked the Sri Lankan government to renounce violence. The similarity with Palestine is obvious, evident as is the cynicism of the EU. Everything they did in Sri Lanka they repeat in Palestine now and the EU has no intentions of doing diddly-squat.
The language, the initiatives and the consequences for the murderers of Sri Lanka are the same ones that we see and can expect for the Zionists. There were no judicial nor political consequences. In 2013, the British PM, David Cameron, invited Sri Lanka to host the Commonwealth Summit.[5]
Nowadays, Sri Lanka is a normal country, accepted in the UN, has trade and political links with all the western powers. The EU is its second trading partner after China, absorbing 22.4% of its exports. In 2017, the EU rewarded Sri Lanka for its genocide by removing tariffs on 66% of the country’s products, and to date has donated one billion euros to the country.[6] Amongst the EU’s priorities for the country are the green economy, the circular economy, waste management etc. Trying the war criminals does not form part of its plans, although there are some references to “reconciliation”.[7] In 2015 the UN General Assembly adopted resolution A/HRC/RES/30/1[8] without putting it to a vote, in which Sri Lanka committed itself to investigating the past and promote reconciliation. In 2020, Sri Lanka announced it would not comply with the resolution and opted for its own internal “reconciliation” process.
Why are they so indulgent with Sri Lanka? The answer is in the EU’s own document which described the geo-political importance of Sri Lanka and maritime connectivity. Sri Lanka is militarily important. In the case of a war with China Sri Lanka will be a key zone for the west.
Everything we see now in Palestine and particularly in Gaza we saw in Sri Lanka. Safe zones, the EU talking of the joint responsibility of the parts whilst it supplies weapons to Israel, the call for a Palestinian surrender and blaming the victims of the genocide. It doesn’t matter which state or conflict it is, the victims are required to surrender to their victimizers before they even talk about the problem.
The EU is not going to do anything against Israel. The blows to its economy have come from the boycott, though there is a real need for the trade unions to block all trade with Israel in the ports and that would have to be continue even when the military operations in Gaza and the West Bank end, if indeed they do end. The Houthis through their attacks on ships in the Red Sea have been more effective than all the governments of the world and trade with Israel should never be normalised. The precedent of Sri Lanka clearly shows all governments want to normalise everything and we shouldn’t let down our guard. Not now, not in the future either.
Notes
[1] Much of the information for this article comes from the documentation of the People’s Permanent Tribunal held in Dublin Dublín https://permanentpeoplestribunal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Sri_Lanka_TPP_En.pdf & https://pptsrilanka.org/about/pt-sri-lanka/
[2] The documentary can be
seen in English here
https://nofirezone.org
[3] EU (2009) Declaration of the Presidency on behalf of the European Union on Sri Lanka 9122/1/09 REV 1 (Presse 102) P 46/09. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/PESC_09_46
[4] Ibíd.,
[5] The Guardian (03/09/2013) Sri Lanka: Slaughter in the no fire zone. Callum Macrae. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/03/sri-lanka-slaughter-no-fire-zone
[7] See EU (2021) Republic of Sri Lanka. Multi-Annual Indicative Programma 2021-2027. https://international-partnerships.ec.europa.eu/document/download/1a7ccd9b-141d-451b-af5c-6d04c2090998_en?filename=mip-2021-c2021-9291-sri-lanka-annex_en.pdf
[8] See https://www.mfa.gov.lk/images/stories/pdfs/docs/FINAL_published_-_thirty_slash_one.pd