Boston Globe: Grant Tamils autonomy in homelands

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 December 2008, 22:51 GMT]
Boston Globe in an editorial published today warned that Sri Lanka’s military campaign will only produce “new phase of protracted guerrilla warfare,” and that lasting peace is possible only when Sri Lanka's government “grant[s] the Tamils meaningful autonomy in their homelands.” The paper also asserted a cautionary note to the Sri Lanka Government that “[e]thnic or nationalistic pride should not be allowed to inflict such suffering on civilians who committed no crime but to be trapped in a war zone.”

Quotes from Boston Globe's Past editorials

July 2008: The solution to Sri Lanka's conflict must be political, not military. Rajapakse should be encouraged to strike a deal that grants Tamils substantial autonomy in their own homeland areas. If not, the war will drag on, and Sri Lanka's government may find itself classified alongside the regimes in Burma, Zimbabwe, and Sudan as an international pariah. March 2008: The reality is not so simple. A recent Human Rights Watch report shows how Rajapaksa's government has committed grave human rights abuses. In its 241-page report, "Recurring Nightmare: State Responsibility for 'Disappearances' and Abductions in Sri Lanka," the human rights group documents a pattern of abductions of civilians by security forces. The report calls on the government to acknowledge its "responsibility for large-scale disappearances and take all steps necessary to stop the practice." November 2007: There ought to be an international arms embargo on Sri Lanka. If President Mahinda Rajapaksa wants to end the conflict, he could point to the damaging effects of such an embargo to persuade Sinhalese nationalists they must accept a meaningful devolution of power to the Tamil areas ... And then Rajapaksa should back constitutional changes that would allow for Tamil self-government in a confederal Sri Lanka. October 2006: To demonstrate Washington's seriousness about a permanent peace that provides for Tamil self-government and human rights in a confederal Sri Lanka, the [U.S.] administration ought to prevail on the central government to withdraw its armed forces from the Tamil areas in the north of the island. June 2006: This [U.S's] acknowledgment of a Tamil right to self-rule in their own homeland marks a welcome evolution in US policy. The international community should press the Sri Lankan government and the Tigers alike to come to the negotiating table in Oslo and work out a loose confederation that retains Sri Lanka's unity, grants the Tamil northeast self-governing autonomy, and puts an end to the island's long agony. December 2005: India and the United States should bring international pressure to bear on the island's belligerents to sustain the current ceasefire and craft a political resolution that recognizes the Tamil need for self-government.

Full text of the editorial follows:

ASIA'S longest civil war is building to a violent crescendo. In the island nation of Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese-majority government should be pressed to accept a cease-fire, to permit a political settlement. Government forces are besieging the rebel Tamil Tigers in the north of the country. Since abandoning a ceasefire in 2006 and a Norwegian-sponsored peace process earlier this year, President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother, Defense Minister Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, have been vaunting their intention to crush the Tigers once and for all.

There is little chance the brothers' military campaign will produce anything other than a new phase of protracted guerrilla warfare. Meanwhile, over 200,000 civilians have been uprooted from their homes. On ground flooded by monsoon rains, they struggle to survive in frail lean-tos, dependent on aid agencies that operate under the Sri Lankan army's severe restrictions.

Both sides have abused civilians. The Sri Lankan military has bombed and shelled villages, schools, hospitals. An official of the World Food Program told the BBC recently that conditions for displaced people in the northern conflict zone are "as basic as in Somalia." And Human Rights Watch has accused the Tigers of preventing 230,000 displaced civilians from fleeing the war zone so they can be used as human shields, and to provide a pool of potential recruits.

Tamil civilians of northern Sri Lanka are suffering a man-made disaster. Ethnic or nationalistic pride should not be allowed to inflict such suffering on civilians who committed no crime but to be trapped in a war zone.

Only when the shooting stops can Sri Lanka's government pursue a lasting peace - by granting the Tamils meaningful autonomy in their homelands.

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Sri Lanka's ignored war