Well given that I have only read about two books in my life and that I only wrote one essay in my 6 years at the University of Toronto, I am not about to get caught in the middle the mighty duel of the pen between you two expert literates. By the way my one essay was a paper arguing that Hitler was not the architect of the “final solution” as it was allegedly decided at the Wannsee conference, but rather that it was really Himmler and his cronies. That is how pathetic it was.
No my expertise unfortunately is in solving Hyperbolic equations using the tridiagonal matrix transformations or determining if a problem is computable by proving NP-completeness. A valuable life skill no?

Now that I have established that I am out of my league, I will jump right in and allow myself to get destroyed.
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One is thus tempted to ask Roberts: pray, tell, what is the intent of making this point within the context of your argument? Maybe Nicolai can help us out?
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No I only defended him in that obvious case. Otherwise I would not even attempt to speak for him. Heck I don’t even understand most of what either of you say.
I did enjoy reading his article very much (one of the best) and it is what got me to Groundviews. I think his response to the the responses was published in the Island and a reference was made to Groundviews.

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Finally, to Roberts’ charge of my being ‘biased’, I make no pretense not to be. I am deeply biased in favor of human decency, and hope I shall forever continue to be. Thanks again.
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Now to this statement, I do have a comment. In fact I cannot understand this one. Now I will go along with you that the Govt. authorities have very little regard for the lives of the civilians. I am sure that many of the accusations made against them such as rape, separation of loves ones, horrible living conditions and other subhuman treatment are in fact going on in the IDP centers. I would also agree that the people are being shelled in the no fire zone and that one of reasons they use any caution is to try to show a humanitarian front to the international community or even us for that matter.
I am sure if no one was looking, the results would be much more catastrophic.

But you also have to admit that after several failed attempts for peace (please humour me on the separate state is no option scenario, even though you obviously do not agree with that) their hands are somewhat tied on the collateral damage front mainly due to my points below. This is where I wrestle with my own human decency daemons to be honest, but I will continue with my argument.

If one is in fact biased towards human decency though, then one has to go all the way on the ‘human decency” platform. I don’t think there are muliple choice answers to decency questions unless the answer is all of the above.

I believe from what I have read above, I would surmise that you are in fact a card carrying supporter of the LTTE. Example below while not directly admitting it, it is pretty well a done deal to me.
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The LTTE, a national resistance movement forged through a long history of discrimination and state violence against Tamil people, is transformed by a single stroke of Roberts’ pen into a historical aberration driven purely by some malign political ideology.
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I argue that you cannot support this so called resistance movement and still believe in human decency.
1) They repeatedly convert the young and impressionable into suicide terrorists. In one case the bomber was even mentally challenged (albeit allegedly, but I gave you that on some of your accusations against the troops and govt. already so give me this one).
2) They hold their own people hostage and put them in the firing line and even fire at them if they are defiant in any way (please give me this one also. There is enough evidence) . Their own people I repeat? I have not read anywhere above where you chastise this behavior? The decent thing of course for the LTTE to do is to surrender, wouldn’t it? Should you not be asking for this in the name of decency?
3) They blow up buildings containing innocent people.
4) They kill any of their own who don’t support their cause or who oppose them and their most educated ones to boot. And they are now left with what?
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I argue further. What has become of the Tamil people as a result of this “resistance movement”? By the way I am Tamil as well but too chicken to give out my real name for a lot of very good reasons. Maybe seek me out at the Cinnamon grand coffee stop on any given morning and I will give you my reasons in person. But you have to find me in the crowd first. But then again, what are the odds that you live in this country? Probably less than zero. I digress…

I left Sri Lanka very young and returned two years ago. Are the people of the North better off when I returned almost 40 years later than they were when I left? Are there better schools set up for them now than the ones that were refusing them entry then? Can they have ambition? Can they have hope? What has 40 years for the cause given them?

I will also argue that they would have had a lot more today if there was no “resistance movement” at all.
Who has the better life? We know it is the political refugees who got away, don’t we? They were the opportunistic ones weren’t they, intended or not? And I say that also about all the Sinhalese ones who conned their way out as political asylum refugees.
So you see based on my view of the situation, I hope you can understand why I am confused why you would be biased towards human decency if you do not chastise the activities of the LTTE as well? For that matter you did the same thing in your Bush comparison. You said nothing against the despicable activity of Al Quaeda who the were the catalysts of the post 9-11 debacle.

It is constitutional claim and thus a constitutional façade that has enabled the Tamils in Tigerland to have the ‘best’ of both worlds. Thus, today, a staunch LTTE supporter in Puthukuduyiruppu – who, as such, must be an Eelam Tamil who denies being a Sri Lankan citizen – can protest because s/he is not provided with medical and basic food supplies. S/he can also protest at being subject to artillery or aerial bombing.

I’m grateful to you, Nicolai, for alerting me to my possible misinterpretation of this point. If the words are taken purely at face value, Roberts’ intent here is merely to show how a constitutional peculiarity has helped Eelam supporters in Tigerland to have their cake and eat it, so to speak – and this isn’t necessarily to imply anything about the attitude of the Tamils themselves. For that, I apologize.

I hope you’ll forgive me for not leaving the matter there, however. It seems to me that if that is indeed the intended point, it is conspicuously irrelevant to Roberts’ overall case – which is to justify the continuation of the Sri Lankan military’s current (grisly) tactics in the north (note: the ICRC has just said it is witnessing an ‘unimaginable’ humanitarian catastrophe in Vanni).

Merely to inform us that a constitutional anomaly has resulted in pro-Eelam Tamils being able to protest simultaneously against the denial of food by the government AND incessant shelling (my how fortunate they are to be able to protest!) adds nothing at all really to Roberts’ overall thesis, nor does it illuminate in any way the moral dynamics of the conflict. One is thus tempted to ask Roberts: pray, tell, what is the intent of making this point within the context of your argument? Maybe Nicolai can help us out?

I seem to have made the error of assuming that all Roberts’ points are supportive of his overall thesis. For any misinterpretation that has resulted, of course I apologize unreservedly. And yet, I still feel the extract above cannot be totally divorced from the context of Roberts’ entire essay. Indeed, it seems to me that while apparently lacking any substantive relevance to his case, it has rhetorical significance insofar as it helps to generate a specific perception in the minds of the reader – that these Tamils of Puthukuduyiruppu have somehow been merrily manipulating the system to enjoy the ‘best’ of both worlds, as Roberts puts it. I don’t know about you, but I find such a characterization works hard at diminishing our sympathy for those Tamils in Vanni now – which IS of course relevant to Robert’s thesis that there should be no humanitarian ceasefire.

I am yet to be convinced that undermining our sympathy for the suffering thousands in Vanni isn’t one of Roberts’ key objectives. The other key planks are more obvious, and include delegitimizing the LTTE’s cause by characterizing its leadership as fascistic, and neutering Westerners’ calls for humanitarian mercy by hinting that such calls are hypocritical. This devastating troika (an intricate mesh of substantive points and rhetoric) is what I referred to as the underpinning logic of Roberts’ essay that I was addressing. Incidentally, in my original piece, I point to much less ambiguous evidence of Roberts’ attempts to undermine growing international sympathy for the hapless Tamils. (And, lest we forget, even the category of civilian is potentially ambiguous, according to Roberts!).

As a rhetorical aside of my own, I am tempted to ask whether Roberts would have supported the aerial bombing of Sinhalese towns and villages in the current indiscriminate manner during the last JVP uprising, if victory over that insurgency (or another worse one) was immanent? If not, why not? The answer is sure to be revealing.

Finally, let us be in no doubt as to what Roberts is advocating here. He is calling for the type of ruthless military operations that have already killed thousands of Tamil civilians this year to be permitted to continue without opposition from ‘do-gooders’. That he prefaces this with appeals to us not to judge his moral character, as Nicolai puts it, is I’m afraid irrelevant as far as my own moral sensibilities are concerned. Recall the ghastly attempts during the Bush administration to treat the issue of torture in much the same way. There were people advocating the use of torture then, asking us not to judge their moral character and to see their appeals through the ‘context’ of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

At the time, I did not regard their arguments as any less despicable or immoral because of the context in which they were presented. Just as torture is torture, indiscriminate mass killing is indiscriminate mass killing, whether it’s of Tamils, Sinhalese, Palestinians or anyone else. We oppose it quite simply because we are decent people. The extent of our own moral degeneracy, in my view, can in fact be measured by the extent to which we permit any ‘context’ at all to render such willful actions (as torture and mass killing) as permissible.

Finally, to Roberts’ charge of my being ‘biased’, I make no pretense not to be. I am deeply biased in favor of human decency, and hope I shall forever continue to be. Thanks again.

Martin White’s piece reached me about a month back, courtesy of my friend Lionel Bopage (presumably for my edification and re-education). I skimmed through it then. I skimmed it again after it made groundviews.

I decided that it would be counterproductive and exhausting to reply, a kind of Catch 22 situation. White seems to be a tiger-in-humanitarian-garb. Totally biased in my view and duplicitous in his production. But, then, my reading may be biased, no!

Nicolai has done a terrific job, matching his patienct analytical competence with lucid prose. His comments gain value from the fact that he is Tamil who has returned to Lanka (if my recollections of recent dialogues with Ergun and others is correct).

Muchos obligandos, AMIGO.

For example, you say that he says.
– Eelam supporters on the ground are complaining about being bombed by government forces, yet have the audacity to demand that the same government provides them with essential food and medicine.

I closest match to this is
– This is a convenient retort that will be directed by the emotive partisanship of an empathetic heart. Be that as it may, I am unaware of any rule that says that a participant in a war – whether civil war, or war between nation states – is bound to supply the civilians on the enemy side with medical supplies and essential food items. Yet Sri Lanka’s government has been doing this for years (maybe insufficiently, but yet as policy).

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You have clearly attempted to distort and translate his argument in your favor.

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When I read Michael Roberts’ article he painstakingly prefaces in text many of his seemingly insensitive statements or arguments, to explain how and why they should not be taken out of context and should not be used to judge his moral character. He is just trying to present the cold hard facts. Yet you have managed to still distort. A tall order indeed.
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Personally I found Michael Roberts’ essay to be extremely well constructed and a true reality check for all of us who follow this war with open minded and moderate biases.

Ceasefires are being called for to save civllian lives.

But they forget what happened during the most recent one.

When GoSL declared a two day ceasefire in April 2009, the LTTE did not allow Tamil civilians to leave their ever shrinking area of control.

If the GoSL calls another ceasefire, how can Mr White say that the LTTE will not do the same?

The LTTE have willingly exposed their Tamil supporters to this kind of violence, herding them like cattle from their homes, holding them in a tiny area, deny them medicine and beating and shooting them when they step out of line or try to leave.

Whatever the GoSL is and isn’t, they are very much the lesser of two evils.

If I was Michael Roberts I’d be self adulated (i’m sure he’s too modest and only cares about the logical yet rationale arguments) by this lengthy dissection which I lost interest half way through reading with its monotonous agenda. Yes I get it.. you’re saying what Dr. Roberts said was rubbish? Let the individual readers be the judges. It’s a silent majority that couldn’t have expressed the sentiments any more articulately.