“Apparently, the army seems to have taken the President’s advice literally to protect each and every Tamil. Otherwise, deploying such a large number of troops mostly composed of Sinhalas, even three years after the end of what is referred as a ‘humanitarian war’ (an oxymoron phrase) is not understandable. If it is not so, why deploy such large number of troops unless outburst of insurgency is imminent in the North? As there are no such indications, such a deployment would indicate the military establishment does not consider the prevailing situation in the North as normal. Is it so?… Large scale visible presence of troops in any civilian area (I am saying from own experience as a military officer who has worked in a number of insurgency areas) always makes the population uncomfortable not only in Sri Lanka but also everywhere. This feeling of discomfort is more likely in Northern Province because during the last three decades men (and women too) in uniforms of different hues had seriously dislocated normal life (what an understatement for the war weary) of civilian population. So deployment in the North is qualitatively different from those in Colombo or Giruvapattu in the South.”

Now dear Ground Views Army has to take its Commander in Chief’s advice literally as it is what they have heard, it is the common practice as you say elsewhere not only in Sri Lanka but also the rest of the world too, otherwise it would be insubordination isn’t it. Then are you suggesting that with a population of around 74% we should have the army filled with the minorities as a majority, certainly not isn’t it, so the army would be mostly of Sinhalese and once any novice of any ethnicity enters the army he is identified only as a soldier and not categorised in ethnic terms to be deployed, a one thing the army could do here is to teach the soldiers to speak the language of the people of the area, Tamil.

And then the word “Humanitarian War”. See the govt used the term to elaborate the rescuing of the Tamil Population from the grasp of the terrorists, which was proved with the rescuing of 300,000 odd civilians from the clutches of the terrorists. But there is another angle to this word which I guess the govt has not used that much. It is a humanitarian war in the sense that it was conducted to free the country from the frequent suicide bomb blasts carried out by the terrorists targeting civilians in the south, the people lived in the south were not sure whether their fathers, husbands, brothers etc. who gone to work in the morning would return in the evening, so it is humanitarian in that regard too, it freed the general population of the country from the fears they have experienced over 3 decades, so my opinion is it is still a humanitarian war. I don’t think you need to be reminded that the terrorists used the civilians in the north as a human shield and carried out artillery fire from amongst them.

And as for keeping of a large number of troop still after the elapse of three years, that could have been unfair if the terror reign had say been there for only two or three years. Just take the scale man, it was there up and running for 3 decades, not three years, 3 decades means 30 years and they had all the time in their hands to plan, Plans A, B, C, D, to Z, bury weapons, send people abroad, buy ships, train sleeping agents. Read some cold war novels like Praba did, then you would find numerous plans in them, these guys were so adapt in adopting them, they even built a submarine and treated the guys to best of seafood. I would think it is fair to give another 3 to 5 years for the army to even out its presence in the region.

Army need to build the trust with the people there as well as people need to build their trust with Army that there would not be any hidden movements to separate the country again. It’s a two way street. They were with the terrorists willingly or unwillingly, how could the army know who is a normal citizen like you and me and who is a sympathiser and who is the real one, the terrorist I mean. People would be uncomfortable, its natural, we also felt uncomfortable when the Army was deployed in the south during the JVP insurgency, but we understood it was because of the JVP actions and they are there to protect us, some mischievous things happened by overall the army conducted itself well.

You want the country to forge ahead as one and then goes onto identify the difference in North, Colombo and Giruvapattu. Then again it was not Colombo nor Giruvapattu that wanted the country to be separated is it, so the application of any tactics would be different from those places to that of the North. It is normal practice all over the world. Ask the Indian generals how they conduct themselves in Delhi, Chennai to that in Kashmir or Punjab.

Also if you are implying the ethnic composition of the Army then you got to understand that the war has been there for 3 decades and the main supply source to the Army has been the youth from the south and for the army to change it will take some time for the Tamil Youth to believe in the Army and get recruited and trained and be deployed in the region.

Regards

Sadun

Thanks for that TS,
My earlier comment about re-establishing a police presence and the “Grease Devils” identified as Army guys still stands as these facts are reported by media such as GV.
But I am definitely for ongoing Army presence in the North for strategic reasons (in addition to your pertinent reasons).
But there is clearly a very poor PR strategy by the GSL in not projecting the correct image. This most probably related endemic corruption within Sri Lankan political system.

Hi Ranjan,
My past comments would make it clear that I am very aware of the mitochondrial and Y-chromosome studies in Genography. In fact it would be difficult to tell all Indians and Sri Lankans apart in this genetic evidence. If you have read my previous posts, you would be aware that I do not believe in races.

I don’t care whether you consider yourself Tamil or Sinhala or Human. It was just an assumption because you keep talking about “Singhala Government” and a very worrying trend towards justifying the LTTE by using well spent cliche’s such as how well they administered the north (beautiful police?!!! I think Off The Cuff already demonstrated that you are deluded here). In fact they had no legitimate right to administer the North. They had merely taken it to ransom. The “taxes” they charged from every bus load was ransom. The Nazis were also great administrators and they were legitimate.

Whilst I don’t care if you identify yourself to any ethnicity (good on you!), I do care when I see repeated evidence in your writing that you worship the rightly defunct LTTE. The people who suffered the most under their reign of terror were the people of the North. I certainly acknowledge that all Sri Lankans have suffered under the reigns of terror of successive Sri Lankan Governments (they are not “Singhalese” , as you are in the habit of calling these Governments).

By the way I find your romanized rendering of the Sinhala language rather curious. There are certain conventions you are not following. Further, why did you address the Police Officers as “Umba”? Do you realise that this is a degrading term to call and officer of the law let alone any citizen?

Okay so the article is titled “Canada urges Sri Lanka police to probe murder”

and it contains gems such as

“For years the Tamil Tiger headquarters, the town is now heavily guarded by the military”

and

“Some reports say he had got into arguments with the military on the issue and the pro-Tiger website, TamilNet, said his movements had been monitored by military intelligence.”

“This week the Sri Lankan government said it would welcome and accept refugees wanting to return from overseas but incidents like this are likely to put many off.”

Not insinuating that the Sri Lankan military was behind the killing? Hmmm… really? Are you sure about that Charles?

“It is not “insinuating the Sri Lankan military in the killing”.”

Unfortunately, it does.

(1) “the town is now heavily guarded by the military.” — without the tacit support or direct involvement of the military, a crime of this nature cannot happen?
(2) “Some reports say he had got into arguments with the military”
(3) “the pro-Tiger website, TamilNet, said his movements had been monitored by military intelligence.” — BBC chose to mention this because there could be some truth in this, right?

This was put on Twitter by me on 24th May:

Charles Haviland ?@cfhaviland
#Lka police spx tells BBC hv arrestd 4 suspects in murder of #Canada citz Anthonypillai. “Ordinary citz, 1 prime/3 contract, motive robbery”

As and when people are tried and found guilty or not guilty, it is quite possible our website will do a full updated story.

Read the original story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18039631

It quotes the Canadian high commissioner, the police spokesman, and also Tamilnet while describing the latter as “a pro-Tiger website” as guidance for readers about the nature of Tamilnet reports. It is not “insinuating the Sri Lankan military in the killing”.

A Tweeted correction by me from 26th March (perhaps you didn’t see it):

Charles Haviland ?@cfhaviland
#BBC Sinhala’s absence from #SriLanka SLBC FM frequency Sunday was purely down to a technical error on the part of BBC London. No jamming.

Happy to apologise in addition to that tweeted correction.

The military plays primarily a gound clearing, security and a secondary support role to the civil administration. Where security is concerned they are dominant and when it comes to civil issues they take instructions from the civil authorities.

If any of you want to form an educated opinion, go there and observe with an open mind. At the present moment the armed military presence is very much needed. Economic stability can happen only in a place where safety and security prevails. Economic growth is gradually happening there, but needs a strong security presence for it to take root.

Keep the military where they are. Our national security is our business.

Hik Hik Hik,
Charles Haviland pretending not to be a servant of the Empire.
I wonder what John d’Oyly would say.

Some of us still recall how only months after the Madam nationalised the Tea Estates (1970’s), the BBC came to Sri Lanka and made the “discovery” of the treatment of the Tea Estate workers (Years later, a driver in an estate told me that the man alleged to have slept in the latrine had been paid to do so by the BBC. The man had no reason to lie to me. I was a visitor, merely being curious about the old BBC doco. This man who came from a traditional estate worker family, volunteered this information). The British companies which ran theses estates for decades presumably left these conditions. Why did the BBC not worry until the point when the “Dominion” thumbed its nose at the Queen Empress?

Very recently, the Australian photographer Nick Ut who exposed the Trang Bang massacre (napalm) recalled the decision to publish the photo of a young naked girl running in terror. He said regretfully that even today bodies of white people are not depicted in News Stories but images of charred bodies (e.g. in a bush fire) are merely refereed to euphemistically by referring to charred remains of vehicles they were in. On the other hand, he said, bodies of South Asians strewn after the Boxing Day Tsunami were freely depicted by Western Media (actually the Western media still have some standards in respecting the dead even if they are black. Sri Lankan media do not appear to have the Western sensibilities in depicting dead bodies of its citizens at times with genitalia exposed. Perhaps it is a difference in cultural values).

The bias of the media which is always owned by someone, at times by the state (as in the case of BBC or Rupavahini), is very clear to those of us who have sufficient intelligence and insight to realise it. It is up to the reader to discern the bias behind the journalist and his/her medium, judging by history, ownership, ethnic origin, allegiance etc. It is always wise to be sceptical of anything in the media, particularly the mainstream.