A Peoples' Agony

Tamils living in Europe and North America continue to march, to demonstrate, to agonize over the fate of their compatriot Tamils trapped in a last-stand between the military of Sri Lanka and the Tamils' stout defenders, the Tamil Tigers. Sri Lanka sees the opportunity to finally rid itself of the pestilential presence of a guerrilla army that has plagued the country for far too long, in its violent determination to bend the will of the Sinhalese government to cede territory for a Tamil homeland.

Spokespeople for Tamils demonstrating abroad speak of a genocide, of the horrors being visited upon their brethren, trapped in a narrow strip of land in rebel-held territory. The Sri Lankan army firing heavily munitions, while well aware that civilians are being held in great numbers, used by the Tamil Tigers as living shields. Neither the Sri Lankan military nor the defenders of the Sri Lankan Tamils give much care to the well-being and security of Tamil civilians.

The Tamils have become a pawn between the government and a terror force whose own availment is its end game. Like cruel ideologies that erupt from time to time the Tiger leadership appears long ago to have accepted the need to casually accept casualties, irrespective of the numbers, in the greater need to attain their end purpose. The vicious determination of Tamil Tiger guerrillas is legendary, and admiringly emulated by other terrorist groups.

Cornered, on the very edge of extinction finally, the Tamil Tigers have now lost two former high-placed officials who have seen fit to desert the cause. That is the Tiger cause, not the cause of the Tamil population of Sri Lanka. They are disgusted with the bloodshed, the utter lack of concern for civilians, for the ongoing cost of human life. Including the fact that the LTTE took to firing on their own people, seeking to flee the carnage.

Expatriate Tamils in North America feel compelled to march in protest, desperately attempting to alert greater numbers of people far beyond the shores of Sri Lanka to the plight of their families back in their home country. For them the fears of tribal obliteration are real. Their support for the Tigers is not universal among themselves, but it is evident, with the presence of the Tigers flag ubiquitous at the demonstrations.

The funds that Tamils were entreated and often blackmailed into raising to be sent back to Sri Lanka were used to equip the Tigers with guns and ammunition to further their disruptive campaign against the government and the Sinhalese majority of Sri Lanka, resulting in more deaths, more strife, more misery. Legitimate defenders of the Tamils were seen as opponents by the Tigers and they were summarily dispatched, as bloodily as their enemies.

There are now several hundred thousand displaced Tamils in internal refugee camps, desperate for assistance from NGOs. Up to 20,000 Tamil civilians are being kept prisoner in the 10-square-kilometre strip of jungle and sand, the last defensive refuge of the Tigers. Their fate is in the hands of the Sri Lankan military, just as much as they depend on the Tigers to protect them.

Each will treat the remaining Tamil civilians as best suits their purpose; the military to achieve their final goal to eliminate the Tigers, the Tigers to continue using the civilians as shields to defend themselves. Each, in the end, will be guilty of war crimes.