Sri Lanka: Notes from a War on Terror

Such an intense episode. I could not pull away from minute one. I had heard nothing about these events in US broadcasts in the 25 years I have been alive, until now. Thank you to Vanguard for removing my ignorance of the situation.

I guess Anita ragu is sucking your lingam? you said fight? lol, the way you guys got @ss kicked.. lol get a life man. Please get out from Malayasia. lol
freedom? you cockrockes multiply in Wellawatte, Bambalapitiya. That's the fucking freedom retard.
what about the dumb tamils died for your dumb freedom primate? What freedom you want? to kill muslims and sinhala ppl?
you can type freedom when you are sitting in your AC room in a posh country but what about the tamils who have been suffering from your retard freedom igo and depending on Sri Lankan gavernment food? Those governemt money is the tax money from all the sri lankan ppl ratard. fuck mendela, mendela is a puppet. Afriac is looted with the help of mendela. Fuck you and your fucking knowldge of politics. Tamils are retards.

Hi Eddison, who are u ? You cant tell us what to do. We are suppress minority Tamil community in Sri Lanka. How many years we have to be a servant for Sinheleses ? We need our FREEDOM.

When Nelson Mandala ask for FREEDOM, South African white people called him terrorist . They put him in Jail. Freedom fight will never end . It’s a burning candle in the wind , it will burn until we are free. The Sinhala people who started this since 1976, 1983, up to 2009 . Now do you think that both Sinhala, and Tamils can live to gether ? impossible . We will fight for our freedom. The arms conflict is over, now this is the time for a political war.

We , our children’s, and our grand children’s will fight for our freedom .

First of all, Tamils are retards either sick or primate. Cluster bomb or suside bomb the end result will be death and property distroy. Tamils in sri lanka did that for almost thrity years. They dig their own grave yard. Now you ( athirvu retard ) can go to Sri lanka and have a personal look at the LTTE memorial cematries of your fellow tamil retards. Insted of using the youths energy for benifit of the country tamil retards use it to distroy the economy and your other cicitzen life.That's what this comentry about. Get a life shiva linagm retard. History is history. Sri Lankan government paid for Mariana? I think you and your rest of tamil retards praying for a stone dick will never get the fact which is you are retard. Got it.?

First of all , Your TV presenter describe that Tamil tigers invented the suicide bomb, but in 2nd world war , Japnise plane pilot who blow the US ship as suicide bomber , If you don’t know the history, please don’t speak. The second thing is Counting LTTE s suicide bomb attack, or compare with al quida or Hammas , they are very low. Sri Lankan army used internationally banned Cluster bomb , and poison gas, there are 40,000 people killed , we have photo evidence for that, your TV never brought that into the Sean why, did you think this program is Natural ? we believe that Sri Lankan government paid you to take this programme . And I know you are not going to publish this comments . thanks

Kanna

Tamils are primate ppl, they worship all sort of animals and stone penus ( google shiva lingam ) very soon they will ask for a seperate land here in Malayasia.

I only discovered Vanguard today and have been on the site pretty much all day long. I loved this piece. It hits home because I am a Canadian-Tamil/Sri Lankan and my family has been affected by this war and continues to be affected by the Rajapaksa regime. Personally, I was born and grew up in Canada and I have never been to the homeland but even growing up in North America you are instilled with a fervent pride for being Tamil and for being Sri Lankan. I recall Prabhakaran pictures on my family's wall and Eelam flags scattered throughout the house. The LTTE was family, we attended a remembrance day every November 27th, which coincidentally is also my birthday. The chief spokesperson for the LTTE, Anton Balasingam was not only an authoritative figure but also referred to as Bala Uncle. You can see how pervasive the conflict was, even in the Tamil Diaspora. Over the years, some members of my family, including myself became disillusioned with the LTTE, but like the child soldier, the love remains because they were the only force working towards securing Tamil's rights in Sri Lanka. What Rajapaksa did in the final days was a war crime and for that he must be persecuted, just as former LTTE leaders will and are being persecuted. However, I really hope that peace between the Tamils of the North and East with the rest of Sri Lanka is in the near future. What Sri Lanka needs is someone like Mr. Wickrematunge for president. Thank you Mariana for this honest portrayal.

Brilliant piece of journalism Mariana. Balanced reporting without a show of bias for either viewpoint. Love your work. Keep it up.

Fantastic piece of journalism, however when I look at terrorism in general, I think it is such a shame it took an attack on the U.S. to be finally looked at as a serous problem, before 9/11 when people mentioned terrorism I would hardly think twice about it.

Not saying this was bad journalism, I really enjoyed watching it. I think its funny though how certain people call diffrent groups and organizations terrorist and othesr think they are of political groups. If you look at the groups most people call them terrorist yet the population may not see it that way. They may see it as a group helping the people and going against corrupt governments. Great journalism though!

Should any nation (a self identified group) have rights to claim its own land? There is no easy answer to this, if at all. But when I see a group of people oppressed by a majority I can't help but think that they deserve independence. The Tamil wanted independence, and certainly fought to obtain this. Unfortunately their violence was so abrupt that their actions became hugely unpopular in the eyes of the world. This is great journalism, and Mariana Van Zeller portrayed the most recent unraveling of the conflict at great risk. Kudos! But I wish she had freed her perspective on 'terrorism' a little more and attempted to discern the political struggle of both Sinhalese and Tamil nations in equal sorts. She does this a little better at the end, but too late in my opinion to get a good sense of the identity struggles.

i've been learning a lot from you
allways interesting

This is the kind of real and participatory journalism that I feel mainstream media needs to get back to. The reporter is searching for truth and doing so vicariously for us.

Also remember LTTE terrorists only commited genocide by killing innocent Sinhalese like animals!

LTTE terrorists are fanatical anti civilizational blood thirsty genocidal barbarians who are far far worse than AL Qaeda! LTTE terrorists being crushed is a great reason for the world to be relieved!

Thanks a lot for interviewing DR Rohan Guneratne!!

Thank you very much for interviewing DR Rohan Guneratne!

By balanced you me calling them terrorists when all they want is their freedom?

man, I love vanguard journalism, I learn so much from it.

Man oh man...

I watched this video shaking my head. Now I see I once again will have to a grow a jaundiced eye towards what I thought was to be "vanguard" journalism.

It comes down to this: the logical crux of this piece is essentially intellectually dishonest because it doesn't identify the actual cause--just a cursory mention of the flashpoint--of the conflict. All it said was, "Group A is different from Group B because both groups have differing languages and religions".

Bullshit.

I'm not going to pretend I know much of anything of Sri Lanka. I do know, however, it was once Ceylon, and a part of the British Empire. The roots of the conflict more than likely lay in the intentionally unequal treatment that the empire gave to each ethnic group in order to maintain control over the colony. The British Empire practiced the same vile pattern on the Indian mainland and wherever else they held sway.

Plenty of ethnic groups around the world have differing religions, languages, and even phenotypical traits AND live along side each other in relative peace. When they war, there is usually an outside agent that benefits from both of the parties warring. Something alien has to be introduced into the environment, driving the conflict to cause otherwise quiescent peoples to war.

I'm saying this to Laura Ling, Marianna van Zeller, and your producers: you wanna be some real journalists? Here's a primer from a dilettante: find out the countries of origins and suppliers for the favored weaponry of both sides. Or better yet, did you bother to mark a date when the tensions between the groups began? Can you point out if they've been warring for millennia like the Balkan peoples or were they conditioned and instigated to be pitted against one another like how Belgium did to the Hutus and the Tutsis? What makes the Sri Lankan government any more legitimate than the de facto state that was established in the Northeast of the country by the LTTE?

For Current TV to address the LTTE as a "terrorist organization", no matter how brutal their methods is dishonest. The tactics employed by the conventional military are no less severe than what are employed by guerilla combatants. Both sides kill, torture, even rape. So why is the Tamil force the "terrorist" force? Because it is War. War is an inherently amoral and violent enterprise. If any of you ever bothered to read Von Clausewitz before you started reporting on wars, then what I'm saying next will make more sense. The objective of any fighting force (whether the Sinhalese government or the Tamil counterpart) is simply TO WIN; through subduction of the opponent or effecting the annihilation of the opposition, PERIOD.

I'd love to see an impartial response to my questions. But you cannot, you've already chosen who the terrorists are.

There is no winner in war.
No matter how just the cause.

Am very happy that the war in Sri Lanka has come to an end, I wish the rest of the world would stop fighting as well.

Hm terrorism is any act that uses fear and physically violent methods to accomplish their goals. I do not condone any group that uses violence, but even the great Ghandi had the British on their knees in terror based on a nonviolent control of that territories economic system.

Regardless of a areas size it must ensure its economic and resource value by being able to take them away.

Forgive me for a pathetic scifi reference but on the sand of dune anyone who can destroy the flow of spice controls the spice, and a method of non-violence must be grassroots in response to violence sadly.

The bottom of this issue is far my grasp, but unfair trade should essentially be in question at all times.

I think we need to remember that this was a civil war, rather than a "war on terror". When the Sri Lankan government attacks its civilians, the army commits crimes against humanity upon civilians causing them to flee for their lives, displacing civilians from their homes, and subsequently resettling Tamil regions with Sinhalese - we must truly question the use and abuse of the word "terrorism". Truly when civilians are not protected from their own government and are forced to resort to violent means in order to survive - the government of Sri Lanka should be counting themselves among the top terrorist organization in the world and leaders of modern-day terrorism.

Fantastic documentary. Sri Lanka may have won the war, just as the British defeated every Irish uprising, but they will as we did, rise again.

this was my favorite of the season so far.

the piece was a fine one.

however, i question whether or not the sri lankan government's efforts are truly successful b/c of the graceless casualties THEY caused. the country is devastated, and the people suffering are in squalor & are ill. the tamil tigers, absolutely have destroyed so much, including harming their own. but at the same time, with conflicting reports on the government's actions & and their secrecy...it leaves me to believe that it's not over.

also, this conflict is much more internal than al-queda/to western civilization: so what is it that the u.s. and europe hope to really gain?

I'm just glad to see that someone managed to get as far as they did into that country and report back. While I can understand a government's desire to maintain safety and order, the level of secrecy exhibited by the Sri Lankan government leaves me wondering. As someone who lives here in the states, and having witnessed the secrecy of the Bush administration, I wonder what the Sri Lankan government has to hide.

If they are so confident of their position and their victory, why all the secrecy?

Tarzie Vittachi, Emergency ’58 – The Story of the Ceylon Race Riots(1958)

The GalOya race-killings of 1956 and the ugly episode of Little Rock in 1957 should have warned us that the Fifth Horseman took no notice of time, place, literacy or standard of living.
But these episodes did not wake us up in time. It couldn’t possibly happen here. ……
It couldn’t happen in Ceylon. That is what we all thought………
It couldn’t happen here. ………
So it couldn’t happen here. But it has happened……

When a government, however popular, begins to pander to racial or religious emotionalism merely because it is the loudest of the raucous demands made on it, and then meddles in the administration and enforcement of law and order for the benefit of its favourites or to win the plaudits of a crowd, however hysterical it may be, catastrophe is certain.

At the risk of losing the monumental support of the anti-Muslim Congress sympathisers, Mahatma Gandhi once said: ''No cabinet worthy of being representative of a large mass of mankind can afford to take any step merely because it is likely to win the hasty applause of an unthinking public. In the midst of sanity, should not our best representatives retain sanity and bravely prevent a wreck of the ship of state under their care?''

Can anyone doubt that if this glorious principle of statesmanship had been applied in Ceylon the bloodbath of 1958 could have been avoided?

The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse rode into Ceylon in May 1958, without fuss or warning. No one recognised the hoof beats on the dusty provincial roads where they were first heard. People knew about War, Pestilence, Famine and Flood – these were disasters they accepted as part of their human heritage…………….
Slight though our acquaintance with these disasters was, it was still acquaintance. But for most people in 1958 the Fifth Horseman – Race-Hate – was hardly even that. We had heard about the attempts of the Australian settlers to decimate the Aborigines ….; ... the Red Indians had been corralled into reservations; …..the Nazi gas chambers, Buchenwals and Belsen: and the tribulations of the Jews ……; Hindu-Muslim massacres in the partition of India. ....

What are we left with (in 1958)? A nation in ruins, some grim lessons which we cannot afford to forget and a momentous question: Have the Sinhalese and Tamils reached the parting of ways?"

(The manuscript of the book was smuggled out of SriLanka and printed in the UK and the book was banned in Sri lanka)

Roots of the Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka- Prof ALH Gunawardene, J of Buddhist Ethics, Vol10, 2003
Two remarkably retrograde political acts in the modern history of Sri Lanka….. The first, which took place in 1936, is represented by the formation of the Pan-Sinhala Board of Ministers in the second State Council established under the Donoughmore Constitution. The exclusion of non-Sinhala members from the Board of Miisters through the manipulation of the Executive Committee system was to make cooperation among the Sinhala and Tamil elites even more difficult than previously. This particular incident should even today serve to caution us that Donoughmore-type constitutional reforms would not by themselves provide for equitable representation and sharing of power.
The second measure that was undemocratic and socially unjust as it was politically most unwise was the disenfranchisement of labour of more recent Indian origin. This was the outcome of a series of legislation in 1948-49.

. B H Farmer, CEYLON : A DIVIDED NATION(1963)
Since those saddening days of 1958 Ceylon has had its share of trouble.....The truth, though unpalatable may be to some, is simply that nobody unacceptable to the present Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism has any chance of constitutional power in contemporary Ceylon.
But need it have been as violent as in fact it(Racial riots 1958) was? Constitutional safeguards might considerably have done something to control the violence of the communal dispute; though, since the Senanayake Government found a way of disenfranchising the Indian Tamils one is left to wonder what value other safeguards might have had in the event and in the Ceylon setting.

Ethnic Conflict and Violence in Sri Lanka - Report of International Commission of Jurists 1981: "The South African Terrorism Act has been called 'a piece of legislation which must shock the conscience of a lawyer.' Many of the provisions of the Sri Lankan Act are equally contrary to accepted principles of the Rule of Law. .... The application of the principle of self-determination in concrete cases is difficult. It seems, nevertheless, that a credible argument can be made that the Tamil community in Sri Lanka is entitled to self-determination. The fate of the Tamils in Sri Lanka remains a matter of international concern''.

Paradise Poisoned: Learning about Conflict, Terrorism and Development from Sri Lanka 's Civil Wars(2005), John Richardson, Professor of International development in American University's School of International Service and Director of the University's Centre for Teaching Experience:

Paradise Poisoned is the principal product of a seventeen year project, devoted to understanding linkages between deadly conflict, terrorism and development, by viewing them through the lens of Sri Lanka's post-independence historySri Lanka provides a lens for viewing many challenges with which development practitioners and leaders of developing nations have grappled in the post-World war II era – and for learning from them. My intention is to provide answers to the question, 'how did we come to this' that will help craft more humane, peaceable, sustainable future development scenarios. Such scenarios could make it unnecessary for future generations to contemplate protracted deadly conflict's legacies – suffering, devastation and hopelessness – as Sri Lankans, Rwandians, Bosnians, Ahghanis and many others have had to do. My vision is of a day when no citizens in today's developing nations will have to ask 'how did we come to this?'

Thank you Vanguard. I still have hope for Sri Lanka.

Excellent as always! Thanks & Cheers Mariana :)

Speaking as a Canadian and having grown up in a city, Toronto, largely populated during my youth by Tamils (not Sinhalese) from Sri Lanka, I've long felt -- now confirmed --- that what was going on in these various communities during my adolescence was no simple refugee and asylum play.

That's not to say that of the *thousands* of Tamils who would eventually make the eastern Toronto suburbs like Scarborough their home there weren't similar thousands of legitimate opportunity seekers in the bunch interspersed amongst them. But -- truth be told -- there were also influential handfuls of those with more sinister aims in mind. I don't have to specify what those were, but the high incidence of gang activity in that cultural community over the years since the worst of the LTTE-Sri Lankan melees speaks volumes about certain group tendencies. That is not a biased statement and I am not sermonizing nor making value judgments -- one cannot argue with facts. Look at the numbers.

I'm shocked that I hadn't looked at things more critically (journalistically?) while attending university, challenging the conventional (Canadian) wisdom to strongly and mindlessly side with the Tamils (read: the rightful underdog) in the little-publicized, little-investigated conflict, with the media and therefore greater society claiming that any and all Sinhalese aggression was overbearing, excessive, and downright criminal.

Your savvy clip proves that the layers of this decades-long bloody contretemps are painfully manifold and it's caused me to rethink my beliefs about the whole sordid Sri Lankan story.

Something else which also came to mind during my view -- something I'd like to ask your viewers to render an opinion on -- I have long wondered whether this might have any Middle Eastern spillover?

When Sri Lankans like Minister for Investment Promotion Havin Dissanayake say things like "...it is the democratic right of a legitimate government to protect itself..." does this not have Israeli-Palestinian cognates? Think about it.

As always, Mariana, you and the Vanguard crew swing the bravest, boldest, meanest sacs of massive spherical venom in 2.0-space I know.

Keep on hammering, and never stop that sensational full-court press of yours. I one of Vanguard's abiding Czech fans.

From Prague,
ADM

Thank you for an unbiased accounting of this struggle. I do not condone terrorism, but what we have seen in Sri Lanka in my opinion was a fight for freedom gone to extremes. It shows us what happens when the human rights and cultural contributions and traditions of others are demeaned. I would also agree and state that to have seen more history of the country and how the civil war came to be would have been good. Also, an up to date reporting on the concentration camps Tamils are now being kept in by the Sri Lankan govt now looking to give them a "political" solution which includes no water, food, medical treatment, dignity, or freedom. Neither side committing violence was right, and it is the civilians caught in this that we must now be concerned about. The Tamil people deserve to be free and equal. If that is not the outcome of all of this, that will be the greatest crime of all.

Another excellent piece of journalism from Mariana and her co-producers. Thoughtful, non-judgmental and well crafted. Mariana always has a very human presence whilst remaining objective. It is an intelligent piece that reveals the physical, ethical and emotional conflicts, allowing the viewer to experience these, treating its audience with the respect to make up their own minds and not prescribing any way of thinking.

We see both sides of the coin, the grey in between, the contradictions, and importantly the spot also considers the peoples' voice. This doc reveals that there are no easy answers, there are no 'good guys' to be found, both sides share blood on their hands. Unfortunately, as always, it is the people caught in between that suffer. As mentioned on screen, this war wont resolve the conflict, violence can only perpetuate more resentment. Respect for: life, equality, basic rights, for individual freedoms of belief... that is the solution. How you arrive at this place and heal the memory and wounds of the past... that is the big ?

The only thing I can question about this is: was the Sri Lankan war really a war of terror, or was it just a civil war?

I mean, it probably was, but it was being fought in their own nation or area... the war on terror America is waging hasn't even been touching North America shores since 9/11, and even Sri Lanka - as far as I was aware - never raped "terrorists" with broken glass bottles or boiled them to get any info... I don't even think torture would be necessary in fighting an enemy with such a small territory as what the Tamil Tigers had just before they were defeated.

I'm happy for Sri Lanka having finally found, at least, some peace... however, what does this mean for western society? Does this mean that absolute war is the answer to Al Qaida? Have we even tried diplomatic talks, like Sri Lanka did, despite being nearly impossible to negotiate with the Tamils?

And even still, I don't know who to believe was the cause of the deaths of so many citizens, whether it was the Sri Lankan army or the Tamils hiding behind the civilians; and even then, there was so much bias behind each group that the truth may never be known. These things are the exact same situations that even now are playing out in the Middle East.

I feel bad for my generation, because now we're forced to grow up in a world so confusing and violent... I know the answer is no longer to just hide in our houses and hope people outside know what they're doing, because really, we don't know what anyone is really achieving. We certainly have (generally) the least of ideas on the solution to all of this chaos, and it's not been easier thanks to certain people.

I hope someone's got a better solution to terrorism than what's currently going on now, because if we don't have any idea on how to deal with terrorism, then we'll eventually be absorbed into a world of fear and absolute anarchy, with the most influential surviving, while everyone else around them suffer.

The documentary theme was good and way it was captured was good considering that even some other media could not even get to the East of the island or many Tamils would not even talk to anyone because of fear. This is a struggle of a nation to rise in dignity led by the LTTE which is brutally crushed not only by the racist Sinhalese government but all other governments around the world using the misinterpreted version of Terrorism. Major problem I had with the "Sri Lanka: Notes From A War On Terror" is the use of Rohan Gunaratna as a source to give opinion on Terrorism. His credentials are very suspicious and should have not been selected for this documentary. I will provide source to his tainted reputation below.

Whenever a comment has been needed about al-Qaeda or terrorism, Rohan Gunaratna has been there to supply it. Who is he? Gary Hughes reports.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/07/20/1058545648013.html

The legitimizing of terror fears: Research or Psy Ops?
http://www.pjreview.info/issues/docs/09_1/09_03cronau.pdf

Terrorism Expertise of Rohan Gunaratna Questioned
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0408/S00236.htm

The Australian media and terrorism “expert” Dr Rohan Gunaratna
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/aug2003/guna-a08.shtml

Who Is Rohan Gunaratna - The Self Proclaimed Al-Qaeda Expert?
http://muslimvillage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=58

I think this is a balance video BUT you didn't speak about last 29 years. I'm 26 now.. I been living with this war ever since I born.. Now everything has changed.. I have sense of security.. I don't have to worry suicide bombing.. Look at Iraq and Pakistan, my country doesn't have to live in that fear any more. I believe there's a price to pay for everything and It's better to pay that price rather than living with it for ever.

There were four attempts made for peace. Each time Tamil tigers left the peace talks. They never had any intention to achieve lasting peace. The war is their way of living, that was their job. They use it to extort money from Tamils living in Europe and America.

As for Lasantha, he may be a Journalist. I been reading his paper for sometime. But the guy doesn't like anything. Like US said, During war time there's a limit for human rights and media freedom.

woohoo
first response