Posted on 05/19/2009 11:04:38 AM PDT by walford
As Sri Lanka declares an end to its 26-year civil war, Tamils outside Sri Lanka describe their shock and disbelief at news of the military demise of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the death of its leader, Vellupillai Prabhakaran.
VASUKI MURUHATHAS, LAWYER, LONDON
...There are LTTE supporters all over the place and all over the world. Unless we have a solution for the Tamil people, this problem will continue. We need to recognise their lands. This is an unnecessary loss in our beautiful country.
The government should immediately give us a solution and show us regard, look after Tamils. We want innocent Tamil people to be saved immediately...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
My sympathy for the Chechens similarly evaporated when they started targeting civilian areas as well.
I know that the United States was founded via a violent uprising, but that was an extremely rare exception. History has repeatedly shown that regimes that are established by violence tend to be worse than the ones overthrown.
The revolutionary models exemplified by the civil -- and largely peaceful -- uprisings against Marcos in the Philippines and against the Soviet regime in Russia are better examples to emulate. But the trick is, in order for such peaceful civilian uprisings to work, the military has to remain in its barracks.
That is why they worked in the USSR and the Philippines, but failed in Communist China. The PLA was and is too invested in keeping the one-party state in power to suffer any move toward limited representative government.
That being said, Colombo needs to take this as an opportunity to foster a loyal, non-violent opposition amongst the Tamils rather than a chance to smother them once and for all. That will only create an environment for a new violent opposition.
Read those statements by the Tamils in that article to get a sense that ordinary citizens amongst them feel despair that violence has been taken away from them as an option for redressing their grievances. The Sinhalese government must earn the Tamils' trust in tangible ways. It has to be made clear to the Tamils that they stand a much better chance of being treated fairly via non-violent means.
I’m shocked. Shocked I tell you.
I do appreciate your analysis, and have to say I don’t know many of the details either. More familiar with the Detroit Tigers.
I watched the BBC report on this as their lead story this morning and was disgusted with their sympathy for the "rebels".
Detroit and Sri Lanka have a lot in common.
WSJ today featured a story on the death of the Tamil leader. He was pictured in his office with a large ‘Che” poster on the wall.
That stood up to the most advanced military in the world in open battle and did not even consider involving attacks on civilians.
While the militia and the Continental Army did get their butts kicked any number of times, they did prevail without a terrorist mindset.
Tough titty to the Tamil Tigers.
Maybe their carefully-choreographed protesters can get off Westminster Bridge now.
That's historically inaccurate.
There were acts of terror perpetrated by both sides during the American Revolution.
“While the militia and the Continental Army did get their butts kicked any number of times, they did prevail without a terrorist mindset.”
Which is why this country is so uniquely blessed by God.
However, from what I understand, the LTTE engaged in a progressively more atrocious war, and their territory in the north appears to of had a just a touch of the Khmer Rouge about it in terms of cult of personality and iron-fisted rule. So after all this time, it is hard to have much sympathy for them. Had cynical ambitious politicians in the 1950s not used in-your-face ethnic politics to further their careers, it never would've happened, but that was long ago and a lot of barbarism has passed under the bridge since then. I am no expert, but it is hard to root for any of them.
BBC on NPR has been cheerleading these 'rebels' for as long as I can remember. I guess they'll have to move on to the Chechan Islamists or somesuch...
There you go. The emigrated Tamils could go buy up much of Detroit and effectively put their "country" there.
The Tamil cause is genuine; only that the LTTE hijacked it.
Sri Lanka only needed to remove the selectively discriminative clauses from its Constitution that lead to the Civil War, in the first place.
The Tamil Sri Lankans were favored over the Sinhala majority, during British rule of what was then Ceylon. When Independence was achieved, Sri Lanka introduced clauses that favored the Sinhala majority over the Tamils, who had benefitted from British rule, as a way of revenge. This went into a tit-for-tat deathmatch, that ultimately lead to the LTTE’s formation, after bloody riots against Tamils in the early 1980s.
Vlad the Impaler had it correct then?
Prabhakaran was a double-edged sword for the LTTE, that ultimately proved fatal for it.
He developed it into one of the most sophisticated and deadly rebel forces on the planet, converted it into a terrorist movement, and then destroyed it by not seizing upon mny very, very good opportunities for reconciliation.
The Tigers were garden variety Communists and any minor grievances the Tamils had were magnified and turned into The Cause. The Tigers frequently butchered other Tamils who wouldn’t support them and they always located in the middle of villages where innocents were sure to die in any conflict with the government.
The Tamil Tigers are a minor league hockey team.
The Prussians were the most advanced military in the world at the time of the Revolution.
Your pardon, but please understand that this "colonists vs the Mighty British army" meme is a creation myth. At the time of the revolution the British army had its competent, well-armed soldiers elsewhere. Sir John Moore didn't begin his revolutionary training techniques for British Light Infantry until 1803.
The difference (to American eyes) can be seen in the events of 1812: there were many British soldiers in Canada who were veterans of the Spanish Peninsular War. Wellington bitterly regretted them being on the other side of the world when he had to fight at Waterloo three years later!
I read the intel on the Tamil Tigers for over a decade. I’m glad that they were wiped out and even gladder that it appears to have achieved peace the old fashioned way, thru victory.
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