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| Sunday, 28 July 2002 |
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Editor, Sunday Observer. E-mail: [email protected] Snail mail : Sunday Observer, 35, D.R.Wijewardana Mawatha, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Telephone : 94 1 429239 / 331181 Fax : 94 1 429230 A much-needed boost Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has returned from his United States' visit with some much-needed self-confidence - for himself and his governmental colleagues as well as for all Sri Lankans. The world's dominant power, which just recently demonstrated that dominance with military action in a neighbouring region, has soundly endorsed Sri Lanka's effort to make peace and rebuild its economy. Despite Washington's general posture of an all-out war on what it calls 'terrorism', an underlying sense of pragmatism on Capitol Hill, helped no doubt, by the persuasive words of the visiting Sri Lankan delegation, has enabled Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to return to Colombo with the un-qualified backing of the world's sole superpower for Sri Lanka's peace-making with the feared LTTE. The words at the White House, at the State Department, in the committee rooms of Congress and in the offices of the World Bank and IMF were all words of encouragement and appreciation. The PM's visit did produce substance in terms of signed agreements on trade and investment and memoranda on double taxation. More important, however, has been the political solidarity that has been built up between Washington and Colombo. That solidarity is crucial in this inter-connected world where both insurgency and counter-insurgency, the processes of secessionism and the democratic response, all have regional, international and global ramifications and no country or community can any longer tackle its problems singly and independently. The anti-Tamil race riots of July 1983 - the anniversary of which we mark this week - powerfully demonstrated the international and cross-border ramifications of internal conflict. Nineteen years later, our political leaders - some of whom will personally recall those dark days - are acutely aware of these ramifications and value and seek the support of regional and global powers in their efforts to finally return the country to a sanity, decency and stability that it lost in 1983. The spirit of Mr. Wickremesinghe's triumphant return home at this time surely bodes well for our future. Palestine and Israel Yet another bloodbath has occurred in that already bloodied land in West Asia. Once again the claims of mass murder are countered with the claims of military necessity in the face of political and military crisis. Both the Israelis as well as the Palestinians make these claims and counter-claims. In the latest incident in Tel Aviv has justified its aerial attack that ostensibly targetted one individual combatant of high military significance but resulted in the deaths of many non-combatants, including children. The Israeli military must surely have been aware of the inevitability of civilian casualties. But to them, as to all military, that is the cruel, yet unavoidable logic of war. In the final analysis, civilians are part and parcel of the resort to military means. The Palestinian militant groups that target centres of Israeli civilian life in their desperate counter to Israel's military might and hegemony also operate with precisely the same brutal logic. And they may not have needed the early examples of Israel's own 'terror' groups like the Stern Gang that led the way in creating a living space of homeless and marginalised Jews from Europe. The challenge to both sides in this war is to transcend this logic. That transcendence, though, necessitates political action by both sides that would require a bravery and creativity far greater than that needed for insurgency and counter-insurgency. How much more tragedy must that land and its communities undergo before their leaders gather up this courage? |
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