Misapplying R2P in Sri Lanka

Misapplying R2P in Sri Lanka

Jorge Heine The concept of Responsibility to Protect has triggered resistance in many countries of the Global South precisely because of its potential misapplication to situations such as the Sri Lankan one.

Lakshman Kadirgamar, the former Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, was one of the most incisive legal minds of his generation. A former president of the Oxford Union, he made significant contributions to the ILO and the World Intellectual Property Organisation, among other entities. Whoever met him, as I did, could not help but be impressed with his knowledge of international affairs, his passion for peace in his homeland, and his razor-sharp intellect.

An ethnic Tamil, he was proud to serve as Foreign Minister in the Cabinet of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, a Sinhala, though he knew in so doing he put his life on the line. And, like so many others of the best and brightest Sri Lankan Tamils of our time, he paid for it dearly. He was gunned down one evening in August 2005 in his own home in Colombo, by a sniper using an infra-red-telescope-equipped rifle. As customary, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), one of the deadliest and bloodiest terrorist organisations ever seen, never acknowledged authorship, though it is widely accepted no one else could have pulled off such a complex, high-tech task.

As terrorist attacks spread from Baghdad to Bombay to Baluchistan, and the Afghan war spills into Pakistan, one would think that the end of the 25-year-old war in Sri Lanka in May 2009 would be widely greeted. In the South Asian cauldron, where for too long India has been the only anchor of stability, one war less to contend with is a great relief.

Moreover, the LTTE, banned in 32 countries, was among the worst terrorist outfits. Combining moral turpitude with high-tech savvy, it invented the suicide bomber-vest, pioneered the deployment of female suicide bombers, excelled in the recruitment of child-soldiers, killed one President at home and a former Prime Minister abroad, and developed the extortion of the Tamil communities abroad to a high art, accumulating, according to some estimates, a $ 300 million to $ 400 million war chest. Uniquely, it set up both a Navy and an Air Force, and a specialised suicide bomber unit, the so-called Black Tigers, whose career high point was the “last meal” (vegetarian) they had with LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabakaran before departing for their final mission .