Sri Lanka crisis war appears close to a genocidal climax. - 27-Dec-2008 - Generational Dynamics

The war in Darfur can't seem to reach a climax, and I believe that it's because of international intervention. The U.N. has failed to stop the genocide in Darfur, and can't possibly succeed at that. All it's done is prolonged the war. There's a big philosophical question here: Is it better to prolong a war in this way, and allow the killing to go on for years, or is it better to allow events to run their course, and get all the killing over in a brief period of time? In the case of Darfur, the former choice has been made.

But not in Sri Lanka. That war began as low-level violence in 1983, between two ethnic groups: The government/market dominant Sinhalese (Buddhist religion) and the separatist/rebel Tamils (Hindu religion). A truce was signed in 2002, but it fell apart in 2006, while the world was being distracted by Israel's summer war with Hizbollah in Lebanon. Then, at the beginning of 2008, government forces abandoned all pretense of aiming for a peaceful settlement, and declared all out war, promising to destroy the Tamil rebel forces (known as the LTTE or Tamil Tigers) by the end of 2008.

The war today is largely taking place in the north, as government forces overrun Tamil strongholds, especially around the Tamil stronghold of Kilinochchi.

Unfortunately, reporters are not allowed in the war region, so the only accounts of what's going on come from the combatants themselves.

And so we have mainstream media reporting what the Sri Lanka government tells them -- that 43 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed earlier this week by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and air force, and that an attempted Tamil counterattack was repelled.

So, not a lot of this reporting can be fully trusted, but there seems little doubt that the fighting is getting very seriious.

"The 49-page report, "Besieged, Displaced, and Detained: The Plight of Civilians in Sri Lanka's Vanni Region," documents the Sri Lankan government's responsibility for the plight of the 230,000 to 300,000 displaced persons trapped in the Vanni conflict zone. They face severe shortages of food and other essentials because of government restrictions on humanitarian assistance. Individuals and families who have managed to flee areas controlled by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been detained in poor conditions in army-controlled camps.

"Hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped in a war zone with limited aid because the government ordered the UN and other aid workers out," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "To add insult to injury, people who manage to flee the fighting end up being held indefinitely in army-run prison camps."

"Sri Lanka's separatist Tamil Tigers are subjecting ethnic Tamils in their northern stronghold, the Vanni, to forced recruitment, abusive forced labor, and restrictions on movement that place their lives at risk, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 17-page report, "Trapped and Mistreated: LTTE Abuses against Civilians in the Vanni," details how the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which have been fighting for an independent Tamil state for 25 years, are brutally abusing the Tamil population in areas under their control.

"The LTTE claims to be fighting for the Tamil people, but it is responsible for much of the suffering of civilians in the Vanni," said Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch. "As the LTTE loses ground to advancing government forces, their treatment of the very people they say they are fighting for is getting worse."

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, there are many strong signs here of an increasingly genocidal crisis war.

Recall that, as I've explained in the past, generational theory uses the word "genocide" in a way that differs from the strictly legal definition. The Generational Dynamics definition of "genocide" refers to any action that clearly gives little value to individual life. Generally this means that the society gives much higher priority to scoring a victory in war than it gives to the goal of preserving individual lives, especially civilian lives.

We see this going on now in Sri Lanka. Whereas in the past both sides tried for the most part not to target civilians, it appears that both sides are now doing just that (while denying that they're doing it).

In January, when the Sri Lanka government declared all out war against the rebels, and promised to beat them by the end of the year, they were signaling a fundamental change in attitude: That they had run out of patience, and were willing to take whatever steps are necessary to win. And that usually means that winning the war is more important than protecting the lives of civilians -- exactly the Generational Dynamics concept of genocide.

It's evident that the Sri Lanka forces did not accomplish their mission of beating the Tamil Tigers by the end of 2008. Does that mean that they'll back off next year? Hardly.

What it means is that they'll be determined to redouble their efforts next year. They'll be even less concerned about the lives of civilians, as they push as hard as possible to win.

Trapped animals -- and trapped people -- become increasingly vicious when they're trapped. The Tigers will be facing destruction, and they will stop at nothing to prevent it.

I like to compare a crisis war to a ball rolling downhill. The ball may (or may not) need a push to start, and it may be temporarily stopped by trees and rocks and other obstacles on the way down the hill. But it keeps gathering energy, and at some point its momentum becomes so great that it's unstoppable, until it reaches the bottom of the hill in an explosive climax that forever changes the landscape.

A number of news articles on the Sri Lanka war have been saying that "there's no end in sight." Actually, there is. An explosive climax, killing hundreds or even thousands of civilians, will be so devastating that it will cause both sides to recoil in horror at what they've done. That moment will signal the end of the Crisis era. Blame will be assigned, and the Recovery Era will begin. People on both sides will vow to devote their lives to making sure that nothing like that ever happens again. Thus does a new saeculum begin.

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 27-Dec-2008
Sri Lanka crisis war appears close to a genocidal climax.

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 27-Dec-2008 Sri Lanka crisis war appears close to a genocidal climax.

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 27-Dec-2008
Sri Lanka crisis war appears close to a genocidal climax.