Cornered Tigers

Extract from the Winnipeg Free Press
It is past time to end the civil war in Sri Lanka, a war that has cost more than 70,000 lives, most of them civilians. The opportunity to do that exists now that the Sri Lankan army has the remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam cornered in a small strip of territory in the north of the country.The Tamil Tigers are perhaps the world’s most brutal terrorist organization. In their quest for an independent Tamil state, they became the pioneers of suicide bombings aimed at civilians, conducted assassination of political figures in Sri Lanka and India, slaughtered Tamil civilians at home who disagreed with their policies and extorted cash from Tamil-Canadians to finance their violence by threatening harm to relatives in the homeland. They are on the list of the Canadian government’s banned terrorist organizations, condemned worldwide by most civilized nations and are able to survive only because of their relentless ruthlessness.It is that ruthlessness that for the moment stays the hand of the Sri Lankan government. The Tigers in their last redoubt are holding as many as 50,000 Tamil civilians hostage against the final attack.Until recently, there were perhaps 250,000 Tamils trapped by their Tiger "liberators," but a Sri Lankan breach of the defences allowed almost 200,000 to escape, although not without considerable casualties — Tiger terrorists and suicide bombers exacted a deadly toll from the refugees. The tens of thousands of survivors now live in squalid conditions in 32 refugee camps.Meanwhile, the world dithers. The Tamil-Canadians who were protesting in Toronto last week against the civil war in Sri Lanka and demanding a ceasefire were doing no favours for homeland Tamils caught up in the fighting. Neither were the protestors who demonstrated in Ottawa for 15 days before they finally wound it up last month, nor the Tamils who are demonstrating in European capitals.Those protestors, however, are encouraged by Western governments that urge Sri Lanka to accept a ceasefire with the Tigers to save civilian lives. If that were all it was, a case could be made, but the Tigers have used every previous ceasefire to regroup and rearm and renew the war. A ceasefire today would inevitably eventually result in more civilian casualties than a final assault on rebel remnants to end the war. Instead of offering the Tigers a chance to reorganize, Western nations and Western Tamils should be organizing aid to those Tamils in Sri Lanka lucky enough to have escaped the Tigers, and preparing to help those who survive the final, necessary assault.