Defining terrorism in Sri Lanka
By Ana Pararajasingham
The bomb blast that shook Colombo's financial centre on October 15 killed 13 people and injured scores of others. The Sri Lankan government promptly blamed the Tamil Tiger rebels (LTTE).
While the rebels were equally quick to deny any involvement, the government's implication that the bomb was an act of defiance by the LTTE, which one week earlier had been declared a "terrorist" organisation by the US State Department, was widely believed. In fact, on October 10 the LTTE had expressed its "deep dismay and displeasure" over the US decision.
The matter might have remained at that if not for a report in Melbourne's Sun-Herald newspaper 11 days after the bomb blast, in which Hong Kong-based reporter Andrew Bolt asserted that the explosion was a Sri Lankan army operation to discredit the Tamil liberation movement.
Bolt's report was based on the account of an eyewitness who was injured in the blast — a woman called "Susan". Susan, an Australian tourist staying at the Hilton Hotel, had seen well-orchestrated "heavy firing" in which soldiers were "wandering causally through heavy automatic weapon fire without cover" and firing rocket launchers when "there was absolutely nothing there", she said.
Susan's observations were backed by Bernard Etkind, an English tourist, who saw the alleged "terrorist" running beside a vehicle firing into the air. Susan also saw a group of men in floral shirts playing the role of the terrorists "walk to a parked van and slowly drive away amidst sounds of heavy firing".
Such incidents are not new. On July 24, 1996, a bomb exploded in a train in the Colombo suburb of Dehiwela, killing 70 people. The blast occurred in the wake of the Sri Lankan army's worst defeat in Mullaitivu, prompting Sinhala political scientist Ajith Rupasinghe to imply that the bomb blast was a government cover-up attempt.
"The Mullaitivu debacle has provided indisputable proof of this fact [the failure of the government's strategy] which the Dehiwela bomb blast cannot cover up — whomsoever may be responsible for this monstrous act", he said.
This view was echoed by the Australian acting consul in Sri Lanka, Jane Ogge, who told the Sydney Morning Herald, "Bombing targets by Tamil rebels were chosen to damage the Sri Lankan economy" and that the rebels "rely on international support, financial and moral". The bombing of a passenger train, she implied, was likely to be the work of somebody else because it would have discredited the rebels in the eyes of the international community.
The Sri Lankan government has exploited the difficulties encountered by foreign journalists wishing to visit the war-torn Tamil homeland to demonise the LTTE and discredit the liberation movement.
One attempt to fabricate a "massacre" by Tamil rebels was, however, caught out by a foreign reporter who was on the spot and knew that no massacre had occurred. On June 23, 1990, the London Times published the following "eyewitness " account of the massacre based on a report by the Sri Lankan military:
"Tamil guerrillas hacked to death 62 Muslim villagers in eastern Sri Lanka yesterday, accusing them of being government informants, the Defence Ministry and an opposition Muslim leader said. The massacre at Nintavur came on the eleventh day of war between Tamil separatists and Sri Lankan forces for the control of the Northeast. The Defence Ministry said troops found the bodies of Muslim men, women and children in Nintavur. Military officials said rebels used knives to kill the villagers. Survivors said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam raided the village early yesterday."
When the story proved to be a plant by the Sri Lankan government, the paper was forced to print a correction. The London Sunday Times of June 24 reported: "The military admitted yesterday that its report that Tamil Tiger separatists had hacked to death 62 Muslim men, women and children was false. Officials confessed that only three Muslim men were killed when rebels looted a village in eastern Sri Lanka. They claimed that their earlier report was based on faulty information from residents. The allegation was reported by international news agencies and appeared in newspapers around the world."
Absolute control of the media has enabled the Sri Lankan establishment to demonise Tamil rebels through the adroit use of half truths, exaggerations and outright lies. This demonising has enabled the Sri Lankan establishment to justify its "pacification" program, which has resulted in 60,000 civilian deaths, 95% of them Tamil, and large-scale dispossession of the Tamil people.