Why was the Sri Lankan civil war ignored?
The atrocities and human rights violations were completely overlooked for the majority of the 25 year war. It wasn’t until the early 2000’s that world powers such as the USA paid closer attention to the explicit human rights violations. In the same span of time Western governments were quick to condemn and act in the Bosnian conflict and the closely paralleled ethnic cleansing that ensued. Additionally, the LTTE, largely because of the terrorist tactics used, was labeled a terrorist organization by Western countries but little attention or exposure was given to the broad range of Human Rights violations from both sides of the conflict.
Asia’s longest running civil war did not receive significant attention until 2009 when the United Nations at the behest of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke out and condemned the war crimes committed in Sri Lanka. The UN meeting addressed the violations that were committed by the Sri Lankan government against the civilians. Sinhalese leaders and soldiers responsible for the human rights violations however were not held accountable for their role in the devastation and genocide against the Tamils. There are a few conclusions to explain why the Sri Lankan civil war and its myriad atrocities was largely ignored. First, Sri Lanka was not strategically important to other world powers- politically, economically, or militarily. There was little to be gained in these areas and in 1983, the USA was only a few years removed from its own disastrous involvement in an Asian conflict. Secondly, the “international community” and India helped perpetuate the war against the Tamils citing their terrorist tactics, while ignoring the human rights violations against the Tamils. The LTTE were labeled a terrorist group in 2002, shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, which reflects Western powers relative ease in being content in siding with the Sinhalese even though the Sinhalese by any measure systematically violated human rights. |
Why did the US ignore this genocide, yet entered the war against Vietnam?
Vietnam was different in many ways from Sri Lanka. The Vietnam War was a proxy war against the Soviet Union. Tied to the long running post-WW-II grand strategy of containment, the US believed it necessary to stop the spread of communism as a governing system and the geopolitical influence of the USSR.
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Sri Lanka presented no similar ideological threat to the US. Additionally, the West was not dependent to any significant degree on Sri Lanka’s resources, nor did Sri Lanka control the maritime routes in its region. The Sri Lankan conflict was internal and not threatening to the West, with the exception of the unanswered and continued violation of human rights. Similar to the Rwandan inter-tribal massacre in the 1990s that witnessed 800,000 lives lost, lack of international engagement seems strongly to be rooted in the rationale of a lack of national self interest amongst countries with the ability to intervene.
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