A documentary about the last days of the Sri Lankan civil war, the eradication of the LTTE and the brutal massacre of thousands of Tamil civilians. Our investigations suggest that the military operations were driven by a hidden political agenda and substantial economic and corporate interests. Follow the story to know more.
Warning: disturbing content!
In 2009 the Sri Lankan army crushed the Tamil insurgents, the LTTE. More than 360000 Tamil civilians were trapped in the fighting theatre. The Sri Lankan government established a “No Fire Zone” to protect the civilians. According to the UN Panel report, more than 40000 civilians died. Less conservative figures put the toll at 80000. This footage was taken from the No Fire Zone on 10th of May 2009.
The government of Sri Lanka claimed that it pursued a “Zero civilian casualties” policy; in an interview with NDTV, Sri Lanka’s President Rajapaksa stated that no more than 100 civilians died[1].
Any possible debate about Sri Lanka can start only after the vision of these images. They are crude, but they are testimony of what happened.
Protest againts Vedanta for its operations in India.
It was a quest for survive that pushed Vedanta to find another, lucrative business. In fact its plan for more than $5.8 billion to increase the Aluminium production has been rejected by the government, due to mounting international pressure to protect the Adivasis in Niyamgiri Hills[1]. The repercussion of that failure is big enough to be the mover for the challenge against Ambani’s Reliance.
The Mannar Basin oil fields were ideal. Unfortunately the Sri Lankan civil war was a major obstacle, with the fierce LTTE ready to go all way for the cause of independence. The Sri Lankan government lacked the political will to annihilate the rebels.
A march of the Balck Tigers, the LTTE special forces for suicidal attacks.
In fact 20 years ago, when the Indian Peace Keepers intervened in the fight, Colombo incredibly re-armed the rebels, just to kick out New Delhi from the island[2]. In 2005 the parties were close to a peace treaty. But while Sri Lanka was ready to devolution, the LTTE wanted a clear path to secession. Meaning: conflict could last for another generation.
So the new President Rajapaksa changed the strategy[3]: now it was complete destruction of the rebels. Why this stance wasn’t adopted earlier? Two reasons: civilian casualties involved in chasing the guerrilla forces. And India. New Delhi never really approved the elimination of the LTTE (though responsible of the killing of Rajiv Gandhi). But in 2006, the Indian position changed. Suddenly New Delhi offered complete support: maritime patrol, electronic surveillance, military and political backing (the Tamil nationalist sentiment in Tamil Nadu were controlled by the then Chief Minister, Mr Karunanidhi, a hard-core supporter of LTTE, but involved in a personal scandal during that period[4]).
In 2009 80000 Tamil civilians have been massacred on the shores of Nandikadal lagoon and in Mullivaikal.
The rest is history: from the bloody shores of the Nandikadal lagoon, 280 000 Tamil civilian come out, leaving behind possibly more than 80000 dead. The fate of the Tamil population in their land now is the one of an occupied country. The military presence is strangling any activity.
But the Mannar Basin fields are blooming. In 2013 Sri Lanka launched another bidding round, this time everybody in the sector was queuing: Exxon, Total, Gazprom, Eni[5].
Clearly the news of Cairn-Vedanta success reached the big players of oil and gas.
The question now is: who could provoke a radical change in the Indian policy towards Sri Lanka? Cairn is out of the question.
Vedanta entered the game only in 2011, when the war was over since 2 years. If you believe in conspiracy, you could suspect that Vedanta chased the deal much earlier, convinced the Indian government to intervene in its favour and Cairn to spearhead the negotiation to avoid attention.
Of course this is just an exercise of speculation.
The signing ceremony of the agreement of petroleum resources between the Government of Sri Lanka and Cairn India (Pvt. Ltd) . President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Minister of Petroleum and Petroleum Resources A.H.M. Fowzie and Indrajith Benerjee, Chief Finance Officer and Ajay Gupta Head of Commercial and New Business of Cairn India .
Photo Sudath Silva
[2] http://www.epw.in/commentary/sri-lanka-s-arming-ltte-against-ipkf-mystery-kobbekaduwa-s-death.html
[3] https://srilankanquest.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/the-pillars-of-rajapakses-wisdomindian-support-crash-the-ltte-and-no-stop-business/
War tourism in Sri Lanka.
Photo BBC
In Sri Lanka a new sector is booming: war tourism. On the site where the last bastion of the LTTE was crushed by the Sri Lankan army, a holiday resort has been built to cater for an audience eager to see with their own eyes these places. The advert reminds that on this lagoon, the heroes of the army, the terrorists of the LTTE and many others, died.[1]
November the 27th was the usual “Martyrs day”, a festival instituted by the Tamil Tigers to commemorate the soldiers fallen for the cause. This year students of the Jaffna University lighted lamps in public in their honour and they were jailed in rehabilitation camp, with the accuse of fomenting hate and the resurgence of terrorism.
Tamil victims in Sri Lankan civil war.
In this two episodes it is possible to see all the contradiction of the post-conflict process in Sri Lanka. The government hails as heroes its soldiers; all of them, including the ones responsible of the massacres. It is beyond any reasonable doubt that a huge number of civilians has been killed. The UN first referred to 40 000, but a recent book of Harrison, based on unpublished studies from the World Bank corrected the figures to 70 000. In any case, the death toll is enormous. And they were civilians, Tamil civilians. Therefore any celebration of the state for the “heroes” is a painful reminder of the personal losses for the Tamil community. At the same time, the “terrorists” were fighters for secession of an independent Tamil Eelam, after 60 years of oppression and abuses. Not to mention the fact that they were relatives of many in the
Pro-LTTE rally in London, 2009.
Photo BBC
Tamil population. And they are eager to commemorate their husbands, fathers, brothers and sisters. But the government banned any public sign of mourning the dead. And imposed a rigid silence over the civilian massacres.
The reconciliation will always be in a stall, until these positions will change. The fallen soldiers of both camps died for a cause, some of them committed crimes and most important all the civilians killed, were innocents. This is the source of the crime! The LTTE’s attacks in Colombo and other cities were criminal because they targeted the harmless Sinhalese population. Equally despicable was the involvement of hundreds of thousands Tamil civilians in the military operations led by the Sri Lankan army.
The war is over, but not the tension which caused it. Open hostilities were the symptoms of the disease, not the root. The government recurring theme of the war on terror was a successful brand to convince the West. But the troubled 40 years of independent history preceded the military struggled. The Tamils suffered persecution with communal riots, pogrom and discrimination by the state. The inability or lack of will to fix these grievances are the origin of the military response of the Tamil community.
Government War Memorial near War-Tourist Site Mullivaikal Mullaitivu District
At the same time 30 years of violence and war didn’t bring the wished end of that condition. The military option has been defeated and living in the hope of taking arms again won’t change the past. The possibility to mourn the Tamil Tigers should be a right of the community, to remember relatives. But it should be clear also that the LTTE was ruthless organization, that suppressed any form of political freedom and killed any single opposer to their plot.
Until the Sri Lankan state will feel obliged to celebrate its victory against the Tamil, any reconciliation will be clearly impossible. It will reinforce in that community the perception that only armed struggle will bring justice.
On the contrary if both community will realize that victims were the innocents of both camps, that could become the turning point for a real resolution of the tension. The conflict of interest in Sri Lanka can be eased only by a mutual recognition: the legitimacy of the Tamil to maintain their cultural and communal identity and the the right of the state to guarantee the security of its citizens, all of them.
Protests in Tamil Nadu continue over Sri Lankan Tamils issue.
Recent history showed that it is very difficult to try bloody leaders when they lose the war: Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death, Milosevic was tried, but died before the verdict, Gaddafi killed in a summary execution. Only Charles Taylor has been convicted and for crimes committed in Sierra Leone, not his own (Liberia). Bashir in Sudan could be the next one, but with strong opposition from the Arab countries. As you can see, it is almost impossible to put on trial state leaders. And these had lost the war, they were on the wrong side. Croatian leaders with very similar responsibilities of Milosevic haven’t been even mentioned; Kosovar gangs of criminals have been rewarded with independence. It goes without saying that misconduct, abuses and tortures committed in Iraq and Afghanistan are out of the agenda.
360 000 Tamil civilians have been chased, bombarded and starved out.
Photo: Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation
So the idea of starting such a process in Sri Lanka is remote, very remote. Further on it is very clear that the chain of command points straight to the top: President Rajapaksa and his brother Gotabaya.
More than 80 000 Tamils have been massacred; the army targeted civilians on such a scale, that mass graves are visible from the satellite[1]. And the government was talking of a “zero civilians casualties policy”. You wouldn’t expect from the Rajapaksa administration an outspoken confession; but from US and Europe a more resolute stance to bring justice and accountability.
Rajapaksa won the war and is winning also the post-conflict. I’m convinced that war crimes have been committed: only independent investigations could verify this claim. Given the procedures currently on-going in Geneva, we have almost the certainty that a war crimes case against Sri Lanka will never take place.
More than 80 000 Tamil civilians are missing from the last assault in the Nandikadal lagoon, where the people have been bombarded by heavy artillery.
Adivasis revolutionary fighters
What is the biggest threat to India’s security? You could think of further terrorist operations orchestrated by their arch-enemy Pakistan, the so called containment strategy of China with the String of Pearls, but no, you would be wrong. Surely the Indian armed forces and the RAW, the secret service are taking into account these issues as future menaces. But the current, biggest threat to internal security is the Maoist guerilla of the Naxalites, which count amongst its file indigenous warriors armed with bows and arrows. Members of the Adivasis, the indigenous ethnicity of India, more than 80 millions, are fighting back against the oppression by the central government and joined the Maoist militia in several states. The some of the Adivasis are tired of being discriminated and most of all expropriated of their land rights.
Adivasis’s rally
And New Delhi, the biggest democracy of the world, the strong ally of the good Western government amongst the dodgy, authoritarian Asian states, responded with a responsible, measured, contained military operations, called Green Hunt. In collaboration with the regular forces there are also paramilitary troupes, funded by private stakeholders. These are the best practices exported by the USA during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and we should admire the consistency of India in aligning itself with the best Western policies.
Adivasis’ protest against Vedanta
You may ask why the Indian government is so upset with indigenous populations, who lived for millennia in their forest, with unchanged habits and astonishingly sustainable behaviour, why they are fighting these groups rather than picking them up as global models? Easy to answer, it is the case that they live where there are enormous reserve of metals and minerals. And given the needs of the growing Indian economy and the worldwide prices, many companies are salivating at the idea of grabbing those mines. In particular the giant Vedanta secured vast concessions. And they want to exploit them, so they supported this massive campaign to evict the Adivasis from their property.
Sri Lanka Defence minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa, with alleged blood stains on his shirt.
A generous offer of consulting about the matters arrived from Sri Lanka. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brother of the president Mahinda and plenipotentiary minister of Defence, not to mention acclaimed leader of the army and potential war criminal for the massacres of 2009, offered his help1.
Mr Rajapaksa exposed his rationale: we have matured an extensive experience in counter-insurgency and we learned how to deal with fighters mingled with civilians. You have only to control the media and position yourself wisely in the international scenario, then you can do whatever you want. Seriously, you can slaughter hundreds of thousands (yes, around 3 times the victims in Sirya) of civilians and nobody will mind your business.
If you think that I’m exaggerating, many Indian commentators thoroughly studied the Rajapaksas’ strategy and compiled a brief guideline that is precisely mentioning control over the media, international relations and steel determination to achieve the goal, regardless of civilian casualties2.
Gen. Bikram-Singh visits Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Finally Rajapaksa can offer an already integrated plan of action: Sri Lankan and Indian forces not only conducted joint operations in the past. During the IV Eelam war, military officer from the Indian forces were actually on the field, monitoring, observing, advising and cooperating with the Sri Lanka’s Army. New Delhi is perfectly aware of what happened in 2009 and the fate of the so called “brethren” Tamil. Tamil Nadu politics is based on the support to the Tamils on the other side of the Strait. At least this is the main characteristic of one of the most important politician, Mr Karunanidhi, who was Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu during the final days of the war and who didn’t move a finger to safe his beloved bretheren because was involved in a massive scandal of corruption.
In a matter of days, India answered, that, yes, they are quite interested in the Sri Lankan offer to train them on counter-insurgency. Quoting Gen. Singh: “With significant experience on both sides, we have a lot to learn each other and we look forward to reinforcing our cooperation in the military domain further”3.
Sri Lanka granted exploration right to Cairn back in 2008
A final note: in the Mannar Basin, offshore from the coast controlled by the LTTE and scenario of the massive, brutal counter-offensive of the Sri Lankan army, in which almost 440 000 civilians have been chased like wild animals for months, it has been found oil.
And guess who is taking control of those oil field? You’ll never get it. It’s Vedanta again!
So Vedanta is conducting paramilitary operations in India to evict Adivasis, and then it turned to Sri Lanka to expropriate the Tamils because of the oil, using the ruthless Rajapaksa regime as (happy) executioner of the dirty job. If it was a Hollywood movie, you had say that the figure of the evil company exploiting natural resources and killing poor indigenous would have been too clichè to be true. As usual reality is more surprising than fiction, much more.
290 000 Tamil civilians come out from the last siege of the Sri Lankan army.
In this year, the IV Eelam War broke out. After the attempt of the Peace Talks from 2001 to 2005, both parties strove to resume hostilities. Many reasons have been added for the failure of the peace process. For the LTTE and especially its leader, Prabhakaran, the agreement was to far away from full independence. Of course that target was impossible to reach through negotiations, therefore only the military way was open for that purpose. On the other side the Sri Lankan government had promised even too much in the eyes of its more nationalistic constituency. Therefore in 2006 everybody was keen to start again the war.
Erik Solheim and Velupillai Prabhakaran
Photo nation.lk
The biggest loser was Norway. The Nordic country in fact dedicated a lot of efforts to find a deal. If you consider that from 2001 TGS-Nopec, a company specialized in seismic survey for oil exploration, was showing enthusiastic reports about the possibility to find petroleum reserves, you may guess that the government in Oslo had some undisclosed interests. If you add that the special envoy, Mr Erik Solheim, just on the brink of the Peace Talks ending was nominated Minister for International Development1, with specific interest in the oil sector, for the Norwegian initiative “Oil for development”,Norad2, (see Solheim’s activity in Ghana3, Sudan4, Angola5).
But Norway is not the only country in the world searching for opportunities in the oil sector. China and India in the same period were involved in a tough race to secure contracts for natural resources
Union Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar with the President of China National Petroleum Corporation, Chen Geng in Beijing on January 13.
around the world. The competition was so strong, that their bidding war was driving prices up everywhere. Thus the two Asian giants decided to form an alliance. “The agreement aimed at preventing the two nations competition for oil assets pushing up prices, symbolises their increasingly assertive role in global energy politics” (source: Financial Time).6
One of the first country to test this alliance, was precisely Sri Lanka. President Rajapaksa, soon after he received information about the possible presence of oil in the Mannar Basin, decided to get rid of Norway and offered India and China one block each 78.
We are far from saying that the Peace Talks were interrupted for the oil discovery; we are also not affirming that the IV Eelam War was oil-driven and that the India and China support of Sri Lanka was motivated purely by the natural resource deal.
We can see a series of coincidences and we argue that oil played a role in Sri Lanka, maybe only a secondary one, but not completely marginal. Norway is our first indicator; the Nordic country didn’t though it could provide more transparency on its conduct, but had clearly a vested interest in the peace process in relation to the oil reserve. China and India had additional reasons to back
Anti-lankan protest led by politician and activist Vaiko in Tamil Nadu.
Photo onlanka.com
Colombo, but it was a clever and opportune gift from Rajapaksa to offer natural resources in exchange of their help. In particular it could have represent the convincing point for New Delhi, to intervene without hesitation. India has oil operations on its side of the Strait, and the idea of leaving oil reserve in the hands of the LTTE or China alone could have been the decisive argument to make move. The energy sector is more vital and strategic for India that any other alliance of convenience between China and Sri Lanka.
If you think that oil doesn’t play any role in conflicts around the globe, then you can ignore our thesis. On the other hand, if you assume that natural resources are too important in contemporary geopolitical scenarios, and so are always involved, maybe to different extent, you may be tempted to spend more time on this hypothesis.
1http://www.regjeringen.no/en/the-government/previous-governments/the-structure-of-the-registry/governments/modern-times/governments-since-1945/jens-stoltenbergs-second-government.html?id=449424
4http://www.norway-sudan.org/News_and_events/Development-Cooperation/Minister-Erik-Solheim-leaves-office-/
Forget the LTTE, forget even the Tamils. If you slaughter tens of thousands of people, if you treat the survivors like animals, if you do respect human dignity, then sooner or later you’ll pay that price. And I’m not talking of resurgence of terrorism. Sri Lankans already have the worst punishment: president Rajapaksa, a despot who rules the country like a private property. Sri Lankans decided to enslave themselves to the ultimate dinasty on the island.
The issue is not about the Tamils. It is about impunity and lack of accountability. Clearly the Rajapaksa administration received a green light by the international community. The UN, the West, India let the Rajapaksas walk away after the slaughter of a city like Vavunya (according to UN)(according to the Bishop of Mannar, in his testimony for the LLRC, it is more likely a city like Kandy).
What do you expect after that? Any other murder, any other disappearance is petty crime in comparison. The Sri Lankan citizens, all of them, have forget precisely this simple fact: how can you call for justice, after that?
Any misconduct, from threatening journalists, to assaulting judges, is trivial. Moreover, do you think the right of law can be exercised if you have skipped so quickly any investigation about the end of the war?
The Sri Lankan citizens have been lured by their government, but also by a majoritarian ideology and a guilty sense of ownership over the island, that any dissent can be buried by any means. The LTTE started an armed struggle out of desperation. The leadership of Prabharakan soon spiralled in a vortex of violence for the sake of it; it was a response to the oppression and devastation of the Tamil culture and identity. Most important, the deranged trajectory of the LTTE didn’t represent and include all the Tamils. The elimination of 40 000 human beings is a crime of genocide. Forget Tamil Eelam: if you are a proud Sri Lankan, so proud that you’ll never consider the division of the country, then you must act immediately to seek the truth. To bring justice to human beings and to Sri Lanka, to the good name of Sri Lanka.
Poor Sri Lanka, if you think that killing innocents is a good way to honour your country, if you think that the blood of children, elderly and armless unfortunate, is a good way to worship this Buddhist soil.
Are you really convince that a Buddha will be pleased by this bloody sacrifice, that to hold a flag in his name, you had to rape, torture and massacre thousands? In what kind of hell have you fallen, my poor Sri Lanka.
Libya Uprising
When the regime of Qaddafi started to crumble, he reacted quickly and brutally, attacking his own citizens. Not much differently Assad is trying now to crash down the insurgency. Years before Saddam Hussein did the same. The rationale is the following: the power of the state is always borrowed from the people and when a leader suppresses in blood the request of change, he is committing an heinous, criminal act.
So far, so good. But when you wave the flag of humanitarian principle only when it’s convenient, it becomes only another trick, a move amongst the other. The West brands itself as the champion of the human rights and everybody recognizes that Qaddafi and Hussein were bloody tyrants. Assad was governing with the iron fist and the brutality of the repression, though unexpected in the West, has been rapidly condemned. But for example in Bahrain, the silence of the governments has been almost deafening. And I will remind also of the case of Sri Lanka. It is slightly different, the enemy wasn’t a spontaneous movement of a season.
Bahrain uprising
The LTTE was a very organized army and engaged the Sri Lankan government for almost 30 years. The elimination of that army is not really the problem. The issue involves the civilians killed in the final stage of the conflict, with the military victory already defined. The UN has already estimated the toll of the victims: 40 000. But other sources refer to more than 100 000. What was the condemnation from the West? None.
In private of course, the diplomats are expressing quite clearly their opinions. It has just recently published a Wikileaks, dating September 2009, where the US ambassador stating that the Sri Lankan administration lost any credibility.
500 000 Tamil civilians were chased out,through shelling and starvation.
The government chased more than 500 000 people with heavy artillery, with the shelling hitting hospitals and other emergency shelters. What happened to the humanitarian principles? Disappeared on the shores of Mullivaikal.
The problem with such changeable ethics is that you start to doubt even when it is righteous. I have little doubts that the Libyan and Syrian regime are committing atrocities. But the point is: the support against them occurs for this reason? To bring more justice? This is not just an intellectual debate. The West amassed credibility amongst its own citizens because of the right cause it is supposed to fight. The big question marks on China is precisely with regards of the lack of transparency about principles. Leaders in the West are not rulers and when they lost the battle for principles, they lose the right to lead. But if the West systematically supports regime-change for its tactical advantage, it loses any credibility of its stance. So if the principle stands, that government must not attack their own citizens, why Syria and Lybia on one side and Sri Lanka and Bahrain on the other?
courtesy EPA-telegraph.co.uk
If you repeat for 1000 times that the sky is green, would heaven turn emerald? Well it seems that the Sri Lankan government is precisely committed in this game; and successfully, given its international recognition. It started with the final stage of the IV Eelam War. The government was absolutely determined to defeat the LTTE once for all. The goal of the operation was to annihilate the Tigers leadership. Fair enough. It was an armed conflict and Colombo decided that it wanted to terminate it at any cost.
And the cost were measured mainly in terms of Tamil civilians lives: the Tigers were retreating dragging with them all the inhabitants of the areas previously under their control. So the situation is of Tiger militants surrounded by a huge number of civilians, men, women and children. The hard intervention required to wipe out the Tigers would have the predictable cost of high number of civilian casualties, very high. 
This was the stake of an hard offensive. And this should have been the topic of the debate. Instead the government was speaking of a ‘humanitarian rescue’. Heavy shelling on entire families barely fit with the concept of saving civilian lives. But the government propaganda launched a media campaign not less intense than its bombing in the Vanni. President Rajapaksa continued to support his policy of ‘Zero civilian casualties’. Colombo resisted in its version for years. Even against obvious evidences of the truth. Finally, after the extra mild report of the UN was confirming without any doubts the shocking magnitude of the massacres, with more than 40 000 killed, the government accepted that few civilians died. In the census made public in 2012 you can argue that the governmental figures are around 10 000. The real figure could be as high as 140 000, according to other sources. We won’t discuss it here.
courtesy Eranga Jayawardena/Associated Press
What it is important is that the government maintained its version for a couple of years, enough to escape the immediate reprimand. You would say that it was mainly for internal reasons, that the government wanted to convince its domestic audience of the good will in its actions. For sure large portion of the Sinhalese society are not aware of the enormity of what happened. But my point is another.
The real scope of the media operation was to buying time with other audience. It wasn’t the high diplomatic sphere of the international community: everybody knew since the beginning of the operation, what was going to happen.
Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who led the army to victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) last year, justified the troops’ conduct in the final days of the fighting
Mr Rajapaksa diluted the massacre with time. The Zero Civilian Casualty policy is a case of printing noise around the initial news. It is basic propaganda and contrary to what you think, it is very effective. It doesn’t need to turn really the sky pink, just inflates the meaning. Propaganda is quantitative easing of truth, so distortion can be effective not on facts, but on reaction to those facts. And propaganda is not effective on your peers, who know the facts, but on audience. If I keep telling that the sky is verdant, you’ll be annoyed and upset, but to communicate with me, you’ll have to argue that green is not the same of blue. And the audience will be caught in the debate.
Debate is inflating truth and if you don’t adjust the interests, a big debt in the past, will be a risible repayment in the future.
You see in 10 years, the government could be able to accept the UN figures. In 20 or 30 even the highest one.
The Sri Lankan government knows the real figures. And so does the international community. But had it admitted in the aftermath of the war, it would have been much harder to defend it. And make no mistake, it is not a matter of China. Beijing has a clear policy: no foreign intervention. Moreover Colombo is a protégè, so it would have made no difference. It was no big deal for the international community of diplomacy: on Wikileaks it is clear that everybody knew the dimension of the tragedy.
People burning the Sri Lankan flag in Tamil Nadu, India
The real target of the quantitative easing on this truth, is India’s public, and more precisely Tamil Nadu. Nationalistic propaganda is quite loud in the Chennai state, but politicians both in South and in New Delhi have been clever in missing the point. In 2009 it happened a catastrophe, a Tamil catastrophe. But juggling with figures, messing with geopolitics, in conclusion not targeting the issue, at the end, was effective. The goal was to avoid immediate repercussion in India, not in Sri Lanka. The creditors of the crimes against their brothers, are the Tamils in India. But time is shrinking the remission and soon Zero Civilian Casualty will be replaced with 100 000 Civilian Casualty with no more consequence than a mistype in history books. Propaganda seems stupid because it works on the future, not on the present.
A Sri Lankan Quest 