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.
More than 80000 Tamil civilians were killed during the last attacks of the Sri Lankan civil war.
One may be tempted to say that it is not the first case of impunity, not even in recent history. True: in Syria for example there are concurrent narratives of propaganda blaming alternatively the government and the rebels. But the novelty in respect of Sri Lanka is the absence of competitive perspectives. It is well known that China protects Sri Lanka; a little less divulged is the Indian protection of Sri Lanka. But the real point is that the West is actually not interested in accusing Sri Lanka. The US made very bland recommendations to Colombo, in comparison what is at stake. The impression is that the Sri Lankan government shall be charged for mishandling the behaviour of its troops. The boys went too far in certain circumstances, but we don’t have the political will to scold our naughty soldiers.
500 000 Tamil civilians were chased out,through shelling and starvation.
The accusation is far from this insipid criticism: the government of Sri Lanka launched a heavy military offensive against hundreds of thousands of civilians. Again, it’s better to have clear in mind that we are not speaking of isolated episodes: the plan was to bring war in the middle of Tamil inhabited areas. The operation was designed to bring havoc in every Tamil house. At the peak of the Vanni operation, almost half a million of people has been chased, starved and bombed out. It is less about the casualties and more about the intentions. The carnage of 80000 civilians is still not the most horrible part of the truth. Soldiers massively brainwashed and put under extreme psychological stress, can eventually go crazy and out of control. This is still criminal and to blame. But the Sri Lankan case is worst: the government planned to massacre the civilians. We are not discussing episodes of crossfire: we are accusing the government of Sri Lanka of heavy shelling on harmless population. Repetitively. It was a decision, it was planned.
The silence of the United Nations is a crucial accomplice in the massacres.
And the United Nations, the government of USA, UK, India, France, Norway and Japan know what happened. The UN actually published a report where it estimates at 40000 the number of civilian casualties[1]. Moreover an internal inquiry from the UN provided even more critical observations about the accomplice negligence[2].
New Delhi provided military intelligence, electronic surveillance and field support on the ground: India was informed in real time. Actually, it was New Delhi that was informing Colombo about the development of action.
Now such carnage won’t be sanctioned.
Why? Several reasons for the convenience of geopolitical equilibrium. We have some suspicions that the oil discovery in the LTTE[3] controlled area could have been a game changer, especially for India (with Vedanta and Cairn) and European countries, like the UK (again with Cairn and Vedanta, both London-listed), France (with Total); but also Malaysia, with its powerful Tamil presence, was involved through Petronas[4].
The estimated reserves of the Mannar Basin oil field are up to a billion barrels.
Aside this allegation, the undisputed outcome is that Sri Lanka will walk away from a planned massacre with total impunity, because it made the right diplomatic move. Namely, it sought agreement with every power involved. With the US, Colombo justified the operation with war on terror (it was actually a civil war). With China, it sold out a port facility (to be included in the String of Pearls). With the other Sri Lanka exchanged attractive economic deals (the exploration rights have been ceded at bargaining price). In fact during the final phase of the war, the duo Kouchner-Miliband improvised a timid protest[5], but already in 2011 France was pledging support to Sri Lanka[6] (in 2012 Paris collaborated with Sri Lankan secret service in the extra-judiciary killing of an Ex-LTTE member Parithi[7] and in 2013 Total is ready to join the Mannar Basin deal[8]), while UK was deeply compromised with Colombo for arm trade (see the scandal that led to the resignation of Defence minister Liam Fox[9]) and economic interest (Cameron lobbied in favour of Cairn and Vedanta with Indian government[10]).
This episode will establish an important precedent in international jurisprudence: heavy diplomacy with all the parties, with all the regional and global powers will give you clearance on everything you do. Everything.
Mullivaikkal Massacre May 2009
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.
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-/
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
At the end of the ’90s, the Albanian minority in Kosovo intensified its political pressure to gain independence from Serbia. Kosovo was a province with a particular meaning in the Serbian history: it was the place where the Serbian kings resisted the Ottoman invasion. The Serbian cultural identity sprung from Kosovo. In the last 20 years immigration from the nearby Albania increased the size of that ethnicity and in the mid ’90s Albanian could correctly affirm of being the majority in Kosovo. Serbia is culturally and politically on the side of Russia (for religious, linguistic, historical and political reason), therefore it is arguable that its international status was very low in those years.
The Albanian independentist forces joined to create the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The US decided to punish the Russian presence in Europe, hitting their closest ally, Serbia. Therefore they supported the Albanian request for a separated Kosovo.
Commandos from the Kosovo Liberation Army
It is interesting to note that history of the Kosovo Liberation Army as a terrorist group. In 1998 Robert Gelbard, envoy of the American government, speaking of the KLA said “without any questions, a terrorist group”12. The UN resolution 1160 used similar words34. But later on the US government approached the KLA leadership to represent Kosovo in the negotiations with the Serbs. The Wall Street Journal in February 1998 mentioned the removal of the KLA from the list of terrorist organization5, when discussing its linkages with Al Qaeda. France didn’t delist the KLA until late 1998, after UK and US pressure6. KLA is still present in the list of MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base7 and is considered an inactive group by the National Consortium for the study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism from the Homeland Security8.
The KLA was considered a terrorist organization because of its linkages with organized crime and with Al Qaeda and they started a campaign of attacks against the Serbian civilians9. The common argument was that Kosovo people had the right for self-determination10, even when terrorist means were used to achieve that goal.
Black Tigers (commandos for suicide mission of the LTTE, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam)
Now, I suppose that very few will disagree with the fact that the LTTE was a liberation army, which used terrorist means to achieve self-determination for its people.
It is wrong to state that the LTTE lost international support because it was a terrorist outfit. Quite on the contrary: it was a terrorist organization because it lost international support. This could sound pedantic, but very often it’s the core of the debate. All the atrocities committed by the LTTE do not explain its status. The LTTE failed to secure the support of main international sponsors (like US and India) and therefore it was fighting alone. And when you have guns and bank account, but no consensus, per definition you’ll be labelled “terrorist”.
It’s not about conduct, but about relationship. The LTTE killed innocent civilians, but this is not the point. LTTE was isolated and that is the reason for its terrorist status.
6 Derek S. Reveron and Jeffrey Stevenson Murer, eds., Flashpoints in the War on Terrorism. (New York: Palgrave, 2006)
Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran, premier of TGTE, the Tamil government in exile
The premier of the Tamil government in exile, Mr. Visuvanathan Rudrakuman, wrote in his greetings for new year about his aspirations for 20131. My impression is that the Tamil people has never been so far away from independence. He disagrees and I suppose he’s so desperate that needs to show some ungrounded optimism.
He states that an independent Tamil Eelam is compatible with the interests of international states, Sri Lanka included. It is not my intention to dismiss light-heartedly his thoughts, but it is important to understand if he’s talking seriously, if he believes genuinely in what he says. In this case, the Tamil leadership is lost.
At present, it is interest of nobody an independent Tamil Eelam and if you don’t get this, you are doomed to perpetuate the same mistake on and on.
Black Tigers, the LTTE battalion for suicidal operations.
The LTTE was outlaw organization; right or wrong, everybody decided to labelled so. We can discuss about rehabilitation of its memory or why it was sanctioned. But reality states that it was considered a criminal outfit. If you don’t want to spend time in understanding this, you’ll always find everybody on the other side. It is worthy remember that in 2009 China, India, USA and the rest of the European states were against the LTTE. Right or wrong, that was the situation.
Mr. Visuvanathan Rudrakuman says that it is interest of India to support independence. Now, even if you a politician, you should pay more attention to your optimism. It is very well known that India strongly opposes any secession in the region. Its own unity is at stake and New Delhi will never back any centrifugal movement. Separation of Pakistan and Bangladesh could look so remote as secession of Tamil Nadu, but it is clear that the Indian unity is fragile. For this reason, they will never let the Tamils go in Sri Lanka. Further on, they have no particular reason of friendship with the Tamils: the narrative that they are brethren stands as long as you are Tamil. The rest of the India doesn’t feel any particular closeness with them than with Sinhalese. India is a multi-ethnic country. Sinhalese are originary from Orissa. In the eyes of New Delhi Sinhalese and Tamils are equally distant from their heart. I repeat: for India there is not a single reason to support independence in Sri Lanka.
The USA are engaged in a tough struggle of power with China. Sri Lanka is dividing its attention between New Delhi and Beijing. Clearly the USA will back any Indian resolution with regards of Sri Lanka, because on the other hand they would help China. India is firmly against independence. Would the USA pursue a strategy that is reinforcing Beijing? So on which grounds it is in American interests to support the secession of Tamil Eelam?
The UK, in recent meetings (Queen’s jubilee, the Olympics), welcomed president Rajapaksa as a respectable head of state. It is recurrent the theme of “British economic interests” in Sri Lanka.
France recently approved the killing of a former LTTE leader (Parithi) on its soil.
Norway support of the LTTE cause was mainly oil driven. With the defeat of the Tigers, their edgei in the deal disappeared; they don’t have any other interest in the Tamil nationalism. So what is exactly the European interest in the Tamil Eelam secession?
Celebration in Sri Lanka for the end of the War.
Courtesy JDS
Finally, where is the convenience of the Sinhalese ? Tamil oppression dates back since independence. In 2009 they finally managed to crash the armed struggle. The TGTE forgets that. You need to rebuild a negotiating position and the Tamil one is weak now.
The war crimes and atrocities are not an excuse. Justice must be brought with or without Tamil Eelam.
If you put on the table the genocide as a compensation for the defeat, you are badly wrong. The Sinhalese don’t have any reason to accept this deal. They won.
1http://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/two-state-solution-eminently-compatible-with-interests-of-tamil-and-sinhala-people/
It’s not about the Tamils, even less the LTTE. The war is over and the plight of an independent Eelam is not part of the debate now. But we have a carnage of innocents. Even the UN, the most cautious and cowardice institution of the planet, recognized that a huge number of innocents died. Estimate from the World Bank put the number even higher, 100 000. The bishop of Mannar reached 140 000. But this is not bean-counting: these are other human beings. The final figure is less relevant than the meaning of what happened.
It seems like a game, that the higher the better for the Tamil cause, the lower, a score for Colombo. Wrong, badly wrong. In such a massacre, everybody is a loser. And responsible. This is what people don’t understand in Colombo and to some extent in Canada, Australia and the UK. It’s not about the Tamils and the Sinhalese.
Summary execution of Tamil men by Sri Lankan soldiers.
Photo: Channel 4/ Getty Images
We need justice for 100 000 human beings and their family. This is a collective mourning. World politics can push two groups to commit heinous mistakes. As the community of citizens of this world it is our duty to find this misconduct and to sanction it. I’m not interested in scoring for the Tamil cause, this won’t take the independence of Eelam a step closer. The Tamil community will think about this tragedy in its own terms. This is not the point.
There are credible allegation that an enormous number of civilians died. Women, children, elderly all non combatants. We need to establish the truth of what happened. And we need to know who decided it to go all the way. I want to know the role played by Mr. Rajapaksa, president of Sri Lanka and Mr. Fonseca, command in chief of Sri Lanka’s army. But also by Mr. Prabhakaran, the leader of the LTTE and Mr. Singh, prime minister of India. I want to know in details why Mr Karunanidhi, chief minister of Tamil Nadu, didn’t oppose the political decision in support of the offensive. And it’s mandatory to understand why the European governments, in primis the UK, didn’t raise an eyebrow during the worst days of the massacre.
I want to know all these facts because otherwise I’m an accomplice. It’s not about foreign intervention in a sovereign state: it’s being human and feeling mercy and shame for what happened.
If you can kill all this human brethren and we don’t care, we are not humans anymore.
My appeal goes to the Sinhalese friends: please, help us in restoring justice.
If you think you were on the right side of justice in your fight against the LTTE, if you think that your actions were correct and fair, you want to know the truth more than everybody else. If you are compassionate about the life of every animal and plant, if you spare blood in religious sacrifices, then you have the right mindset to understand the horrible responsibility that all of us share with such a crime. We need to investigate the carnage to restore a righteous course of action. It’s not sovereign intervention. It’s human compassion.
The dream of an independent Tamil Eelam has been crushed on 2009, buried with 140 000 innocent Tamils. In few months 4 years will be passed from then. The Tamil diaspora is convinced that justice will prevail, because the world cannot be so deaf and blind to such a tragedy. I’m wholeheartedly advocating this cause. I’m persuaded that this was a genocide and that the international community will be harmed by ignoring this carnage. What about the UN’s mission? What about the protection of innocents? What about the principle of human rights?
At the same time I’m fully aware that time is precious. Any year that passes, brings a veil on the events. In the hearts and minds of the Tamil will stay forever, not so for the international community. Other tragedies crowd the world stage, other victims, other innocents. The more distance Rajapaksa is able to put between him and the crimes, the easier will be to walk away. So far he’s doing well.
But I don’t give up to the historians, I still believe that the Sri Lanka’s massacres are open wounds, they are still bleeding and because of that, we can still hope in justice. When historians will study those events, even if they will recognize the magnitude of the carnage, they won’t bring justice. When scholars and academicians debate about the causes and the figures from a purely theoretical perspective, justice is dead.
If we are not able to highlight the case until is alive, we will condemn those victims to die twice.
For this reason, time is running out.
This is an appeal to the Tamil community, especially the diaspora: give up your intrigues, give up your pride, give up all the obstacles that are impeding a real process of accountability.
If you think you have done everything, let me explain. You want to believe in an independent Eelam, you want to worship the heroism of the Tigers, you want accountability for the Sri Lankan government, you want to help the Tamil still suffering in the Northern and Eastern provinces. You want all of this and you are surprised that the world is not listening. This is the point. The Tamil diaspora never entered in a critical process. And they woke up with the entire international community against their side. Is everybody in the world a Tamil hater? Is everybody against the idea of an independent Tamil Eelam? Is everybody so happy to support Rajapaksa? Of course not, it is just the blindness of your convictions that push everybody against you.
What is your priority? Revenge against Sri Lanka?Or Justice? Independent Eelam? Or helping the Tamils in Sri Lanka?
Decide. And act. Otherwise you’ll spend the next 50 years discussing, arguing and fighting within the community. Sri Lanka and Rajapaksa will find a fragmented front, with nobody able to present a decent request. Even too easy to sweep away the question from the table.
What do you want?
Do you want to consider the Tigers a heroic army, that righteousness fought with principles? OK, the Sri Lankan government fought the same battle, with the same principles. And it won. Do you want to consider that army criminal? Then you must accept that LTTE adopted criminal means.
Are you fighting for the Tamil people or for your aspirations and ambitions? When you were living a pleasant, comfortable life, your brethren in Sri Lanka were fighting, often in the last years, against their will. Are they a bargain chip, expendable on the battle field as well as in current political debate? Or they are the last inhabitant of Eelam and deserve all the attention and the efforts that you can put together? Is it better to have the flag of Eelam or better, decent conditions for the Tamil people?
Decide. But do it quickly. The international community won’t wait the Tamil age of discussion. They will forget soon. And leave you with your internecine polemics. Time is running out.
LTTE chief negotiator S. P. Tamilselvan,Sri Lanka Government chief representative Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva and Norway’s International Development Minister Erik Solheim.
Photo/AsianTribune
In 2001 Norway brokered a truce between the Sri Lankan government and the separatist army of LTTE. The mission of the Nordic country is to negotiate with the parties. In an interview with BBC, the Norwegian envoy Mr Solheim justified the efforts of his country out of pure compassion: “Security policy for the 21st century: if you want a peaceful Norway, you need a peaceful world.” A a safer place for our children.1
Praiseworthy.
It is our evil nature to investigate the good deeds and we discover a coincidence: the very same year a Norwegian company, TGS-Nopec started seismic survey in the Mannar Basin in search of oil. From 2001 to 2006, the company amassed very promising data. The press release are nothing less than enthusiastic.
LTTE’s leader Prabhakaran with Norway’s envoy Mr Solheim.
Photo/Tamilnet
We don’t want to draw unnecessary conclusions. In scientific thinking you need to be very careful of two facts happening in the same time. Imposing causality or correlation could be in the eyes of the beholder. We see a strong effort by Norway to support the independence claim of a group of rebels. It is important to distinguish between LTTE and Tamil nationalism. The legitimacy of Tamil independence is not the subject. The debate concerns the fairness of giving such support to an organization that committed many heinous crimes. The Sri Lankan state is equally responsible of atrocities, with aggravating circumstances of being a governmental entity. The point is that Norway made a bold decision.
At the same time it is important to recall that Norway is a powerhouse in offshore drilling, with a first class expertise in the field. The Mannar Basin in Sri Lanka presents matchable conditions.
The peace process run in parallel with the oil exploration. And when the peace talks collapsed, so did the survey campaign.
Erik Solheim with workers of the oil sector
Erik Solheim, the man sent by Norway to negotiate the peace, was first a special envoy. In 2005 he was promoted Minister for International Development, with responsibility of leading the Oil for Development program, Norad2. In this job he visited Ghana3 Sudan4, Angola5 with the clear purpose of consulting, advising, lobbying the oil sector for Norway. The Norwegian model of development is one of the most advanced, ethical and sustainable, so they are giving recommendations from a fair perspective. Yet, they are advising also on their own interest, to promote the Norwegian oil industry. This is the game of a governmental organization and it is neither good, nor bad. If your actions will cause harm, it will be negative. Positive otherwise.
Anti-Norway protest in Colombo.
Photo AP
The only anomaly in this series is the role of Sri Lanka: the Norwegian envoy is clearly working with an agenda driven by oil. But in Sri Lanka they allegedly acted as mere neutral observers with a only humanitarian purpose. I’m sure that Norway is advocating transparency and good practices in all the countries it is visiting in its oil for development programme. Therefore I’m sure that they welcome this insight about this activity,they forget to mention. An accidental omission. I consider this quite important for two reasons. First: was the role of Norway dispassionate? Were they working to bring peace amongst Sinhalese and Tamils or their priority was to get their hands on the oil? Their strategy to support the Tamil separatism was for the good of the Tamils or just to have a privileged partnership with a newly created state, which owned everything to them?
The second is that oil is a factor in Sri Lanka. Maybe it is only a secondary one. Yet nobody is discussing it. In the case of Norway, oil probably played a big part. Then it is our duty to investigate more about the connection of oil in the Mannar Basin with the IV Eelam War. Follow us and remember: you heard here for the first time.
A Sri Lankan Quest 