{"id":117226,"date":"2013-12-22T00:39:07","date_gmt":"2013-12-21T19:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=117226"},"modified":"2013-12-28T13:02:44","modified_gmt":"2013-12-28T07:32:44","slug":"on-the-pace-and-substance-of-demilitarization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/on-the-pace-and-substance-of-demilitarization\/","title":{"rendered":"On The Pace And Substance Of Demilitarization"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Malinda Seneviratne<\/span><\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Malinda<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

The love that the British have for Sri Lanka is of such magnitude that one wonders if Sri Lankans should bother to love their country.\u00a0 They so loved this island, let us not forget, that they pillaged, burnt, robbed and perpetrated genocide and ethnic cleansing of a kind that even the LTTE<\/span> <\/a>in its most terrible days couldn\u2019t come close to matching.<\/p>\n

And so when the likes of David Miliband<\/span><\/a>, David Cameron<\/span><\/a> and Hugo Swire<\/span><\/a> wax lyrical about island-love, it\u2019s quite normal to shrug and smile.<\/p>\n

Just the other day, Hugo Swire, the Britsh Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth, made a speech in Parliament about Sri Lanka: \u2018Though military drawback is evident in some areas, we are concerned at military involvement in commercial and other civil activities, such as education, tourism, and agriculture, and the occupation of land in high security zones. We will continue to raise this issue with members of the Sri Lankan Government, and press the need for the military not to partake in civil activities.\u2019<\/p>\n

If Swire really wants to know the truth about militarization and de-militarization, then he should do two things. First, he should compare the \u2018what was\u2019 with \u2018what is\u2019.\u00a0 Here, in Sri Lanka, people know both.\u00a0 There in Britain, Swire doesn\u2019t have a clue and if the picture he has is what\u2019s offered by Tamil chauvinism, then we can\u2019t really help him.\u00a0 If he is ignorant and wishes to remain so, that\u2019s his problem.\u00a0 If he\u2019s pretending to sleep, nothing will wake him up.\u00a0 If he listens to the TNA, which claims that the Governor of the Northern Province knows about \u2018war crimes\u2019 and not about \u2018constitution\u2019, and doesn\u2019t bother to ask what the TNA knew, knows and will not reveal about complicity in terrorism, that\u2019s again his problem.<\/p>\n

Secondly, he should read a bit of history about post-conflict situations.\u00a0 He could scan the globe and start counting the number of military bases operated by Britain\u2019s mother country, that\u2019s the USA, in countries they have been at war with.\u00a0 He could check how many British troops are stationed outside his country and ask himself why. He will come up with a single word (an excuse, really): threat.\u00a0 Then he could ask himself a question about the goose, the gander and sauce.<\/p>\n

Not everyone in Britain thinks like Swire of course.\u00a0 Lord Tim Bell put it well: \u2018It’s a fashionable thing to criticize the way the Sri Lankan government has behaved. David Cameron had one meeting in the north of the country with 200 people who have lost relatives. You have to remember there was a 30-year civil war. The Tamil Tigers weren’t exactly gentle, nice people. And for Britain to ponce around the world talking about human rights after what we did in Afghanistan \u2026 <\/i><\/b>It’s what Winston Churchill called ‘our usual export’: hypocrisy.\u2019<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s leave Swire to his fancies and instead address the issue of the military and its involvement in commercial and other civil activities.<\/p>\n

Sri Lankan security forces fought a ruthless terrorist outfit.\u00a0 Sri Lanka is plagued by the operations of LTTE remnants as well as outfits loath to say anything wrong about the LTTE or other representatives or tacit supporters of Tamil chauvinism and extremism.\u00a0 Sri Lanka has learned the hard way that it is better to be safe rather than sorry.\u00a0 Sri Lankans and not the likes of Swire have to decide where to station her troops. Indeed, Sri Lankans and not Swire have to decide how best military personnel should be deployed in a post-conflict scenario.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s nice for countries like the UK and USA that are perpetually engaged in military operations in some corner of the world.\u00a0 Sri Lanka doesn\u2019t do \u2018invasion\u2019 and perforce must either go for a considerable downsizing of numbers (not safe, yet) or find alternative activity for military personnel.<\/p>\n

Throughout history, victorious armies have been dispatched to fight new \u2018enemies\u2019 (that\u2019s what the US\/UK has done and does even today).\u00a0 Sri Lanka lost close to 200,000 people over the last 40 years to two insurrections, the struggle to overcome the terrorist threat and the debilitating tsunami.\u00a0 An equal or larger number are employed overseas.\u00a0 There\u2019s a huge human resource problem.\u00a0 There\u2019s also a relatively idle set of able-bodied young men and women who have acquired specific non-military skills during the conflict and in post conflict relief and rehabilitation work.\u00a0 Nothing makes more sense that for these people to be deployed in non-military activity.\u00a0 We could have that, or we could start another war (like the USA\/UK did and does as though it\u2019s part of their national cultural ethos).\u00a0 Considering the very real problem of ex service personnel taking to crime, we could opt for that lovely eventuality too.<\/p>\n

We are in transition from military to civil.\u00a0 Does not and should not happen overnight and certainly not because some lackey of terrorism (certain elements within the TNA for example) want it and certainly not because some ignorant man in Britain is suffering from post-colonial angst.<\/p>\n

So, thank you Hugo Swire, but no.<\/p>\n

*Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of \u2018The Nation\u2019\u00a0and his articles can be found at\u00a0www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":105560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms"],"yoast_head":"\nOn The Pace And Substance Of Demilitarization - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/on-the-pace-and-substance-of-demilitarization\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On The Pace And Substance Of Demilitarization - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/on-the-pace-and-substance-of-demilitarization\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-12-21T19:09:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-12-28T07:32:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Malinda-Seneviratne-150x150.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"130\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"135\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/on-the-pace-and-substance-of-demilitarization\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/on-the-pace-and-substance-of-demilitarization\/\",\"name\":\"On The Pace And Substance Of Demilitarization - 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