Now, when most people in the West think of suicide bombings, they almost invariably think of Islamist organizations. Hence, suicide bombings have come to be associated with Islam, at least in the public eye.
This is terribly unfair to the Hindu Tamil Tigers, who have single-handedly committed more suicide bombings than any Islamist organization, and deserve credit (along with Hizbollah) for pioneering the strategy (which studies show is generally effective against democracies).
While the Tigers are not active in India, they waged a 30 year civil war in neighboring Sri Lanka against the dominant Sinhalese ethnic majority to create a separate state.
The Tigers are a particularly nasty bunch, who ran the whole gambit from kidnappings, assassinations, using child soldiers, and the occasional bout of ethnic cleansing. Moreover, they derive substantial funding from Tamil expats around the world.
By 2002, they controlled a significant portion of the island in the north. But beginning in 2008, the Sri Lankan government launched a major offensive against the guerrillas. By May 2009, the entire island came under government control and the LTTE was vanquished.
The eradication of the LTTE is often talked about in Indian newspapers, especially in reference to India's own Naxalite insurgency. But it is used as a negative example: to destroy the Tigers, the Sri Lankan government targeted innocent Tamil civilians, and its post-operation plans were (and are) abysmal.
The example of the LTTE raises pertinent questions for India: How can the government separate the location population from fighters? How should it balance the need for military security with the need to win the hearts and minds of local people? What should it do if the population simply does not consider the government to be legitimate? How do you heal after a civil war?
Tough questions with no right answers.
0 comments:
Post a Comment