Since there has been lot of talk in these forums about M.I.A’s use of lyrics and imagery related to the war in Srilanka, here is what she wrote recently about the war. (Note: I can’t trace the original source of this article so I can’t vouch for the authenticity). She makes some very valid points. Defeating terrorism must not be at cost of civilian killings

The editor of a Sri Lankan weekly newspaper and his wife have been assaulted in Colombo in the latest of a series of attacks on journalists. Reporters on the Rivira weekly say four men on motorcycles blocked Upali Tennakoon’s car and attacked the couple with iron rods and other weapons. The pair are in a stable condition. The attack comes two weeks after top editor Lasantha Wickramatunga was shot dead.

a. There has been another All Party Conference that has been convened to deal with the ethnic issues which has been meeting again and again over the past several months and nothing has come out of it. This is not the first or the last time such groups have been convened either.

b. Other journalists who have reported on the defense issues have left SL in the past few days since Wickramatunge was assasinated. By looking at the name I presume that three of them were ethnic Sinhalese and one of them was a Muslim.

c. Wickramatunge is a personal friend that SL President Rajapakse. (Rob, what does that tell about the future of Rajapakse’s Tamil friends??)

d. The Defense minister and brother of the President, Gotabaya Rajapakse, has said that the recent attack on the MTV station was just an excuse of the owners to reclaim insurance money. A news director at MTV who gave an interview to CNN which implied government’s hands on the incident is being sought by investigators (and believed to have left the country too). This news director, Chevan Daniels, is an ethnic Tamil and G. Rajapakse has given an interview calling him ‘a tiger’.

I think LTTE terrorism is just the current excuse of those in power in Sri Lanka…

If there is a inquest in the future they need to be digged up.

Background on Lasantha Some interesting nuggets *He was a politician as well. *Recently He tried a blackmail Ruaf Hakeem ,the Muslim Congress leader to vote with UNP (using an extra marital affair). *As mentioned in the article he was a brilliant investigative journalist due to his connections.

Something else to chew on…She was a topic on this site before… She correctly terms it as genocide exclusive-interview-mia-20090112

She’s veered hard into proclaiming her tamilness in that article, why? Because it’s a brown mag? barely a mention of the sri lankan situation from her in any western press.

I wouldn’t limit that to civilians in the northeast. Civilians in the capital and other parts of the country, too. Those Tamils who were forcibly evacuated from Colombo. Lasantha Wickaramatunga, whom, need I repeat this again? WAS ASSASSINATED. In broad daylight. On the street. In his car. During rush hour.

To think only of Tamils in Colombo is, indeed, a “keyhole view” (and indeed, from what you’ve said, the population you refer to is part of a special elite; they are part of a political process certainly, but their rights should not be privileged to the exclusion of others). There are Tamils (and others!) all over the country willing to have political discussions NOW, even with the LTTE a player, and they are not being acknowledged (except for being abused). Furthermore, what about other minority communities in Sri Lanka? I’m not “taking offense,” but you’re not addressing my point: why should the government wait to have talks with people who are not engaged in military action against them? How can you justify your faith in the government for these hypothetically “reasonable” future talks?

Analogies to other situations and countries are useful, but only to a point. The situation is particular and specific to the country and its history.

You all might be interested in this, the Time magazine piece about LW.

Rahul, Your semntics are quite good, actually!

Yes, I agree 100% that looking at problems through the Israel/Palestinian lens is not useful. I make the mistake myself, sometimes, but–I agree–way more distracting than illuminating!