From The Telegraph of Calcutta:
Washington, March 7: The Obama administration will sound out ... India’s support for a US-led invasion of Sri Lanka to evacuate nearly 200,000 Tamil civilians trapped inside territory controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam with precariously declining stocks of food or medicine.
Are we about to see Obama’s first war? Possibly.
But would it be a humanitarian mission to save lives; or would the US once again be sacrificing human rights and the fate of civilians for its own strategic self-interest?
From the Telegraph article:
The plan to be put before [Indian foreign secretary] Menon ... is for a marine expeditionary brigade attached to the US Pacific Command (PACOM) to go into Sri Lanka with the support of the US navy and air force, according to American sources.
A team from PACOM was in Colombo a fortnight ago to discuss the outlines of the plan with the Sri Lankan Army, these sources told The Telegraph.
At the time of the PACOM team’s visit, the US state department sent James Moore, deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Colombo, to Jaffna peninsula for an independent assessment of the situation there. Moore’s report is said to have persuaded Hillary Clinton’s state department to line up behind the idea of a US-led evacuation of Tamils.
As I type, pretty much the entire Tamil population of the north of Sri Lanka is trapped in a tiny pocket of territory in the north of the island, held hostage by the Tigers and shelled mercilessly and relentlessly by the Sri Lankan government.
The sustained levels of killing in Sri Lanka are on a scale that makes Israel’s assault on Gaza look like amateur hour. International Crisis Group:
UN agencies have documented more than 2300 civilian deaths and at least 6500 injuries since late January. More than 500 children have been killed and over 1400 injured.
If they are not killed by shells from their own government, or shot by the Tigers who claim to be fighting on their behalf, then there is a good chance the trapped civilians will die of hunger or disease in the near future. Those who make it out alive are destined for the huge, barbed-wire internment camps being prepared for them by the Sri Lankan government, where they will be kept indefinitely... for their own safety of course.
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At this point it might sound as though a humanitarian intervention would be a great idea. But the Tigers are essentially already defeated, a handful of them left, surrounded, unable to resupply or rearm. If the goal were to stop civilians from dying, the Sri Lankan military could achieve that by stopping the guns and getting in food supplies. Why accept a US intervention but not a US-backed ceasefire?
If the US sends in the marines, it gives Sri Lanka something very important: cover. America would be "liberating" the Tamils by delivering them into the government internment camps.
Sri Lanka has one of the worst human rights records, and engagement from the US would effectively endorse that record, vaporizing the leverage of the international community and potentially setting back the cause of real democracy and human rights in Sri Lanka by a generation.
And what would the US get in return? Well, Uncle Sam sees Sri Lanka as an important strategic piece on the South Asian board in the game of regional hegemony being played out with China.
For example, the PACOM Commander was in Sri Lanka a couple of months ago in a town called Trincomalee, which just so happens to boast one of the world’s biggest deepwater natural harbors. He was there ostensibly to lay a foundation stone at a primary school that the US military had donated. I’m pretty sure he had a couple of other things to chat about.
The US Navy has long been looking for access to a strategically located South Asian port for its Fifth Fleet, established in 1996 for permanent deployment in the Indian Ocean to bolster the US Middle East force.
The Sri Lankan government have denied any American interest, but in Trincomalee harbour, described by military analysts as the "jewel of the Indian Ocean", they certainly have such a port ready and waiting.
In this month’s Foreign Affairs, Robert Kaplan writes about the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean in the 21st century. He notes that China has already built a refuelling station on Sri Lanka’s south coast, whereas until now the "prospect of ethnic warfare has scared away US admirals from considering a base" on the island.
We already know that the US used the aftermath of the tragedy that was the Asian tsunami to establish a stronger military presence and to enhance its strategic allegiances in the South Asian region, in order to counter China’s influence. It is hard to argue with the view that it is currently positioning itself to do exactly the same with the aftermath of a bloody Sri Lankan conflict that is not yet over.
I understand the realities of geopolitics, but let’s hope that Obama can keep his hands clean for a little while longer yet.