Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Black Tigers, Bronze Lotus: The Evolution and Dynamics of Sri Lanka's Strategies of Dirty War

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 36; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1057610x.2013.793617

1521-0731

Shyam Selvadurai, M.L.R. Smith,

Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East

AbstractAlthough much has been written on the Sri Lankan state's civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), less has been said about how the conflict's dynamics evolved. How did the parties come to utilize the methods they did? Why did the war become so brutal, characterized by a predisposition toward extreme violence on both sides? Using the typology of “dirty war,” this investigation seeks to address such questions, demonstrating how the strategic choices of the main belligerents shaped the conflict. The analysis shows that while the conflict emerged out of deep-rooted social and ethnic divisions, these factors do not account for how the war came to be defined so comprehensively by the methods of dirty war. It finds that dirty war developed from a sporadic tactic to advance political goals to dominant military practice by a reciprocal process of escalation that eventually internalized dirty war as the accepted mode of strategic communication. NotesTerrence Malick (Screenplay), The Thin Red Line (Dir: Terrence Malick) (U.S.: Geisler Roberdeau-Phoenix Pictures/20th Century Fox, 1998).International Crisis Group (ICG), The Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora after the LTTE, Asia Report 186, 23 February 2010, pp. 1–2.M. L. R. Smith and Sophie Roberts, “War in the Gray: Exploring the Concept of Dirty War,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 31(5) (2008), pp. 377–398.Carl von Clausewitz, On War (trans and eds. Michael Howard, Peter Paret, and Beatrice Heuser) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 13.Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff, Documents on the Laws of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 484.Smith and Roberts, “War in the Gray,” p. 382.Ibid., pp. 385, 389.Theo Farrell, “World Culture and Military Power,” Security Studies 14(3) (2005), pp. 450.Colin Gray, “National Style in Strategy: The American Example,” International Security 6(2) (1981), p. 22; Alastair Iain Johnston, “Thinking About Strategic Culture,” International Security 19(4) (1995), p. 46.M. L. R. Smith and John Stone, “Explaining Strategic Theory,” Infinity Journal 4 (2011), pp. 27–30.Robert N. Kearney, “Ethnic Conflict and the Tamil Separatist Movement in Sri Lanka,” Asian Survey 25(9) (1985), pp. 898–917.Gordon Weiss, The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers (London: Bodley Head, 2011), Kindle Edition, location 1111–1126; K. M. de Silva, History of Sri Lanka (New Delhi: Penguin, 2005), p. 368.K. M. de Silva, “Affirmative Action Policies: The Sri Lankan Experience,” Ethnic Studies Report 15(2) (1997), pp. 245–287.N. Gunasinghe, “Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka: Perceptions and Solutions,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 6(2) (1986), pp. 34–37.de Silva, History of Sri Lanka, p. 483.Ibid., pp. 644–647.Weiss, The Cage, location 165.de Silva, History of Sri Lanka, pp. 581–585.Ibid., p. 618.Ibid., p. 474.Weiss, The Cage, location 1247.de Silva, History of Sri Lanka, p. 642Ibid., pp. 645–647.Weiss, The Cage, location 1216.de Silva, History of Sri Lanka, p. 659.Kearney, “Ethnic Conflict,” p. 902.John Richardson, Paradise Poisoned: Learning about Conflict, Terrorism and Development from Sri Lanka's Civil Wars (Kandy, Sri Lanka: International Centre for Ethnic Studies 2005), pp. 32–33.Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) Battle-Related Deaths Dataset v.5–2011 (Uppsala University), 3 August 2011. Available at http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/datasets/ucdp_battle-related_deaths_dataset/ (accessed 3 January 2012).University of Maryland, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), Global Terrorism Database Retrieved (GTD), 2012. Available at http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?chart=casualties&casualties_type=&casualties_max=&perpetrator=457 (accessed 7 October 2012).Ibid.Series compiled using data from Amnesty International Annual Reports, Human Rights Watch World Reports, US State Department Annual Reports on Human Rights, supplemented with data quoted in Weiss, The Cage.See Rohan Gunaratna, Sri Lanka: A Lost Revolution? The Inside Story of the JVP (Kandy, Sri Lanka: Institute of Fundamental Studies, 1990), p. 110.Tisaranee Gunasekara, “Insurrectionary Violence in Sri Lanka: The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Insurgencies of 1971 and 1987–1989,” Ethnic Studies Report 18(1) (1999), p. 66; M. P. Moore, “Thoroughly Modern Revolutionaries: The JVP in Sri Lanka,” Modern Asian Studies 27(3) (1993), p. 593.Gunasekara, “Insurrectionary Violence in Sri Lanka: The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Insurgencies of 1971 and 1987–1989,” p. 66.de Silva, “Affirmative Action,” p. 252.M. R. Narayan Swamy, Inside an Elusive Mind: Prabhakaran (Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2008), p. 33.Ibid., p. 37.Ibid., p. 40.Rajan Hoole, Daya Somasundaram, K. Sritharan, and Rajani Thiranagama, The Broken Palmyra—The Tamil Crisis in Sri Lanka: An Inside Account (Jaffna: University Teachers for Human Rights, 1990), section 2.3. Available at http://www.uthr.org/BP/Content.htm (accessed 7 October 2012).de Silva, History of Sri Lanka, pp. 692–695.Weiss, The Cage, location 1896.Swamy, Inside an Elusive Mind, p. 119.Weiss, The Cage, location 1593.Ibid., location 1606.Hakirat Singh, Intervention in Sri Lanka: The IPKF Experience Retold (New Delhi: Manohar, 2007), pp. 24–25; Alan Bullion, “The Indian Peace-Keeping Force in Sri Lanka,” International Peacekeeping 1(2) (1994), pp. 149–150.Gunaratna, Sri Lanka, p. 238.Swamy, Inside an Elusive Mind, p. 123, 153.Anita Pratap, Island of Blood: Frontline Reports from Sri Lanka, and Other South Asian Flashpoints (New Delhi: Penguin, 2002), p. 101.Amnesty International, Amnesty International Annual Report 1985 (London: Amnesty International, 1985), p. 243.Swamy, Inside an Elusive Mind, p. 122.U.S. Department of State, Sri Lanka Human Rights Practices, 1995 (Washington, DC, March 1996). Available at http://web.archive.org/web/20070310183105/http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/erc/democracy/1995_hrp_report/95hrp_report_sasia/SriLanka.html (accessed 15 January 2013).Swamy, Inside an Elusive Mind, p. 154.Ibid., p. 157.Ibid., pp. 167–173.Pratap, Island of Blood, p. 82.Swamy, Inside an Elusive Mind, pp. 208–209.Gunaratna, Sri Lanka, p. 269.Weiss, The Cage, location 1717.Pratap, Island of Blood, p. 117.Stephen Hopgood, “Tamil Tigers, 1987–2002,” in Diego Gambetta, ed., Making Sense of Suicide Missions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 50.Ibid., pp. 60–67.Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), p. 141.Luca Ricolfi, “Palestinians, 1981–2003,” in Gambetta, Making Sense of Suicide Missions, p. 81.Swamy, Inside an Elusive Mind, p. 209.Swamy, Inside an Elusive Mind, pp. 252–254.Ricolfi, “Palestinians, 1981–2003,” p. 256.Weiss, The Cage, location 242.Swamy, Inside an Elusive Mind, p. 261.M. R. Narayan Swamy, The Tiger Vanquished: LTTE's Story (New Delhi: SAGE, 2010), pp. xxvi–xxix.Zachariah Mampilly, “A Marriage of Inconvenience: Tsunami Aid and the Unraveling of the LTTE and the GoSL's Complex Dependency,” Civil Wars 11(3) (2009), p. 310.Weiss, The Cage, location 2329.ICG, Sri Lanka's Human Rights Crisis, Asia Report 135, 14 June 2007, p. 7.United Nations, Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, Civil and Political Rights, Including the Question of Disappearances and Summary Executions, Report of the Special Rapporteur, Philip Alston, Mission to Sri Lanka (20 November 2005 to 6 December 2005), 7 March 2006, p. 8. Available at http://www.extrajudicialexecutions.org/application/media/2005%20mission%20to%20Sri%20Lanka.pdf (accessed 7 October 2012).Karuna was a pseudonym, his real name was Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan.Jonathan Goodhand, Bart Klem, and Gunnar Sørbø, Pawns of Peace: Evaluation of Norwegian Peace Efforts in Sri Lanka, 1997–2009, Report 5/2011, Oslo: Norad Evaluation Department, 2011, p. 50.Ibid., p. 42.United Nations, Civil and Political Rights, p. 16.ICG, Sri Lanka's Human Rights Crisis, p. 7.Swamy, The Tiger Vanquished, pp. xxxvii–xliii.Mampilly, “A Marriage of Inconvenience,” p. 314.Weiss, The Cage, location 268.European Union Election Observation Mission, Sri Lanka Presidential Election 17 November 2005 Final Report (2005) pp. 2–3, 29. Available at http://www.eeas.europa.eu/eueom/pdf/missions/final_report-srilanka-2005_en.pdf (accessed 8 October 2012).Ibid., p. 28.BBC News, “Hardliner Wins Sri Lanka Election,” 18 November 2005. Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4447794.stm (accessed 8 October 2012).Weiss, The Cage, location 268.University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), “Special Report 29: The Second Fascist Front in Sri Lanka—Towards Crushing the Minorities and Disenfranchising the Sinhalese,” 21 February 2008. Available at http://www.uthr.org/SpecialReports/spreport29.htm#_Toc191332105 (accessed 30 October 2012).Amnesty International, Amnesty International Annual Report 2009 (London: Amnesty International, 2009), p. 29.Weiss, The Cage, location 2484.V. K. Shashikumar, “Lessons from the War in Sri Lanka,” Indian Defense Review, 24(3) (2009) p. 9. Available at www.mbc.edu/faculty/gbowen/LessonsFromTheWarInSriLanka.do (accessed 8 October 2012).Weiss, The Cage, location 268.United Nations, Report of the Secretary-General's Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka, 31 March 2011, p. iii. Available at http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/Sri_Lanka/POE_Report_Full.pdf (accessed 8 October 2012).Channel 4, “Sri Lanka's Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished,” Broadcast 14 March 2012. Available at http://www.channel4.com/programmes/sri-lankas-killing-fields/episode-guide/series-2/episode-1Ministry of Defence, Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, Humanitarian Operation and Factual Analysis, July 2006–May 2009, July 2011, p. 85. Available at http://slembassyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Sri-Lankan-Humanitarian-Operation-Factual-Analysis.pdf (accessed 8 October 2012).Office of the President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation, 15 November 2011, p. 120. Available at http://www.priu.gov.lk/news_update/Current_Affairs/ca201112/FINAL%20LLRC%20REPORT.pdf (accessed 9 October 2012).Ibid., pp. 338–354.Ibid., pp. 328–329.Smith and Roberts, “War in the Gray,” p. 382.Tamil Eelam, “LTTE—Publications: A Struggle for Justice” (2007). Available at http://www.eelam.com/armed-struggle-for-self-determination.jsp (accessed 9 October 2012). Weiss, The Cage, location 1934.Tamilnation.org, “Velupillai Prabhakaran—Leader of Tamil Eelam,” 28 August 2007. Available at Tamilnation.org: http://tamilnation.co/ltte/vp/index.htm (accessed 10 September 2012).Hoole et al., The Broken Palmyra, section 2.3.Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Basic Principles on the Use of Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, 7 September 1990. Available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/firearms.htm (accessed 9 October 2012).Swamy, Inside an Elusive Mind, p. 48.United Nations, Civil and Political Rights, p. 16.Nira Wickramasinghe, Sri Lanka in the Modern Age: A History of Contested Identities (London: Hurst, 2006), pp. 182–193, 252–275.Human Rights Watch, World Report 2008 (New York: Human Rights Watch 2008), p. 331. Available at http://www.hrw.org/legacy/wr2k8/pdfs/wr2k8_web.pdf (accessed 20 October 2012).Shashikumar, “Lessons from the War in Sri Lanka,” pp. 8–13.“Full text of V. Parabhakaran, leader, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on annual Heroes Day on 27 November 2008,” The Hindu. Available at http://www.hindu.com/nic/prabhakaranspeech.htm (accessed 12 May 2013).R. D. Crelinsten, “Analysing Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: A Communication Model,” Terrorism and Political Violence 14(2) (2002), pp. 77–122; Alex P. Schmid, “Frameworks for Conceptualising Terrorism,” Terrorism and Political Violence 16(2) (2004), pp. 197–221.Clausewitz, On War, p. 5.Ibid., p. 5.Colin Gray, “Strategic Culture as Context: The First Generation of Theory Strikes Back,” Review of International Studies 25(1) (1999), p. 51.Swamy, Inside an Elusive Mind, pp. 42–51.Ibid., p. 92.M. R. Hoole, “The Tamil Secessionist Movement in Sri Lanka (Ceylon): A Case of Secession by Default?” University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), 2001. Available at http://www.uthr.org/Rajan/selfdet.htm (accessed 12 December 2011).Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, p. 141David Dunham and Sisira Jayasuriya, “Equity, Growth and Insurrection: Liberalization and the Welfare Debate in Contemporary Sri Lanka,” Oxford Development Studies 28(1) (2000), pp. 97–110.Gregory F. Treverton, Covert Action: The Limits of Intervention in the Postwar World (New York: Basic Books, 1987), pp. 124–143; Smith and Roberts, “War in the Grey,” p. 389.Roberts and Guelff, Documents on the Laws of War, p. 481, 667.David Lewis, “The Failure of a Liberal Peace: Sri Lanka's Counter-Insurgency in Global Perspective,” Conflict, Security and Development 10(5) (2010), p. 652.United Nations, Civil and Political Rights, p. 13.University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), “Special Report No 18: Political Killings and Sri Lanka's Stalled Peace,” 28 March 2005, p. 15. Available at http://www.uthr.org/SpecialReports/spreport18.htm#Newintro (accessed 12 December 2011).University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), “Special Report 34: Let Them Speak: Truth about Sri Lanka's Victims of War,” 13 December 2009. Available at http://www.uthr.org/SpecialReports/Special%20rep34/Uthr-sp.rp34.htm (accessed 12 December 2011).Goodhand, Klem, and Sørbø, Pawns of Peace, pp. 139–140.Rohan Gunaratna, “Internationalisation of the Tamil Conflict (and its implications),” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 20(1) (1997), pp. 119–152.Human Rights Watch, “Sri Lanka: Events 2006,” World Report 2007, 11 January 2011. Available at http://www.hrw.org/legacy/englishwr2k7/docs/2007/01/11/slanka14837.htm (accessed 12 December 2011).Human Rights Watch, “Sri Lanka: Events 2007,” World Report 2008, 31 January 2008. Available at http://www.hrw.org/legacy/englishwr2k8/docs/2008/01/31/slanka17626.htm (accessed 12 December 2012).Lewis, “The Failure of a Liberal Peace,” p. 657.Weiss, The Cage, location 2351.Shashikumar, “Lessons from the War in Sri Lanka,” p. 12.Goodhand, Klem, and Sørbø, Pawns of Peace, p. 120.Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 2000), p. 24.University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), “The Tamil Liberation Struggle,” March 1993. Available at http://www.uthr.org/Rajan/Liberation.htm (accessed 12 December 2012).See for example Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (eBook) (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia, 2010). Available at http://xroads.virginia.edu/∼Hyper2/CDFinal/Lippman/cover.html (accessed 8 October 2012).de Silva, History of Sri Lanka, p. 640, 644.Swamy, Inside an Elusive Mind, p. 44, 74.Jayadeva Uyangoda, Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka: Changing Dynamics (Washington, DC: East-West Center 2007), p. 45. Available at http://www.eastwestcenter.org/sites/default/files/private/PS032.pdf (accessed 8 October 2012).Swamy, Inside an Elusive Mind, p. 27.Ibid, p. 138.Ibid., pp. 119–122.Ibid. See also Pratap, Island of Blood.Wickramasinghe, Sri Lanka in the Modern Age, p. 265.ICG, The Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora, pp. 4–5.Ibid., pp. 1–2.Hoole, “The Tamil Secessionist Movement.”Rohan Gunaratna, “A Post-War Challenge for Sri Lanka: Dismantling the LTTE Overseas and Rebuilding a Sri Lankan Identity,” Asian Tribune, 5 August 2010. Available at http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2010/08/05/post-%E2%80%93-war-challenge-sri-lanka-dismantling-ltte-overseas-and-rebuilding-sri-lankan-i (accessed 9 October 2012).Gunaratna, Sri Lanka, p. x.Ibid, p. 232.Weiss, The Cage, location 3795.Mampilly, “A Marriage of Inconvenience,” pp. 306, 315.ICG, Sri Lanka's Human Rights Crisis, p. 7.Goodhand, Klem, and Sørbø, Pawns of Peace p. 124.Ministry of Defence and Urban Development, Sri Lanka, “Gotabaya Rajapaksa RWP RSP psc MSc” (2009). Available at http://www.defence.lk/main_abt.asp?fname=SoD (accessed 9 February 2012).Weiss, The Cage, location 1736.See BBC Hard talk, ‘Democracy Sri Lankan-Style,” 10 June 2010. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= k5LMco_Zcfg (accessed 9 October 2012).Weiss, The Cage, location 623.Shashikumar, “Lessons from the War in Sri Lanka,” pp. 8–13.Lionel Beehner, “What Sri Lanka Can Teach Us About COIN,” Small Wars Journal 6(8) (2010), p. 6. Available at smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/513-Beehner.pdf (accessed 2 October 2012); Sergei DeSilva-Ranasinghe, “Strategic Analysis of Sri Lankan Military's Counter-Insurgency Operations,” Future Directions International, Strategic Analysis Paper, 12 February 2010. Available at http://www.futuredirections.org.au/files/1266992558-FDIStrategicAnalysisPaper-12February2010.pdf (accessed 18 January 2013).Beehner, “What Sri Lanka Can Teach Us About COIN,” pp. 6–7; DeSilva-Ranasinghe, “Strategic Analysis of Sri Lankan Military's Counter-Insurgency Operations,” pp. 4–5.Shashikumar, “Lessons from the War in Sri Lanka,” p. 11.Clausewitz, On War, p. 18.James Crabtree, “Sri Lanka Appoints New Chief Justice,” Financial Times, 15 January 2013. Available at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ef4724ea-5f26-11e2-9f18-00144feab49a.html#axzz2ISQ0gEn8 (accessed 18 January 2013); Special Correspondent, “Academicians Express Solidarity with Protesting Sri Lanka Teachers,” The Hindu, 6 October 2012. Available at http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/academicians-express-solidarity-with-protesting-sri-lanka-teachers/article3969441.ece (accessed 18 January 2013).See Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 2011 (London: Amnesty International, 2011).Clausewitz, On War, p. 14.Crelinsten, “Analysing Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism,” pp. 77–122.Smith and Stone, “Explaining Strategic Theory,” pp. 27–30.L. Wickramatunga, “And Then They Came For Me,” The Sunday Leader, 11 January 2009. Available at http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20090111/editorial-.htm (accessed 22 January 2012).Malick, The Thin Red Line.