How USA got into bed with the LTTE

About Daya Gamage”s Book “Tamil Tigers’ Debt to America”

   ISBN: 1537053485 …

ISBN 13: 9781537053486…..Library of Congress Control Number: 2016913508 … Copyright © 2016 Daya Gamage

This book gives a unique analyses and interpretation of Washington’s foreign policy adventurism using the insights the author gained during his tenure at the U.S. State Department. This insider’s account and alarming analysis have disclosed a development – largely due to Washington machinations – that enabled operative organizations within the Tamil Diaspora to replace the vanquished Tigers and diplomatically continue its secessionist agenda in Sri Lanka.

Washington’s disappointment in its failure to salvage Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger leadership – which it believed represented the sentiments of the minority Tamils – to use it as a pressure group to influence changes in Sri Lanka was thwarted by the movement’s annihilation in 2009. To avenge the foreign policy setback, Washington created a conducive atmosphere – through its foreign policy advocacy – that facilitated the emergence of a stronger, determined and more coordinated Tamil Diaspora – once effectively functioned to sustain the LTTE – as a global diplomatic movement.

One cannot recall in recent memory how a totally annihilated lethal terrorist movement along with its superior military power was resurrected and emerged as a global political movement with a determination to achieve the same objective – a separate state for the minority ethnic Tamils in the north-east region of Sri Lanka. The book’s disclosed link facilitates the readers to understand this scenario.

The Distinct Interpretation

The book separates from other existing ones on the subject in providing an unparalleled angle penetrating into Washington’s covert and overt maneuvers and designs aiding and abetting a global supportive instrument of a terrorist organization which is motivated to destabilize Sri Lanka. The analyses and interpretations, based on the author’s deep knowledge and insights gained during his tenure at the U.S. Department of State, not found in other works. The link the author discovered between Washington’s settled mindset developed in the 1980s and 1990s on Sri Lanka’s national issues, and post-2009 renaissance of the global supportive instrument of a terrorist group is unique to the readers. The interpretations and analyses of discovered evidence of this cohabitation, and Washington’s adventurism are aptly reflected in the title of the book: Tamil Tigers’ Debt to America: U.S. Foreign Policy Adventurism and Sri Lanka’s Dilemma.

The most striking in the manuscript is the U.S. State Department’s diplomatic maneuver, as the corner stone of its foreign policy, to lift the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora to an influential (global) position through its Diaspora Initiative Movement as an alternative to the militarily annihilated Tamil Tigers to influence changes in Sri Lanka.

Preface

An academic in a university in the United States, a Sri Lankan, who was deeply involved in counseling the Sri Lankan administration what lessons can be learned from the 26-year lethal separatist battle waged by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (a.k.a. Tamil Tigers) within the territory of the South Asian island of Sri Lanka –located 30 miles off the southern coast of India – displayed to this author in 2013 his disregard of the meaning on Washington’s foreign policy approaches to Sri Lankan issues since the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009. During the period when this author pursued discussions with him, Washington was heavily intervening in Sri Lanka’s national issues.

The author found that the books written by erudite professionals and academics with well researched analyses lacked a pivotal aspect: namely, Washington’s machinations on Sri Lanka’s ethnic minority issues, Government of Sri Lanka’s (GSLs) military onslaught on Tamil Tiger fighting cadre, war crimes, ethnic reconciliation and accountability for the deaths of thousands of unarmed civilians during the final months of the battle were in fact directly connected to Washington’s developed mindset and perspective of overall Sri Lankan national issues.

The author discloses that vital link: Washington’s foreign policy approaches, decisions and actions since the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009 to the developed perspectives during the 1980s and 1990, and their significance.

The author was in a position to disclose the link as he was working within the US-system to understand that both the Sri Lankan governing authority and those who were associated with it in bringing Sri Lanka back to normalcy were ignorant how a cohabitation between Washington and Tamil operatives – who were for more than 20 years sustaining the Tamil Tiger terrorism – within the global Tamil diaspora emerged due to that mindset and a creation of a conducive atmosphere for the latter to strategically engage in fostering the LTTEs prime objective: bifurcation of Sri Lanka to establish an independent, self-governed Tamil homeland in the Northern and Eastern regions of this South Asian island-nation.

Lack of understanding, by many, of how post-2009 events and developments and their direct links to Washington’s developed mindset in the 1980s and 1990s led to the production of this book.

INTRODUCTION

Foreign policy strategies of the United States are multifarious. The use of economic and military assistance over the decades has significantly helped it to further its foreign-policy goals. Food aid, one of which, through Public Law (PL) 480, has made Third World, underdeveloped, and developing nations deeply dependent, giving the United States the opportunity to place its foreign-policy agenda on those nations. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has become an effective foreign-policy instrument of the State Department, Congress, and the White House. In 2004, under the George Bush administration, the Millennium Challenge Grant for the Third World “selected” nations was started. All these cost the United States just 0.85 percent of its annual budget. Nevertheless, this investment has opened avenues for it to acquire broader influence in global affairs.

On occasion, the United States exercises its military supremacy to impose its brand of rule of law and governance. Frequently, it goes through the United Nations and its agencies to enforce international humanitarian law (IHL), international human rights law (IHRL), and other UN covenants on other nations to effect changes. For decades, the United States has been controlling the Political Office in the United Nations, the second-most powerful slot in the UN hierarchy, next to the UN secretary general, the Office of Under-Secretary-General (political). For decades, those who occupied that position were former senior officials of the State Department. They, obviously, work very closely with American officials to effect changes in foreign nations. In one of the chapters in this book, I disclose how US officials and officials in the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) collaborated to influence Sri Lanka in its governing structure.

With all these at the disposal of the United States, since late it has discovered a new foreign-policy tool to further its objectives: the ethnic diasporas. The Sri Lankan ethnic Tamil diaspora was impressively influential in building American perspective toward Sri Lanka during the disputes.

The State Department found that ethnic diasporas, most of which have become serious lobbying movements to bring changes to their motherlands, are receptive to its long-cherished democratic values such as human rights, rule of law, good governance, and democratic rule.

Ethnic diasporas in the United States have strategized their political agendas to fit into the foreign-policy priorities of the State Department. The DPA has become a good instrument through which the US foreign-policy planks are implemented.

In recent years the State Department and ethnic diasporas have emerged to play a pivotal role to influence and effect changes in other nations.

Since the conclusion of the civil war between the Sri Lankan military forces and the secessionist Tamil Tigers (LTTE) in May 2009 after twenty-six years, both the State Department and Sri Lankan expatriate Tamil diaspora were seen working closely to effect changes in postwar Sri Lanka.

What made the principal activists of the Tamil diaspora strategically gravitate toward the State Department was Washington’s conviction that the activists had become influential spokespersons of the 11 percent Tamil minority in Sri Lanka. The triumphalism of the government of Sri Lanka (GSL) since the domestic annihilation of the entire Tamil Tiger movement with its top leaders and the destruction of its sophisticated military structure gave the minority Tamils within this Indian Ocean island, as well as the Tamil expatriates who formed the global diasporas, a sense of defeat in the hands of the majority Sinhalese (74 percent) who largely control the GSL.

With that scenario, the “ownership” of the 11 percent Tamil minority in Sri Lanka was allowed to gravitate toward the activists of the diaspora because of the failure of the GSL to identify changes in the polity to strategically and systematically bring the minority Tamils into its fold. Professor Dina Titus, the US congresswoman representing the State of Nevada, during an interview with me for the Asian Tribune, highlighted the importance of bringing the minority Tamils into the mainstream.

This trend in postwar Sri Lanka was a new experience to the US Department of State to open its ears to the “new owners” of the “Tamil voice.”

The agenda of the State Department, in which Tamil grievances are well underscored, was to bring reconciliation in postwar Sri Lanka between the two ethnic communities through the promotion of human rights, rule of law, and good governance.

In contrast, the activists of the Tamil diaspora were well-known professionals who maintained close links with the leadership of the Tamil Tigers, providing material support in the form of legal advice, raising funds to sustain the secessionist war, and aiding and abetting the procurement of military hardware for the fighting cadre of the movement.

With the domestic defeat, the struggle for a separate state moved elsewhere—as a global diplomatic offensive. A conducive political atmosphere emerged to embrace the diplomatic maneuver.

Thus, American foreign-policy objectives and the strategic diplomatic agenda of the Tamil diaspora activists coincided well to bring Sri Lanka toward global scrutiny. Issues that emerged were alleged human-rights abuses and civilian deaths during the final stage of the intense battle, leading to allegations of war crimes. The United States focused on violation of IHL and IHRL while also specifically focusing on broader grievances of the Tamil minority.

No attempt had been previously made to focus on the issue of the Tamil diaspora playing a role in American foreign policy prior to or since the defeat of the LTTE and the US State Department positioning itself to accommodate the global diplomatic agenda of the LTTE operatives. I decided to give special emphasis to the issue in writing this book. The diaspora role led the United States to make Sri Lanka a foreign-policy issue. It led to being an issue in UNHRC, Geneva. This trajectory then led to the emergence of American foreign-policy adventurism. This book gives a serious scrutiny to that adventurism.

As much as the Tamil diaspora strategized to go through the offices of the State Department, this book gives a significant focus on how the American foreign policy plays through diasporic elite to influence policy planks in Sri Lanka, unintentionally supporting an agenda the GSL, and the world at large, thought was buried with the domestic demise of the LTTE. With that, the American foreign-policy trajectory toward Sri Lanka was seen positioning itself on a path of adventurism. The basis of this book is that narrative.

I was extremely close to this issue, knowledgeable of how the American foreign policy was developed on issues this book discusses, and closely observed how the US foreign service officers (FSOs) handled them and developed their mind-set over a period of twenty-five years—1970 through 1994—as the American diplomatic mission’s public affairs, public diplomacy, and strategic communication specialist working closely with officials assigned to Sri Lanka and Washington, engaging in investigation, research, and analyses. Often attending briefings, discussions, spirited discourses, and sessions of analytical exchanges in the Executive Office of the Ambassador—participated by senior officials of the mission—broadened my knowledge and understanding of the State Department’s approach to Sri Lanka’s national issues and how Washington and FSOs strategized to influence the policy planks of successive Sri Lankan administrations. The impact of all these has been quite visible since the military defeat of the Tamil Tigers in 2009. Currently, as the US national correspondent to the online daily newspaper the Asian Tribune and its political analyst over a decade, I have been closely monitoring, scrutinizing, researching, and analyzing to acquire a broad knowledge on this issue to disseminate my understanding. As the issues were timely and current, I was motivated to write the book, having had the long experience gained during my professional association with the US Department of State.

All the emphasis so far, by numerous scholars and media outlets, has been laid on how the Eelam war was won with the conclusion of the twenty-six-year war, and on the impressive economic and infrastructural development undertaken in the predominantly Tamil districts in the once-war-torn North and East of Sri Lanka. There were also wide discussions of presidential commissions and their outcome, and what have and what have not been achieved on the issue of reconciliation between the two ethnic communities. The Tamil diaspora and its activists were definitely discussed by many but never connected, along with their strategy and maneuvers, to US foreign-policy objectives. It is true that the operatives within the Tamil diaspora influenced the policy planks of the State Department, but Washington adopted its own agenda, which this author has identified as foreign-policy adventurism.

What I have compiled and written here is the progressive development of the American policy on Sri Lanka’s national issues, the impact of the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, and the significance of the emergence of its once-global supportive arm—the Tamil diaspora—as a diplomatic network. I discuss here the significant element the American foreign policy played during the existence of and since the military defeat of the Tigers, and its impact on Sri Lanka as a sovereign nation. This book has endeavored to combine all these to give analyses and interpretations in a different perspective touching the issue of American foreign-policy adventurism.

I take a different approach in this book focusing on Sri Lankan issues, Tamil diaspora strategy and maneuvers, US foreign-policy adventurism, which led the United Nations to play a significant role connecting the unnoticed links that have had a lasting impact on postwar Sri Lanka.

CONTENTS IN A NUTSHELL

This is a political analysis that will unearth the manner in which the US Department of State strategically teamed up with the Tamil diaspora declaring its intention of restoring human rights, rule of law, and good governance in postwar Sri Lanka. The book gives a cogent analysis of how that trajectory of the United States turned out to be a foreign-policy adventurism. It teamed up with the UN Department of Political Affairs (UNDPA), the second-highest position in the UN system, which is controlled by Washington American officials, in this adventurist endeavor.

The book discusses and analyzes the unintended consequences caused by the actions of the US Department of State that gave fillip to secessionist elements within the Tamil diaspora—the elements that replaced the lethal LTTE movement with an even more powerful diplomatic movement—to gradually and systematically delegitimize the Sri Lankan state, gaining an influential voice in Western capitals.

The book will critically look at the role played by the onetime material supporters and collaborators of Sri Lanka’s secessionist militant movement, who assumed the leadership of the ethnic Tamil diaspora to strategically become the voice of the ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka. In doing so, the strategists within the Tamil diaspora were able to move closer to the US State Department and become guiding lights to other Western nations while influencing the agenda of the United Nations. Washington’s settled policy toward Sri Lankan issues created a perfect atmosphere for both to work together, influencing each other’s policy objectives.

Since the Rajapaksa government launched its unceasing military offensive against the highly militarized LTTE in June 2006, I have very closely monitored and observed the public affairs and public-diplomacy campaign of the pro-LTTE activists in both the United States and the EU countries that drew the attention of policymakers and lawmakers of the Western nations, and the manner in which their diplomatic campaign intensified since the defeat of the separatist movement in May 2009.

I brought forward the understanding, broad knowledge, and critical thinking acquired during my professional association with the State Department to comprehend the nuances of this grand design.

I have extensively documented in this presentation that the government of Sri Lanka was partly responsible due to its missteps and lapses and its inability to comprehend how the American system worked, allowing the activists of the Tamil diaspora to create an anti-Sri Lanka atmosphere in global power centers, which resulted in US policymakers and lawmakers to be convinced that the voice of the Sri Lankan Tamils was within the diaspora. The FSOs who served in the US diplomatic mission in Colombo and their counterparts in Washington had their mind-set tuned to believe that, despite the LTTE being designated an FTO in 1997, it largely represented the aspirations of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka as Washington was widely convinced that the GSL’s controlling and influential elements were “Sinhalese nationalists.” The mind-set developed during the final two decades in the last millennium by State Department officials coupled with the emerged scenario before and since the defeat of the Tigers in 2009 in the new millennium and the role played by the operatives within the Tamil diaspora influenced the Tamil diaspora activist movement to replace the LTTE as the vanguard of Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils and receive the acceptance of the United States and many EU nations.

It was quite apparent, in the role the State Department played from the early 1980s until the organization’s total defeat in May 2009, that America’s overall policy did not favor a total annihilation of the LTTE but a controlled and disarmed outfit brought into the democratic mainstream, strongly believing that the outfit in fact represented the sentiments and aspirations of the Tamil people and could be transformed into a political pressure group to influence policy frameworks of the GSL. The book carries strong evidence to that effect. Washington’s utmost disappointment led to the recognition of the operatives within the Tamil diaspora as a splendid alternative to influence changes in Sri Lanka. Never in recent history has a totally annihilated militaristic lethal terrorist movement been replaced by a politico-diplomatic movement—adopting the same objectives—with tacit recognition and approval by Western power centers, in this case with the United States taking the primary role.

I have had the opportunity to observe the early evolution of the mind-set of the FSOs during the period from 1980 through 1995 as their political specialist—with near-midlevel security clearance, nevertheless benefiting from highly sensitive discourses with the FSOs—in the Colombo-US diplomatic mission on issues faced by the 11 percent ethnic Tamils; the heated debate in this South Asian nation about the issues surrounding devolution of administrative powers to the predominantly Tamil districts; the engagement of American diplomatic corps in the discourses of those issues; the resistance of Sinhalese nationalist elements in successive governments preventing the resolution of such national issues; and the role played by Washington and its diplomatic mission in Colombo to influence policy changes during those years. These are all well documented in this book.

The early (1980 through 1995) development of American perspective toward Sri Lanka’s national issues is recorded at the outset of this presentation. It evaluates the subsequent US policy approaches in handling significant issues in Sri Lanka, the US FSOs’ interaction with the activists within the Tamil diaspora, how the minds of the US and Tamil diaspora elements found common grounds on issues related to Sri Lanka and her minority Tamil population, and the Tamil diaspora activists’ strategic engagement with American policymakers and lawmakers. These are all given broad coverage using my personal knowledge, which led to extensive research.

Despite different objectives in the agendas of the US State Department and the Tamil diaspora activists, they shared similar principles to “internationalize” domestic issues of Sri Lanka, connecting those to Geneva Covenants drawing the UN secretary general’s office into the process because of the steady involvement of the UN Department of Political Affairs, whose top officials were former seasoned State Department personnel.

The author has recognized the US State Department’s well-established foreign-policy goals as safeguarding, encouraging, and improving human rights overseas; helping improve and consolidate rule of law and good governance; and monitoring violation of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL). To achieve these goals, the United States constantly maintained dialogues with administrations of other countries, the UN agencies, global-rights organizations, and of course ethnic diasporas. In the process of achieving these objectives, this author discovered how those were—knowingly or unknowingly—converted to foreign-policy adventurism in which professional Tamil diaspora activists played a significant role.

The trajectory of the Tamil diaspora activists toward the US policymakers was carefully designed to overtly project its desire to win human dignity and equal justice to Sri Lanka’s 11 percent Tamil population but covertly strategizing to delegitimize the Sri Lankan state to, first, gain a UN intervention in the predominantly Tamil Northern and Eastern Districts, and then, to achieve self-determination to the Tamil people: an independent and sovereign state for the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka. The book documents the close rapport the professional activists of the influential Europe-based Global Tamil Diaspora (GTF) had with the separatist LTTE and its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in promoting the separate state agenda, raising funds in the West to replenish its coffers, using the propaganda machinery to espouse Tamil issues, joining LTTE delegations during numerous “peace talks” with the GSL and even advocating the procurement of military hardware for the fighting cadre of the Tamil Tigers.

The book documents and analyzes the pronouncements of key State Department officials who advocated self-rule for the Sri Lankan Tamil minority, an American policy trajectory toward the encouragement of covert objectives of the activists of the Tamil diaspora.

An extensive analysis presented, taking the developments of the scenario since the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009, how the intense activities of the Tamil diaspora influenced Washington’s perspectives as a result of the failure of the GSL to undertake a reconciliation process and some accountability measures for lapses during the final months of Eelam War IV. The GSL went on the path of triumphalism, giving a sense of defeat to the Tamil minority and allowing the activists within the Tamil diaspora to become the voice of the Sri Lankan Tamils. The consequence of this is well documented.

The development of American perspective on many Sri Lankan issues, especially the Tamil national issue, from the early 1980s through the end of the century within the portals of the US diplomatic mission in Colombo, helped Washington to shape its understanding. The attempts of successive governments since then to address the national issues, the intense antisecessionist military offensive (June 2006–May 2009), and the developments since 2009 had a profound effect on the change of behavior of the US State Department drawing the Tamil diaspora into the equation.

Statistics and data are presented, at the time the Sri Lankan Tamil leaders were espousing a separate Tamil state, to show how the Tamil ethnic community enjoyed a privileged position in the island of Sri Lanka, along with the elitist Sinhalese, in the spheres of education, employment, and economic fields.

DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF THE BOOK

One cannot recall in recent memory that a lethal secessionist-terrorist movement that faced total annihilation along with its top, secondary, and even low-ranking leadership with its superior military power totally destroyed, resurrected, and emerged in a completely transformed outlook with a determination to achieve the same objective. The onetime professional activists of the LTTE have assumed the political agenda of the LTTE—a separate state for the ethnic Tamils—using a powerful weapon: global diplomacy. Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan administration of Mahinda Rajapaksa and its foreign ministry were acting in such a manner as if the LTTE agenda were buried for good. Paraphrasing Mark Twain, “The reports of the LTTE’s death have been highly exaggerated.”

Sri Lanka’s Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration is nevertheless convinced that the organizations within the Tamil diaspora spread in Western capitals have abdicated their objective of terrorism but do not realize that these organizations have retained the LTTE’s primary task of bifurcating the nation through global diplomatic maneuvers.

The Tamil agenda was seen entering the orbit of the UN’s DPA.

It was in the process of convincing that the movement was a “liberation organization” whose sole aim was to “liberate the oppressed [minority] Tamils from the yoke of [majority] Sinhalese chauvinism” into an independent state of Eelam for the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka.

The US State Department’s scrutiny of the terrorism/militancy of the Tamil Tigers since early 1980s—which led to the movement’s designation in 1997 as a foreign-terrorist organization—helped focus on minority Tamil issues, Sri Lanka state’s policies and attitudes toward ethnic problems and race relations, Sinhalese nationalism, and equal justice to develop a certain perspective and mind-set, which subsequently crept into overall policy planks.

At the time of the domestic annihilation of the Tamil Tigers in 2009, the policymakers and lawmakers in Washington had largely settled on Sri Lanka’s “national issue,” which they viewed through America’s fundamental values such as protection of human rights, encouraging democracy and good governance, equal justice, and upholding the rule of law. This development in Washington in relation to Sri Lanka policy became a catalyst for the activists of the diaspora to enter America’s world of fundamental values through discourses with State Department officials and leading Congressmen, who were well apprised by the US FSOs stationed in Colombo.

What made the proponents of Tamil homeland in the diaspora closer to the State Department mind-set or how these two elements shared similar views regarding national issues in Sri Lanka was the result of GSL’s failure to develop a post-2009 strategy to gradually bring into its fold the minority Tamils, who were under a heavy psychological grip of the LTTE for almost three decades. But the GSL’s triumphalism over its annihilation of the LTTE instead allowed the activists of the diaspora to assume the role of their voice.

The knowledge I gained working within the portals of the US diplomatic mission in Colombo, especially during my tenure as the mission’s political specialist from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, helped me to deeply understand the post-2009 collaboration between American foreign-policy handlers and the former material supporters of the LTTE—and their developments thereafter. Working closely with the FSOs during this period, engaging in investigative endeavors, and constant rapport with principal players in the administration, opposition, and the national security apparatus, which led to well-researched analytical papers, was a rich experience to closely understand the policy adjustments by Washington in later years.

The book gives hitherto ignored or unknown nuances of the post-2009 developments in which Washington and the Tamil diaspora played—certainly displayed at present—which have threatened Sri Lanka as a nation, her sovereignty and territorial integrity. And it explores how this collaboration drew Sri Lanka to international scrutiny, making the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva play a pivotal role, a scenario the professional activists of the Tamil diaspora envisaged since the brutal demise of the LTTE in May 2009. The US policy deliberations certainly aided and abetted this trajectory.

What this author endeavors to address is this: Will the diaspora’s unceasing international pressure aided by Washington, EU nations, and the UN Office of Under-Secretary (Political Affairs) lead to Sri Lanka’s delegitimization in the eyes of the international community as a first step and then a UN intervention, which could eventually lead to bifurcation?

This aspect is something unique in addressing what Sri Lanka is currently undergoing. This is unique in the sense that an annihilated terrorist movement has been revived in a different form, embraced by the international community as a result of missteps by the Sri Lankan regime and the foreign-policy trajectory of the United States, with a long-term agenda of winning a Tamil homeland in the North and East regions of Sri Lanka.

The developed mind-set in the 1980s to the mid-1990s by the American FSOs assigned to the Colombo diplomatic mission and how the GSL’s failure to understand that mind-set, which formed Washington’s foreign-policy planks on Sri Lankan issues that facilitated the emergence of the strategy, and maneuvers of the activists within the Tamil diaspora since 2009 and subsequent developments in the global diplomatic theater have been underscored here.

This presentation, analyzing the decades of developments in Sri Lanka, the roles played by Washington and the Tamil diaspora, questions whether what happened in Cambodia in the 1970s—in which American carpet-bombing resulted in the emergence of Pol Pot—could have a similar effect.

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Maps and Photographs

Timeline

The Narrative

Chapter One: US Mind-Set and Perspectives

Segment One: The American Agenda 1980–2016

Segment Two: The American Agenda through FSO Eyes

Segment Three:           “War with the Tamils”: A Deep-Rooted US Belief

Segment Four:             US Policy Guide: Sri Lanka Engrossed in Ethnic Warfare

Segment Five:             Self-Rule Federal Structure in the North and East: A Declared US Policy

Segment Six:               LTTE Indispensability and Tamil Grievances

Segment Seven:          The United States: An Ambiguous Ally of Sri Lanka

Segment Eight:           Dina Titus: Bring Tamils to Mainstream

Segment Nine:            The United States Renews Its Rhetoric in Geneva

 

Chapter Two:            Tamil Diaspora and US Foreign-Policy Interests

Abstract:                     Restructured LTTE as a Global Tamil Network

Segment One:             Ethnic Diasporas and the Shaping of US Foreign Policy

Segment Two:             Dealing With Global Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora

Segment Three:           The Tamil Diaspora’s Influence in US Policy Oversights on Sri Lanka

Segment Four:             Tripartite Assault on Sri Lanka

Segment Five:             US-Tamil Diaspora Rapport: Delegitimization Commences

Segment Six:               LTTE Defeat Invigorates Secessionist Ideology

Segment Seven:          The United States Created Pol Pot: Revives LTTE Ideology

 

Chapter Three:         Sri Lanka’s Lacuna in Diplomatic Strategy and Ambiguous US Reports: The Tamil Diaspora Fills the Void

Abstract                      Public Diplomacy: Tamil Diaspora Elements Way Ahead

Segment One:             Strategic Communication: The Case for a New Vision

Segment Two:             Lacuna in US Public Diplomacy and the Misreading of Sri Lanka

Segment Three:           The US Embassy in Sri Lanka: A Source of Ambiguous Reports

Segment Four:             US and Third-World Trust Deficit

Segment Five:             Sri Lanka’s Ineffective Diplomacy: The US Congress on the Tamil Issue

Segment Six:               Sri Lanka Diplomats in the United States in Deep Slumber: The Consequences

Segment Seven:          LTTE Influence in the International Community

Segment Eight:           Sri Lanka Mission Slept on House Resolution for Eighteen Months

Segment Nine:            A Rare Discovery: Sri Lankan Diplomat Uses Strategic Communication

Segment Ten:              A Professional Strategy to Delegitimize the Sri Lankan State

Segment Eleven:         Barbara Crossette’s Prophecy

 

Chapter Four:           Historic Evolution of the Homeland Concept and an Independent Tamil State

Abstract                      Washington’s Mindset Links to Tamil Homeland

Segment One:             The United States Leans on Tamil Homeland

Segment Two:             The US Belief: “Sinhalese Killing Tamils”

Segment Three:           The Secessionist Demand and Tamil Homeland: Why?

Segment Four:             The Birth of the Secessionist Concept

Segment Five:             Avoiding ‘Disparate Treatment’ of Tamils and ‘Disparate Impact’ on Sinhalese

Chapter Five:            Sri Lankan War-Crimes Allegations

Abstract                      Washington Judgment Based on Ambiguous Reports from Overseas Posts Segment One:  The US Trajectory toward a War-Crimes Allegation

Segment Two:             The US War Reports on Sri Lanka: Ambiguous Information

Segment Three:           The US Department of Defense: The Use of Human Shield

Segment Four:             The US ‘Policy Design’ for Sri Lanka: Secret Cables Reveal

Segment Five:             The US ‘Carrot and Stick’ Policy on Sri Lanka Imposed in 2002 and 2015

Segment Six:               Global Experts’ Scrutiny of War-Crimes Allegations

Segment Seven:          International Humanitarian Law: Applicability to the LTTE

Chapter Six:              The Meaning of US Contemplation to Save LTTE Leadership

Chapter Seven:          Conclusion—Adventurism and Triumphalism Combined

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About the Author

During his professional engagement with the U.S. Department of State (1970-1994) in the areas of public affairs and public diplomacy, Daya Gamage was privy to Washington’s play book of foreign policy dealings with Sri Lankan issues. He gained extensive knowledge how U.S. Foreign Service Officers, and their counterparts in Washington,  made crucial decisions, influencing factors on decisions, their mindset formation, and had access to their sensitive thinking. This wide understanding became rich fodder to the extraordinary analyses and interpretation of this book disclosing a link of that mindset formation to Washington’s trajectory hauling Sri Lanka to Geneva.

The author’s research, analyses, investigations and privileged conversations with American officials who enjoyed high security clearances, and interactions with US Congressional delegations – CODELs, vastly enriched his understanding the manner in which Washington managed and conducted its overseas foreign policy agenda in South Asia.

The wide range of contacts the author maintained with Sri Lanka’s military at all levels, intelligence agencies, members of the ruling and opposition elite and civil society members during and since his tenure at the U.S. diplomatic post in Sri Lanka enriched his knowledge, and such insights were used to produce valuable interpretations in this book.

The author was in a unique position to unlock his understanding of American foreign policy trajectory toward Sri Lanka, hitherto unknown to outsiders, to take the conversation toward a different direction and contribute to the already existing rich literature on these issues.

Daya Gamage earned a Meritorious Honor Award for Superior Performance and Professionalism in 1988 from the U.S. State Department. He is currently political-foreign affairs correspondent to the online daily newspaper Asian Tribune.