Daya Gamage, former US State Department Political Specialist ….. with the pictures being acts of editorial license that are informed by some of the central contentions in this essay: namely, that in early May 2009 USA wished to mount a rescue operation off the coast of north-east Sri Lanka that would save the remaining mass of Tamil civilians as well as the disarmed Tamil Tigers, inclusive of the LTTE leaders so that the LTTE would survive and persist as a pressure group. These objectives were guided by policies fashioned by staff within the American embassy in Colombo in the 1980s and 1990s in collaboration with officials in the State Department at Washington who oversaw South Asian Affairs. TIMELINES have also been inserted by the author& Editor so as to assist readers — Editor’s Note.
US cavalry charge forward – symbolizing their role in the conquest of the West from Native American hands
PART I. The Emergence of this Agenda, 1980-95
The shaping of the United States policy toward Sri Lanka’s ‘national issue’ since the 1970s has been influenced by a number of factors: namely (1) the Sinhalese domination of Sri Lanka’s polity, (2) the visible decline of the (Jaffna) Tamil influence in the areas of education, trade, commerce and state sector employment since Independence, (3) the ‘awakening’ of Sinhalese nationalism seen from 1956, a movement and a process that was an explicit challenge to the disproportionate Tamil stake in the areas referred to above; (4) the race riots of 1977 and 1983 and finally (5) the emergence of Prabhakaran’s Tamil Tigers. These developments intensified the debate in US government circles and heightened their concerns about the status of the Tamil minority, 12% of the population in a polarized society. The goal of safeguarding Tamil people and their rights was juxtaposed alongside a desire to defeat “Tiger terrorism”. This dual track was aptly reflected more recently in Robert O. Blake’s address to the University of Madras in Chennai in May 2008.
Mr. Blake, who was addressing the University in his capacity as an official of South and Central Asian Affairs in the State Department, and who had formerly been his country’s deputy ambassador in New Delhi and ambassador to Sri Lanka, summarized the “carefully developed” American policy toward Sri Lanka’s National Issue in this manner: “One reason for the lack of recent progress on a consensus APRC (All Party Representative Committee) document is that some in Sri Lanka believe that the Government should first defeat the LTTE and then proceed with a political solution. The U.S. view is that the Government could further isolate and weaken the LTTE if it articulates now its vision for a political solution.” Continue reading →
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