Ethics Of War Vs Ethics Of Reporting
Pon. Chandran
Praveen Swami’s “Questions about Wars” in the context of Sri lanka is rather misleading. Praveen Swami (PS) deserves in a way all appreciation for wielding all his expertise being a Strategic Affairs Editor and the Resident Editor of The Hindu for using all the wear withal of his “knowledge” to bury all the unfolded facts and the objective studies, under the carpet of his logic, the “ethics of war” and unwittingly exonerate Rajapakshe and his regime from the accusation of Genocide, Genocidal war, War Crimes and the Crimes against Humanity!
A gullible reader would be made to believe that all is well in a war, particularly the Eelam War, since the “language of war is killing”. He has further deftly questions the veracity of the numbers which is haunting the international community and concludes that “we do not know how many lives it (the Eelam war) claimed or indeed whether a genocide took place at all”! He further argues that “There is no expert consensus on whether civilians were targeted on purpose, and if so, when?” However, he has no choice but to concede that there were “indeed several well-documented cases of extrajudicial executions, but these are not the same as a genocide”.
In short, PS has used all his arguments to establish that there was neither Genocide nor a Genocidal war in Sri Lanka. There weren’t any “deliberate killings” of the civilians and the reported numbers of the causalities is only a conjecture which cannot be established. Further although there were a few extrajudicial killings, the author has intrinsically justified the same as it was part of a “campaign against the LTTE”, which is inseparable from the “language of war, that is “killing”. While he is silent about the numbers obliterated, buried alive, crippled, displaced, sexually assaulted, widowed or orphaned, he has no qualms to concede the claim of the Sri Lankan army that “they were losing 40 solders a day during the last phases of the war”.
Perhaps the Strategic Affairs Editor may have reasons for not mentioning the reported use of Thermobaric bombs, cluster bombs and other heavy artilleries and chemical bombs on the civilian targets, on the make shift hospitals, on the “safe zones” etc. Whereas, he has no hesitation to state categorically that the “Sri Lankan Army was facing fire from the LTTE’s 130mm, 140mm and 152mm artillery up to May 17″. He has even laboured to dig out the photographic evidence of the Times of London “showing what appear to be pits for sting mortar, an arms trailer and a bunker, in the midst of a civilian location in the no-fire zone” While he is so precise about the use of artillery by the LTTE, he does not even refer to the type of arms used by the Sri Lankan army! Alas, it questions the Intellectual honesty of a journalist of his repute!Read More
