How to successfully end an insurgency (lessons from Sri Lanka)

[yllus]

Excerpted from below, the three tenets of the "Sri Lanka model":

1. Full operational freedom for the army, no negotiations with terrorists, no ceasefires to let them regroup.

2. Ignoring the differences between combatants and non-combatants.

3. The dismissal of international and media concerns.

To summarize, to end an insurgency you must engage in total war.

On the other hand, as a commenter on the article puts it, "Of course Sri Lanka is a model on how to crush terrorism, but if all countries followed its path, there would be no minority communities left in the world..."

The Economist - The Sri Lanka option: Friends like these

LITTLE Sri Lanka is rarely a model of anything. But since it crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam its government has found itself in an unfamiliar position. Some of the world’s less savoury regimes are beating a path to its door to study “the Sri Lanka option”.

Last November, Myanmar’s military dictator, Than Shwe, who rarely travels abroad, visited the island “so that his regime can apply any lessons learned to its efforts against the ethnic groups in Burma,” says Benedict Rogers, a biographer of General Than.

In May last year at a meeting of regional defence ministers in Singapore, Myanmar’s deputy minister made the link explicit, saying the world had witnessed a victory over terrorism in Sri Lanka but had forgotten about the insurgency in his country.

In October, Thailand’s prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, held talks with his Sri Lankan counterpart about the lessons of the Tigers’ defeat (for handling a Muslim insurgency in southern Thailand, not the protests cleared this week in Bangkok).

In March, a military delegation from Bangladesh met Sri Lanka’s army chief, to swap notes on what he called Sri Lanka’s “successful completion of the war for peace”. Behind the scenes, hawkish generals and politicians from Colombia to Israel seem to be using Sri Lanka’s experience to justify harsher anti-terror operations.

Louise Arbour, head of the International Crisis Group (ICG), says the Sri Lanka model consists of three parts: what she dubs “scorched-earth tactics” (full operational freedom for the army, no negotiations with terrorists, no ceasefires to let them regroup); next, ignoring differences between combatants and non-combatants (the new ICG report documents many such examples); lastly, the dismissal of international and media concerns.

A senior official in President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s office, quoted anonymously in a journal, Indian Defence Review, says “we had to ensure that we regulated the media. We didn’t want the international community to force peace negotiations on us.” The author of that article, V.K. Shashikumar, concludes that “in the final analysis the Rajapaksa model is based on a military precept…Terrorism has to be wiped out militarily and cannot be tackled politically.”

This is the opposite of the strategy America is pursuing in Afghanistan. It is winning a widespread hearing.

 

[MotF Bane]

It shouldn't surprise anyone that the method works; the problem is getting a country's leadership to allow all three points to be fulfilled.

 

[Thump553]

The Tamil Tigers revolution was a fighting war since 1983-it took over 25 years of scorched earth policy to put it down. It was a civil war, but since the winners write history so it has become a struggle against terrorists.

 

[Infohawk]

"Of course Sri Lanka is a model on how to crush terrorism, but if all countries followed its path, there would be no minority communities left in the world..."

I don't agree with this. What kind of minorities? Religious minorities? Maybe religions would disappear. But frequently the "losers" of total war integrate with the winning side.

If Islam was dealt with the way Islam (and other religions) dealt with their enemies early on, Islam would disappear. A large portion of people would give up Islam if forced to.

Fortunately, we don't have to do this. We don't have a large populations of muslims in the US. We just have to monitor the current minority and keep the other ones out. Of course, there isn't even willpower to do that in this country.

 

[yllus]

The Tamil Tigers revolution was a fighting war since 1983-it took over 25 years of scorched earth policy to put it down. It was a civil war, but since the winners write history so it has become a struggle against terrorists.

I think I agree with those who say that if Sri Lanka's political leadership had gone with the aforementioned "strategy" decades earlier, the war would not have taken as long. The common example is of Ranil Wickremasinghe's government's peace process, which served no purpose but to give the LTTE time to rearm, refinance and re-entrench.

 

[palehorse]

Good luck with that. The U.S. forgot how to fight and win wars after 1946.

Some call it "progress"... others, such as myself, call it "sad."

 

[yllus]

Excerpts from an interesting opinion piece:

Was I wrong to oppose the war?

Has the war really ended? Or will it be like the Great War, the war to end all wars, later renamed World War One because it created the conditions for World War Two a decade later. Now that we’ve won, are we going to forget why we fought in the first place?

The vast majority of the country thinks the war over for good, the dispute settled, and any attempt to rekindle it should be sorted out in the most effective way available to us: overwhelming military force. Since independence, large-scale military force has been used three times internally (we have yet to fight an external invader, which theoretically is the reason for a military): the 1971 JVP insurgency, the 1989 JVP insurgency, and the Eelam Wars.

One would think that the sheer brutality of these three should make us shy away from the military option and look to non-violent means of addressing our disagreements. But in reality, it has solidified the military option as the only effective method to deal with dissent.

Even a peacenik liberal like myself has to admit that if Rohana Wijeweera had been killed in 1971, in all probability there would not have been a 1989 insurgency; and if Prabhakaran had been killed in the Vadamarachchi Operation, there would not have been an Eelam War Two, Three, and Four.

With this bloodshot hindsight, ask yourself what you would do the next time a charismatic, idealistic youth with a healthy following turns violent to make himself heard: would you arrest him and talk to him about his grievances, or kill him the first chance you get?

Based on our recent history, talking seems to only postpone the inevitable, so we should kill him. A more intellectual proponent of military force (Dayan Jayatilleka?) might suggest that we kill him first, and then talk to his followers.

Either way, the lessons learnt seem to be that the best way to avoid the wanton destruction of military force is to use it early before things get messy later.

 

[Noobtastic]

Sri Lanka totally demolished the tamils, killing 35,000.

interestingly enough, this was around the same time Israel's OCL was going on. While the UN congratulated Sri Lanka for defeating the tamils killing 32,000 between january-may 2009, including over 20,000 civilians.

yeah, the UNHRC high-fives sri lanka, and bashes israel.

what a fuckin joke!

war is always a moral outrage but it doesn't mean sri lanka despicable response to the civilians living under the taliban should be congratulated.

Notice the complete silence of the left. this makes israel's contribution to the lebanon civil war look like child's play.

but no goldstone report for sri lanka! nope...

 

[nick1985]

Sri Lanka totally demolished the tamils, killing 35,000.

interestingly enough, this was around the same time Israel's OCL was going on.

Give it a rest...

 

[JS80]

4. The world media doesn't give a shit about you.

 

[nick1985]

4. The world media doesn't give a shit about you.

So true...

 

[Noobtastic]

Give it a rest...

give it a rest?

sri lanka killed 20,000 civilians over a month.

20,000!

im just highlighting the worthlessness of the UN, USA, and international bodies.

 

[nick1985]

give it a rest?

Yes. Give it a rest for a bit. I could make a thread about double bacon cheeseburgers and you would find away to bring up Israel.

 

[Infohawk]

Yes. Give it a rest for a bit. I could make a thread about double bacon cheeseburgers and you would find away to bring up Israel.

Yup, a lot like C.O.W. bringing up European genocide in any thread no matter how irrelevant. IHV, what sparked your obsession with Israel?

 

[ProfJohn]

Yes. Give it a rest for a bit. I could make a thread about double bacon HAMburgers and you would find away to bring up Israel.

Fixed

 

[Trianon]

IHV, what sparked your obsession with Israel?

Probably resident card-carrying member of AIPAC?

 

[Nebor]

We're fighting a war of public perception. Carefully balancing afghan casualties\progress\inconvenience with lost coalition lives. If the scales tip too far to one side, everyone throws their hands up in the air and start screaming.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Probably resident card-carrying member of AIPAC?

Card-carrying member of AIPAC?

I suspect employee or paid propaganda contractor.

"Of course Sri Lanka is a model on how to crush terrorism, but if all countries followed its path, there would be no minority communities left in the world..."

This.

The "Sri Lanka Model" was (for the most part) self-contained internal strife.

We are nation-building in Afghanistan (and Iraq), repairing years of damage (mainly inflicted by 'our side'), suffer from considerable mission creep, actually reside half a World away and ain't local-yokels.

They tend to remember our 'collateral damage'.

"" Hello. We are from the United States and are here to help you. Excuse us while we blow up your extended family. ""

That said, I gots no problem with the drone strikes along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, being that the 'picture' is much larger than a matter of internal Afghan affairs.





--

 

[TwinsenTacquito]

Even better list:

1. If it ain't your home, GTFO.

2. Enjoy your home.

3. ....Dude, go home.

 

[Narmer]

Well, look at where they're at now. They still have the Tamils in concentration camps and are scared to death of them. Worse, those that bankrolled the Tigers are in India and the West. If the victors are not careful they could re-start a war.

 

[Craig234]

Nice plan - should be good for England to put an end to the colonists' revolution, and the Native Americans to put an end to the European immigrants.

Because all uprisings are nothing but crazy terrorists who should be killed. There's no such thing as abuse by governments, militaries, majorities. Just kill all 'uprisings' completely.

And when the haves come for you, expect the same, but be glad, you are lucily in the US so you will get some preferential treatment longer, so don't oppose the killing of others.

 

[Noobtastic]

Card-carrying member of AIPAC?

I suspect employee or paid propaganda contractor.

fear-mongering much?

anyways - this is about sri lanka.

i can't see how any lefty troll can look at sri lanka's performance against the tamils as something romantic and should be emulated by obama's already war-mongering military policy in iraq, afghanistan and yemen.

Sri Lanka was fighting an internal war and had serious territorial ambitions. US is not looking to convert afghanistan into a 51st state.

if the US wanted to make afghanistan a territory, and was willing to devote the resources to conquer the land after destroying the taliban and any non-combatants in proxmity - then yeah, i could see our military doing what sri lanka did.

but dropping more bombs and killing more taliban won't change a god damn thing.

everyone knows this.

 

[Infohawk]

fear-mongering much?

Seriously, can you just explain what your deal with Israel is? For some reason I don't imagine you as jewish but correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[fallout man]

Sri Lanka totally demolished the tamils, killing 35,000.

interestingly enough, this was around the same time Israel's OCL was going on. While the UN congratulated Sri Lanka for defeating the tamils killing 32,000 between january-may 2009, including over 20,000 civilians.

yeah, the UNHRC high-fives sri lanka, and bashes israel.

what a fuckin joke!

war is always a moral outrage but it doesn't mean sri lanka despicable response to the civilians living under the taliban should be congratulated.

Notice the complete silence of the left. this makes israel's contribution to the lebanon civil war look like child's play.

but no goldstone report for sri lanka! nope...

You can hold it in long enough to get to the bathroom. We believe in you, boobie.

 

[Noobtastic]

Seriously, can you just explain what your deal with Israel is? For some reason I don't imagine you as jewish but correct me if I'm wrong.

what is my deal with israel? it is the most pro-american country on the planet.

i really have yet to understand the knee-jerk reactionary rage it invites by so-called progressives and moralists.

israel is routinely signaled out more than any other nation. if it was ignored, say...like sri lanka, then i wouldn't care as much, if at all.