The "war" that is going on in Sri Lanka is a liberation struggle of the Tamil people for their right to self-determination, which would enable them to exist with equality, dignity and safety in the area of historical habitation of the Tamil people — the north and the east of Sri Lanka.
This war could not continue without foreign aid going to the Sri Lankan government. Without this aid, Sri Lanka would be forced to the negotiating table. Imperialism today takes the form of foreign aid.
Resistance
No discussion of what is going on in Sri lanka is complete without a comment on the question of suicide bombings and child soldiers, issues used to demonise Tamil resistance to the Sri Lankan regime.
Suicide bombings have been a hallmark of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in its decades-long armed struggle against the Sri Lankan state. The latter has used and promoted extreme violence in its attempt to enforce Sinhalese (the majority ethnic group) domination on the island.
I will quote the Booker prize-winning Indian author Arundhati Roy in her book The Ordinary Persons Guide to Empire. Substitute Sri Lanka for Israel and Tamil for Palestinian.
"Young Palestinians who cannot contain their anger turn themselves into human bombs and haunt Israel's streets, blowing themselves up, killing ordinary people.
"Suicide bombing is an act of individual despair, not a revolutionary tactic.
"The world is called upon to condemn suicide bombers, but can we ignore the long road they have journeyed on before they arrived at their destination?"
The psychology of the suicide bomber is: "You shot my father, raped and killed my mother, hanged my brother, tortured and killed my sister. I have nothing left. When I decide to leave this planet, I will take you with me."
Also, the LTTE has, for years, recruited children as fighters. What is new is that there are several recent reports that the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) is doing the same thing.
Allan Rock is a Canadian diplomat working with the United Nations sent to Sri Lanka in 2006, who issued a report that confirmed that the LTTE was recruiting child soldiers.
He also stated that Tamil paramilitary groups working with the SLA were doing the same thing, conscripting child soldiers in the eastern province.
A December 2 report by the US-based Human Rights Watch stated that the leaders of the Tamil paramilitary groups working with the Sri Lankan regime, one of them recently appointed a member of parliament by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, "have been implicated in serious human rights abuses ... The abuses included abducting large numbers of children and forcing them to serve as soldiers ... Escapees often must go into hiding to prevent being abducted again. In some instances, their families have faced pressure to give a 'replacement' child soldier to the group."
International interests
Violations of human rights can no longer be considered an "internal affair" of that country. That is why the world got involved in the issue of apartheid in South Africa, (indisputably an "internal affair" of that country).
Sri Lanka cannot say it is not our business. It is.
These "internal affairs" cause refugees that seek safe havens in other countries such as Australia. Tamil civilians brutilised by the Sri Lankan regime contact "people smugglers", are put into leaking boats that sink off the Australian coast, or arrive here to be locked up as criminals.
Rather than creating inhumane ways of dealing with these people, the source of the problem, the human rights violations in Sri Lanka, must be addressed.
What is more, all conflicts come to an end. The conflict in East Timor did come to an end, as has the conflict in Ireland and so many others. The Sri Lankan conflict will come to an end in five years, 10, or longer. It might do so with Sri Lanka reduced to a shell, as East Timor was.
The rebuilding of Sri Lanka when the conflict is over will fall on the "international community" (as it did with East Timor). To prevent this catastrophe, action must be taken.
It is not appreciated that there are two conflicts in Sri Lanka.
Firstly, between the Sri Lankan regime and the Tamil people to force the Tamil people to accept Sri Lanka as a Sinhala-Buddhist nation.
Secondly, between the US, India and China for control of the Indian Ocean.
The Indian Ocean is not the largest ocean on this planet, but by far, the busiest. Forty-percent of the world's population is in countries around the Indian Ocean. Seventy percent of the world's oil shipments, and 50% of the world's container cargo, travel across this ocean.
As US admiral Alfred Maher commented 100 years ago, "Whoever controls the Indian Ocean, dominates Asia".
This international "war" is a peculiar one. These interests compete with each other to control the Indian Ocean, and cooperate with each other to prevent a solution to the problem in Sri Lanka.
Just as oil is the problem in the Middle East, the geographical position of Sri Lanka, astride the Indian Ocean, is the problem in Sri Lanka.
The "prize" is Trincomalee, the fourth largest natural harbour in the world, in the Tamil north-east. Trincomalee remaining in the hands of a corrupt Sinhalese regime in Colombo is a better option to it falling into the hands of an independent Tamil state.
To negotiate with a corrupt regime is a far easier task than negotiating with the much more disciplined Tamils.
China has a special interest in safeguarding its crucial oil supply from the Middle East, which passes just below Sri Lanka.
India has a special interest in preventing any other power from "interfering" (even if this means solving a problem) in its "area of control".
For India to get a foothold in Sri Lanka is crucial. That would be easier to achieve with a corrupt, disorganised, despotic regime in Colombo, than with an independent Tamil state.
What has to be done
International human rights monitors must be admitted into Sri Lanka, now. Tomorrow might be too late for the Tamils.
Sri Lankan disinformation that the problem is "Tamil terrorism" must be exposed. The problem is Sinhala-Buddhist ethno-religious chauvinism and state terrorism aimed at turning Sri Lanka into a Sinhala-Buddhist nation.
I have DVDs that set this out in detail, which I have donated to the Socialist Alliance in Australia.
Sri Lanka must be isolated, as was apartheid South Africa. Economic sanctions should be imposed.
We should stop buying Sri Lankan goods. A boycott should target tourism and point to the blood-stained beaches of Sri Lanka. Trade union action to stop handling goods, to and from Sri Lanka, should be implemented.
Public protests need to be organised internationally.
We should pressure our governments to force Sri Lanka to the negotiating table and to make clear that a military "solution" to the Tamil question is not acceptable.
[Brian Senewiratne is a member of the Socialist Alliance in Brisbane. The first part of this article can be found at http://www.greenleft.org.au. Many of his articles on the Tamil question can be found at http://www.tamilcanadian.com.]