Letters
The Age
Wednesday March 23, 2011
Why was there no such will to help in Sri Lanka?I AM a Sri Lankan. In 2009, we had the same issue as Libya: Sri Lankan armed forces killed civilians during the fight against the rebels.The Australian Tamils wrote to then prime minister Kevin Rudd to help stop the bloodshed and prevent the innocents being killed. Neither the prime minister nor the foreign minister did anything.The UN and Western leaders did nothing, watching thousands of innocents killed.Now Kevin Rudd is making noises about the UN resolution on the Libyan crisis. Barack Obama said the Libyan people should be protected. Where was he when the Tamils were massacred by the Sri Lankan government?The war criminals in Sri Lanka are still free and continue to commit atrocities and the Western world turns a blind eye.Why this double-standard? Libya has oil wealth. The Tamils do not have any. The UN is supposed to protect the poor and vulnerable. But here oil wealth speaks loud and clear.N. S. Nathan, Wheelers HillNot for the civiliansLIBYA is portrayed in the West as a brutal dictatorship responsible for crimes against humanity. But what makes it a special case?Consider these breaches of international law by the world's leading self-proclaimed moral authorities: the ethnic cleansing of the Chagos Islands (Britain and the US), the bombing of Cubana 455 (CIA tacit approval), the shooting down of Iran Air 655 (US) and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior (France).Futhermore, WikiLeaks revelations on Iraq and Afghanistan showed the rules of engagement had no regard for civilian safety, permitting 360-degree fire on even a perceived threat, and that civilian deaths would count as "insurgent".Protection of civilians through air power is a nonsense, as demonstrated by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.The UN-mandated action in Libya is being perverted to provide partisan air cover and not the protection of civilians.To paraphrase F. D. Roosevelt, Gaddafi's crime is that he's a son of a bitch, only in this case not ours; as a result his civilian supporters are expendable.Ranko Kvalic, GreensboroughLess rhetoric, more actionONCE again Australia has backed the bombardment of a faraway foreign country.It is not clear to many of us why this is happening. On the bright side, it seems that, once again, the warheads being used are the opposite of neutron. That is, they destroy buildings, but no person suffers a scratch.Meanwhile, right under our noses in Fiji, Frank Bainimarama and his cronies have closed the free press and crushed dissidents. Hitler did the same thing in the 1930s in Germany.If Australia, New Zealand and others matched their rhetoric about freedom and democracy with a bit of stomach, they would depose Bainimarama.The problem is that this would involve more than just pushing a few buttons.John Rawson, Briar Hill
© 2011 The Age