Once again the International Crisis Group has pronounced on Sri Lanka, bang on cue after the other usual suspects. Most negative of these was Human Rights Watch, which is a specialist, along with ICG, in purporting to be balanced. In fact they both persist in treating an elected government on a par with the terrorists they thus privilege.
Both of them specialise in being economical with the truth, most notably by being extravagant about numbers. They also seem unduly wary of anyone who can correct their mistakes. Human Rights Watch has failed to respond to my rebuttals of their claims and most recently, despite what seemed initial enthusiasm on the part of their Director, refused to meet me in Geneva. International Crisis Group, in the form of its presiding genius Gareth Evans, failed to answer in 2007 to my detailed refutation of his suggestion that Sri Lanka was ripe for his own version of the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect.
When I met him late last year in Geneva, he affected surprise when I told him he had not responded. Neither he nor his sidekick in Colombo, Alan Keenan, has since responded to my reminders. This is perhaps understandable since Gareth actually said that he realised I was a difficult person to engage with. In short, when they come across someone who knows more about a situation than they do, they run away - though I hope that that is not the reason for Gareth finally deciding to call it a day and leave ICG and his perverse patronising version of the doctrine he was instrumental in developing.
Unfortunately his organisation has returned to the charge, with the usual farrago of inaccuracies. It begins by claiming that 'An estimated 150,000 civilians are trapped in an ever shrinking space, forcibly held back by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and exposed to indiscriminate attacks by the Sri Lankan military.'That figure as Gareth and his crew know is contested, so to shore it up they add later 'Independent estimates from sources on the ground and satellite imagery suggest at least 150,000 people are trapped by the LTTE and the Sri Lankan military, more than the level claimed by the Sri Lankan government.'Who are these independent observers? Are they similar to the poor government official who claims today that the figure is 330,000? Is it the UN, which has in fact gradually been reducing its estimates, along with even the most hysterical media outlets which at one stage were claiming 400,000?
And where does ICG get its accounts of satellite imagery? Surely with his excellent sources Gareth must be aware that at the last meeting of the UN group that saw itself as engaged in protection the report from satellite imagery was between 70,000 (which is the GOSL figure) and 100,000. Why then do Gareth and his ilk simply pronounce, without even the most rudimentary attempt to check their sources?
Then, along with his friends in HRW, he talks about 'indiscriminate attacks' by the Sri Lankan forces. Surely he must know that indiscriminate attacks would have brought total victory long ago to the forces. It is precisely because the army is holding back on use of heavy weapons, in deference to the human shields the LTTE is using, that the LTTE is continuing to resist, that the number of civilian casualties is far fewer than when the LTTE used their heavy weaponry from amidst civilians, and that in fact the Sri Lankan forces are suffering heavier casualties than previously.
The ICG claims that 'Thousands have already been killed and many more wounded', which is correct in terms of the worst case scenario, that on Tamilnet, which has about 2,500 killed from June last year to now, and about 3,000 injured. The number went up dramatically in January (there were fewer than 100 allegations of civilian deaths previously), in part because the LTTE started firing indiscriminately (as UNDP has recorded) and in part because the LTTE started forcibly conscripting even more civilians, including children (as UNICEF has testified).
But ICG makes clear its main aim early on when it demands pressure to stop what it terms the Sri Lankan government's 'policy of annihilation'. It wants the government to 'hold off on the final assault to allow relief to reach the civilian populations and to make it possible for those civilians who wish to leave to do so'. We have been here before, with HRW also wanting somehow to let the LTTE off the hook. Though they clothe it in the guise of concern for civilians, it is crystal clear to everyone that it is the LTTE that is holding onto these civilians, as it did for nine long months when the international community stood back and allowed them to be tormented.