The end of Sri Lanka’s war
斯里兰卡战争结束

Tainted triumph
变质的胜利

May 21st 2009
From The Economist print edition

A bloody victory won, Sri Lanka’s government urgently needs to make peace with the Tamil minority
这场胜利是血腥的，斯里兰卡政府迫切需要与泰米尔民族维持和平。

FOR Sri Lanka’s government and many of its citizens, reactions in the West to the final phase of its 26-year war with the Tamil Tigers have reeked of sanctimonious hypocrisy. The world knows the Tigers to be vicious terrorists. To stave off defeat, they held tens of thousands of civilians as human shields in their shrinking corner of northern Sri Lanka. This was typical of their callous disregard even for those whose rights they claimed to champion. Their crushing and the death of their vile chieftain, Velupillai Prabhakaran (see article), are cause for celebration. And in welcoming the end, surely it is unfair to wring hands at the inevitably bloody means. After all, the West is cheering on Pakistan’s army as it takes on the Taliban, uprooting people in their hundreds of thousands.

斯里兰卡政府与泰米尔猛虎组织持续26年的战争终于到了最后阶段。而对于斯里兰卡政府及其许多市民来说，西方世界假装圣洁的的反应散发出浓烈的伪善气息。世人皆知泰米尔是凶残的恐怖分子。为避免战败，他们在斯里兰卡北部日益缩小的地盘里，将数万名贫民作为人体盾牌。这是他们典型冷酷无情的漠视，甚至对于他们声称会捍卫的人的权利也是如此。他们可耻的最高决策人韦卢皮莱•普拉巴卡兰（Velupillai Prabhakaran）的死亡，是人们庆祝的原因。在迎接战争结束时，在审视不可避免的血腥方式面前缩手缩脚当然是不公平的。毕竟，西方正欢呼于巴基斯坦军队处理塔利班问题的方式——彻底根除数十万的追随者。

The alleged double standards of those criticising the Sri Lankan government, however, do not begin to answer their three chief complaints. These are, firstly, that the prosecution of the war, especially in its last weeks, has been unnecessarily brutal and careless of civilian life, perhaps even breaking international humanitarian law. Second, the government has still to show that it is ready to do all it can to ease the suffering of those who have survived the Tigers’ last stand. Third, it has given Sri Lankan Tamils no more than vague assurances that it will tackle the grievances that have stoked the conflict.

尽管声称批评斯里兰卡政府者采用了双重标准，他们的三点主要谴责仍未得到回应。第一，战争的发起者——尤其是在最后几周——漠视并残忍的对待平民生命，可能甚至破坏了国际人道主义法。第二，政府仍需表现出会尽全力减轻泰米尔最后一战幸存者的痛苦。第三，政府只是模糊的许诺斯里兰卡境内的泰米尔人，它会解决使冲突连连升级的民怨与不满。

If military victory is to bring lasting peace, the government needs to move fast on all three points. The signs, sadly, are not good. On the first, the conduct of the war, the government has consistently described its offensive as a “humanitarian operation”, to free the Tigers’ hostages; it maintains that civilian casualties have all been caused by Tiger shooting and suicide-bombing. If those boasts are true, then it should welcome a thorough inquiry into war crimes. But its policy has been to avoid all scrutiny. The United Nations estimates that some 8,000 civilians have died this year. In private, some of its officials guess the true number may be at least twice that. The truth may never be known (see article). The government has kept journalists away from the battlefield. It has questioned the patriotism of any critics. It has even locked up three of the doctors who revealed some of the casualty figures.

如果军事上的胜利是为了带来长久的和平，政府需要加速在这三点上的进程。然而不幸的是，目前迹象并不好。首先，政府一贯将其攻势成为“人道主义行动”，是为了解放猛虎组织掌控的人质；并坚持认为平民伤亡都是因为猛虎组织的射杀和自杀式炸弹袭击。如果这些宣称属实的话，它应欢迎彻查战争犯罪。但目前的政策是避开一切调查。联合国估计今年共有约8000名平民死亡。而私下里，一些政府官员猜测真实人数会是其两倍。真相也许不得而知。政府已让记者远离战场。它质疑任何批评家的爱国心，甚至关押了透露一些伤亡人数的三名医生。

Magnanimity would bring rewards
宽宏大量会带来回报
More urgent than confronting the horrors just past is the need to avert a secondary disaster. Long shelled, shot at and deprived of shelter, food and medicine, the half-starved wretches who have survived the recent battles are exceptionally vulnerable. The government’s concern that Tiger fighters had hidden themselves among the refugees should be less acute after its comprehensive victory. More than a quarter of a million displaced people need immediate help. The restrictions on foreign access to the camps housing them must be lifted at once. The government’s promise, to have four-fifths of them back home by the end of the year, requires a massive programme of mine-clearing and reconstruction. But it might offer the chance to win Tamil loyalties.

相比面对过去的恐惧，更加紧迫的是需要防止二次灾难。长期被炮轰、射杀，居无定所，缺药少食，饿得半死的苦命平民，在最近几次的战斗中幸存下来更是尤其脆弱。在政府完胜后，不应过于担忧猛虎组织成员藏身于难民中。二十五万多流离失所的人需要紧急救助。而对于国外接触难民营的限制也应立即取消。政府承诺于今年年底前让4/5的平民回归故土，而清除地雷及重建是必须的庞大工程。但这会为赢得泰米尔的忠心提供机会。

Of 3m Tamils in Sri Lanka and a further 1m in the diaspora, very few have faith in the government. A history of abuses by the security forces, and the government’s long refusal to offer genuine political concessions to Tamil demands for autonomy, drove many into the clutches of the Tigers. They, in turn, were ruthless in killing and marginalising more moderate Tamils.

斯里兰卡境内300万及散居在外的100万泰米尔人极少有对政府抱有信心。长期以来安全部队恶习累累，政府又一直拒绝向泰米尔自治的要求作出实质性政治让步，这些都使更多人加入猛虎组织。他们的血腥杀戮，转而使更多的温和派泰米尔人愈加边缘化。

Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, made his victory speech both in Sinhala, the tongue of the majority, and some Tamil. He noted military success brought no “final solution” and boasted that the Tigers’ defeat was “an even greater victory for the Tamil people”. That is not how it looks to those in the camps, nor to Tamils elsewhere in Sri Lanka as their countrymen celebrate the triumph. Nor is it how it appears to angry exiles whose money—some freely given as well as much extorted—has sustained the Tigers’ campaign. “We are all Tigers now,” claimed one British-born, well-educated Tamil protester outside the Houses of Parliament in London this week. That is why the third thing Mr Rajapaksa’s government needs to do is to attack the basis of the Tigers’ residual support by offering Tamils a genuine devolution of political power.

斯里兰卡的总统马欣达•拉贾帕克萨（Mahinda Rajapaksa）用僧伽罗语、英语和一些泰米尔语发表了胜利演说。他宣称军事胜利不会带来最终解决方法，并号称猛虎组织的战败“甚至对于泰米尔人民来说是更大的胜利”。而对于难民营中，以及斯里兰卡其他地区的泰米尔人，当他们的邻人在庆祝胜利时，他们的境遇并非如此。对于那些用金钱主动支持猛虎组织或被猛虎组织勒索的愤怒的流亡者，他们的境遇也并非如此。“我们都是猛虎组织成员了，”本周一名出生在英国、受过良好教育的泰米尔抗议者在伦敦国会大厦外声称。这也是为什么拉贾帕克萨政府需要做的第三件事是通过给泰米尔人授权政治权利来打击猛虎组织残余支持势力的基础。

The government seems to have calculated that, if it won the war quickly enough, using whatever means it took, it could deflect calls from America and Europe for sanctions. Hiding behind the diplomatic support of Russia and, especially, China, it has been able to do that. It seems unaware of quite how badly it has in the process besmirched Sri Lanka’s reputation as a freedom-loving democracy. If it fails to act quickly to save lives and build a lasting peace, the world will have to start treating it as the elected dictatorship it is beginning to resemble.

斯里兰卡政府似乎以为，不论采用何种方式，如果它能迅速结束战争，就能逃避欧美各国的制裁。在俄罗斯，尤其是中国的外交支持下，它曾经成功做到过。政府似乎并未意识到在此过程中它何等严重地玷污了斯里兰卡热爱自由民主的名声。如果政府未能迅速行动，拯救生命，构建持久和平，那么世界将开始将它视为越来越有专制的趋势。

《经济学人》（The Economist ( http://www.economist.com ))
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