Hence her stress, even when a suicide bomber kills female as well as male soldiers and civilian women and children, on problems that might be created by the Sri Lankan forces. So the headline stresses the fact that 'Suicide bombing breaches international law' and goes on to say, as though that were the problem, not the actual murders, that 'such tactics violate the international legal prohibition on perfidious attacks and expose civilians to increased danger'.After that little excursus Yolanda really goes into action. Suicide bombing means in her book that 'Blurring the distinction between civilians and combatants means that thousands of ordinary people, desperate to flee the conflict area, are at greater risk of reprisals and getting caught in crossfire.' Since clearly the Tigers have shown (in a way that must be obvious to everyone through this suicide bombing, if it were not obvious before) that they do not particularly care if civilians are killed, this particular statement of Yolanda's is obviously intended, with its mention too of reprisals, to draw attention to what the Sri Lankan forces might do. Then AI engages in its usual ambiguity about the bombing itself.Though they have a history of using suicide bombers, AI notes that they 'have not assumed responsibility for the attack today.' Despite this Yolanda goes into finger wagging mode and asserts that "The Tamil Tigers must immediately and publicly disavow the use of tactics such as suicide bombers disguised as civilians".That word 'still' implies that Yolanda understands that the security forces do direct their actions against military targets, but Yolanda's shaky command of the English language means that that sentence is at best a Freudian slip in her relentless targeting of the Sri Lankan forces. She ends by asserting, as though it was unquestionable, that both parties evince disregard for international humanitarian law" and it is 'the civilians who pay the price'.
The fact that there has been no evidence whatsoever for claiming that Sri Lankan forces violate such law (given that the Amnesty diatribe about cluster bombs turned out to be based on a mistaken long distance UN verbal identification that was subsequently withdrawn) is ignored in this blatant attempt to attack the Sri Lankan forces after the LTTE employs a suicide bomber.
It should also be noted that soldiers too should benefit from international law, and it is sad that Yolanda simply disregards the soldiers, including female soldiers, who were killed by the suicide bomber.
Sri Lanka has been assisting the civilians escaping from the clutches of the LTTE in increasing numbers, despite the efforts of Yolanda and her ilk to claim that abuse awaited them in government controlled territory.
They are coming in ever larger numbers, and the soldiers, in the midst of desperate assaults by the LTTE, are coping admirably. At the time the suicide bomb exploded, the Ministry of Resettlement was, as requested by the forces at the checkpoints, working overtime to ensure a supply of water for the civilians crossing over.
The checking was being performed with total regard for the dignity of those coming over, female soldiers checking on the women and children. It was in the midst of such commitment that the suicide bomber struck.
Yolanda may well believe, as we all do, that the lives of civilians should be sacrosanct, but her abject failure to spare a thought for the soldiers killed so unexpectedly in the midst of humanitarian work is also horrifying.
