Saving Sri Lanka

Doctors Wavering? July 9, 2009

Several Sri Lankan doctors are now telling the international media that earlier reports of civilian casualties were untrue. The Tigers, they said, had demanded that they inflate the numbers. This is conceivable. What is a little harder to believe are the government reports that not a single civilian was killed by government weapons. Not even accidentally? How could anyone know that for sure? If they had merely reported a low number–20 or 30–it would have at least seemed conceivable. But zero? It implies certainty, which implies fabrication.

The doctors also say that the hospital allegedly shelled in February was not shelled. International humanitarian groups say it was. This is just bizarre. How could this possibly be a subject up for debate? Either the hospital was shelled, or it was not shelled. Go look at the hospital. If it has shell damage, it was shelled. Ask some patients “Is it true or false that while you were staying in the hospital, portions of it exploded?” The entire thing has shades of 1984 written all over it. Just because a historical fact is asserted as the truth doesn’t change how it actually happened.

I’m not insinuating anything other than the whole thing is weird, and one side or the other or both is lying thru their teeth. Either the doctors were obliged to lie before, or they’re being obliged to lie now. Seriously, should it matter at this point? Instead of squabbling about whether or not the hospital was shelled, how about we focus on the people inside. Are they safe? Are they being taken care of? This is the priority, not the juvenile back-and-forth and self-aggrandizement. The healing needs to begin now.

Here is the story.