Tuesday, April 25, 2006

fallacy of some recent peacenik ngo arguments

most ngo activists attached to peacenik ngos like centre for policy alternatives(cpa) apart from publishing obviously biased and plagiarized statements purporting to be results of a 'fact-finding team of civil society representatives' when they are nothing of the kind, are also in the habit of advancing certain arguments on behalf of their cause.
these arguments aim to impute to the government the full blame for the failure to restart the peace talks and to imply that military is actively engaged in ethnic cleansing or even genocide reminiscent of 1983. many others (in the media especially) are in the sloppy habit of repeating them without realizing their fallacy.

statements and reports of cpa can be and were exposed as biased and plagiarized using evidence. fallacy of their arguments should also be proved. this an attempt to do that for two of of the most common.

1/
probably the most common argument advanced by such people is the following
'the government is responsible for peace talks not taking place because it failed to give in to some ltte precondition for peace talk participation'

the precondition varies from time to time according to ltte mood, from failure to disarm the paramilitaries to not transporting tigers by military helicopter to not allowing tigers to carry arms in government controlled areas. let us forget for now the impossibility and impracticality, not to mention danger in complying with some of these demands. (for what i think of paramilitary demand see here) let us assume that government is capable of complying with them and deliberately chose not to comply due to its own reasons.

even then is it valid to impute to government the full responsibility for failure to restart the peace talks as this argument does?
ngo ppl seem to believe so, if we go by the frequency they advance this argument at the smallest opportunity.

however in order to do so,
they have to forget the ltte's daily attacks against the military.
they have to forget the ltte's daily attacks against the civilians.
they have to forget the superhuman restraint shown by the military in the face of those daily attacks.
they have to forget that military cannot be accused of gratuitously killing tigers.
they have to forget that it is in fact tigers who are killing military and the civilians in order to provoke communal clashes.
they have to forget that in few instances where such clashes did occur as in trinco on april 12th, the military controlled it within 2-3 hours(quick by any standard. in some countries, in britain and france recently for instance, have taken longer to quell smaller riots)
they have to forget that government is ready to start talks,
they have to forget that it is the ltte that is refusing to attend peace talks due to ever changing preconditions.

it is hard believe but these ngo people do forget all that and advance the above argument.

imo only people with an ingrained bias against the military and limited reasoning facilities will be capable of advancing it seriously and it seems most ago activists fall into that category. no wonder that they pass other peoples' writings as their own.

it would be telling to know how they will answer following questions.

do you deny that ltte is attacking the military?
do you deny that ltte trying to provoke the military ?
do you deny that ltte is provoking communal clashes ?

do you deny that its ltte is bent on restarting the war ?

next time they shamelessly advance that argument please ask those questions from them.

2/
following is another argument used by them, especially after the recent riots in trinco
'since xx number of tamils were killed, xx number of tamil shops attacked, xx number of tamils displaced, and there was some other reports of anti tamil mob violence, and especially because there were reports of military inaction during the riot there must be an organized attempt by military to ethnically cleanse trinco of tamils by reenacting events of july '83.'

it has already been shown that the reports on which they base this argument are biased and plagiarized accounts taken from ltte propagandists. substantiated accounts of the riot from slmm, foreign and local media show that it was a spontaneous affair and there were gangs of both communities operating during the riot. this is further confirmed by the fact that victims both killed, displaced, and damaged, included all communities. in spite of repeated requests ngo people have been unable to substantiate claims of military indifference or involvement in the riot. in fact military seem to have controlled it very quickly with in 2-3 hours.
imo there can be no comparison between this riot and '83.

in addition to challenging above argument through its factual inaccuracies let us examine its logic too.

if there was an organized mob operating why was it not used again and again. why was there only two (second incident involving in reality few sinhala villagers from mahindapura who burned houses in near by tamil villages on 15th after some of their fellow villagers were killed on 14th) instances of mob violence so far?
after all ltte's attempts at provoking did not stop with the market bomb in trico on 12th and killing of mahindapura villagers on 14th. it continued throughout this period. it is still continuing.
in the last 48 hours alone, 10 sinhala civilians around trinco including children were killed. so where is the organized and military supported mob that these ngo people are always going on about?
there are daily deadly attacks on the military. if military is so intent on ethnic cleansing as these ngo fellows allege why is there no reappraisals?

is it because there was no such organized mob violence in first place? is it because military has no plans to ethnically cleanse trinco?

international community and everybody else with even a modicum of sense have commended the military and expressed sympathy to the civilians of trinco. urging them to continue to be patient.

question is whether peacenik ngo people will at least leave off making the above argument in the future, if they cannot commend the military for its restraint because of their ingrained hatred towards it.

note: 'blogger' is acting weird so will add formating later.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

For somebody who claims to believe in free will in your blog - You certainly write some seriously opinionated articles. On the subject of free will why can't the ngo's take sides after all they need can't all sit on the fence. So the CPA are looking out for the tamilian people here in sri lanka and lobbying to protect them big deal ! The sinhalese have something far bigger looking after their intreasts it's a villager from down south called el Buffalo. What's the big deal about the LTTE wanting to go back to war this simply indicates that they haven't got what they wanted with peace give them what they wat then stop worrying about us going back to war - Simple really

Morquendi said...

Sittingnut,

Perhaps you would understand the situation in Trinco if you actually went there.

As long as you sit here and contemplate based on what the media is saying, you're just hot air.

sittingnut said...

anon:
On the subject of free will why can't the ngo's take sides after all they need can't all sit on the fence.
as long as they are honest about it sure :-)
i have no problem with tamilnet , jeyaraj etc. they are free and we know where they stand.
but everyone has a right to expose those who cheat

as for giving what ltte wanted. that's your belief . thanks for expressing it.
unfortunately it is is not that that simple bc others have different ideas.

morquendi:
i am sorry to hear that is the best you can come up with :-)

if you read some early comments on moju on this topic you would have noticed that i own property in trinco. what makes you think i have not been there ? (is it just another instance of some ppl here assuming things based on nothing)
i don't base my arguments on such unverifiable(for you and others ) evidence. i have already made that point when i said i am not going ask others believe to my accounts of eye witnesses known to me.

if you want to, answer the questions. if they are not valid pl explain why. my whereabouts do not make a difference.

Anonymous said...

An NGO not disclosing it's affiliations is not cheating it's simply keeping it's cards close to it's chest.... Why must everything in this country involve talking sides if it isn't motherland this its Tamil Elam that

Chandare said...

Colombo is a small town.They must have got the news by now.
I think what they don't understand is that it is not very nice when their donors in west google and find out ,"Sri Lanka","CPA" and "plagiarism " in the same sentence(not to be confused with Iraqi CPA).
Also Dr.Laksiri Fernando's account of his experiance shed some light on the modus operandi of this cabaal.

Anonymous said...

http://culturalsurvivaltrust.org/lankarealestate.htm

maybe u should check who u r advertising for in your blog...

sittingnut said...

anon 4/25/2006 5:13 pm
it's simply keeping it's cards close to it's chest.
no they are playing the cards by publishing :-)

chandare:
thanks
They must have got the news by now.
hope so
and i am sending emails as i said.

anon 4/26/2006 12:53 am
maybe u should check who u r advertising for in your blog...
i really don't mind. everyone is free to say what they wish. and if they pay to do so. so much the better. :-)
however i did not see their ad here. thanks for telling me anyway.

ashanthi:
are you involved with any on the ground work to help ease (now) and in the future completely eliminate communal violence?
at the moment i am in colombo.

completely eliminating communal violence is a good aim. but probably not practicable. but let us hope they won't happen again.

sittingnut said...

ashanthi:
i think you are again making mistakes with regard to facts.
these strikes are very limited in nature. and ppl can and do find shelter. that there is so many fleeing is because they believe they will get attacked not because have actually being attacked.

sittingnut said...

ashanthi:
i am very sorry abot civilian deaths. :-( i really am.
sorry if i appear to be callous.

I also think it's really sad how you are referring to this peace organisation ... the CPA as "peacenik".
why not?
though i am presently calling it the 'plagiarizing cpa' whenever i have to refer to it. given their track record.

oh yo are free to box my ears in imagination here and in reality if and when we meet :-)