It is constant in all countries where there is an armed conflict. There are precipitating factors – usually discrimination, inequality, injustice, poverty, among others. That is why it is conventionally acknowledged that to finally defeat an unrest, social justice must be served.

Very recently, the international media had reported on the military victory of Sri Lankan government over the Tamil Tigers. The news was close to my heart. It resonated with my personal experience of getting proximate to where the battle happened in order to aid the civilians. Also, I had a Sri Lankan student whose views on what was happening to their country were to me very disturbing. Teacher that I am, I tend to think about how I possibly influenced her thinking.

To my mind, the way Sri Lanka handled the termination of its civil war was actually representing a bad precedence for other governments around the world that deal with militant groups. I do not mean to say that I approve of the Tamil Tigers. Ideologically, I was with them in their struggle for territory (read: self-determination) and sympathized with their ethnic resentments. But I did not subscribe to their means of accomplishing their goal: they introduced the practice of suicide bombing among the present day terrorists, they recruited child soldiers, they trafficked arms; they made use of global diaspora to collect resources, among others.

But, now, the Tamil Tigers were already crushed. And their defeat by the government elements did come at a high cost in civilian lives and a manifest decline in democratic values. Moreover, Pres. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s counterinsurgency doctrine seemed to be copied from the past – on the basis of which leaders of other countries with insurgency problems may imitate but only with the optimal precaution.

First of all, the Sri Lankan Army broke down the Tamil Tigers in an unrelenting military campaign. And this kind of long and sustained offensive hasn’t been tried anywhere in decades. This is a clear diversion from what modern military wisdom maintains that brute force cannot and does not defeat insurgencies. In the long run, the only way to end the fighting rests in the long run political and economic power sharing in the context of social reconciliation.

Secondly, from the Sri Lanka experience, one learns that negotiations do not work. Led notably by Norway, all attempts towards mediation were nil. And, Pres. Rajapaksa fundamentally abandoned the option of negotiated solution. It was understandable, of course, since with the Sri Lankan military having the upper hand, there was a little need to forge a treaty with the Tamil Tigers.

Thirdly, the Sri Lankan government seemed to have given the world an impression that collateral damage is tolerable. According to the media, the military offensives especially by the government were not discriminating between the armed and unarmed actors in this battle. There was a video clip that I saw showing the seriousness of the effects of the military’s use of among others phosphorous chemicals and even cluster bombs. The aged, women, children – all of them were dying! With this as a backdrop, a military intelligence analyst’s remark was very curious: Rajapaksa’s disregard for civilian casualties was a key to his military victory.

The final counterinsurgency tactic that Rajapaksa showed the whole world was how effective it was to shut up critics especially in the height of such a military operation. Lasantha Wickrematunge, a journalist, was murdered. His crime was he dared to ask government hard questions. As the fighting intensified, too, journalists and international observers were kept away. In this way, little reporting was done on the military’s “squid tactics” and the expanse of civilian casualties.

About all of these, we keep our fingers cross as we implore the leaders of countries dealing with their own domestic armed problems: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!