While the world agonizes over Gaza, a much worse conflict-driven catastrophe is unfolding in Sri Lanka, writes Martin Regg Cohn, the Toronto Star's deputy editorial page editor (who did reporting stints in both Asia and the Middle East).
You wouldn't know it from the lack of concern at the United Nations, but the fighting in Sri Lanka has reached its bloodiest, climactic phase in recent weeks. It is causing catastrophic misery among Tamil innocents hemmed in on all sides – yet it hardly warrants a blip in our blogosphere.
And while Torontonians on either side of the Middle East conflict rage or reflect on events in Gaza – with sit-ins and street protests and letter writers at full bore – the world's largest émigré community of Sri Lankan Tamils is wondering why it barely rates a mention in the Canadian media. For David Poopalapillai of the Canadian Tamil Congress, the disparity is inexplicable.
"Please write about us," he implored after phoning twice last week, even though he knows we disagree about the notorious Tamil Tigers. "No one is writing about the Tamils, and you've been there many times."
During seven years in Asia, I visited Sri Lanka often enough. During four years in the Middle East, I also covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on my doorstep. And there are eerie similarities between the two conflict zones, despite the unequal attention they command.
Genocide by the Israelis? A report by the New York-based Genocide Prevention Project (an offshoot of Mia Farrow's Dream for Darfur campaign) ranked Sri Lanka in the top tier of its mass atrocity watch list, alongside Sudan, Burma, Somalia and others; Israel and the Palestinian territories were much further down a caution list (below Zimbabwe).
Shutting out the media? Israel's military is keeping out most Western media not already on the ground, using security as a pretext and ignoring its own Supreme Court rulings. But staff Palestinian reporters are in place for the wire services and The New York Times, and Al-Jazeera is filing daily from Gaza. If not for the kidnapping by Gazans of its correspondent last year, the BBC might have maintained its bureau in Gaza.
In Sri Lanka, the BBC is the only major news organization to keep full-time staff in the country, but the government is shamelessly barring foreign and domestic media from the front lines. We have a rough casualty count for Gaza, despite the fog of war; but we don't have a clue how many civilians or combatants have been killed in the all-out Sri Lankan offensive, or how many more have died from exposure in monsoon rains, snake bites and food shortages.
And while the Israelis have (albeit briefly) allowed relief groups in before and during the latest conflict, the UN and other NGOs pulled out of Sri Lanka's Tamil areas long ago, leaving hundreds of thousands of refugees in pitiable conditions to fend for themselves.
For further background on the humanitarian crisis, Human Rights Watch produced a report in late December: Besieged, Displaced and Detained: The plight of refugees in Sri Lanka's Vanni region.