Sri Lanka election

From a week ago: here (h/t).

World Bank: aid should emphasize justice systems, police

The World Bank's 2011 World Development Report calls for directing more aid to the reform of justice systems and strengthening of police, especially in countries experiencing conflict, where poverty rates are higher than in other places. The emphasis on police may seem at first glance like a somewhat odd proposal, but it is not new in development circles. The development-conflict connection isn't particularly my field, but I recall hearing John Richardson talk some years ago about his work on Sri Lanka and he emphasized, among other things, strengthening police forces. How strengthening the police in a country that is descending into or emerging from civil war, or caught in a cycle of violence (as opposed to 'ordinary' crime), helps things is a bit mysterious to me, but apparently it does. I note in this connection that training of the Afghan national police has lagged behind training of the Afghan army, or at least that was the case when I last heard something about it. Presumably a well-trained police force is less open to corruption; however, corruption in Afghanistan seems so deeply ingrained (see Dexter Filkins's piece "The Afghan Bank Heist" in the Feb. 14/21 New Yorker), one wonders whether anything would make any difference. (Cf. also the ongoing Mexican drug wars, which I've not blogged about.)

Remembering the end of the Sri Lankan civil war

Conor Foley, in a post that I have previously linked to, mentions the situation in Sri Lanka toward the end of the government's war with the Tamil Tigers (LTTE).

Hundreds of thousands of civilians were blockaded into an area the size of New York Central Park, where at least 20,000 were killed over a three month period. The area was shelled incessantly and hospitals and food-distribution points appear to have been deliberately targeted. Many more died from starvation and disease because the government blocked humanitarian access. Others were summarily executed during the final assault.... There was never even the remotest prospect of a ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Sri Lanka and I only include it in the discussion to show that the option of doing nothing also has moral consequences.

What happened in Sri Lanka at the end of its war is certainly worth recalling. Nothing on anything approaching a similar scale has occurred in Libya. The intervention there may be said to have relied on a reasoned prediction ("reasoned" of course not meaning "infallible") about what might occur in the absence of intervention. Seen in this light, the intervention is defensible, though the continuing debate about it is probably a good thing. Interventions of this sort are necessarily controversial and an absence of debate would be surprising.

Sri Lanka: civilians caught in the war zone

Perhaps the last phases of civil wars are often the most brutal. That certainly seems to be the case in Sri Lanka, where the LTTE (Tamil Tigers, for short) are making what may be a last stand in a 2.4-mile-long coastal area. Tragically, there are 50,000 civilians in the area, at least 378 of whom were killed by shelling last night. According to an AP report (in the Express edition of today's Wash. Post): "A rebel-linked Web site blamed the attack on the government, while the military accused the beleaguered Tamil Tigers of shelling their own territory to gain international sympathy and force a truce." Reaction from Ban Ki-moon and others is reported here.