Tiananmen Square, North Korea, and the Tamil Tigers

A quick announcement before I begin this week’s Friday Morning Fix. The novel I wrote and published in 2004 is now available for purchase on the blog. Click here to read about The Xpatriot by Randall H. Miller.

On to business…

Several months ago I wrote about the Obama administration’s Chinese foreign policy strategy. My conclusion was that relations are somewhat stable now, but we’ve had some bumps along the road. From the Friday Morning Fix – March 20th, 2009:

In 2001, a Chinese fighter jet collided with an American spy plane resulting in the death of the pilot and 11 Americans being held in custody for almost two weeks. Most recently, American and Chinese naval forces clashed in the Pacific when (depending on who you believe) a U.S. ship either violated Chinese maritime borders or was needlessly harassed by Chinese forces in international waters. As a consequence, American and Chinese leaders are working to smooth relations and avoid the kind of problems that such incidents can quickly escalate into. Neither side wants to rock the boat prior to Obama’s April meeting with President Hu.

The G20 meeting came and went without any significant events. But June 4th, 2009 will be the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and while President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are usually consistent on banging the human rights drums, I imagine they will choose their words more carefully that day.

The 1989 Tiananmen Square pro democracy demonstration began peacefully on April 14th, but by June 4th the Chinese government disgraced itself by ordering its military to open fire on its own people, a bloodbath ensued. Casualty estimates range from a few hundred to several thousand (the “official” Chinese numbers unsurprisingly come in on the low end). In spite of this atrocity, the Obama administration will likely merely mention the “event” and downplay its historical significance. Why? Because whether we like it or not we need China. We need Chinese cooperation to tackle the global financial crisis, to help us manage and finance our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to thwart Iran’s nuclear program, and to deal with the ever-erratic North Korean regime. Foreign policy is driven by interests and tough choices. We might be criticized for our weak criticism of the event, but taking a hard line now could cause much more damage later. Welcome to the real world.

Unsurprisingly, the Chinese regime (The prettiest girl at the dance back during the Olympics, right?) has already started to repress dissent. The Telegraph reports:

Beijing has taken steps to prevent dissent in response to a groundswell of pressure for the authorities to atone for what happened.

Students at Beijing and Dalian Universities have been banned from giving any interviews to the foreign media until after the anniversary.

The Public Security Bureau in Dalian warned: “Any indication of an approach from a foreign journalist must be reported immediately.”

University exams have been scheduled across China on June 4, in what appears to be an attempt to keep students inside their classrooms.

Security officers have also been targeting known dissidents including Bao Tong, 76, an aide to Zhao Zhiyang, the late Chinese leader. He has been taken out of Beijing to the mountain region of Huangshan on Monday.

It’s ironic that one of the most powerful regimes in the world is afraid of its own students and feels the need to sequester a septuagenarian. Free speech and democracy are pure anathema to oppressive regimes.

North Korean Leader Kim Jong-il Continues to Cry for Attention

In another unsurprising (yet very serious) development, North Korea decided to completely ignore the international community (except for its friends – Iran and Venezuela) and conducted another nuclear weapon test (its second and the only two of the 21st century). In typical North Korean form the test was followed up by some world class “smack-talking.” Needless to say, U.S. and Republic of Korea (ROK) troops are on the highest alert. Yahoo News reports:

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea and the United States raised the military alert level for the peninsula on Thursday after the communist North warned the truce ending the Korean War was dead and it was ready to attack.

The joint command for the 28,500 U.S. troops that support South Korea’s 670,000 soldiers has raised its alert a notch to signify a serious threat from North Korea, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

It is the highest threat level since the North’s only other nuclear test in October 2006.

Any guesses as to what the international community will do about it this time? Send them another letter perhaps? And didn’t Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeline Albright take care of this problem back in 2000?

More Tigers on the Extinction List?

The Sri Lankan government claims that its 26 year war against world renowned terrorists the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is finally over, complete with the death of founder and sole commander Velupillai Prabhakaran. I’m not so sure about that. According to The Economist:

ONLY days after Velupillai Prabhakaran was found dead on a battlefield in north-eastern Sri Lanka on May 19th, cracks have emerged in the Tamil Tiger rebel group that he controlled for over three decades. At issue is whether to concede that Mr Prabhakaran, whose pudgy corpse was displayed for television cameras by the army and then burned, is really dead.

On May 24th Selvarasa Pathmanathan, head of international relations for…(LTTE)…said its “incomparable leader and supreme commander” had been martyred. Within hours, another self-described Tiger faction, quoting the Tigers’ intelligence arm, released a statement that said, the “LTTE leadership is safe and it will re-emerge when the right time comes”. The Tigers’ intelligence chief, Pottu Amman, is the most senior rebel plausibly rumoured to have survived the murderous last stage of a two-year army offensive.

I’m skeptical for obvious reasons. The LTTE had thousands of “soldiers”, many (known as Black Tigers) willing to conduct suicide bombing operations, as well as reasonably functional naval and air assets. At one time they controlled 2/3 of Sri Lanka. It’s more likely that remnants of the Tigers will linger and attack when they have the resources and critical mass required (Updated to include: Christopher Hitchens disagrees). Remember the presumed dead “Shining Path” (Sendero Luminoso) in Peru? They staged a comeback last month and, according to Americas Quarterly, are reportedly recruiting child soldiers to join its ranks. From AQ’s blog:

In a video that surfaced in the Peruvian media on Sunday night, images emerged of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrilla group training children in military-style drills and in the handling of automatic weapons. According to local reports, the video shows up to 17 children between 7 and 12 years old in “military formations” in a remote jungle area about 320 kilometers southeast of Lima, Peru.

Terrorist organizations and insurgencies are rarely eliminated completely. All you need are a few dedicated individuals willing to commit acts of violence and claim responsibility for the organization. Even copycats with no connection other than sympathy can keep an insurgency or terrorism organization “alive.” Our best hope is to eliminate as many of the players as possible, reduce the factors that exacerbate terrorism in general, beat them in the battle for hearts and minds (where we currently have lots of room for growth), and bring them into the legitimate political process when possible. Finally, we need to be able to able to deal with the attacks that will inevitably happen.

Reports of the LTTE’s death are premature and the Sri Lankan government has a lot of fence building to do with the Tamil people. This is a story I plan on watching very closely.

Comments and criticism are welcome.

Thanks for reading.

Sidenotes: I’ll be a panelist at the World History Association’s annual meeting on June 27th, 2009 in Salem Massachusetts with my friend and colleague, Professor Kara Kaufman.

Panel Title: Witches, Wikis and Websites: Ways to Engage Students Required to Attend World History Courses

Panel Date and Time: June 27th, Saturday 11 – 12:30 p.m.

I’ll also be addressing the Explorers Lifelong Learning Institute on July 15th, 2009. The presentation is entitled “Al Qaeda Meets Al Capone: Islamic Terrorists and Organized Crime.”

Click here to book Randall H. Miller for a lecture.

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• What is Obama’s Chinese Foreign Policy?
• Is Cuba a State Sponsor of Terrorism?
• Bill Clinton to the Rescue
• Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and My Wedding
• Resurrecting “The Xpatriot” by Randall H. Miller
• New York’s Finest Thwart Terrorist Plot in NYC