Not Cricket! Sri Lanka's Cricket Team Attacked in Pakistan

Sri Lanka's government is ticked off, America's President Obama is "deeply concerned," at least seven police officers are dead, and eight Sri Lankan cricketers wounded.

This time, unpleasantness in a Muslim country isn't 'the fault of the Jews.'

'India did it.'

I'm dubious, myself, but a chap with a very impressive title in Pakistan said so.

Pakistani Minister: Indian Terrorism Killed Cricketers

I'll give the Pakistani minister for Ports and Shipping credit for showing khutzpah. Where westerners might assume that the Taliban or Al Qaeda were behind this attack, Nabeel Gabol blamed India.

'Obviously,' since a bunch of terrorists (apparently) based in Pakistan hit Mumbai, India hit Pakistan. Given what seems to be the cultural norm in the Middle East, Nabeel Gabol may really believe what he said:

"A Pakistani minister blamed arch-rival India for a brazen attack on a visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in the northeastern city of Lahore on Tuesday, March 3, that killed seven people and wounding others, including five players.

" 'This is an attack on Pakistan," Federal Minister for Ports and Shipping Nabeel Gabol told IslamOnline.net.

" 'There is no doubt about Indian involvement in this terrorist attack.'..." (IslamOnline.net)

Dead Cops, Wounded Cricketers, Al Qaeda, India, and the Lizard People

Pakistan's Federal Minister for Ports and Shipping may be right. Maybe someone in the Indian government went stark, raving, moonbat crazy, and ordered a hit on the Sri Lankan cricket team. Just to spite Pakistan.

Or, maybe the shape-shifting lizard people who run the world used hypnosis rays from invisible satellites to make Indian authorities commit this atrocity.

I think it's less likely that David Icke's space alien shape shifting lizard people were involved, than that the Indian government ordered the attack on cricketers. But I don't think either possibility is all that likely. And, no, I don't think the lizard people are real.

Maybe I'm being 'simplistic,' but I think it's a bit more likely that the Taliban, Al Qaeda, or some other group that really doesn't want Pakistan and India to get along, or doesn't like cricket, shot up the Sri Lankan cricket team.

Anti-Cricket Terrorists in South Asia? Ethnic Activists with Poor Judgment?

It's possible - although maybe not likely - that the people who attacked the Sri Lankan cricketers are from Sri Lanka, themselves. The Tamil Tigers (AKA Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE) want their own ethnic group to have an independent homeland. And, don't seem to care how many people they have to kill to get their way.

Digression: Getting What You Want isn't All its Cracked Up to Be

If the Sri Lankan government was run by amoral people, who had studied Machiavelli, they might give the Tamil Tigers exactly what they want. Sri Lanka isn't all that big a country to begin with, and Mullaitivu district (the colorful spot on that map of Sri Lanka) is even smaller.

Micronations don't always do so well. Survivors in Tamil territory might be willing to abandon dreams of their 14th century heyday, after a reality check.

Not that all Tamils are behind the separatists: quite a few have left Sri Lanka entirely.

Time to get back on topic.

Death to the Cricketers?! Beware Unintended Consequences

Whoever is responsible for attacking a cricket team in Pakistan, they may not like what happens next. Cricket is rather popular in south Asia, it seems: think football (soccer, for American readers) in England, Brazil, and other parts of the world.

There will be that flash of publicity, and maybe they'll reach their immediate goals.

But, I remember the Munich Olympics, 1972. 'Palestinian rights activists' killed 11 Israeli athletes and got on the international news. Huge publicity coup for them. In America, though, it was around that time that reporters stopped repeating terrorists' press releases verbatim, began using verbs like "kill" where they used to say "execute," when a Jew or other oppressor died abruptly while in the company of a terrorist - and started calling terrorists 'terrorists' more often.

All things considered, 'executing' young athletes may not have been quite as good an idea as it seemed at the time.

I think there may be a 'cricket backlash' after this little exercise in terror, with a no ball declared and the opposing side getting a free hit. But, only time will tell.

Related posts:

• "Taliban Brings Peace, Islamic Law, to Pakistan's Swat Valley"
  (February 21, 2009)
• "Pakistan, the Taliban, and Peace Through Diplomacy"
  (February 17, 2009)
• "Lebanon, Israel, Pakistan, India, and the Lizard People"
  (January 14, 2009)
• "Committee to Protect Journalists Unveils the Impunity Index"
  (April 30, 2008)
• "Tamil Terror? Bomb Blows up Bus in Sri Lanka"
  (January 16, 2008)

News and views:

• "TV: 60 suspects related to attack on Sri Lankan team arrested"
  Xinhua (March 4, 2009)
• "An excuse to point fingers at India"
  The Times of India (March 4, 2009)
• "Pakistan must confront its enemy within"
  telegraph.co.uk (March 3, 2009)
• "Terrorising cricket"
  Financial Times (March 3, 2009)
• "Fans: 'Cricket loses its innocence in Pakistan'"
  CNN (March 3, 2009)
• "Obama says 'deeply concerned' over Pakistan attack"
  Reuters (March 3, 2009)
• "Sri Lanka stunned, angered by Lahore attack"
  AFP (March 3, 2009)
• "Pakistan Blames India for Cricket Attack"
  Islamonline.net (March 3, 2009)
• "Lankan president cuts short Nepal visit"
  The Times of India (March 3, 2009)

More:

• "Terrorism East of Lahore"

Committee to Protect Journalists Unveils the Impunity Index

There's a new list of nations that let journalists get killed. The idea is to embarrass leaders whose countries are on the list, so that they'll follow up when someone kills a reporter in their territory.

To get on the list, a country would have to have an outstanding number of cases where a journalist was murdered, and no murderer found or brought to justice. And, maintained this level of inaction for the last nine years.

And the winners are:

1. Iraq
2. Sierra Leone
3. Somalia
4. Colombia
5. Sri Lanka
6. Philippines
7. Afghanistan
8. Nepal
9. Russia
10. Mexico
11. Bangladesh
12. Pakistan
13. India

The top three, marked in red, are preoccupied with armed conflicts: which tend to make any sort of law enforcement awkward. The others, though, seem to have earned a place on the Impunity Index through sheer merit.

Although I think that reporters can be a royal pain in the neck, they also serve an important function. In theory, at least, reporters find and report facts that people in free societies need.

And no group should fall outside the law's protection.

About the Committee to Protect Journalists' hope that national leaders can be embarrassed by having their shortcomings published: I think it's worth a try.

• The Source: Committee to Protect Journalists
  • "Getting Away With Murder"
    Committee to Protect Journalists (April 30, 2008)
    "DPJ's Impunity Index ranks countries where killers of journalists go free"
    The lead paragraph told me that we're looking at something a bit off the norm for this sort of report.
    "Democracies from Colombia to India and Russia to the Philippines are among the worst countries in the world at prosecuting journalists' killers according to the Impunity Index, a list of countries compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists where governments have consistently failed to solve journalists' murders."
    The page includes the methodology used, a statistical table, and a video.
  • "Statistics: Journalists Killed"
    "Since 1992, the Committee to Protect Journalists has compiled detailed accounts of every journalist killed on duty worldwide."
    This page links to detailed reports and resources.
• The News:
  • "New index names 13 countries where killers of journalists get away with murder"
    International Herald Tribune (May 1, 2008)
    "UNITED NATIONS: Thirteen countries are the worst offenders in letting killers of journalists get away with murder — from war-torn Iraq and Somalia to peaceful democracies including Mexico, Russia and India, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.
    "The committee said governments in the 13 countries have consistently failed to solve murders where journalists were targeted from 1998 through 2007.
    "There are at least 199 unsolved murders in these countries during that 10-year period — 79 in Iraq, 24 in the Philippines, at least 20 in Colombia, 14 in Russia, 9 in Sierra Leone, 8 in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan, 7 in Afghanistan and Mexico, and 5 in Somalia, Nepal and India.
    " 'This is a naming and shaming exercise,' Prof. Sheila Coronel of the Columbia University Journalism School, said at a news conference Wednesday at U.N. headquarters launching the new Impunity Index."
  • "Iraq tops 13 countries where journalists' killers are not prosecuted - CPJ"
    KUNA (Kuwait News Agency) (April 30, 2008)
    "UNITED NATIONS, April 30 (KUNA) -- Iraq tops the "Impunity Index" of 13 "democracies" where governments consistently failed to prosecute journalists' killers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) which released the Index for the first time in connection with World Press Freedom Day to be marked May 3rd.
    The 13 countries where governments are unable or unwilling to prosecute the killers are: Iraq, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Afghanistan, Nepal, Russia, Mexico, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India.
    The committee acknowledged that the first three countries have been mired in conflict, but the rest, it noted, are "peacetime democracies," such as Mexico, where elected governments have failed to protect journalists.
    " 'Every time a journalist is murdered and the killer is allowed to walk free it sends a terrible signal to the press and to others who would harm journalists,' Joel Simon, CPJ Executive Director, told a press conference on Wednesday."
  • "CPJ Names 13 Countries Where Journalists' Killers Go Free"
    VOA ( Voice of America) (April 30, 2008)
    "The Committee to Protect Journalists says governments in South Asia are among the worst in the world at prosecuting the killers of journalists. In a new Impunity Index that covers unsolved murders over the past nine years, six of the 13 countries that have consistently failed to solve these cases are in South Asia. From U.N. headquarters in New York, VOA's Margaret Besheer has more.
    "CPJ's new Impunity Index cites 13 countries as having the worst records for letting killers of journalists get away with murder.
    " 'There are many problems confronting journalists around the world - censorship, incarceration - but there is no greater threat to the free circulation of ideas and information than murder,' said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. 'Especially murder without consequence. And that is what this Impunity Index measures.' "
    

Terrorism: Not a Muslim Monopoly

Update (September 28, 2009)
I recently discovered that I'm related to a terrorist. Of the non-Ay-rab variety. That might explain the special treatment I received, flying, several years ago.

The point I've tried to make - often - is that Not All [fill in a group you don't like] are terrorists. A terrorist in the family tree doesn't mean that all my relations are terrorists: any more than we're all writers, like me.

Yes, it's a little more difficult to understand the world, after you realize that all members of the groups you've recognized aren't essentially identical. But that's the way it is.

---

Some Muslims seem determined to prove that Islam is a violent religion:

• "U.S. Embassy in Yemen urges caution after rocket attack"
  CNN (April 6, 2008)
  "A housing complex used by foreigners in Yemen's capital came under attack late Sunday, with explosives shattering windows but causing no injuries, U.S. and Yemeni officials said."
• "Al Qaeda No. 2: We don't kill innocents"
  CNN (April 3, 2008)
  "... innocents who have been killed in attacks by al Qaeda or affiliated groups died as a result of 'unintentional error' or because they were used as 'human shields' by 'the enemy.' ...
  "Al-Zawahiri defended a December attack in Algeria -- hospital sources said it killed 60 people -- because one of its targets was a United Nations building and the 'United Nations is an enemy of Islam and Muslims,' ...."
  (Smart move: claiming that the coalition uses "human shields." That may make it more difficult to make that claim about Palestinian activists whose rocket launchers just happen to be on someone's roof.)

And, some have been not-so-violent:

• " Dutch consulate damaged in Indonesia protests"
  CNN (April 2, 2008)
• "Mass protests in Pakistan over Dutch film"
  Malaysia Sun (April 6, 2008)
• "Thousands protest anti-Quran film in Pakistan"
  CNN (April 6, 2008)

A few flags burned, and an embassy gate torn off, is practically non-violent, compared to what happened to Theo van Gogh.

Despite the remarkably mild response to "Fitna," it's easy to assume that Islam = terrorism = Islam.

Easy, but wrong. Ireland's IRA is, thankfully, off the radar as far as bombing and mayhem are concerned, but other groups have picked up the torch of killing for the cause. For example: "Suicide blast kills Sri Lankan minister" (CNN (April 2008)). Over a dozen people died in a 'suicide bombing' in Sri Lanka. Looks like the Tamil Tigers are still at it. They're a group with some ethnic/political goals: and they seem to believe that what they want is worth killing what they probably consider foreigners to get them.

I've posted about the Sri Lanka brand of terrorism before: "The War on Terror: It's Not All Uneducated Muslims and Attacks on America" (February 23, 2008); "Let's Remember: Not All Terrorists are Muslims" (February 3, 2008); "Tamil Terror? Bomb Blows up Bus in Sri Lanka" (February 3, 2008); "" (January 16, 2008);

Let's Remember: Not All Terrorists are Muslims

I've written about this sort of thing before ("Tamil Terror? Bomb Blows up Bus in Sri Lanka" (January 16, 2008)), and probably will again.

This time, a woman in Sri Lanka blew herself up at a railway station, taking about a dozen people with her. It looks like Tamil Tiger rebels - members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam - arranged the killings. The Tamil Tigers say they've got a secular goal: an independent state for Tamil people.

A lesson here is that terrorism isn't an Islamic monopoly, it's not even necessarily connected to religion, and certainly isn't limited to the Middle East, Europe, and America.

Tamil Terror? Bomb Blows up Bus in Sri Lanka

Terrorist attacks aren't a Middle Eastern monopoly. A bomb killed 23 people and wounded 67 in southeastern Sri Lanka Wednesday. (I'm writing this late Tuesday, so it's already Wednesday in Sri Lanka.)

This is a terrorist attack, but the odds are that Muslims aren't involved. For starters, there aren't that many Muslims in Sri Lanka. That island nation, off India's coast, is about

• 69.1% Buddhist
• 7.6% Muslim
• 7.1% Hindu
• 6.2% Christian
• 10% something else.

Among Sri Lanka's problems are Tamil rebels, who want an independent homeland. The Sri Lankan government has withdrawn from a less-than-satisfactory cease fire with the Tamil Tigers (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE).

The Sri Lankan Tamil people are about 80% Hindu. 90% of Indian Tamils are Hindus. So, if there is any religious component in the Tamil rebels' motives, it's probably inspired by Hindi beliefs.

So What?

Not all terrorists are Muslims. And, terrorism is a global problem: not limited to the Middle East, Europe, and America.