The Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) last week released a statement by Kanthasami Sivasuthan, a TRO staffer in Kalvayal, Chavakachcheri who was arrested and tortured by Sri Lanka Army was released to the press Saturday. Kanthasami, Technical officer of NECORD project, was beaten and threatened by Army Intelligence on 18 and 20 July. The text, translated from Tamil, of Kanthasami’s statement follows:

“On 18 July 2006, when I had visited the Community hall project site I was stopped by the Army near the Kodikamam Army camp in Point-Pedro road. I had my Sri Lanka Army issued ID and National Identity Card (N.I.C.) with me. They took those.

“They knew I am working at TRO. They asked if our office was attached to the LTTE. And also they asked me about 2 members of LTTE. They took me into the bushes where there was an open bunker. They beat me with the “Naval Kottan”. They then released me. They gave back my Army ID and NIC.

“On 20 July 2006, I visited our project site and, as before, while I was stopped by the same Army persons. They took my Army ID and NIC. I said: ‘you were stopped me on 18 July 2006 and you know about me.’ I asked for my IDs back. They said that their commander wants to meet me and they took me to the same place as before.

“They removed my shirt and covered my eyes with it. They asked me about the 2 members of the LTTE - the same as they had the last time and they asked me for places where LTTE was hiding the claymore mines, bombs etc… I told them that I don’t know anything about these. They beat again. They asked where Mr. Jeyaraj is. I said I don’t know.

“They beat me again. They then released me. They didn’t give me my Army ID and they said when I gave the details of LTTE they will give my Army ID. They said this beating was the last and next time they would shoot.

“[The beating] was done by Mr. Kumara (Army intelligent group, Kodikamam camp). Somebody was called him when he was interogating me. He spoke very good Tamil.

“I reported [the incident] to the HRC because I need my Army ID. I didn’t report to the police because somebody was shot dead after they reported to the police about Army harassment.”

As the simmering ‘low-intensity’ conflict in Sri Lanka’s Northeast escalated this week, southern press reports indicated political developments with far reaching consequences for the island’s peace process are underway. President Mahinda Rajapakse is in serious negotiations with the ultra-nationalist JVP about the latter’s entry into his ruling coalition. Loathed by many of Sri Lanka’s political commentators, the Marxist party is always being described as on the wane. But despite the repeated confident assertions by its detractors, it has demonstrated its political potency and resilience time and again. The JVP says it is in serious discussions with the President about a common program on the peace process and there is much speculation as to the nature of the deal.

But it is not mere ministerial perks the JVP wants. As always, it is after a firm grip on the genuine levers of power. It may get it. President Rajapakse is ideologically closer – and more reliant – on the JVP than his own divided SLFP. Despite the manifest developments of the past eight months, the international community still remains supremely confident that the exigencies of governance will eventually bring Rajapakse round to their view – the only ‘reasonable’ one in town. But they underestimate the ideological resonance of Rajapakse’s Presidential election manifesto - ‘Mahinda Chintanaya’ – with the man, his allies and, above all, the voters who swept him past Ranil Wickremesinghe to power. Amidst the furore about the LTTE boycott, few noticed how the UNP leader was left fumbling with a lion flag in the dust behind the JVP-JHU vehicle. The Sinhalese overwhelmingly wanted Rajapakse.

If the JVP does join the ruling coalition and, as is then likely, exerts influence over Rajapakse and the government, then the fragile skeleton of the Norwegian peace process will crumble rapidly. The JVP has already demanded the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) be thrown out. Incredibly, it also wants Rajapakse to disarm the Tigers before holding peace talks. It knows very well that its demands mean war, yet it is boldly making them. Last week JVP Propaganda Secretary toured the Jaffna frontline (by Air Force helicopter - and the party is not in government yet) and addressed the Sinhala troops. He is unlikely to have been extolling the benefits of peace.

And it is amid all this that Japan’s Special Envoy to Sri Lanka, Yasushi Akashi, chose to make a thinly disguised threat to proscribe the Liberation Tigers. Mr. Akashi told reporters he wished to meet LTTE Vellupillai Pirapaharan to tell him that Japan is “on the verge of an important decision.” Japan, he pointedly said, is “seriously considering tangible measures as some other governments have taken.” It is manifestly clear that Japan intends to proscribe the LTTE. In an extensive interview to IANS, Mr. Akashi complained that the LTTE was responsible for “more violations of the ceasefire than the government side.” As TNA Parliamentary group leader R. Sampanthan pointed out only this week, violations cannot be measured by a numerical count. Every civilian who has not been resettled under the terms of the CFA ought to be added to the violations by the government, for example. But Mr. Akashi is an intelligent man and his rationale is justification, not explanation, of Japan’s policy decisions.

The argument that international proscriptions of the LTTE will tame the Tiger and encourage the government to talks is being proven fallacious before our very eyes. It was with the same confidence that the EU banned the LTTE in May. But matters have not improved. In fact, they have become much worse, and more quickly than even those who have made themselves hoarse shouting warnings and protests could have thought. The Sinhala right is on the ascendancy. Rajapakse’s regime is laying the foundations for a protracted war against the Tigers, purchasing weapons and conducting a pernicious psychological campaign amongst the southern population. Those elements from which the liberal peace was to be stitched together are withering before the Sinhala right’s onslaught.

Mr. Akashi’s veiled threat this week will therefore only make both protagonists focus on their preparations with more determination. Sri Lanka knows that Japan is a reliable friend, irrespective of the atrocities Colombo inflicts on the Tamils. So do the Tamils. The Tamils are also well aware of the how much each international actor has (and hasn’t) contributed to the alleviation of our people’s suffering over the past few years. But international name-calling is not our concern now. Rather, it is the impending war that Japan, like the EU and Canada before it, has contributed to by encouraging, emboldening and supporting the Sinhala regime.

In a number of policy statements by prominent representatives of the international community, there has been a belated but welcome call upon the Sri Lankan government to address the legitimate grievances of the Tamils. The immediate redress that is deemed necessary by Sri Lanka’s various foreign supporters is the delivery of peace proposals which might satisfy their aspirations.

The wording of many of these statements suggests that President Mahinda Rajapakse has escaped the Tamils’ characterisation of him as a Sinhala chauvinist. For his part, he has enthusiastically assured the international community that he intends to do just what they want. He assured even the sceptical Indian government that his committee, which includes minorities, even if led by a Sinhala hardliner, would produce a proposal which, without using the word ‘federalism’ would be just that.

My doubts are not on whether Colombo will or not – though almost everyone is convinced it will not. Rather, I question the very logic of seeking proposals for a ‘final solution’ at this stage.

An unwelcome and fairly alarming aspect of recent foreign statements has been the increasing omission of earlier calls on the government to disarm the Army-backed paramilitaries. Whilst possibly an oversight or even a given, the disappearance of such demands from the policy statements of powerful international actors would suggest this is a rather a deliberate and concerted shift.

The silence comes, moreover, in the aftermath of a spate of abductions of children by the paramilitaries and a notable escalation of violence by them. Lest it be forgotten, the Sri Lankan state had pledged to disarm at the last round of negotiations, widely termed as Geneva I, to disarm them.

The emphasis on seeking a lasting solution to the conflict with no consideration for relieving the unbearable ground conditions of the Tamils residing in the Northeast and, in particular, addressing security-related issues - which includes the disarming of the state backed paramilitary groups - suggests that the international community has decided to unwind the stalled peace process and approach the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka from an entirely different perspective.

The most important pillar of the Norwegian peace process has been the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The implementation of the CFA was intended to create a stable and peaceful environment from which the two parties could discuss more substantive issues related to reaching a permanent solution to the conflict.

Due to various obstacles, ranging from the divisive politics of the South to the bureaucratic hurdles, most of the pledges made by the state under the CFA, with the exception of the cessation of hostilities, are largely unimplemented. Despite Sri Lanka’s promises, Tamil homes and schools remained under military occupation. Due to various obstacles placed in the way by the Sri Lankan state, the rehabilitation and development of the Northeast remains impaired.

Instead, for the past few years Tamil paramilitary groups, which function as a covert wing of the Sri Lankan military, have been stepping up their relentless campaign against the LTTE and its supporters, while extorting funds from businessmen and abducting children for their forces. They remain armed, in defiance of the CFA and the Geneva 1 agreement.

By contrast, for the South the 2002 cessation of hostilities brought investment, tourism and allowed the state to regain a strong economic footing.

The reason for the failing peace process is the inability, or as Tamils assert, the unwillingness of the Sinhala establishment (from politicians to civil servants) to implement that which was agreed in negotiations with the Tamils. A slew of failed pacts and deals over the past sixty years suggest it is not agreement, but implementation which sinks the peace.

After all, in theory, issues such as ending language discrimination were resolved decades ago. However, it is in implementing these solutions, as the language issue – picked up by every Sinhala leader since 1956 - that the Sri Lankan state consistently fails to deliver to the Tamils.

The present round of unclaimed hostility is a direct consequence of the murder by the paramilitaries of a Tamil politician, Vigneswaran, which could have been easily prevented had the paramilitaries been disarmed. Ironically, Presient Rajapakse, who disregarded Geneva I, recently offered to disarm the paramilitaries, if the LTTE agreed to marginalize the Norwegians and talk directly with him.

And it is in the wake of his own contribution to the litany of broken Sinhala promises that the international community has handed President Rajapakse the initiative by asking him to deliver a just political solution to the Tamil people.

The President has enthusiastically picked up the gauntlet. After all, the international community has unwittingly allowed Rajapakse to implicitly fulfil his election manifesto, which was to disregard the existing peace process (and Ceasefire Agreement) and focus on an acceptable political solution, within a unitary (now termed ‘undivided’) state.

Unsurprisingly, the early signs do not look promising. Rajapakse’s allies and ideological bed-fellows, the ultra-nationalist JVP and JHU have insisted that any solution has to be within a unitary framework, as stipulated by the pro-election pacts he signed with them. This compelled President Rajapakse to appeal to Delhi’s understanding that though he will endeavour to deliver some form of devolution, he cannot term it federalism without his allies turning on him.

In the meantime, whilst outwardly attempting to form a southern consensus with the main opposition, United National Party, led by Ranil Wickremesinghe, President Rajapakse continued to poach parliamentarians from it, scuttling any hope of UNP cooperation in working toward a consensus on a political solution.

Assuming it is even possible, the process of devising and reaching agreement will take many years, especially given the starting point in the present political environment where it is merely taboo to mention the word ‘federalism.’

And this is before we get to the addressing the inevitable and previously unassailable hurdle of implementation.

Sri Lanka’s Supreme Courts, lest we forget, have already thwarted less ambitious projects such as the sharing of international tsunami aid. Any solution involves changing Sri Lanka’s constitution, which requires a two-thirds majority in Parliament that has been impossible to achieve in the past two decades.

For the southern hawks, and specifically for Mahinda Rajapakse, the All Party Conference (APC) provides a breathing space and enormous respite from the difficult international position in which he had been placed by Geneva I. Should he consent to begin to implement Geneva I by disarming the paramilitaries, then he would come under fire from the JVP and JHU. In theory at least, should he have failed to disarm the gunmen, he would come under pressure from the international community.

But in a startling turn of events, the international community has virtually caved in on its demands and is instead allowing Rajapakse the considerable freedom of determining the basis from which a political solution is found.

Although the international community has effectively conceded to the intransigent Sinhala establishment, it has made some concessions to the aggrieved Tamil community. It has alluded to their rights to a homeland and it is now consistently demanding that Tamil grievances be addressed - although they still remain fairly vague on precisely what these grievances are.

But there appears to be no timeframe for the Sinhala establishment to come up with a resolution. This effectively leaves the Tamils in limbo until the southern parties see fit as to offer the Tamils what they think the minority deserves.

Perhaps the Tamils should be reassured by the solemnity of the message the international community is delivering to President Rajapakse and his coalition government. However, the past handling of the peace process by the donor community does not inspire much confidence.

After all, at the first bit of stern resistance from the Sri Lankan state on issues such as the disarming of paramilitaries, the implementation of aid sharing projects or addressing the normalcy in the North-East, the international community has shied away from taking aggressive measures to coerce the state into implementing the deals, and has instead sought to change tack and avoid confrontation Colombo.

And instead it is the Tamils that seem to be receive the brunt of the coercive measures. From the proscription of the Liberation Tigers to the most recent measures to curb aid to humanitarian organisations such as the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), the international community has spent most of the peace process twisting the Tamils’ arms into accepting the Sri Lankan state’s positions.

In practical terms little has changed for the Tamils during the peace process, and the signs are that, under the international community’s latest approach, they can expect even less to change in the coming years.

Over a quarter of the population remains displaced, and with the peace process in tatters there no longer appears to be even a timetable for returning them to their homes – so much for the international monitoring of the ceasefire.

This year, the Sri Lankan military and associated paramilitary organisations carry on their increasingly horrific atrocities with impunity, with the odd period of pause in the immediate aftermath of some international criticism.

The continued re-arming of the Sri Lankan state throughout the peace process and the expansion of the paramilitaries continues to shift the balance of power away toward the Sri Lankan military, no doubt an intended policy of President Rajapakse.

In light of the impotence of the international community in curbing President Rajapakse’s aspirations, the Tamils and the LTTE can no doubt expect a return of the familiar ‘twin-track’ or ‘war for peace’ policies of the Sri Lankan state, most aggressively pursued under President Chandrika Kumaratunga from 1995. These have invariably involved the unveiling of a devolution package (implicitly based the unitary state), whilst militarily hammering the Tamils into accepting the ‘offer’.

With a deteriorating security environment – and no sign of any respite to the violent suppression of the Tamils in the North-East, it is not clear how the International community expects the LTTE to react to its latest approach. After all, the international community ensured the Tamils that the present perilous state of affairs is going to carry on, indefinitely. In short, Colombo can offer what it likes when it likes. The Tamils must put up with the military repression – the LTTE’s attacks on the Army meanwhile will be severely punished.

Is this a sign of things to come? The international community has begun to withdraw humanitarian aid from the Northeast - not least by tacitly allowing Sri Lanka to constrict the activities of international NGOs – and cracking down on even humanitarian support from the Diaspora for their fellow Tamils.

This is precisely the situation that Sri Lankan governments from Premier Wickremesinghe to President Rajapakse have pushed for from the outset of the peace process.

And the only thing the Sri Lankan state had to do to achieve it was to impede the peace process enough to force the international community to concede to Sri Lanka’s demands.

With no timeframe for a solution and no distinct definitions of precisely what Tamil grievances are, the Tamils can expect to be trapped in an abstract political purgatory, whilst Sinhala politicians continue to decide their fate.

Should the Tamils accept the latest roadmap planned for them by the international community then they would have forfeited the last forty years of progress by their people – a deplorable affront to those who have sacrificed so much to bring the Tamil nation this far.

(JAFFNA, Sri Lanka) A few weeks ago, after midnight, a white van full of what appeared to be government soldiers pulled up in front of Kanakan Sasikaran’s house.

They kicked in the back door and about 15 men, some of them with black masks, stormed into the house.

They hauled Sasikaran, 29, from his bed, dragged him out to the van and, just before speeding off, struck his wife in the face with the butt of an AK-47 assault rifle.

There has been no trace of Sasikaran since.

Now, his weary relatives search for news at the Red Cross, the police station and, on this particular afternoon, in the hot waiting room of the human rights commission.

It operates an arm’s-length government agency that tries to record the troubling spike in killings and disappearances of Tamils here in the last six months.

Neither the army, nor the police say they picked Sasikaran up, according to his 45-year-old uncle Sittambalam Mohandas. His nephew, he says, worked as a tractor driver and has no connections to the Tamil Tigers.

“We don’t know whether he is still alive or not,” Mohandas says. “And if he is alive, where is he? We don’t know the answers.”

In Jaffna, more than 100 Tamil civilians have been killed and 255 have been reported missing so far this year, according to Mudiappah Remadious, a lawyer at the human rights commission.

The strong evidence has Remadious convinced that the Sinhalese-dominated security forces are behind at least 40 of the disappearances and most of the killings.

As Sri Lanka teeters at the brink of all-out civil war, the recent string of killings and disappearances of Tamils living in government-controlled areas is a chilling signal of the bloody ethnic fight that looms ahead.

Neither the government nor the Tamil Tigers who are fighting to create an independent homeland for the Tamil minority have yet declared war here.

Nevertheless, fighting and attacks have killed more than 700 people — more than half of them civilians — so far this year.

Diplomats and rights watchdogs like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are sounding the alarm about the killing and disappearance of Tamil civilians, which is spinning the cycle of violence out of control.

As the Tamil Tigers have stepped up their suicide bombings and attacks on military, government and civilian targets, the security forces appear to have responded by taking revenge on Tamil civilians.

It has already created a culture of fear among Tamil civilians.

Some 50,000 mainly Tamil refugees have left their homes since the end of April, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Some have moved into territory controlled by the Tamil Tigers, others have paid smugglers to ferry them to India.

An estimated 40,000 soldiers patrol the 500,000 Tamils on the Jaffna peninsula. In Jaffna town, troops in full combat gear line the streets at 20-metre intervals.

And when their 15-truck convoys barrel through the centre of town, civilians are forced to the roadside.

Across town, a Roman Catholic priest who’s also been recording the human rights violations unfolding around him worries that a government plan to terrify Tamil civilians is working, especially in Jaffna.

On his desk sit two file folders, one labelled “killing list” and the other labelled “missing.”

He pulls a spreadsheet from the “missing” file and begins to read: “April. 38 missing. Nine traced. 29 not traced. May. 55 missing. 18 traced. 37 not traced.”

The soft-spoken priest looks up: “We haven’t finished (the month) yet, but the number is still increasing.” He fears many of these missing Tamils are already dead.

“It’s schematized killing,” he says. “To threaten the people. To keep them under pressure. To send the message that the government can save the life and the government can destroy the life.”

The priest doesn’t want his name published because so the security forces don’t hinder his work. The military, however, claims that its soldiers have nothing to do with the disappearances or killings.

“Civilians get caught in the crossfire also, but there are no organized killings,” says army spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe. “And about the disappearances, of course the army is not responsible for this. Whenever someone is taken into custody, they are handed over to the police.”

But when pressed, Samarasinghe admits that there may be “a few bad eggs.

“When you take 1,000 people in the army, you get one or two corrupted people, right,” he says. “If we find them and they are found guilty they will definitely be court martialled and punished.”

“There is very good evidence that the security forces have once again started killing civilians and quite indiscriminately,” says a Western diplomat in Colombo, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Most recently, for example, the Tigers were thought to be behind the bombing of a bus last month that killed 68 and injured 66 civilians. Two days later, members of the Navy hurled grenades into a church in the western town of Pesalai, where 3,000, mainly Tamil refugees, had taken shelter.

The grenade blew one woman’s head off and injured 47 others inside the church, according to a report by Ryappu Joseph, the bishop of Mannar, and filed with the Vatican.

“See the cruelty here. I don’t think anything like this happens anywhere else in the world,” says the Human Rights Commission’s Remadious.

What frightens him is how quickly the scope of such killings and disappearances is growing.

Families have been executed in their homes. Hindu worshippers have simply disappeared from their temples. And when the putrefied remains of a missing Hindu priest and a retired high school principal were discovered in a shallow grave on the outskirts of Jaffna the government authorities refused to continue searching the suspected mass grave, Remadious says.

“The suspected places are still under supervision (by the army),” the priest said. “They can’t exhume them.”

Remadious, the priest and several diplomats agree that neither the police nor the judiciary is seriously investigating most of the killings and disappearances.

They worry signs of a government cover-up suggest the orders to carry them out may have come from Colombo.

“You basically have an apparatus in terms of law enforcement and institutional culture, that created this problem in the past — in the ‘90s. It was never effectively dismantled,” says an international analyst who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Things are switching back to their old ways and tactics,” the analyst said. “I think maybe it’s too far to say it’s a calibrated strategy, but the signals and so forth come from the top.”

To make matters worse, the Tamil Tigers’ propaganda machine is using these attacks to justify their own attacks on government and civilian targets.

“Invariably, it is a self-defence exercise that the Tamil people are engaged in,” S.P. Thamilselvan, the Tigers’ political leader, said in a recent interview, describing the guerrillas’ fight.

Right now, for example, gruesome photos of the killing of a family of four, where the mother and daughter were raped and then hanged, are pasted on telephone poles and in shops throughout the territory controlled by the Tamil Tigers. Everyone assumes the military was behind the attack.

But the government’s own propaganda machine is at work, too. Not far from the priest’s office, a giant government troop carrier equipped with loudspeakers rumbles by carrying an auspicious message.

“Some groups are trying to destroy the good relationship that exists between the army and the civilians,” the voice says over the loudspeaker in perfect Tamil. “Don’t believe them. They are spreading rumours.”

Andrew Mills is a Canadian freelance journalist

Britain’s trust in the safeguards built into the constitution of Ceylon at independence was misplaced and their weakness is to blame for the island’s present problems, the British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Mr. Dominic Silcott, said in an interview with the Sunday Virakesari.

In a wide-ranging interview last weekend, Mr. Silcott said that LTTE and the Sri Lanka government must now negotiate an end to the conflict. The UK and the United States were in agreement on their policies on Sri Lanka, he also said, adding that India also wants a negotiated solution to the conflict.

The UK High Commissioner was asked to comment on accusations that ‘divide and rule’ policies of the British colonial administration precipitated the present ethnic crisis in Sri Lanka.

“When the British came to Ceylon in 1796 there were three distinct kingdoms. The British made it one country for purposes of administrative convenience,” Mr. Silcott explained.

“In over half the number of countries in the world the British colonial rulers adopted a ‘divide and rule’ policy. In that regard this policy was not unique to the island alone.”

“If one were to truly examine Britain’s role one important aspect deserves special mention. That is the constitutional arrangement that Britain left behind. It left behind the Soulbury Constitution. Britain considered the Soulbury Constitution as having the necessary arrangements to provide for safeguards for minorities.”

“Britain thought that the rights of the Tamils in particular would be safeguarded by these arrangements. However history has proved otherwise that these safeguards were inadequate and not robust enough. I regret that Britain’s policies have to such an extent been the cause for the problems,” the High Commissioner said.

Asked about present British policy, the UK wanted the Sri Lankan government to engage the LTTE in negotiations, the High Commissioner said.

“There is an imperative not only for the Liberation Tigers but also the government of Sri Lanka to move forward to arriving at a negotiated settlement.”

“In the end, the final settlement that’s reached must be satisfactory to both parties. The present impasse must not be allowed to continue. The government of Sri Lanka and the Tigers must both dedicate themselves to peace. By some means, both parties must return to peaceful negotiations. There is no other way.”

Saying “there have to be changes to [Sri Lanka’s] political system,” as part of a solution to the conflict, the High Commissioner said: “although we cannot say much in this connection, Britain’s view is to move forward to a political settlement that’s based on the 2002 Oslo Declaration … on federal lines in a united Sri Lanka.”

Asked about the position of the United States, Mr. Silcott said: “the US has, from time to time, taken a contrary view from Britain in world affairs. However in Sri Lanka’s conflict, Britain has been in agreement with America.”

“It’s noteworthy that India is [also] fully in favour of a political settlement achieved through peaceful means,” he added later.

Given the present climate of international opposition to the use of violence to pursue political goals, the LTTE “could achieve more through negotiations than through violence,” Mr. Silcott said.

If the LTTE returned to the negotiating table then Britain could ask the EU to reconsider its proscription of the LTTE, the High Commissioner said.

Meanwhile, Britain’s proscription of the LTTE in 2001 was not an impediment to direct contact between the UK and the Tigers, Mr. Silcott said. British policy was that direct contact was necessary to move the LTTE towards peace.

Asked about the status of Mr. Anton Balasingham, the LTTE’s Chief Negotiator and Political Strategist who resides in London, the High Commissioner said: “Mr. Balasingham is a British Citizen. He has the right to live in Britain. Britain had banned the LTTE way back in 2001. It’s been five years since the ban was imposed. As such the ban does not affect Mr. Balasingham.”

“I do not think there would be any change in respect to Britain’s attitude to Anton Balasingham,” Mr. Silcott added. “Similarly, there would not be any significant change in this respect in view of the ban imposed by the EU.”

Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers are being unreasonable in demanding the exit of truce monitors from European Union nations which have banned them, and the observers will have to pull out unless their safety is guaranteed, a top Swedish envoy said last.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have given monitors from Nordic nations in the EU - Sweden, Denmark and Finland - until September 1 to leave Sri Lanka in light of a new EU ban against them, which analysts warn would leave a dangerous vacuum as growing violence kindles fears of renewed civil war.

The situation has changed after September 11

The Tigers insist 37 monitors from the three countries must leave, which would leave just 20 from Norway and Iceland - not enough to properly oversee a 2002 truce.

But it is not clear why Norway and Iceland cannot increase their contribution to the SLMM.

Even before the EU ban the Tigers had warned they would not be able to guarantee the safety of monitors who travel aboard navy ships, but it is not yet clear what will happen if the unarmed Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) ignores their demand.

“If they can’t guarantee their safety, it means they cannot accept us, and then it’s not only the safety it is also the working conditions for the Swedish, Finnish and Danish members,” visiting Swedish Ambassador-at-Large Anders Oljelund told Reuters in an interview late on Friday.

“Then we will have to pull out,” he added. “If LTTE sticks to their decision to exclude three northern countries for these reasons from the mission, I think the work of the mission will be hampered and I think also the credibility of the mission will be reduced.”

The Tigers rejected Oljelund’s plea on Friday to reconsider their decision.

Tiger political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan told Reuters this month the LTTE would only review their position once the EU removes them from their list of terrorist organizations.

“I can understand the reaction of the Tigers. They perceive this (EU) decision as a ban of their whole organization. They don’t see that there is any balance,” Oljelund said on his return from a visit to the Tigers’ northern stronghold of Kilinochchi.

“But I think it is unreasonable still, because also the Tigers must little by little be able to look upon themselves (and see) this is a wider peace process in which the international community ... must be taken into consideration.”

“I think there is a possibility that they will change their mind ... (but) LTTE told us that their decision taken already is not going to be changed,” Oljelund said.

The monitors themselves say opinions range from withdrawing the mission to ignoring the LTTE demand and continuing work as normal - a dangerous option after close shaves during attacks.

“The situation has changed after September 11, the situation has changed after the Cold War, and if you can’t act politically and adapt yourself to new circumstances, (the Tigers’) credibility ... will be affected,” Oljelund said.

Many people fear escalating attacks and clashes between the military and the Tigers that have killed more than 700 people so far this year - more than half of them civilians - could reignite the war.

Violence in the Northeast should not be measured in numerical terms as it distorts the picture of what is happening there, the Parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) R. Sampanthan, told the Sunday Leader newspaper.

Asked to comment on India’s role, the TNA leader pointed out that India has grievances against both sides in the Sri Lanka conflict, but may still be willing to help resolve the Tamil question peacefully.

Responding to the reporter’s suggestion the Liberation Tigers are responsible for the weakening of the February 2002 ceasefire agreement, the TNA leader said “Violence should not be discussed in numerical terms as it distorts the picture.”

“Yet if this is the argument, then every civilian who has not been resettled would add to the CFA violations by the government and the numbers would far exceed those of the LTTE.”

“One could say the CFA is no longer there given the present situation. Of course, we want it resuscitated. It has broken down and there is low intensity war today.

“The unfortunate thing about security for the northeast Tamils is that armed forces are hostile to the people. There is little exception, but most look at civilians also as if they are enemies.

“The composition of the armed forces is such that they are 99% Sinhalese. There are an increased number of checkpoints, army camps and road barricades. The forces are more severe with ordinary Tamil civilians who are on combat traning. This is why they are fleeing the country at great risk.”

“The present composition of the forces needs to be changed to restore confidence amongst the Tamils that they are safe in their hands. Also, no credible investigations are held in connection with the human rights violations which show that the law enforcement mechanism is also not supportive. Those who feel unsafe have commenced fleeing.”

Asked to comment on recent comments by LTTE Chief Negotiator and Political Strategist Anton Balasingham, saying India should forget the past and take a greater diplomatic and political role in addressing Tamil grievances in Sri Lanka, Mr. Sampanthan said:

“The LTTE reached out to India much earlier when they suggested our neighbour at the talk’s venue. Next, the LTTE suggested India as an observer at the talks which clearly indicated the recognition of India’s role in settling the conflict.”

Asked to comment on India’s cautious approach to Sri Lanka, Mr. Sampanthan said: “India has all the reason to be an aggrieved party, and that too for more than one reason.”

“Gandhi’s assassination was absolutely tragic; The IPKF arrived in Sri Lanka at the invitation of the government. [But] the state [also] provided arms and vehicles to the LTTE to fight the IPKF.”

“A sailor at the ceremonial parade here [in Colombo] assaulted Premier Gandhi, during his visit to sign the Indo Lanka Peace Accord. He was given a jail term by a Sri Lankan president and pardoned also by a president.”

“Despite all the blunders committed by Sri Lanka, India may still be willing to lend a hand. India has tremendous love for Sri Lanka and we could benefit from her genuine affection in our decisive moment.”

Japan is seriously considering taking ‘tangible measures’ against the Tamil Tigers, IANS reported this week, widely interpreted as a proscription of the LTTE by Tokyo.

But before that, Japan’s special envoy to Sri Lanka, Yasushi Akashi, will travel to the island to see if Colombo and the Tigers can return to the negotiating table, the Indian news agency said.

Akashi, 75, whose visit will take place in August, would very much like to meet the LTTE leader, Velupillai Pirapaharan, to know first hand what the latter’s thoughts are on the fractured peace process. Akashi could not meet the LTTE chief during his previous trip in May.

‘Yes, I would like to meet (Mr.) Pirapaharan,’ Akashi said in a 90-minute interview to IANS at his office in the heart of Tokyo. Describing the Tamil leader as a ‘man of conviction’ Akashi said: “Only he (Pirapaharan) can take the most difficult decisions.”

Asked about the likely meeting, Akashi said: ‘I would like to convey (to him) that the Japanese government is on the verge of some important decision as I have described to you.’

He added: ‘we are seriously considering tangible measures as some other governments have taken.”

He did not explain what the ‘important decision’ or ‘tangible measures’ would be, but it is widely interpreted as a proscription of the LTTE as a terrorist organisation.

The European Union and Canada separately proscribed the LTTE as a terrorist group earlier this year.

“Before taking such a decision, I would like to make a trip to Sri Lanka to ascertain whether there is some hope for the parties to turn back from the abyss of a return to war and re-engage,” Akashi said.

Japan is one of the co-chairs to the peace process - along with Norway, the US and the European Union.

Japan was ‘deeply concerned and dismayed’ over Sri Lanka and wanted both the government and LTTE to pull back for the sake of the people, Akashi said.

While praising Norway for its achievement thus far, Akashi said Tokyo also wanted India to play a larger role to resurrect the peace process.

Akashi denied that the international donors conference Tokyo hosted in 2003 was meant to be a ‘peace trap’ for the Tamil Tigers. “Some kind of entrapment was far from our objective,” he said.

Asked by IANS what went wrong with the 2002 ceasefire that had showed so much promise, Akashi - speaking softly and choosing his words carefully - blamed it on the ‘deeply ingrained mutual distrust’ between the two sides for their inability to come to terms with one another despite decades of war.

Akashi also urged the LTTE to reverse its decision asking three of the five member countries of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), the Nordic body overseeing the truce, to quit the island. The LTTE’s complaint is that Denmark, Sweden and Finland can no more play a neutral role since they are part of the European Union that has outlawed the Tigers.

But Japan, he went on, had no intention of playing any supervisory role vis-a-vis the ceasefire without “a UN umbrella.”

As for the UN itself assuming a possible role in the Sri Lankan conflict, Akashi said that would depend on Colombo and the LTTE. Until then, such a question would be ‘entirely hypothetical’.

Sounding surprisingly hopeful despite the unending bloodshed, Akashi outlined a three-step approach to achieve peace in Sri Lanka.

Firstly, the 2002 ceasefire agreement would have to be strengthened ‘with a more credible SLMM’. And for that, ‘it will be very short sighted to weaken the (existing) SLMM’.

Secondly, a ‘comprehensive roadmap’ would have to be thought of to evolve a final solution ‘within a united or undivided Sri Lanka’, with necessary amendments to the country’s constitution, to usher in a new form of governance.

Thirdly, there will have to be ‘certain self rule’ in the LTTE controlled areas while taking steps ‘towards the final solution’.

The first suggestion, he insisted, would have to be acted upon immediately.

India and Japan, Akashi said, were on the same wavelength over Sri Lanka. He argued that the peace process would gain ‘added weight’ if New Delhi - which has had a long and torturous linkage with the ethnic conflict - associated itself more firmly with the co-chairs.

Echoing the growing international frustration vis-a-vis Sri Lanka, Akashi said: “I will not be honest if I said that I am totally satisfied. Yes, we have been disappointed with the pace of the peace process. Lately, we have been very unhappy with the most tragic acts of terrorism… Not all incidents can be attributed to the LTTE. But LTTE has committed more violations of the ceasefire than the government side.”

He also expressed dismay over ‘serious infractions on the government side’ and referred to the ‘acts of commissions or omissions by armed groups’ - a clear reference to the LTTE breakaway faction led by Karuna, the former Tiger regional commander whose men are believed to be in league with the Sri Lankan military.

‘While understanding why certain misgivings occur, I think both sides (Colombo and LTTE) have to overcome their doubts and see whether they themselves can rise up so that they can jointly improve the situation for a more peaceful and hopefully more prosperous common future.’

Several international media watchdogs warned last week that free expression conditions in Sri Lanka appear to be deteriorating amidst escalating violence in the country, which claimed the life of another journalist on 2 July 2006.

Unidentified gunmen shot dead freelance journalist Sampath Lakmal de Silva after abducting him from his parents’ home in Borallasgamuwa.

De Silva, who wrote on defence matters, including corruption in the armed forces, was the first Sinhala journalist killed in Sri Lanka in eight years.

UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said it was “crucial” that the circumstances of Mr. Lakmal de Silva’s abduction and murder be elucidated without delay and the perpetrators brought to justice. “Democracy is truly in great danger when crimes against journalists go unpunished,” he declared.

Since 2001, every journalist killed in Sri Lanka (except de Silva) has been a Tamil, says FMM. Most of which have been targeted after criticising Army-backed paramilitaries.

The Free Media Movement (FMM), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières) expressed concerns last week, shortly after FMM slammed the introduction of censorship by proxy two weeks ago.

De Silva had recently written reports that embarrassed elements of the security forces, according to FMM. He was the former defence correspondent for the Sinhala-language newspaper “Isathdina Weekly”.

De Silva’s murder occurred right after the conclusion of an IFJ mission to Sri Lanka from 25-30 June, where the international group met with its local affiliates to discuss the situation facing journalists.

According to IFJ, six media workers have now been killed in Sri Lanka since January 2005. None of the crimes have been either investigated or solved. The murdered journalists include Subramaniyam Sugirdharajan, Relangi Sevaraja, Dharmeratnam Sivaram, Suresh Kumar and Ranjith Kumar.

FMM says the first six months of this year have been marked by the increased harassment of journalists, media outlets and human rights activists by ultra-nationalist groups and government forces. Those who support a negotiated settlement of the conflict are labeled as “traitors” and supporters of the Tamil Tigers.

FMM notes that Tamil journalists face particular challenges in reporting the news. The majority of attacks have been against Tamil journalists and Tamil-language outlets.

Reporters Without Borders voiced fears last month, after pro-government media made threats against five Sri Lankan journalists who had met a Tamil Tiger leader.

“The recent closure of some satellite services by the government and a decision to bring back a state media regulatory body, as well as the continued accusations by members of government and the media against Tamil journalists and their supposed sympathisers are all worrying indications that press freedom in Sri Lanka is heading in a backwards direction,” IFJ President Christopher Warren said on June 30.

In a villa surrounded by tall jak fruit trees and a squad of cadres toting T-56 assault rifles, S.P. Tamilselvan, the political leader of the Tamil Tiger guerrillas, sits pondering the political missteps of Stephen Harper’s rookie government in Canada.

“We know the complexity of the political problems any party would normally come across during a period of transition or a change from one party to another,” he says.

Tamilselvan says he’s been searching for a plausible reason Harper’s government ignored Canada’s 200,000-strong Tamil community and placed their “freedom-fighting organization” alongside Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah on a list of criminal terrorist groups.

Canada used to be well-respected here in Kilinochchi. It was known as a haven for thousands of Tamil refugees fleeing persecution by the Sinhalese-dominated government during a civil war that raged in the 1980s and ‘90s, leaving 64,000 people dead.

But since Ottawa’s decision in April, Canada is now thought of as a country that turned its back.

In the first Canadian interview he’s given since Ottawa’s decision, Tamilselvan says he suspects Harper is playing a cheap game to score political points early in his minority mandate.

“These are things quite understandable in politics,” he says. “But politics and freedom struggles are two different things. Politics has machinations.”

Recent decisions by Canada, the European Union and the United States to list the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a terrorist organization could have great bearing on the tattered peace process in Sri Lanka, especially as the nation appears poised to return to all-out civil war at any time. Since April, more than 700 people have been killed in escalating violence.

There is reason enough, Ottawa argues, to add the Tigers to the Criminal Code’s list of terrorist groups, making membership and participation in its operations illegal. (Fundraising for the Tamil Tigers has been illegal in Canada since 2001, when the government adopted a set of United Nations anti-terror funding regulations.)

“The decision to list the LTTE is long overdue and something the previous government did not take seriously enough to act upon,” Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said in April. “Our government is clearly determined to take decisive steps to ensure the safety of Canadians against terrorism.”

But the implications of listing the Tigers as a terrorist group means Canada can no longer participate as an effective broker in the peace process, Tamilselvan says. Ottawa has clearly chosen to side with the Sri Lankan government and against the Tigers.

“The extremist elements in the south always get encouraged when somebody outside gives them a pat on the shoulders that they’re doing a good job and that the LTTE is a terrorist organization,” he says.

The result is that the government has “accelerated the pace of violence let loose on the Tamil people.”

“This ban,” he adds, “has only helped the extremist elements to fan the flame of communalism and racism.”

Some observers worry Tamilselvan may be correct, saying that the Sri Lankan government has become more brazen in its acts of violence since the international community appears to have endorsed its position.

“It also gives an opportunity for the government to try to use the war on terror to engage in violence. There’s a danger in that as well. It kind of releases pressure on the government in that it can feel like it has the right, in a way, to do certain things,” says Mirak Raheem, a peace and conflict researcher at Colombo’s Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Some also worry that, by effectively alienating the Tamil Tigers, Canada has thrown away any leverage it once had to influence the group.

“They have nothing much to lose when they attack, because they have lost the international recognition they were aiming for and I don’t see a lot of things that could prevent them from going on with those attacks,” says a Western diplomat in Colombo. “There are no incentives we can really offer them.”

Tamilselvan’s parting plea to Harper is to “address the issue justly and reasonably” and reconsider.

“We have under no circumstances engaged ourselves in any acts of, call it terrorism or violence or whatever, in any other nation,” he said. “All our acts are intended to drive the enemy away from our homeland. This does not, in any way, impact life in Canada.”

(Edited)

Andrew Mills is a Canadian freelance journalist

Sinn Fein Chief Negotiator Martin McGuinness who met senior leaders of the Tamil Tigers last week criticised the European Union’s decision in May to proscribe the LTTE, press reports said.

“[It was a] huge mistake for the EU leaders to demonize the LTTE and the political leaders of the Tamil people,” Mr. McGuinness, a senior leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who later become a top Sinn Fein official, told reporters.

“In a peace process all sides should be treated equally and with respect,” he said.

Tamileelam Police Chief B. Nadesan, LTTE’s Political Head, S. P. Tamilselvan and the Director of LTTE Peace Secretariat S. Puleedevan met with Mr. McGuinness who was accompanied by an aide, Mr. Aidan McAteer and Mr. Tyrol Ferdinands, Managing Trustee, Initiative for Political & Conflict Transformation (INPACT) in Colombo.

“I come from Ireland where we have a very successful peace process, one of the most successful peace processes of the world today, and I am very keen to share my experiences as one of the leaders of the Sinn Féin movement in Ireland, not just with the leaders of the LTTE, but also with Sri Lanka,” Mr. McGuinness said.

Mr. McGuinness joined the Provisional IRA around 1970 at the age of 20. At the age of 21, he became second-in-command of the Provisional IRA in Derry.

Since elected to the Executive board of Sinn Féin, he has played a major role in promoting and supporting the strategy of the current peace process in Northern Ireland.

In a statement at the end of his visit to Sri Lanka, Mr. McGuinness said:

“Today’s meeting was the primary purpose of my visit to Sri Lanka. In January, I visited the country and met the President and his senior Minister and officials. I also met Tamil representatives and Tamil members of Parliament. Unfortunately, I was not able to travel to the north to meet the LTTE directly at that time for logistical resons. I therefore welcome the opportunity to engage directly with the leadership of the Tamil Tigers.”

“During my meeting, I urged the LTTE leadership to re-engage in the stalled negotiations and pointed out the need to build a credible peace process as an alternative to the escalating conflict. I was able to share with the Tamil leadership the experiences of the Irish Peace Process and emphasised the need for courageous political leadership in the search for a honourable accommodation from which all sides will benefit.”

“I asked both the government and the Tamil Tigers to take decisive initiatives to build the peace process. I am convinced that there is the will on both sides to find a resolution but that increasing conflict is making the peace efforts more and more difficult. My core message was that both sides need to act decisively to prevent the downward spiral into all out conflict. The reality is that, just as in Ireland, there can be no military victory and that the only alternative to endless conflict is dialogue, negotiations and accommodation.”

“Sinn Fein will continue to play any role that we can to assist the peace process in Sri Lanka,” Mr. McGuinness concluded.

British press reports said in the wake of the end to the Northern Ireland conflict, McGuinness and Sinn Fein appear to be taking an interest in conflict resolution in other parts of the world.

Earlier last month, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and Mr. McGuinness paid separate visits to the Spain to encourage Basque separatists and socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to engage in talks.

In late June, Mr. Adams was one of 60 top officials who participated in a conference in Norway at which key peace mediators assembled to share ideas on ending world conflicts.

Speakers at this year’s retreat included Mr. Adams; European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Moreno Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor with the International Criminal Court.

The fourth annual ‘Mediators Retreat’ conference, which is closed to the public, is organized by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry and the Geneva-based Center for Humanitarian Dialogue.

Sinn Fein signed a peace agreement in 1998 and last year agreed to decommission its armed wing, the Irish Republican Army.

The move was part of a deal in British-controlled Northern Ireland brokered between Northern Ireland’s rival Protestant and Roman Catholic communities and the Irish and British governments.

The peace process in Sri Lanka is one of the world’s most internationalized. The self-styled Co-Chairs of the donor community – namely Oslo, Japan, the United States and European Union (EU) – make up almost the major actors – save India – who are involved in Sri Lanka. But a constant refrain we hear is that it is up to the parties to the conflict, the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), to come up with a solution. The Co-Chairs, naturally, are prepared to help.

But this is a duplicitous claim. The Co-Chairs + India exert enormous influence on the conflict and its resolution. Indeed, some would argue, it is international actors’ pursuit of their own preferred outcomes that perpetuate the conflict. The point is brought into focus by examining the conduct of the EU in the recent past.

The EU is a major donor to Sri Lanka, as are the US and Japan (the largest). It is also a key trading partner, with a complex set of de-facto subsidies and tax exemptions which are crucial to Sri Lanka’s export driven economy. Some countries are key providers of military support, including Britain and the Czech Republic (the latter has, in the past few years, supplied 24 MBRLs, like those that destroyed Chavacachcheri, to the Sri Lanka Army).

Without international support and financing, Sri Lanka would have been bankrupt some years ago. A state propped up by international aid, at the very least Sri Lanka’s economic future depends largely on the goodwill of the EU and its allies.

Before going further, it is worth considering the strategic goals of the state and the Tamils. The entire purpose of the war, from Sri Lanka’s perspective, is to regain and ensure control over a unitary state. This is one route to political stability, albeit one which preserves the constitutional status quo and keeps the Tamils under central control.

The Tamils, on the other hand, want – in order of priority - physical security (now and for the future), equality and a guarantee of fundamental and community rights, and, like all other world communities, opportunities to pursue their economic prosperity. They believe this can be achieved in an independent state.

What is interesting when examining events this year is that the international community, particularly the EU, have done much to bolster Sri Lanka’s position this year. The EU has not only proscribed the LTTE – based, its officials say, on a small handful of violent incidents selected from the past two decades of violent conflict, in which most casualties have been Tamil civilians killed by Sri Lankan forces. It has also continued to support the Sri Lankan export economy.

Yet consider Sri Lanka’s conduct: It is well known that amongst key destabilising factors in the peace process are: the government’s continuing support for anti-LTTE paramilitary organisations (in contravention of the internationally monitored) cease fire agreement, the disappearances and extrajudcial killings of Tamil civilians by the Army, the wholesale punitive bombing of Tamil villages in retaliation for LTTE attacks – for which the organisation was banned by the EU.

Given that although the EU does have powerful leverage these de-stabilising activities have been increasing, one could reasonably conclude that the EU does not wish to exercise its power against the Sri Lankan state.

As for the Tamils and the LTTE, a number of forms of leverage were available. The Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in a report last week, that the international community has ‘far more’ leverage with the Sri Lankan government than with the LTTE. This is not entirely true.

The EU and its allies have two things the Tamils and the LTTE have desperately sought in the past few years: financial assistance and political recognition. It should be remembered that the ultimate guarantee of Sri Lanka’s unitary status is the international community’s ability to deny recognition of a Tamil state.

In theory, the EU could provide even limited humanitarian aid to the Tamils, particularly in the wake of the devastating December 2004 tsunami, the brunt of which was borne by the island’s eastern coast where it had a disproportionately huge impact.

But having characterised the LTTE as a terrorist group even before the formal ban, the EU does not give aid to the LTTE administration nor have other dealings with the organisation. There is no leverage now, because the EU has preferred to allow the sufferings of over 800,000 internally displaced people to continue, rather than breach this self-imposed rule on ‘terrorism’ – which has been observed during 4 years of a peace process.

The much-vaunted tsunami aid sharing package, the PTOMs was never implemented. Oddly enough, it was the EU, above all other actors that raised expectations amongst the desperate Tamils to such heights. The EU’s silence as it handed over aid to Sri Lanka even though PTOMs was tossed aside after being signed deepened Tamil despair even before the EU proscription.

The PTOMs was an opportunity to create leverage on both sides to stay jointly in the peace process, to engage in rehabilitation work in the war- and tsunami- ravaged areas of the island, to work together despite themselves. But the EU cast the agreement aside without the slightest effort at defence or revival. Perhaps it was not that important, after all.

The LTTE is clearly not dependent on the EU or its allies for military assistance. But it has not even been assisted in its basic administrative efforts, unlike the corrupt and racially motivated Sri Lankan state.

Now to the present crisis. The LTTE has plausibly argued that it is the sustained escalation of a violent campaign against its members and supporters by Army-backed paramilitaries, including a group led by one of its renegade commanders, that is to blame for the present ‘low-intensity’ war.

Given that the EU clearly had leverage over at least one of the parties involved in the cycle of escalation - namely the Colombo government – it is surprising that things have gotten so bad.

One can only conclude that the EU, along other international actors, have thought a divide and rule strategy was an appropriate way to deal with the Tamils. Some stability might be sacrificed in the short term due to Tamil infighting, but the long term benefits of denying the Tamils a unified negotiating position outweighed the costs – most of which would have been borne by the LTTE and the Tamils anyway.

Meanwhile, by tacitly accepting the recent military atrocities in the Army-occupied parts of the Northeast and by failing to use its substantial leverage to curb these abuses, the EU has revealed the hollowness of its principled defences of human rights. Despite the rhetoric, rights are not that big a deal.

The EU has repeatedly been advised that by banning the EU it would be seen by Tamils and Sinhalese – and the LTTE and the Sri Lanka government – as taking a moral stance and thus a side on the conflict. The EU was also aware its monitors could not continue as they would no longer be neutral. Yet it didn’t care, imposing the ban on the LTTE in May.

Now it is the LTTE that is being accused of disrupting the monitoring. Note, by way of comparison, how Sinhala protests over Norway heading the monitoring as well as the peace facilitation resulted in a Swedish officer, rather than a Norwegian, being put in charge in March. Tamil sensitivities to neutrality are clearly not as important as those of the Sinhalese.

Earlier it was argued that the primary concern for Tamils was physical security, followed by equality. The EU’s involvement in the monitoring, combined with its clout made it a credible underwriter of human rights in the Northeast. Yet it is was amid escalating atrocities by the military that the EU decided to assist the Sri Lankan state by criminalizing its primary adversary, the LTTE.

And this has had exactly the reverse impact in the attitudes of the Tamils and the Diaspora. The international community will make promises about rights, justice and equality and break them by endorsing and supporting the racist Sinhala-dominated state. The international NGOs will come and go, occasionally doing some limited work. But the LTTE, which emerged in the Northeast, will always be there as a military counter to the Sri Lankan military’s threat. The LTTE civil administration will remain, doing the best it can to alleviate the suffering of the Northeast Tamils.

Ironically, the EU ban was intended to thwart fundraising by the LTTE. Not only is aid being withheld, the Tamils of Europe are forbidden to assist the humanitarian work that the LTTE administration and Tamil charities are undertaking.

The latter raises an interesting point. Several European countries are home to large concentrations of Tamils. Rather than meeting with them and understanding why so many feel compelled to give money to the LTTE or to humanitarian projects in LTTE-controlled areas, the EU government’s have opted to simply forbid them from doing so.

I return again to that basic point; the Tamils’ desire for equality and fundamental rights. Amid much hand wringing about its ethnic minorities being unfathomable, the EU’s actions suggest something else: an unreflective contempt for the views of their Tamil citizens.

It is this sense, reinforced by the series of EU actions outlined above that is going to have the most profound impact in the coming period on Sri Lanka’s conflict and efforts to resolve it. It is the EU’s repeated failure over the last two years to take a firm stance on professed principles, including equality of communities, fundamental and community rights, the rule of law, etc has done most to leave the Tamils isolated, perplexed, resentful and angry. And apathy is not, as the past few decades have vividly demonstrated, a Tamil trait.

The oddest bit of news last week was the tale of the hunt for Nelson Mandela’s pistol, buried on a farm near Johannesburg 43 years ago.

It was a Soviet-made Makarov automatic pistol, given to Mandela when he was undergoing military training in Ethiopia.

A week after he buried the gun, he was arrested by the apartheid regime’s police as a terrorist and jailed for life.

It’s hard now to imagine Mandela as a terrorist. He is the most universally admired living human being, almost a secular saint, and the idea that he had a gun and was prepared to shoot people just doesn’t fit our image of him. But that just shows how naïve and conflicted our attitudes toward terrorism are.

Mandela never did kill anybody personally. He spent the next 27 years in jail and only emerged as an old man to negotiate South Africa’s transition to democracy with the very regime that had jailed him.

But he was a founder and commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the military wing of the African National Congress, and MK, as it was known, was a terrorist outfit. Well, a revolutionary movement willing to use terrorist tactics, to be precise, but that kind of fine distinction is not permissible in polite company today.

There’s nothing unusual about all this. Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya, Archbishop Makarios in Cyprus, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and a dozen other national leaders emerged from prison to negotiate independence after ‘terrorist’ organizations loyal to them had worn down the imperial forces that occupied their countries.

In the era of decolonization, terrorism was a widely accepted technique for driving the occupiers out. South Africa was lucky to see so little of it, but terrorism was part of the struggle there too.

Terrorism is a tool, not an ideology. Its great attraction is that it offers small or weak groups a means of imposing great changes on their societies. Some of those changes you might support, even if you don’t like the chosen means; others you would detest.

But the technique itself is just one more way of effecting political change by violence — a nasty but relatively cheap way to force a society to change course, and not intrinsically a more wicked technique than dropping bombs on civilians from planes to make them change their behaviour.

What determines most people’s views about the legitimacy of terrorist violence is how they feel about the specific political context in which force is being used.

Most Irish Catholics felt at least a sneaking sympathy for the IRA’s attacks in Northern Ireland. Most non-white South Africans approved of MK’s attacks, even if they ran some slight risk of being hurt in them themselves.

Most Tamils both in Sri Lanka and elsewhere support the cause of the Tamil Tigers, and many accept its methods as necessary.

Americans understandably see all terrorist attacks on the U.S. and its forces overseas as irredeemably wicked, but most Arabs and many other Muslims are ambivalent about them, or even approve of them.

We may deplore these brutal truths, but we would be foolish to deny them. Yet, in much of the world at the moment, it is regarded as heretical or even obscene to say these things out loud, mainly because the United States, having suffered a major attack by Arab terrorists in 2001, has declared a “global war on terror.”

Rational discussion of why so many Arabs are willing to die in order to hurt the U.S. is suppressed by treating it as support for terrorism, and so the whole phenomenon comes to be seen by most people as irrational and inexplicable.

And meanwhile, on a former farm near Johannesburg that was long ago subdivided for suburban housing, they have torn down all the new houses and are systematically digging up the ground with a backhoe in search of the pistol that Saint Nelson Mandela, would-be terrorist leader, buried there in 1963.

If they find it, it will be treated with as much reverence as the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. The passage of time changes many things.

Gwynne Dyer is a Canadian journalist based in London whose articles are published in 45 countries.

Former vegetable vendor Dharmaselan lost his leg and arm in an aerial bombing over strife-torn northern Sri Lanka several years ago.

But he says government soldiers did not believe him when they began harassing him again earlier this year as violence escalated in the region.

“The army kept stopping and asking me questions. They said I must be LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) because I had no leg,” said the 32 year-old father of five known only as Dharmaseelan, referring to the fighters now skirmishing daily with government troops.

“I feared for my family, so I left.”

The vegetable seller from Jaffna district joined tens of thousands fleeing their homes amid tit-for-tat killings, disappearances and military operations that have killed more than 830 people since December amid a crumbling ceasefire.

Like many of the 10,000 people seeking refuge in LTTE-held Vanni district, Dharmaselan has been shuffled from holding centres to this resettlement camp built along a desolate stretch of road an hour south of Kilinochchi town.

Dozens of thatch-roofed shacks have been put up in a clearing hacked out of the scrub brush and forest.

But even here, in LTTE-controlled Mallavi, the fear of violence lingers, said Laurence Christy, director of the planning division with the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), as both the government and the LTTE accuse each other of waging an increasingly brutal dirty war against civilians.

“Attacks on civilians are on the increase -- bombardments, artillery shelling, terrifying families or killing people ... because of the fighting, immediately there is a kind of fear psychosis,” he said.

Both the TRO and the United Nations estimate that at least 40,000 people have been displaced by the recent violence.

Thousands have fled to neighbouring India, but countless others have been forced to find shelter with relatives, or languish in settlements much like this one in Mallavi, unable to go home.

“Right now I feel it is a manageable situation, but we are readying for a big exodus, especially with the possibility of war breaking out,” Christy said.

Rights group Amnesty International urged Colombo last week to better protect civilians caught up in the bloodletting.

“The state’s failure to provide adequate security and to ensure that attacks against civilians are prosecuted has resulted in widespread fear and panic,” said Purna Sen, Amnesty’s Asia-Pacific director.

“Almost every major attack in recent months has had a devastating ripple effect as people flee from their homes and villages in search of sanctuary.”

Like many of those who have fled, Dharmaselan’s past traumas came crashing into the present as the violence worsened.

“I lost my leg during a bombardment, and because of the bombing now, I fear a return to war,” he said, standing on a battered prosthetic limb. Thick welts ringed his neck and the remains of his left arm were tucked into his shirt.

Four young relatives were killed in the beginning of the year, and Dharmaselan’s own troubles with security forces heightened the sense of panic.

“They took me to Colombo and tortured me - they held me under water, or tied a bag over my head and poured petrol over it. I could not breathe,” he said, adding he had twice been arrested and tortured in the past.

Dharaselan was freed after three months without being charged with any crime, he said.

Nearby, 55-year-old Pavalakaili, held up her left forearm, badly scarred by a bullet that shattered her wrist during fighting in 1987.

Waving yellowing disability cards that entitled her to assistance during earlier upheavals, she said she left her home in Jaffna district after a cousin and son-in-law were gunned down while returning to work.

“The army was coming around knocking on doors, harassing us,” she said.

Eight similar settlements have been established around the Vanni area, and refugees are also being kept with friends of family in another 50 villages, TRO’s Christy said.

But as the crisis lingers on, even the most meticulous planning has failed to completely provide essentials like water, access to schools or work.

“Education is a problem - there is no transport and it is very difficult to walk,” he said, adding “water is also a problem.”

Nearby, one man, a former concrete worker, has tried to cut his own well, digging a few meters into the hard dirt before giving up.

Work is also becoming scarce as restrictions on concrete and other building materials stalls the construction sector.

“There used to be a lot of construction work, but now people are starting to complain about their livelihoods” Christy said.

Programs have been put in place to try and encourage commerce in the settlements. Dharmaselan runs a tidy, but poorly-stocked stall selling candies and small household items.

But it is barely enough.

“What can I do?” he asks.

“When there is total peace, then I will go back. “I expected that peace would come, but the recent events don’t indicate that peace will come soon.”