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  • Briefly: International

    Oct 04
    Iraq reverses poll rules change

    Iraq’s parliament made a U-turn Wednesday over changes in the law governing next week’s referendum on a new constitution, partly reversing a provision that would have made it more difficult to reject the charter.

    The move, under strong pressure from the United Nations, came only three days after MPs had changed the rules in a way that also drew sharp criticism from the increasingly alienated Sunni Arab minority.

    On Sunday, they approved new rules specifying that while a simple majority of those turning out to vote was needed to approve the charter, rejection would require two-thirds of registered voters in at least three provinces.

    In effect, for the referendum to pass, only half of those who vote must tick the Yes box, the assembly confirmed.

    However, Shia and Kurdish legislators, aiming to make a No victory even harder, opted for a wider definition of “voter”, based on registered, rather than actual, voters.

    After a brief debate - and with only about half of its 275 members present - the Assembly voted 119 to 28 to restore the original voting rules for the referendum, which will take place Oct. 15.

    With low turnout expected in the provinces where Sunni Arabs predominate, because of poor security conditions, this would have given the No side no serious chance of blocking the draft.

    More than 14m Iraqis are registered to vote in the referendum, following the additional registrations of 1m voters in the past month. Registrations were rising markedly in the three provinces dominated by Sunni Arab populations.

    Kurd-Shiite clash looms

    Iraq’s Kurdish president has called on the country’s Shiite prime minister to step down escalating a political split between the two factions that make up the government.

    President Jalal Talabani has accused the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, which holds the majority in parliament, of monopolizing power in the government and refusing to move ahead on a key issue for Kurds, the resettlement of Kurds in the northern city of Kirkuk.

    “The time has come for the United Iraqi Alliance and the Kurdistan coalition to study Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s stepping aside from his post,” said Azad Jundiyani, a spokesman for Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

    “This is for the benefit of the political process.”

    Jundiyani would not say whether the Kurds would withdraw from the government if the Shiite alliance does not back them in removing al-Jaafari. Talabani has made indirect threats to withdraw from the coalition if Kurdish demands are not met.

    The two blocs have been the bedrock of the temporary government. Its collapse would add a new layer of political instability and underline how struggles for power are undermining efforts to get Iraq’s fractious communities to work together in a new political system.(AP)

    Darfur peace talks underway

    The Sudanese government and two rebel movements fighting in the war torn Darfur region began substantive peace talks aimed at bringing to an end a 30-month-old civil war which has left 300,000 dead, as the African Union called for an end to a recent upsurge in violence.

    “We cannot understand the repeated acts of banditry in Darfur,” AU conference chairman Salim Ahmed Salim admonished government and rebel delegates, as he declared open the plenary stage of the dialogue in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

    Last week the head of the African Union’s ceasefire monitoring team in Darfur accused the government of supporting an attack by an armed militia on villages and displaced persons’ camps in north Darfur which left around 44 people dead.

    The government has firmly denied involvement in the attack, and said Monday that it remained committed to the dialogue in Abuja.

    Spokesmen for Darfur’s rebel groups - the Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement - thanked the AU monitors for their criticism of the alleged government attacks and called on the international community to step up pressure on Khartoum.

    Salim told delegates that talks on power-sharing would begin on Monday and continue until around October 10. Talks on security arrangements are scheduled to begin on October 15 and this round of negotiations is expected to end around October 20, he said.

    The latest round of the year-old conference began on September 15, but delegates have so far been divided into groups discussing side issues and setting the conference agenda.(AFP)

    Japan to cut UN contribution

    With its prospects for obtaining a permanent seat on the Security Council fading, Japan is to seek to reduce its contribution to the United Nations by up to a quarter, press reports said.

    Japan will propose an up to five percentage point cut in its contribution, currently 19.5 percent of the UN budget, when negotiations for countries’ portions of 2007-2009 funding start next March, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.

    Japan, whose contribution in dollar terms is second only to the United States (22 percent), wants to show it will refuse to shoulder the financial burden without a say on the powerful council, the economic daily said.

    A bid by Japan and its partners in the so-called G4 group - Brazil, Germany and India - to secure permanent council membership has stalled in the face of opposition from the United States and China and insufficient support from the 53-member African bloc.

    Japan has repeatedly threatened to slash its contribution to the UN.

    The Sankei Shimbun reported last week that Japan planned to ask China and Russia, which have veto power on the Security Council, to hike their contributions while cutting its own.

    Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura, in an interview published last week with The Times of London, said Japan’s share of the UN budget was “disproportionately big.”

    He also criticized the US contribution, saying “contribution basically should be in proportion to GDP - based on that the US should be bearing about 30 percent.”(AFP)

    Bali bombings condemned

    Region governments and world powers this week condemned Saturday’s suicide bombings on the Indonesian resort island of Bali and offered help to overcome the latest in a string of terrorist attacks in the country over the past three years.

    Suicide bombers wearing explosive vests targeted tourist resorts on Bali with coordinated attacks that devastated three crowded restaurants on Saturday night, killing at least 25 people and injuring 101.

    In an outpouring of support, Australia offered medical and police aid. Britain sent an emergency assistance team, and the United States and New Zealand pledged to help in any way possible to catch the terrorists.

    White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said the U.S. government was ready to assist in any way.

    “The United States stands with the people and government of Indonesia as they work to bring to justice those responsible for these acts of terrorism,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

    U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called it a “cowardly attack.”

    Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said the attack is “a reminder that although weakened, terrorist groups remain a threat to our societies.”

    New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said such “callous and cold-blooded” acts “are an affront to humanity.”

    No one claimed responsibility for the attacks. But suspicion fell on the al-Qaida linked militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, which officials say was also behind the Oct. 12, 2002 bombings in Bali which killed 202 people.(AP)

    India, Pakistan sign ballistic missile accord

    India and Pakistan signed an agreement on Monday making it obligatory for either country to notify the other at least 72 hours before testing ballistic missiles within a 40-km radius of the International Boundary and the Line of Control (LoC).

    The pact, which was reached after months of discussions, was signed in Islamabad in the presence of External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri.

    Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran and his Pakistani counterpart, Riaz Mohammad Khan, signed the agreement after a 90-minute meeting of the Ministers in which the status of the composite dialogue was reviewed.

    The pre-notification agreement entails the countries to provide each other notification before undertaking any surface-to-surface ballistic missile test.

    Both sides are now examining a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on measures to reduce the risks of accidental or unauthorised use of nuclear weapons.

    “The talks went off in a very cordial atmosphere,” Mr. Kasuri told reporters at the Foreign Office. All the eight subjects listed in the composite dialogue format, including Kashmir, came up for scrutiny.

    Pakistan laid emphasis on quickening the pace of negotiations, particularly on settlement of the Kashmir dispute, without getting into specifics. The Indian response was that dialogue covered all outstanding issues, and New Delhi expected a conducive atmosphere to continue the process.

    An MoU establishing communication links between the Coast Guard and the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PSMA) was also signed.(The Hindu)
  • Tamil Nadu furore over moral policing
    The continuing furore over actor Kushboo’s comments on pre-marital sex has opened a Pandora’s box in Tamil Nadu, raising fears as to whether moral policing by self-styled cultural guardians has come to stay in this “traditional-yet-modern” state.

    Three different instances of moral policing, involving academicians, politicians and the police, hit the headlines recently and stirred a hornet’s nest in the state.

    It all began when Anna University, a premier institution for technical education, stipulated a dress code for its students, particularly girls, prohibiting them from wearing tight clothes, jeans, skirts and T-shirts. The university went on to ban cellphones in all campuses and in hostels.

    The fatwa evoked strong condemnation from students, who described it as “perverted and old-fashioned.”

    Explaining his stand, the Anna University Vice-Chancellor, Prof D Viswanathan told the media the decision had been taken in the interest of girls as the dress code would protect them from sexual harassment.

    This raised the hackles of women activists.

    “It is a sheer case of making the victim herself an accused,” All-India Democratic Women’s Association Tamil Nadu unit general-secretary, Ms Vasuki told UNI.

    The VC’s remark implied that women’s attire was responsible for their being sexually harassed, she said. “It is not only a question of moral policing but also that of sexist moral policing.”

    The VC’s diktat was not well-received even among his staff with one female professor saying the university should focus on matters like improving infrastructure rather than “trivial issues.”

    When it came to the Kushboo issue, however, people were not so vociferous in their support for her. Women activists and organisations were guarded in their reaction.

    Though accepting that the actor had the right to air her views, they said the issue of “pre-marital sex” could not be commented upon as it had several social ramifications.

    “In the name of freedom of expression, one cannot advocate issues like pre-marital sex. One cannot judge it right or wrong in public as it is a private decision between two individuals,” said an activist.

    Kushboo, who ruled the Tamil Film industry in the 90s with her perfect mix of glamour and acting prowess, found herself in the eye of a storm after she gave an interview to the Tamil edition of India Today, which conducted a survey titled ‘sex and the single woman’, that there was “nothing wrong with pre-marital sex as long as the girl protects herself from pregnancy and venereal diseases.”

    “Our society must free itself from expectations that brides should all be virgins,” she went on to add.

    Reiterating her stand in an interview to a Tamil daily, she asked “How many people in Tamil Nadu have not had sex before marriage?”

    Her comments prompted an outcry. Volunteers of the Tamil Protection Movement, carrying broomsticks and slippers, staged vociferous demonstrations, demanding an open apology from the actress for “casting a slur on the image of Tamil women”.

    The TPM president and Dalit Panthers of India general-secretary, Mr Thol Tirumavalavan even advocated displaying ‘beware of Kushboo” boards at every household.

    Defamation suits were slapped against Kushboo in various parts of the state, where once fans built a temple for her and worshipped her as a goddess.

    Realising the seriousness of the situation, Kushboo flew to Chennai with her family, cancelling her pleasure trip to Singapore. A native of Maharashtra, she is married to a Tamil director and settled in the city with two daughters.

    In tears, she tendered an unconditional apology to the people, saying she would never dream of sullying the image of Tamil women.

    “Even in films, I never undertook roles, which lowered the image of women. I have the greatest regard for Tamils, especially Tamil women,” she said.

    However, the protests refused to die down with cases being filed against her almost every day, even as the South Indian Film Artistes Association distanced itself from the controversy, stating the actress had expressed her personal views.

    Even before the dust settled, Chennai police arrested two employees of a star hotel and withdrew the bar licence and the hotel licence after two Tamil newspapers published photographs of girls partying in the hotel.

    The charges against the hotel management included violating licence norms and permitting “obscene acts.”

    A senior police officer even said the girls in the photographs would be traced and action taken against them.

    The hotel management maintained on its part that the photographers had trespassed into the hotel and taken pictures.

    “We cannot invade the privacy of a customer. We cannot tell a husband or wife that they should not hold hands or kiss. And the same goes for girls and their boyfriends,” it said.

    The hotel moved the Madras High Court against the police action, following which a direction was given saying the hotel could admit new guests. However, the hotel bar should remain closed till further orders by the Chennai city commissioner of police, the court said.

    Former chairperson of the state commission for women and rights activist Dr Vasanthi Devi expressed her concern about the “influence of unbridled consumerism on a society in flux, particularly youth.”

    “But that will not in any way justify moral policing,” she added.

    The role played by the media has also come in for sharp focus, with activists accusing it of arrogating to itself the authority to preach what is right and what is wrong for society.

    In the star hotel incident, a Tamil paper questioned the “morality of the elite city girls”, a couple of whom were shown locked in the arms of their partners in the party.

    Another leading Tamil daily followed suit, publishing the same pictures, raising more “moralistic” queries.

    Questioning the necessity and purpose of sex-related surveys conducted by magazines, Ms Vasuki said the media was treating sex as a saleable commodity.

    “Rather than focusing on issues related to sexuality with a profit motive, the media could highlight livelihood issues to serve society better.”
  • Palestinians vow peaceful end to differences
    Leaders of Palestinian factions including rivals Fatah and Hamas pledged on Tuesday to refrain from violence in settling Palestinian problems after a firefight between Hamas activists and Palestinian police left three dead.

    Farouk Kaddoumi, a leader of Fatah - the ruling faction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the exiled leaders of Palestinian groups agreed in Damascus that dialogue should be the only way to solve their disputes.

    Kaddoumi said the leaders agreed to “call all Palestinian powers and factions to ban the use of weapons to solve internal differences” and to “refrain from all forms political and media provocations that can harm the interests of our people and their national unity.”

    Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal acknowledged the call, but defended his militant group’s right to resist Israeli occupation and to have a role in Palestinian political life at the same time.

    “We refuse any inclination toward internal feuding because our fixed national principles set Palestinian blood as a taboo,” he said after the meeting that also comprised less senior leaders of key factions - the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.

    On Sunday, a police commander and two civilians were killed in firefights between policemen and Hamas gunmen. Fifty people were wounded when militants tried to storm a police station shortly afterwards.

    Palestinian policemen stormed into Gaza’s parliament building on Monday to demand a crackdown on militants, and deputies called on President Abbas to sack the cabinet for failing to stamp out chaos in the streets.

    The protesters said police were badly outgunned by militant groups like Hamas and the Palestinian Authority seemed to lack the will to impose order. Abbas, citing a civil war risk, aims to co-opt, rather than try to crush, grassroots militant groups.

    The two challenges highlighted Abbas’s uphill struggle to impose law and order in the Gaza Strip to make it the proving ground of a future Palestinian state after Israel’s withdrawal of settlers and soldiers completed last month.

    “We are on the verge of civil war if the situation remains out of control,” said Qaddoura Fares, a reformist legislator with Abbas’s mainstream Fatah movement.

    Parliament voted 43-5 with five abstentions in favor of a committee report demanding that Abbas form a new government within two weeks or face a no-confidence vote.

    “What is happening is chaos and irresponsible,” Abbas said on Palestinian television on Monday. “People are saying this is a test for a Palestinian state. If we continue on this path these people will say we don’t deserve one.”
  • Australian Tamils back Resurgence rallies
    Several hundred Tamils from Australia gathered in Sydney Sunday to support the Tamil Resurgence rallies being staged in Sri Lanka's Northeast.

    Federal Members of the Australian parliament, Ms Julie Owens, and John Murphy, Chairman of International Commission of Jurists Justice John Dowd, attended the event organised by the Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations (AFTA), an umbrella organization of Tamil groups in the region.

    Representatives of more than thirty member organizations participated in lighting the flame of resurgence at the beginning of the event presided by AFTA chairman Mr Ana Pararajasingham.


    John Murphy, a Federal Member of the Australian parliament, commended the Co chairs to the Peace Process for calling for the disarming of the paramilitaries and expressed the view that “ this alone is insufficient” and called for the “complete withdrawal of the Sri Lankan armed forces from the Tamil Homeland.”

    The key note speaker, Justice John Dowd, a prominent Australian Human Rights Activist, and Chairman of the International Commission of Jurists drew attention to the need to keep the international community informed of developing political situation in Sri Lanka.

    A petition calling for “a political solution to the conflict based on the Tamil people right to self-determination and an end to the occupation by the Sri Lankan armed forces of the Tamil Homeland,” addressed to the Australian Prime Minister was signed by those attending the event.

  • Perth Hindu Temple opens
    The grand consecration of the new Perth Hindu temple was held on September 8, 2005, temple officials said.

    About 2000 people attended the Maha Kumbhabishekam event they said.

    The ceremonies were conducted by Shri Parameswara Kurukkal (Malaysia) in the presence of Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami (Hawaii) with the assistance of priests from Sri Lanka, India and Malaysia and other temples in Australia (Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane).

    The consecration ceremony sequence commenced with the Ganesha Hawan on 13 July 2005 and continued daily with the Yantra Pooja for 48 days as per Hindu customs, they said.

    Apart from he central shrines of Shiva, Devi and Ganesha, the temple also has shrines for Vishnu, Lakshmi, Murugan and Hanuman.

    “The outstanding architecture of the temple is the work of a dedicated team of local and overseas devotees,” temple officials said.

    The architecture drawings were done by the famous architect Mr V S Thurairajah.

    The land for the temple site was consecrated by Swami Shantananda in a ceremony in 1987, with construction of the multi purpose hall commencing in March 1989.

    The foundation ceremony for the new temple was held on 10 April 1998.

    Artisans from India led by Stapathi,Devakottai S.Nagarajan, who commenced detailed work in August 2002, produced intricate sculptural work on shrine domes, on pillars and temple walls.

    “Indeed it is a building which will create its place in the History of Western Australia,” temple officials said.

    “Acknowledging the fact that the Hindus in Western Australia come from different countries and regions, our new temple is an outstanding example of multiculturalism within the Hindus,” temple officials said.

    The architecture includes influence from North India (Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan), Western India (Gujarat), South India (Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Kerala) and Sri Lanka, they pointed out.

    The South side Gopuram (or entrance door) and all the icons in the South side of the temple including Vishnu, Lakshmi and Hanuman are in the North Indian pattern.

    The sculptures on the wall Ram Parivar, Vishnu, Sri Krishna and Ganesha are in the North Indian and Gujrati pattern.

    The North side Gopuram is in Gujrati pattern.

    The North side icons, Kartikeya, Vasanta Mandapam, Utsava Mandapam and sculptures on the wall are in the South Indian and Sri Lankan pattern.

    “The Perth Hindu Temple is thus an absolutely unique structure with no other temple in the world with similar characteristics,” they said.




    Perth Hindu Temple home page
  • Fear and loathing
    One of the most powerful currencies in political life is fear. Whether it is avian flu or terrorism, when we are fearful we listen more closely to politicians. We expect them to reassure us. In this respect we are still deeply dependent on politicians, despite our cynicism towards political life.

    In the weeks since the London bombings, we can trace how fear is shaping our political culture - and distorting it. The danger is that the imperative to satisfy the emotional needs posed by fear and its close associate, anger, will end up crippling our capacity to respond effectively to the threat of Islamist terrorism. The “what works” British pragmatism is in danger of being junked for emotionally satisfying but irrelevant symbolism - a few individuals are banned or deported but the websites they run will penetrate just as deeply into the hearts and minds of some British Muslims.

    There are three key ways in which fear shapes politics. The first is that politicians provide a narrative structure that can satisfy the “why” question: why us, why now and why here? That involves a clear plot and a plausible cast of goodies and baddies. The scale of the plot must be big enough to provide a large enough description of our fear, which usually means the threat is greatly inflated. And the goodies, of course, must win. The aim of the narrative is to offer emotional reassurance on several levels. It has to say it’s understandable you’re so afraid; we’re on the side of good against evil; we will vanquish our enemies.

    Recently, it was the turn of David Cameron, the shadow education secretary to demonstrate how he has mastered the new orthodoxy - the politics of fear - in a widely reported speech in London. Like many others on both sides of the Atlantic, Cameron had been rummaging for props in 20th-century history to find familiar analogies that can meet all of the above criteria.

    For a growing number in the Anglo-American political establishment, Nazism fits the bill best. Here was an epic struggle of Britain and America against an evil system in which we were victorious - our proudest hour and all that. So Cameron duly framed his understanding of Islamist terrorism within the context of Nazism. He mentioned two points they have in common: their use of violence and their hatred of cosmopolitan influences.

    What he overlooks, along with many others who use the term Islamo-fascism, is how little relevance these mass political movements and their capture of the state have to Islamist terrorism - let alone the enormous exaggeration required to liken the threat of a few hundred potential terrorists in the UK with a sustained world war in which hundreds of thousands of Britons died fighting a hugely powerful, highly organised nation state.

    The real beauty of the Nazi analogy is that it provides a valuable political opportunity to define yourself and ensure a damaging definition of your opponent. Positioning in an argument is key, and the Islamo-fascism analogy enables the appeasement slur to be used against any “who try to explain jihadist violence”, as Cameron put it.

    Fear is now shaping all political debate and redefining political allegiances. Throughout the British media, such references to appeasement, and similarly to the wilful blindness of the “Auden generation” towards the atrocities of Stalin, have become common over the summer.

    On the right, it’s now an unquestioned chorus; on the left, the self-styled “hard” liberals have declared civil war on their former fellow political travellers. Classics in this latter genre have been penned repeatedly in the past few weeks. For example, the author Tim Lott recently wrote of how enraged he was not just by “passive Muslims” but by the “self-hating, intellectually and morally moribund response of the British liberal left”. Columnist John Rentoul talked last week of the “ideological succour” provided by “half-apologists” on the left.

    This reflects the second way fear shapes political life: the desire for uncompromising clarity. When people are fearful, they want to know who’s on their side and who’s not - everyone has to be assigned as goodies or baddies, good or evil. Anyone who introduces complexity or context blurs that clarity and must be bullied into silence.

    So there is now a growing constituency that no longer distinguishes between the analysis and the justification of an atrocity. The result is a willed ignorance - people don’t want to understand. There’s a blanket rejection of how understanding is the crucial underpinning for effective policy. They want only a politics of symbolism to meet their emotional responses of fear and anger.

    Finally, the third impact of fear is that it, understandably, prompts a great desire for solidarity. There has been much talk of standing together and uniting around shared values. But the quest for a meaningful national identity around which we can all rally is at risk of buckling under the weight of its contradictions.

    For example, there have been two parallel debates about national identity this summer. One has talked patriotically of British values of tolerance and fair play (values of recent coinage, incidentally, which weren’t much in evidence in either the acquisition or disposal of our empire). The other, based on the insight of our holiday comparative study in national behaviours, is full of self-loathing due to our propensity for binge drinking and sexual debauchery. How do we convince sceptical Muslims that signing up to the first doesn’t involve the second? How do we explain which bit of “our way of life” we want everyone to rally around?

    “Pulling together” is emotionally reassuring, but it is the most contested territory in this new politics of fear. For example, what does loyalty or patriotism mean when an increasing number of people across the globe live where they don’t want to belong? In a thought- provoking article in Prospect, the philosopher Bhikhu Parekh says it is incumbent on migrants to develop an emotional and moral commitment to their host country. But if they don’t, how is such a thing to be engineered? The politics of fear will drive a frenzied policy spree on community cohesion in coming months.

    The most troubling aspect of how fear is distorting our political life is that it is crippling our grasp of two crucial truths: Islamist terrorism is vicious but it will not destroy our country - it can kill hundreds but it will not take over our government and impose sharia law. We need to be much calmer about the nature of the threat, and more sophisticated about the scale of risk. What’s happened to that British virtue of prosaic good sense so much in evidence on the evening of July 7 and so little in evidence since?

    Second, our biggest ally in tracking down the perpetrators and our only chance of defeating Islamist terrorism is the Muslim community itself. That’s why the willed ignorance is so dangerous. A sophisticated understanding is vital if we are to identify and nurture the processes of development and thinking among Muslims that are already struggling to defeat Islamist extremism and chart another future for the faith.

    Extracts of an comment originally published on August 29, 2005
  • Briefly: International
    ‘Turkey must recognise genocide’

    Turkey has rejected demands by the European Parliament that it recognise the killing of Armenians as genocide before it can join the EU.

    Armenians say that up to 1.5 million of their people were slaughtered in mass killings under the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

    But the Turkish government insists that the killing of Armenians was not a systematic genocide. They maintain that a smaller number of Armenians died, and that they perished unintentionally because of exposure, famine and disease.

    The request has angered Ankara, and the Turkish prime minister immediately rejected the resolution.

    Turkey has also come under pressure to recognise the Greek-speaking Republic of Cyprus, an EU member, in the run up to membership talks.

    Other issues of contention are Ankara’s record on human rights, religious freedom and its treatment of minorities.

    The resolution requesting the recognition of the genocide came as the European Parliament backed the opening of EU entry talks with Turkey, due to start Monday Oct 3. They are largely a formality, but the approval of talks is seen as a positive step.

    There are concerns within the EU about Turkey joining the bloc. French and Dutch voters recently rejected a planned EU constitution, in part over concerns about the country’s bid for membership.

    The largely Muslim country has been trying to join the EU for years.(The Daily Telegraph)

    Iran denies shift in India ties

    Iran says it has no plans to pull out of a $22bn gas deal with India after Delhi voted on Saturday for Iran’s nuclear plans to be referred to the UN Security Council.

    Top Iranian official Ali Agha Mohammadi denied a report in India’s Hindu newspaper the gas deal was in doubt.

    Under the accord, India would import 5m tonnes of liquefied natural gas a year for 25 years.

    On Tuesday Iran had said it would reconsider economic co-operation with countries such as India which had supported the UN nuclear move.

    However, Mr Mohammadi, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said “we have had good, deep relations with India in many fields and regional affairs and their behaviour at the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] was strange and we didn’t expect them to vote against Iran.”

    The Indian government has maintained since Saturday that it did not come under pressure to back the vote from the US, which has thanked Delhi for its support.

    India says the IAEA resolution is consistent with Delhi’s stated position on Iran and is in no way linked to a recent landmark India-US nuclear accord.

    India’s government is under attack both from the opposition and its left-wing allies for its decision to side with the West against Iran.(BBC)

    Bush expects Iraq violence to rise

    President George W. Bush warned Wednesday there will be an upsurge in violence in Iraq before next month’s voting, but said the terrorists will fail.

    “We can expect they’ll do everything in their power to try to stop the march of freedom,” Bush said. “And our troops are ready for it.”

    The president is facing declining public support for the war that has claimed the lives of at least 1,925 members of the U.S. military A weekend anti-war demonstration in Washington drew an estimated 100,000 to the capital and polls show Bush approval rating is at the lowest point of his presidency.

    National polls have shown a majority of Americans now believing the war was a mistake.

    In an AP-Ipsos poll this month, only 37 percent approved or leaned toward approval of how Bush has handled the situation in Iraq; strong disapproval outweighed strong approval by 2-1, 46 percent to 22 percent.

    Insurgent attacks have escalated ahead of an Oct. 15 referendum on a new constitution that has raised fears of a bloody sectarian split between Iraq’s Shiite Muslim majority and the disaffected Sunni minority.

    If two-thirds of voters in any three of Iraq’s 18 provinces reject the document on Oct. 15, a new government must be formed and the process of writing the constitution started over.(AP)

    US urges calm between Israel, Palestinians

    The US government this government urged Israel to weigh its actions while simultaneously calling on the Palestinian authorities to dismantle “terrorist networks” amid a series of bombing raids and rocket attacks.

    The fifth anniversary of the Palestinian intifada was marked by the cancellation of a summit between Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, against the backdrop of the bomb and rocket assaults.

    “Both sides have responsibilities,” stressed US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

    Israel launched new air strikes on Gaza Wednesday as Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas prepared for talks with US President George W. Bush seeking to prevent a further escalation of the five-year conflict.

    “On the Palestinian side, that responsibility is to act to stop any terrorism, to act to dismantle terrorist networks,” McCormack told reporters at the State Department.

    “On the Israeli side, you’re familiar with our message to them, and that is that they take steps to ease the daily plight of the Palestinian people as well as to, again, take into account the effect of their actions upon what all share as the ultimate goal of bringing peace and stability to the region,” McCormack said.(AFP)

    North Korea disarmament ‘underway’

    Five countries trying to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs have started working out the specific steps to dismantle Pyongyang’s atomic programs and the rewards to match completion, South Korea said on Wednesday.

    Last week, the five parties - China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States - and North Korea reached an agreement where Pyongyang pledged to scrap its atomic weapons in exchange for security guarantees, economic aid and increased diplomatic recognition.

    An action plan was needed to follow up on the pledges made in the accord, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said at a press briefing. The next round of the six-party talks is scheduled for November.

    “We have launched preparations to set up specific steps and their sequence, focusing on nuclear dismantlement and corresponding measures,” Ban told reporters.

    “I look forward to related countries taking steps even before the next round of the talks in order to set a positive tone and to help accomplish an early resolution.”

    Experts said the agreement reached in Beijing on September 19 was simply the start of a long road ahead to ending Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programs and it would likely see complications that strain ties among the other parties, in particular between Seoul and Washington.(Reuters)
  • World Bank, IMF back debt deal
    World Bank and International Monetary Fund officials have backed a deal to cancel about $55bn (£31bn) of debts owed by the world’s poorest countries.

    About 70% of the debt is owed to the World Bank, while the rest is owed to the IMF and the African Development Bank.

    The lenders’ decision endorses an initial agreement by the leaders of the G8 industrialised states at their July summit in Gleneagles, Scotland.

    World Bank head Paul Wolfowitz said the focus and effort must now shift to forging a global free-trade deal. Trade talks have stalled and officials will try to revive them in December.

    The World Trade Organisation will meet in Hong Kong and try to breathe new life into the Doha round of talks that fell apart amid differences over agricultural subsidies.

    “A trade agreement in Hong Kong would provide the spur for investment and economic growth that promises a lasting exit from poverty for millions, even billions, of people in developing countries,” Mr Wolfowitz said.

    “We have agreement on more aid, we have consensus on debt relief - now let’s complete the picture and deliver a true development round on trade.”

    Eighteen nations stand to have $40bn in debt written off initially, while $55bn could be released eventually, UK Chancellor Gordon Mr Brown said.

    The countries to benefit are Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Honduras, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

    A number of countries, led by Belgium and the Netherlands, had complained that not enough money was being committed by rich nations to make up for the shortfall in funds that the World Bank would face if debt repayments were forgiven.

    But a joint-pledge by the G8 on Friday not to dilute the resources of the international financial institutions overcame opposition and the debtor nations could start benefiting by the end of 2005.
  • An impediment to the peace process
    The International Federation of Tamils (IFT), wishes to express, on behalf of the Tamil Diaspora, its shock and exasperation at the lopsided EU statement on “Terrorism in Sri Lanka,” issued on 26.09.05 condemning the LTTE.

    The IFT wishes to point out to the EU, the plausible damage the “European Union Declaration condemning terrorism in Sri Lanka (26/09/05),” could bring to the peace process at a time when the extreme Sinhala nationalist terrorism is rearing its fierce head again in the southern parts of Sri Lanka.

    With the Presidential election propaganda machinary at its full swing, the extreme nationalist Sinhala elements rallying behind the Presidential candidate, Mahinda Rajapakse are clamouring for the abrogation of Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) facilitated by Norway and the P-TOMS, recommended by the Co-Chairs of the Tokyo Donor Conference.

    From the Election Propaganda platforms these elements are making loud appeal to the outside world to ban the LTTE in all countries. With their anti-Tamil slogans, they are also urging the Sri Lankan armed forces to resume war against the LTTE.

    Now, they are going to misconstrue the EU Declaration as a vicarious moral support for their purported genocidal attempt. We wish to point out to the European Community that the EU Declaration may retard the peace process as well.

    When Member States of the European Union gave asylum to Tamils two decades ago, it was in recognition of the fact that the Tamils faced annihilation in a genocidal rage of the extreme nationalist elements in Sri Lanka. The IFT fears the recent EU Declaration, inadvertantly, is going to encourage a similar rage which is in the brewing.

    The Cease-Fire Agreement (CFA) was forged between the Government of Sri Lanka acting on behalf of the Sinhala nation and the LTTE representing the Tamil nation and the Peace Talks were also held on the same equal basis. The international community, too, recognised and supported this understanding.

    The decision not to receive any LTTE delegations into any of the EU Member States denies the Tamil people and the LTTE a chance to present, face to face, their case, predicaments and proposals to the EU countries. It also denies them of the chance to continue gaining firsthand information and values of the well established democratic institutions functioning in the West.

    At a time when there are too many political killings taking place in Sri Lanka, it is unfair and unacceptable to arbitrarily choose one party to the peace talks and penalise it.

    On behalf of the Tamil people, the IFT pleads with each Member State of the European Union to refrain from taking any punitive action against the LTTE, as it will affect all Tamils, both at home, as well as in Europe, and will obviously jeopaordise the success of the peace process, also.

    The IFT pleads for restraint and understanding.
  • Jaffna military intimidates rally organisers
    Tamil residents and public servants in the Jaffna peninsula are making last minute preparations for a fourth Tamil resurgence convention to be held on Friday. Preparations are going ahead despite threats by the Sri Lankan security forces, who occupy most of the peninsula, against organizers and the public.

    Several hundred pre-school teachers from Teachers Technical Colleges across Jaffna district met at the Thileepan Memorial near Nallur Kandaswamy temple last week to make village level plans for the forthcoming Tamil Resurgence Celebrations in Jaffna.

    Earlier in the week, many other women, mostly from camps for the internally displaced across the Jaffna district, volunteered to assist with the organization of the event. More than a thousand women and female students attended a briefing by organizers at the Jaffna University Kailasapathy Auditorium. Committees including undergrads formed in the event Sunday began their village-level awareness campaign to promote the Jaffna Tamil Resurgence Convention.

    The Sri Lankan military has stepped up the harassment of those it suspects to be involved in organizing the next Tamil resurgence event. SLA soldiers have also intensified armed patrols in the parts of the peninsula under military control.

    On Monday, students from Jaffna Technical College on their way to publicize forthcoming Tamil Resurgence event were barred from entering Mandaitivu by the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) soldiers. Even after intervention by international ceasefire monitors and Tamil parliamentarians, the students were not allowed entry.

    Last week, the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) arrested a student organizer traveling through a military checkpoint. He was released after other students and members of the public protested over the arrest and a Tamil parliamentarian complained to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) over the “intimidating tactics” of the Sri Lankan military in Jaffna. The soldiers warned the student not to participate in the forthcoming Tamil Resurgence rally.

    “The success of the Tamil Resurgence Rallies in Vavuniya, Batticaloa, Kilinochi and Mullaithivu has alarmed Colombo, and that is why I think SLA has intensified its intimidating tactics to sabotage the forthcoming rally," parliamentarian Selvarajah Gajendran said.

    The hostility by Sri Lanka’s armed forces comes in the wake of a series of successful Tamil resurgence events in other parts of the North-East.

    The Sunday Times’ respected Defence Column said the evening Jaffna is focused to deliver a strong message to the international community and Sri Lanka’s Sinhala-dominated south. It points out that the rallies are taking place against “a backdrop of a protracted delay in peace talks, the non implementation of P-TOMS (Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure), demands for troop withdrawals from High Security Zones.”

    Earlier this month tens of thousands of residents attended a similar resurgence event in Mullaitivu. The attendants appealed to the international community to recognize their right to greater autonomy from Colombo. “Extend your moral support achieve self rule with just peace and dignity in our traditional homeland. Help us to live in our homeland with Self Rule in peace with the Sinhala South,” the Mullaitivu declaration said.

    Attendees at earlier resurgence events held in Vavuniya, Batticaloa and Kilinochchi have made similar appeals. Friday’s event is expected to be one of the largest such rallies.

    Compiled from TamilNet and local press reports
  • Thousands commemorate Thileepan’s fast
    Thousands of people across Sri Lanka’s Northeast and the Tamil Diaspora have been commemorating the fast-unto-death of Lt. Col. Thileepan, who died trying to get the Indian government to honour the security undertakings it gave to the Tamil people alongside its 1987 pact with Sri Lanka.

    Rememberance events were held last week in major towns across the Tamil-dominated Northeast in honour of the Liberation Tigers’ of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) commander who died on September 26, 1987 during a hunger protest which failed to move the government of Rajiv Gandhi to act.

    On Monday thousands of people attended the final day of commemoration events held at the Palugamam Throupathy Amman Kovil grounds in Batticaloa. A new hospital named after Thileepan was also opened in Tharavai the same day. In Ampara district a commemoration event was held at the Kanjikudicharu.

    In the northern Vanni, thousands of people congregated at the Murugan temple, Kilinochchi, for a commemoration rally in memory of Thileepan who died after 12 days without food or fluids. The commemorative events began twelve days earlier to coincide with the anniversary of the first day of Thileepan’s hunger-strike.

    A march in Kilinochchi reached the Regional Administrative office where the Government Agent (the region’s most senior civil servant) received the people participating in the day’s token hunger-strike.

    In the Jaffna peninsula the final day events of Thileepan’s commemoration started at the site of Thileepan’s monument, in the compound of the famours Nallur Kandaswamy Temple. Before the events began, students and community activists put up posters and decorated the site.

    Eighteen years ago, an estimated hundred thousand people gathered in and around the Nallur Kandaswamy temple to support Thileepan in his hunger strike which he began on 15 September 1987 on a stage in front of the historic temple.

    Thileepan, then the LTTE’s political wing leader for the Jaffna district, made five demands from the Indian government, including the release of all Tamils held under Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), a halt to the state-sponsored Sinhala colonization of Tamil lands, an end to the building of new Sri Lankan military camps in the Tamil areas, the withdrawal of the Sri Lankan security forces from Tamil schools and the disarming of Sinhala and Muslim paramilitary militia.

    As Jaffna’s political wing leader, Thileepan was a popular figure in the Tamil community and had already won renown for his courage in combat. The LTTE has named a series of medical centers, located both in government and LTTE-held areas, after him.

    Born Rasiah Partheepan, in 1964 as the fourth son of a school teacher in Urelu, in a hamlet of Urumpirai in the Jaffna District, he took up the name Thileepan when he joined the LTTE.

    His motivation for joining the Tamil freedom struggle was prompted at the age of ten by the deaths of ten youths in a violent assault by Sinhala policemen on the World Tamil Research Conference held in Jaffna in 1974.

    Compiled from TamilNet and local press reports
  • State banks join discriminating institutions
    Tamil community groups in Trincomalee have called upon the Tamil speaking people of the Northeast to boycott Sri Lanka’s state-owned banks, alleging the institutions are discriminating against the island’s minorities.

    Of the 1350 youths recruited by the Bank of Ceylon and Peoples Bank recently, only 66 have been posted to northeast province. Of these, all except six, are Sinhalese youths residing in the southern provinces and are not from the northeast province, the community groups said.

    The Tamil civic groups protesting the biased recruitment policy say it is further evidence of the institutionalized racism within the Sri Lankan state. They point out that the language barrier precludes these youth from handling the affairs of the majority public of the Northeast.

    Tamil parliamentarians have raised the matter with the outgoing Sri Lankan president, Chandrika Kumaratunga. Mr. R. Sampanthan, leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentary group - and the Trincomalee district parliamentarian - has faxed a written protest to her.

    He has called for the cancellation of all appointments made by the State Banks, Bank of Ceylon (BoC) and Peoples Bank (PB) to their branches in the Northeast or the recall of the new appointees.

    “This is a repetition of the regular discrimination that has been consistently practised against the Tamils in the matter of employment in the state sector including State Banks,” he said.

    Sri Lanka’s minority communities complain of consistent discrimination against them by the state – discrimination which is at the root of the protracted civil war. As Mr. Sampanthan in his letter pointed out to the President, “you cannot be unaware that this is one of the factors that has substantially contributed to the alienation of Tamil youths from the Sri Lankan State and to the demand for self-rule.”

    The state bureaucracy is dominated by the majority Sinhalese. Discrimination within state structures was also highlighted earlier this year during the post-Tsunami aid relief efforts, when low-level government bureaucrats were blamed for thwarting international aid from the Northeast by underplaying the destruction there and on occasion, even redirecting supplies destined for the Tamil areas to Sinhala dominated areas in the island’s south.

    Last week, yet another Tamil language training programme was announced for the predominantly Sinhala police force.

    “The majority of the people in the Trincomalee district are Tamil speaking. The police serving in the district should learn Tamil language to promote better understanding with Tamil speaking people and to discharge their duties effectively,” said Mr. Raja Collure, Chairman of the Official Languages Commission of Sri Lanka, when inaugurating the course.

    “Of about 64 thousand police personnel currently serving in Sri Lanka, about 17 thousand have been posted to the northeast province. There are very few Tamils in the police service,” he said, lamenting that Tamils are not willing to join the police service.

    Compiled from TamilNet and local press reports
  • UNP to 'defeat separatism'
    Presidential hopeful Ranil Wickremesinghe this week launched a determined bid to close on his opponent, Premier Mahinda Rajapakse, with a manifesto that sought to shift the debate to the economy from the ethnic question, whilst at the same time making overtures to Sinhala nationalists.

    To begin with, in a major policy shift to target the masses who voted his government out in 2004, he pledged a raft of subsidies if elected. He also vowed to vowed to end separatism, an unambiguous interpretation of Sri Lanka’s conflict that would appeal to Sinhala nationalists.

    Launching his manifesto at the headquarters of his United National Party (UNP), Mr. Wickremesinghe, accompanied by senior party officials, paid homage to senior Buddhist prelates, seeking their blessings.

    The first section of his two part manifesto deals with three themes: an end to hunger, employment suited for qualifications, and end to separatism. The second section deals with twenty areas ranging from tsunami reconstruction to women’s rights and foreign affairs.

    Whilst Mr. Rajapakse, candidate for the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), has taken a stridently Sinhala-Buddhist line, forging alliances with the ultra-nationalist JVP (People’s Liberation Front) and the hardline monks’ party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), Mr. Wickremesinghe has not taken a clear stance on the ethnic question till now.

    Tellingly, the section that outlines the UNP’s plans to resolve the protracted conflict is titled ‘Defeat to Separatism’ and calls for a common Sinhala front.

    Although in vowing to bring about a political solution “based on united Sri Lanka” – a step back from his rival’s vow to protect the “unitary character of the state” - Mr. Wickremesinghe claimed “a consensus” between his opposition UNP and the SLFP-led ruling coalition on the ethnic problem.

    This consensus, along with the Oslo Declaration (a media term for the agreement between the then UNP government and the LTTE to explore federalism as a solution) and the Tokyo Declaration (a roadmap for peace and disarmament agreed by Sri Lanka and international donors in the absence of the LTTE) had “created the framework of a solution acceptable to all communities of the country,” the manifesto says.

    In a clear invitation to the island’s Muslim voters, the UNP said “while guaranteeing Muslim representation in the peace talks, we will also ensure that at all times, the views of the Muslim community are taken into consideration.”

    He also dangled a coveted ambition of Sri Lanka’s impoverished plantation workers – access to higher education and government jobs. “We will increase the opportunities for the children of estate workers to enter higher education institutes [and] employment opportunities in government sector for the estate community.”

    The largest Estate Tamil political party, the Ceylon Workers’ Congress (CWC) is as yet wavering on pledging its support, as is the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), the island’s largest Muslim party before an internal rebellion.

    Whilst Mr. Rajapakse has embraced a strong Sinhala-Buddhist position, Wickremesinghe is wary of alienating the island’s minorities whilst pursing the Sinhala-nationalist middle ground.

    Mr. Rajapakse, whose left-wing SLFP – like the JVP - has its core support amongst the rural poor, is also taking a strong stance on the creaking economy.

    Taking advantage of widespread belief that Sri Lanka’s soaring cost of living is a consequence of foreign exploitation, the Premier has vowed to resist further privatization and to extend financial assistance to the rural poor.

    In response Mr. Wickremesinghe, the right-of-centre market favourite, has adopted an unabashedly populist economic manifesto.

    Banking on foreign investment more than tripling to $1 billion a year to meet his growth target, Wickremesinghe shifted his policy focus from a peace bid with the Tamil Tigers to the economy and the common man.

    Mr. Wickremesinghe said the economy came first, Reuters reported from his press conference.

    “People want answers to this,” he said, adding that while peace was an issue, “I think people are also talking about their stomach.”

    He vowed to spend $50 million next year to keep down prices of goods ranging from milk powder to fertiliser, pledging to create 3 million jobs and double economic growth to 10 percent a year for a decade.

    Stealing some of Mr. Rajapakse’s thunder, Mr. Wickremesinghe promised to revitalise the rural economy and guarantee paddy and milk prices for farmers.

    He said he would raise the funds to pay for the subsidies from treasury coffers and from foreign aid pledged for tsunami recovery relief and for wider redevelopment projects.

    He pledged a new poverty alleviation scheme would provide food stamps for the destitute and vowed to upgrade a thousand rural schools to the level of affluent city schools within three years.

    He also pledged to abandon a coastal buffer zone imposed by outgoing President Chandrika Kumaratunga in the wake of December’s tsunami, and promised to rebuild homes for hundreds of thousands of displaced within months.

    “It is a more people-friendly manifesto than a broad economic-friendly manifesto, but definitely the economic sense is there and the targets seem to be not impossible but challenging,” Hasitha Premaratne, head of research at HNB Stockbrokers Pvt in Colombo, told Reuters.

    The Daily Mirror quoted him as saying he would do away with glittering emblems associated with the office of President if elected.

    “I would make the President a servant of the people and no one needs to call me Your Excellency. Anyone can call me Mister or plain Ranil.”
  • Protests against Trincomalee’s militarisation
    Residents of the eastern port town of Trincomalee observed a general shut down in protest over the continuing heightened presence of Sri Lankan troops in the town and the provocative erection of more new Buddhist statues.

    Putting forward 8 demands, including the immediate removal of the unlawfully erected Buddha statue in the vicinity of the town’s central bus terminal five months ago and the lifting of the military occupation of the town since then, Tamil civil groups in the east port town called for a general closure in protest.

    All government departments, provincial council offices, state and private sector banks, business establishments of Tamils and Muslims and offices of international and national non-governmental organizations, were closed down, as a majority of employees did not report for work. Schools of all media were closed down, as students did not attend classes. State bus services came to a complete halt.

    The organizers condemned the ‘shadow war conducted by the Sri Lankan military in collaboration with armed paramilitary groups’ in the Trincomalee region, in which violence has been escalating, though not to the intensity of the Batticaloa region to the south.

    The protesters also called for the Sri Lankan government to guarantee the safety of unarmed political cadres of the Liberation Tigers who have withdrawn from government—controlled parts of Trincomalee after several lethal attacks against them by suspected paramilitaries.

    The protesters also criticized human rights violations carried out in the region under the cover of the recently reinstated Emergency Regulations.

    They appealed for the Sri Lankan government to remove the unlawfully erected Buddha statute in the town centre, which they said is the root cause for the present volatile situation in Trincomalee town.

    The latest protests came three days after another new Buddha statue was erected by troops in a Tamil area, this time inside the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) 513 brigade camp on the Kankesaturai Road in Chunnakam, Jaffna.

    Earlier, SLA soldiers of the Omanthai camp, north of Vavuniya built another controversial Buddha statute in Omanthai Pillaiyar temple premises causing tensions among local residents.

    The hartal last week is also the most recent in a series of protests over the rising tensions in the town. Trincomalee became a garrisoned town after the Sri Lankan government inducted over two thousand troops into the area citing the demonstrations as a security threat.

    However, that move was most likely an effort to circumvent clauses in the February 2002 Ceasefire Agreement aimed at restoring normalcy and preventing the strategic positioning of forces.

    Tamil parliamentarians Thursday accused the military of ‘engineering’ violence in the region to justify a heightened presence in the area.

    “Para military groups are working in tandem with sections of the military staging attacks and counter attacks and incidents that cause friction. However incidents are also being engineered in order to sustain a state of tension and justify heightened activities of the military,” said Trincomalee parliamentarian R. Sampanthan.

    The increased number of Sri Lankan troops is causing rising tensions amongst the town’s non-Sinhala communities. Officials of the Rural Development Societies (RDS) in the Trincomalee town and Gravets Division complained last month that the presence of newy inducted SLA soldiers in large numbers is disrupting normal lives in their areas.

    Sri Lankan forces were conducting house-to-house searches in many parts of the district in violation of the ceasefire and local civil society organizations have lodged complaints with the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM).

    Compiled from TamilNet and local press reports
  • Witness to Thileepan’s fast
    Thileepan, the young Tiger leader of Jaffna, took the podium on the 14th September at the Nallur Kandasamy temple to commence his fast- unto-death as a protest against India’s failure to fulfill her pledges, and to mobilise the frustrated sentiments of the Tamils into a national mass upsurgence.

    Thileepan’s non-violent struggle was unique and extraordinary for its commitment. Although an armed guerrilla fighter, he chose the spiritual mode of ‘ahimsa’ as enunciated by the great Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi to impress upon India the plight and predicament of the people of Tamil Eelam.

    The levels to which the Tamil people or more specifically, the LTTE cadres, are prepared to go for their freedom mirrors not only a deep passion for their liberation, but indicates the phenomenal degree of oppression they have been subjected to. It is only those who experience intolerable oppression of such a magnitude, of being threatened with extinction, that are capable of supreme forms of self sacrifice as we have seen from Thileepan’s episode.

    Thileepan, who had travelled to Delhi as part of LTTE leader Vellupillai Pirabakaran’s delegation before the signing of the Accord, was informed of the content of the dialogue that had taken place between the Indian Prime Minister and the LTTE leader.

    With the knowledge that there was an unwritten agreement between Indian Premier Rajiv Gandhi and Mr. Pirabakaran and that it had not been implemented, he felt that his people and the struggle had been betrayed and decided on a fast-unto-death demanding the fulfillment of the pledges.

    When news of Thileepan’s fast-unto-death and the deteriorating political situation between the LTTE and the Indian Peace Keeping Force reached us, we decided to leave India for Jaffna.

    My joy at reaching the shores of Tamil Eelam after so many years was contained by the gloom that hung in the air. Thileepan was a few days into his fast till death and the population of the Peninsula was seriously concerned and wholeheartedly behind the non-violent campaign of a single individual seeking justice from the world’s largest democracy. Subsequently, our first priority after our arrival in the Peninsula was to visit Thileepan encamped at the historic Nallur Kandasamy temple, the cultural and spiritual centre of the Jaffna Tamils.

    Thileepan’s decision to single-handedly take on the credibility of the Indian state was not incongruous with his history of resistance to state oppression as a cadre in the LTTE. He had faced battle on several occasions in defence of Jaffna during Kittu’s time and suffered serious abdominal wounds in the process. He was well known for his astute understanding of the politics and mindset of his people and emerged as a radical political leader.

    The senior LTTE women cadres often speak of his staunch advocacy of inducting women into the national struggle and is remembered as one of the founding fathers in the promotion of women’s issues. With such a history it comes as no surprise that he endeared himself not only to the cadres but the people of Jaffna also.

    My husband, LTTE theoretician Anton Balasingham, met Thileepan during the pre-Accord talks when he shared a hotel room with him in Delhi and quickly grew very fond of this affable fellow. It was an extremely painful and emotional experience for Bala to meet him again in Jaffna, in totally adverse conditions, with Thileepan’s life slowly ebbing away.

    As we entered the premises of the Nallur Kandasamy temple we were confronted by a sea of people seated on the white sands under the blazing sun. The air was thick with collective emotion and solemnity. This fading young man on the platform obviously embodied the political sentiments and aspirations of his people.

    But it was more than that also. Thileepan’s fast had touched the spirit of the Tamil nation and mobilised the popular masses in unprecedented solidarity. One could sense how this extraordinary sacrifice of a fragile young man had suddenly assumed a formidable force as the collective strength of his people. Thileepan’s fast was a supreme act of transcendence of individuality for a collective cause. Literally, it was an act of self-crucifixion, a noble act by which this brave young man condemned himself to death so that others could live in freedom and dignity.

    With deep humility, Bala and I mounted the platform to speak to the reposed Thileepan. Already several days without food or water and with a dry cracked mouth, Thileepan could only whisper. Bala leaned closer to the weakened Thileepan and exchanged words with him. Naturally enough, Thileepan enquired about the political developments. We left soon afterwards, never to see him alive again.

    As Thileepan’s fast moved on in days, he was no longer able to address the public from the podium and spent much of his time lying quietly as his condition steadily deteriorated. As Thileepan grew visibly weaker in front of his people’s eyes, their anger and resentment towards India and the IPKF grew stronger. The sight of this popular young man being allowed to die in such an agonising manner generated disbelief at the depth of callousness of the Indian government and the Indian Peace Keeping Force.

    All that was required to save Thileepan’s waning life was for the Indian High Commissioner, Mr. Dixit, to humble himself and meet and reassure Thileepan that the Indian government would fulfil its pledges to the Tamils. In fact Delhi ignored Thileepan’s fast in the early stages as an isolated idiosyncrasy of an individual, but later became seriously concerned when the episode gathered momentum and turned into a national uprising with anti-Indian sentiments. Delhi’s concerns compelled Mr. Dixit to pay a visit to Jaffna to ‘study the situation’.

    On the 22nd September, the eighth day of Thileepan’s fast, Mr. Dixit arrived at the Pallaly airport where Mr. Pirabakaran and Bala met him. Bala told me later that Mr. Dixit was rude and resentful and condemned Thileepan’s fasting campaign as a provocative act by the LTTE aimed at instigating the Tamil masses against the Indian government.

    Mr. Pirabakaran showed remarkable patience and pleaded with the Indian diplomat to pay a visit to Nallur and talk to the dying young man to give up his fast by assuring him that India would fulfil its pledges. Displaying his typical arrogance and intransigence, Mr. Dixit rejected the LTTE leader’s plea, arguing that it was not within the mandate of his visit.

    Had Mr. Dixit correctly read the situation and genuinely cared for the sentiments of the Tamil people at this very crucial time, it is highly probable that the entire episode of India’s direct intervention in the ethnic conflict would have taken a different turn.

    But Thileepan’s willingness to sacrifice his life in such a way touched the spirit of the people and his unnecessary tragic death on 26th September planted deeply the seeds of disenchantment with the Indian Peace Keeping Force.

    Adele Balasingham is a sociologist, political activist and writer who has lived and worked in India and Sri Lanka with the LTTE for more than twenty years. This article is compiled, with kind permission, from extracts of ‘The Will to Freedom’, her internal study of the armed struggle of the Tamil Tiger movement. 2nd edition, Fairmax Publishing Ltd (UK), 2003.
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