The head of an all party panel set up by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to seek an ever elusive southern consensus on the Tamil national question and buy time to conduct war has said the panel has come up with a home grown solution with no absolute devolution.

 

Science and Technology Minister, Prof. Tissa Vitharana whos is also the chairman of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) told local media "It is an indigenous method that would work out a solution for our country. However, there would not be absolute devolution of power"

 

Vitharana also announced that the panel’s proposals will not fall in line with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which is a result of the 1987 Indo-Lanka agreement and therefore not ‘home grown’.

 

Whilst many international actors including the United States see the 13^th amendment as a first step for Sri Lanka sharing power with the Tamils, the Rajapakse administration is not interested in the 13^th amendment which is already in the Sri Lankan constitution and requires only the implementation.

 

Rajapakse administration’s intentions on the 13^th amendment were made clear when it demerged the North-eastern province despite protests from India.

 

According to Vitharana, the APRC proposes the abolishing of the Executive Presidency and reverting to the Westminster system. It also proposes the setting up of a Commission that functions under the purview of the central government to determine and monitor policies with regard to land and water.

 

The APRC has looked at the formation of a village committee system and a second chamber consisting of representatives from the nine provinces, according got its chairman.

 

Vitharana explained that following a series of discussions, the APRC has prepared a draft of its final proposals that would be submitted for endorsement from the parties that were represented in the APRC.

 

The first copy of the draft is to be presented to Rajapakse, who is the head of the SLFP, for his observations.

"After the President is handed over the first draft, the other parties that were in the APRC would be given copies of the draft to receive the views

of their respective party leaders," Vitharana said.

 

Once the APRC receives the observations made by each party, it would be discussed and the final report would be prepared with the signatures of all member parties.

 

The APRC was appointed in 2006 to work out a power devolution formula to resolve the national question.

The APRC is attended by only two opposition political parties, the SLMC and the Democratic People’s Front from the opposition. The main opposition UNP, the JVP and the TNA do not attend the APRC sessions.

So far it had had over 100 deliberations with no significant progress.

Throughout the years of the island’s ethnic conflict, successive governments of Sri Lanka maintained that the war was against the LTTE and not the Tamil people. As such, with the end of the war in May, the world expected to see Colombo launch a process of reconciliation that would once and for all resolve the grievances and aspirations of all communities, and particularly the Tamil community. Then Sri Lanka could rebuild inter-community relations and settle into a path of democratic governance and economic prosperity. But such an opportunity and hopes are now being dashed by what is increasingly looking like the narrow interests and unprincipled politics of the administration of Mahinda Rajapakse. And what forces us to believe this is the continued internment of a quarter million Tamil civilians, who had suffered under the jackboot of the LTTE and narrowly escaped the war, while having lost many kith and kin.

 

This gruelling condition is as much a political crisis as it is a humanitarian one. The fundamental question facing the roughly 280,000 interned Tamil civilians today is one regarding their citizenship and their relationship to the Sri Lankan state. Rights of citizenship should ensure freedom of movement, expression and association – the absence of which in essence is, automatically, a suspension of democracy. If the LTTE disrupted the state’s functioning by holding a population hostage within a territory it controlled by force of arms, the Rajapakse government is undermining the legitimacy of the state through these internment camps, which have suspended the rights of its citizens.

 

The issue is foremost a question about the freedom of movement of these Tamil civilians. The Rajapakse government, along with many of the aid agencies and media, have largely missed this point. For different reasons, they view what is taking place as essentially a humanitarian crisis, that the problem is a set of logistical issues around humanitarian services, of providing food, shelter, sanitation, etc. The other approach of engagement, meanwhile, has been around the eventual resettlement of these citizens to their original homes. Since the end of the war, for instance, the Indian government’s engagement has been focused on getting assurances of resettling the bulk of the displaced civilians within 180 days. Yet these calls for resettlement are also being deflected by the Rajapakse government, due to a set of alleged logistical and security concerns: the presence of landmines, the caches of arms buried by the LTTE, the lack of local infrastructure, the destruction of homes, etc.

 

While both the humanitarian concerns and the issue of resettlement are of great importance – and there have been some improvements in the humanitarian situation, and still greater engagement on the issue of resettlement – the focus should not be on these issues to the detriment of freedom of movement. Citizenship should ensure freedom of movement, fair and simple. All citizens should be given the choice either to leave the camps and move in with friends or relatives, or to settle elsewhere, temporarily or permanently, as they wish.

 

Welling bitterness

While there are international human-rights norms that are being violated through such prolonged displacement, the question is also a political issue – and one not particularly new to the Southasian region in the context of armed conflicts, where marginalised populations have been repeatedly abused by our states. As such, the dire situation of the caged Tamil civilians is an issue that Southasians need to think about with a sense of solidarity.

 

How the internment of Sri Lankans is addressed will also become a test of legal institutions, in Southasia in general and in Sri Lanka in particular. There are today two fundamental-rights cases in front of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, regarding family reunification and the freedom of movement of those kept in the various camps. What, after all, is the exact legal basis of such an internment of citizens? During the warring years, all forms of abuses were justified by what the government called its ‘war against terrorism’, where the Emergency and the Prevention of Terrorism Act were used to detain individuals, inevitably engendering bitterness among youths who suffered under these draconian laws. Following the end of the war and the government claims of having defeated ‘terrorism’, it is a tragic irony to see an entire population now suffer internment behind barbed wire. An entire community is thus incubating a festering bitterness that could easily not exist today.

 

One section of the Sri Lankan citizenry cannot be affected so drastically while life for the rest of the population simply continues. Internment of Tamils is bound to impact on the long-term relations between the communities, yet again undermining the efforts to build a just postcolonial society that have dogged the country since independence in 1948. It is thus that the hopes of those who have longed for reconciliation now seem shattered: this much is clear from the bitterness in the eyes of the confined Tamil civilians. The humiliation that sections of the Tamil community face – whether due to the insensitivity, arrogance, majoritarianism or Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism of the high officials in Colombo – is bound to have a tragic impact on the future. What is at stake could not be dearer – reconciliation and democracy – and the Rajapakse government should not go any further with its politics of internment. 

Government of India has announced 66 million Sri Lankan Rupees scheme to 'develop' communication between the eastern coastal cities, Trincomalee and Batticaloa, in such a way that the two traditional Tamil cities will be effectively linked to the Sinhala districts than with each other, reported TamilNet.

 

While even the shortest coastal road link between the cities are neglected of development for decades now, the Indian plan is to help Colombo running rail-buses between the cities through the colonial cum Sinhala state railway track that goes in a circular way through the Sinhala districts outside of Eastern Province.

 

The Eastern Province Railbus Project was formally inaugurated in Batticaloa by the High Commissioner of India, Shri Alok Prasad, the Sri Lankan Minister of Transport, with the Dullas Alahapperuma, and Basil Rajapaksa, Senior Advisor to the President. Also present on the occasion were the Chief Minister of the Eastern Province, Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, Ministers Ameer Ali and V. Muralitharan, the Mayor of Batticaloa, Sivageetha Prabhaharan and Eastern Province Minister MLAM Hizbullah.

 

“The project aims to provide a quick and affordable avenue of transport between Batticaloa and Trincomalee by converting conventional buses to run on existing rail tracks,” said the press release.

 

“The Government of India has accordingly provided ten buses (at a cost of SLR 44 million) to Sri Lanka Railways and also made available an additional SLR 22 million to pay for the cost of conversion of these buses into 5 railbus units in the Sri Lanka Railways workshops in Ratmalana,” it said.

 

“The project is a manifestation of Government of India’s commitment to the development of the Eastern Province and its desire to contribute to the efforts of the Government of Sri Lanka in building up infrastructure in the Province, so as to assure an early return to normalcy and stability in the lives of the people,” the press release noted.

 

Meanwhile, the South African government could cooperate with India in resolving the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka, Deputy Minister for International Relations and Cooperation Ebrahim Ismail Ebrahim has said.

 

Ebrahim was the chief guest at a fund-raising dinner organised by the Tamil Federation of Gauteng in Johannesburg on August 1 to send humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of Tamils currently housed in camps on the island.

 

The Minister said Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa had been advised by the South African government that there was "a window of opportunity" to have a political solution to the international question of Sri Lanka.

"Tamil militancy was a part of the political struggle of the Tamil people to achieve the right to self-determination in the traditional homeland of the Tamil people in the northeast. The Sri Lanka government says that the armed struggle has been completely defeated. But the political struggle of Tamil people would go on till the legitimate political aspirations of the Tamil people are achieved," said R.Sampanthan, leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentary group, addressing a meeting in Vavuniyaa Saturday in support of the TNA candidates contesting the elections to the Vavuniyaa Urban Council under the banner Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchchi (ITAK).

"Hence the Tamil people in Vavuniyaa and Jaffna should vote for the ITAK to show the world that the Tamil political problem in Sri Lanka still exists even after the defeat of Tamil militancy," said Sampanthan.

TNA parliamentarians Maavai Senathirajah, Vino Noharathalingam, S.Kanagasabai, and lead candidate of the ITAK contesting the Vavuniyaa UC election, G.N.Nathan, also participated in the election meeting.

Sampanthan added, "the whole world is anxiously waiting for the verdict of Tamil people in the elections to the Jaffna MC and Vavuniyaa UC. It is the utmost duty of the Tamil voters to tell the world by electing the ITAK administration to the two local bodies that Tamil people would continue their political struggle to achieve their legitimate political aspirations."

Sri Lanka has cancelled a $200 million purchase of ammunition from Pakistan and China after the end of its war with the Tamil Tigers, the island nation's new top military commander said on Wednesday, July 15.

 

"We stopped the orders of $200 million worth of ammunition from China and Pakistan with the war's end," Fonseka said after assuming his new post.

 

The main component of the orders was for replenishment of large quantities of expendables like artillery shells, mortars, bombs and assorted varieties of ammunition. The order would have been enough ammunition to fire guns and heavy weapons at the rate seen during the climax of the war, which ended in mid May, according to Fonseka.

 

Fonseka said the Chinese order was cancelled because there was no need to stock ammunition for heavy guns after the victory over the LTTE.

 

Defence spending in 2009 was estimated at Sri Lanka Rs. 200 billion ($1.74 billion), accounting for 17 per cent of the country’s total expenditure.

 

The Sunday Times, a Colombo based newspaper commenting on the cancellation said t is clear that the Government did not expect the military defeat of the LTTE so early, certainly not just two months ago.

 

“Both defence and security officials had earlier set time frames of two and three years to defeat the LTTE. More proof came this week when the Government decided to cancel orders worth US$ 200 million for defence supplies both from China and Pakistan, which have been two of the largest suppliers.”

 

Sri Lanka's military and police, with a combined strength of 350,000, won one of the Asia's longest modern wars and declared victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in mid May. 

The International Monetary Fund has announced it has reached a $2.5 billion loan accord with Sri Lanka, which will be presented to the IMF board for approval on Friday, July 24.

 

The IMF announcement follows the submission of a Letter of Intent (LoI) on Monday July 20 by Sri Lanka, listing the conditions it will adhere to in return for the money.

 

“We have set out our intentions, which do not differ from the macroeconomic policy thrust that we have been following,” Central Bank of Sri Lanka Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal told Bloomberg.

 

Cabraal declined to elaborate on the contents of the LoI but said Sri Lanka and the IMF would soon make a joint statement on a financial aid package.

 

Sri Lanka’s submission LoI comes just two weeks after the central bank chief declared that the country was in a ‘comfortable position right now’ and can go on without a major IMF bailout.

 

"If the IMF funds come, it will give us a comfortable buffer stock. I hope we get it. But we are otherwise in a comfortable position right now," Cabraal said in early July.

 

According to the IMF, a disbursement of $313 million will immediately be available to Sri Lanka once the loan is approved.

 

"The government has formulated an ambitious program aimed at restoring fiscal and external viability and addressing the significant reconstruction needs of the conflict-affected areas," the IMF said in its statement.

 

The end of Sri Lanka's 25-year civil war posed a unique opportunity to undertake economic reforms and rebuild areas damaged by the conflict, the IMF statement further added.

 

Rebuilding the country will require significant spending the IMF said, adding that the program will provide a framework for donors to help fund reconstruction.

 

"The IMF staff supports this program, specifically the government's goals of rebuilding reserves, reducing the fiscal deficit to a sustainable level, and strengthening the financial sector," the IMF added.

 

The announcement comes despite calls from western law makers to link the loan package to Sri Lanka adhering to human right norms.

 

Both the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, have previously stated that the loan should only be made available in an appropriate and responsible manner.

Despite, Sri Lanka continuing to hold hundreds of thousands of Tamils in illegal internment camps and with increasingly frequent calls for international war crime probe over the country’s conduct during the last phase of the brutal civil war in which over 20,000 Tamils were killed, IMF has announced that a staff level agreement has been reached. 

 

This latest announcement by IMF contradicts its previous statement,

a week ago, in which the IMF said the views of the international community would be considered at an Executive Board meeting before considering Sri Lanka’s loan application loan.

 

Caroline Atkinson, Director of External Relations at IMF in a press briefing said a mission to Sri Lanka which returned recently had discussions with the authorities and the first thing that will happen is reaching a staff-level agreement on the loan.

 

The spokesperson said the "first thing that happens is a staff-level agreement, then an Executive Board meeting would be where all of the international community's views would be considered."

More than 2,000 years ago, a Sinhalese king named Dutugemunu saddled up his elephant and headed north to fight and kill Elara, an invading Tamil king from India.

 

The battle between the men is one of the most celebrated moments in Sri Lankan history, and the last time, until two months ago, that a Sri Lankan ruler won such a decisive victory over a mortal threat.

 

Perhaps it is no wonder, then, that fans of Mahinda Rajapaksa, the president of Sri Lanka, have taken to calling him a modern-day incarnation of King Dutugemunu.

 

After all, he presided over the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, among the world’s most enduring and vicious guerrilla separatists, hardened fighters who have humiliated four presidents over nearly three decades.

 

Asked about this comparison earlier this month, Mr. Rajapaksa laughed it off, insisting that the legend was misunderstood as a triumph of one ethnicity over another.

 

After his victory, the story goes, Dutugemunu made peace with the Tamils and honored the memory of Elara, who was beloved by his people.

 

History will decide whether Mr. Rajapaksa will be remembered as a nationalist avenger or a unifying peacemaker.

 

But in a wide-ranging interview this month at Temple Trees, the former prime minister’s residence that now serves as the president’s office, Mr. Rajapaksa emerged as a man bent on total victory, no matter the cost, who was convinced that his government’s actions in crushing the Tamil Tiger insurgency after 26 years were not only justified but humane.

 

“All governments tried to discuss with them,” Mr. Rajapaksa said of the Tigers.

 

“All failed. Because when they are weak they came to talks. Within a few weeks they walk out of the talks, but better equipped and strengthened.”

 

Mr. Rajapaksa’s determination to vanquish the insurgency once and for all lifted him to the presidency in 2005, in the midst of an informal election boycott enforced by the Tigers.

 

Now, the stunning and total defeat of the Tamil Tigers in May, accomplished with an enormous loss of lives — tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians through the years — has made him a hero to many Sri Lankans.

 

His fleshy, mustachioed face beams down from billboards across the country.

 

Often his brothers, who control key portfolios in the government, flank him in these portraits.

 

One, Basil Rajapaksa, is a senior adviser who was the prime architect of the war strategy against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

 

His other brother, Gotabaya, is the powerful secretary of defense.

 

President Rajapaksa is careful to use conciliatory language and speak about the importance of winning the peace, not just the war.

 

In his speech to the nation after the Tigers’ fearsome leader, Vellupillai Prabhakaran, was killed, he pointedly spoke in Tamil.

 

He has repeatedly invoked the maxim that the war was against the Tigers, not the Tamil people.

 

But so far talk of reconciliation has been just that, according to politicians, analysts and diplomats here, and there have been no concrete steps toward a lasting political solution to Sri Lanka’s thorny ethnic problem.

 

The Tamil minority has suffered discrimination and violence at the hands of various Sinhalese-dominated governments through the decades.

 

Tamils have sought, first peacefully, then violently, the right to a measure of self-rule in Tamil-dominated areas.

 

While publicly pledging to seek a political solution, Mr. Rajapaksa has put off for the moment the question of how to share power with the Tamil minority, saying that any agreement would have to wait until after the next presidential election, scheduled for November.

 

“I was given a mandate to defeat terrorism; I have defeated them,” he said.

 

“Now I must go and tell them now I want a mandate to settle this problem forever, a political solution.”

 

Mr. Rajapaksa is all but certain to win a second term.

 

The opposition is fragmented.

 

Journalists and analysts have to choose their words carefully or risk arrest.

 

One popular astrologer was recently arrested after predicting that the president would be ejected from office.

 

Mr. Rajapaksa made it clear that he would tolerate only a limited amount of devolution, something that may poison negotiations right from the start.

 

“Federalism is out of the question,” he said. “It must be a homegrown solution.”

 

Most Tamil political leaders want a single, Tamil-speaking majority state in the north and east of the country that would have authority over most matters except foreign policy, trade and the military.

 

But this is a nonstarter for many of the Sinhala Buddhist nationalist politicians who make up the core of Mr. Rajapaksa’s coalition government.

 

The most hard-line nationalist party has threatened to leave the coalition if even a watered-down law to share power is passed.

 

“Peace will require a more federal power-sharing arrangement,” said Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu of the Center for Policy Alternatives, a nonpartisan research and advocacy institution in Colombo, the capital.

 

“But there has been this primordial fear that federalism is a precursor to seccession.”

 

But the opposite is true, he argued.

 

“It is the refusal to share power that has led to the armed conflict to begin with,” he said.

 

Understanding this refusal requires a reach back to the time of Dutugemunu and Elara, the Tamil king who came from India.

 

Just 20 miles off Sri Lanka’s coast, India looms large over the island.

 

The great size of India’s Tamil population — more than 50 million people — helps explain why the Sinhalese majority here may feel threatened, thinking and acting more like an endangered minority even though it makes up more than 70 percent of the Sri Lankan population.

 

India has been pressing Sri Lanka to move quickly to resettle the Tamil civilians displaced by the war and reach a deal to share central power with the country’s minorities.

 

Mr. Rajapaksa has pledged to get most of the displaced, who are living in closed, military-run camps in the north, back to their homes within six months.

 

Mr. Rajapaksa said he had taken a number of steps aimed at forging a sense of national unity and bringing minorities more fully into the fold.

 

The government is offering a one-time payment of about $250 to any civil servant who learns another Sri Lankan language, part of an effort to start requiring that officials and bureaucrats speak Tamil as well as Sinhala.

 

The president said he was also seeking ways to recruit more Tamils into the Sri Lankan military and the police force.

 

But the government’s mood since the end of the fighting in May has been one of triumphant victory.

 

Alongside the billboards of Mr. Rajapaksa and his brothers are huge, Rambo-style photographs of the bandolier-draped commandos who penetrated deep behind the Tamil Tigers’ lines to whittle at the rebel fighting force and weaken its resolve.

 

Many Sri Lankans see these soldiers as heroes, but given the controversy that remains over how many Tamil civilians were killed in the last weeks of the fighting, some people find the air of martial triumph unseemly.

 

“They are trying to get a great deal of political mileage from the fact that they militarily defeated” the Tamil Tigers, said Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, a member of Parliament for the Tamil National Alliance.

 

“We don’t see any movement toward ending the political conflict.”

 

Riding high on his big victory, Mr. Rajapaksa said he needed only one verdict on his leadership: that of the Sri Lankan people.

 

“I am not fool enough to call myself a king,” he said with a laugh.

 

Churchill, he mused, was thrown out of office after victory in World War II.

 

“If anyone doesn’t want me, I must not be the president of this country,” he said. “It is democracy.”

The Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu N. Ram's questions or rather ‘leads’ and Rajapaksa’s elucidations that appeared in The Hindu for three consecutive days are not an ordinary media interview. Timed with the interview came the statements of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi and External Affairs Minister of India S M Krishna.

 

The whole exercise orchestrated by the Colombo-Chennai-New Delhi axis was primarily meant for nullifying the liberation struggle of Eelam Tamil nationalism.

 

Shielding the guilty party and victimising the victimised for the war crimes, imposing post-war subjugation on the ‘defeated’ people, waving aside the seriousness of the crime of keeping people perishing in the concentration camps and pretending no solutions as fantastic solutions, echoed in the orchestrations are the workings of fascist and Stalinist minds in collaboration.

 

Mahinda Rajapaksa, the most explicit among the lot, rules out federalism, even rejects the existence of minorities and envisages ‘ethnic mix’ for what he thinks reconciliation.

 

He wants the UN, which he was keeping out during the war, to certify de-mining for resettlement, talks of the need of increasing the number of military and wants his re-election to implement what he is having in his mind – a ‘home-gown solution’.

 

Karunanidhi rules out Tamil Eelam, envisages struggling for regional autonomy and advocates appeasement with the Sinhala state.

 

In a statement in the Indian parliament last Thursday, Krishna is convinced of the ‘closure to the cycle of violence and terrorism’ in the island, viewed the crisis in the island not as a national question but ‘aspirations of the minorities’ and wanted the full implementation of the 13th amendment and go beyond.

 

It is clear Colombo and New Delhi have nothing new to offer, after what they see as ‘end of terrorism’, but are at a dangerous track of proclaiming a new phase of war against Eelam Tamil nationalism, covertly conducted through structural genocide and annihilation of the Tamil homeland in the island.

 

As privately revealed by certain diplomatic circles, India has no positive or innovative programme of its own for Eelam Tamils beyond allowing Colombo’s agenda with superficial restrains and gaining its interests in the island.

 

Whatever the feelings of the Eelam Tamils to look upon India as the ultimate ‘deliverer’ of their legitimate aspirations, the Indian Establishment is consistently not convinced of the need to identify any overlapping interests with Eelam Tamils, thanks to the docility of the leadership in Tamil Nadu.

 

Hitherto, in waging the war against Eelam Tamils, neither Colombo nor any of the powers abetting Colombo had the guts to say that they do it against a national liberation struggle. They had to go for the smokescreen ‘terrorism’.

 

As they now claim ‘terrorism’ is over, nothing should actually prevent them from recognizing the legitimacy of the concerned people upholding their national liberation struggle.

 

What the Eelam Tamils have to understand is that the war was not against the LTTE or terrorism, but against the national liberation struggle of Eelam Tamils. The Tamil struggle was found conducive neither to the geopolitical interests of powers eying on the strategic island in order to have a hold on South Asia and the Indian Ocean, nor to the interests of India in defending its surroundings.

 

While time will tell whether India was right or wrong in its modus operandi, the reality for Eelam Tamils today is that both Colombo and New Delhi have come open in waging a war on the nationalism of Eelam Tamils and they have found a suitable person in Karunanidhi to inaugurate it.

 

What is at stake is even the democratic right of Eelam Tamils to open their mouth and tell what they want.

 

Tamils have to carefully note that even the West, which in contrast to India, belatedly show hostility to Colombo, talk about war crimes and human rights, once again for its own interests, has not come forward after the war at least to recognize Eelam Tamils as a nation – leave apart the national liberation struggle.

 

Tamils don’t have the folly of expecting political solution from the rogue imperialism of China, but are concerned of Japan reassuring faith on the ‘vision’ of Rajapaksa.

 

All make mistake in looking at the issue something like post-war Germany or Japan for everyone to poke nose to make ‘economic miracles’. Neither the Tamils were fighting for aggressive empires nor the war ended like the Mikado surrendering after the two atom bombs.

 

It was a humble liberation struggle of people oppressed for ages who are now hardened than ever in the consciousness of their identity, thanks to the collective oppression of all the powers.

 

The important point is that the war didn’t end in surrender.

 

Perhaps the most memorable act of the LTTE under Pirapaharan that will be remembered forever is that other than running a de-facto independent state, it didn’t surrender the liberation struggle of the Eelam Tamils to anybody at anytime.

 

The struggle needs to continue from that point, as it has become clear that ‘reconciliation’ is only an honourable term used by Colombo and abetters to mean a suicidal course set for the Eelam Tamil nation.

 

But continuing the struggle in ways anew, now perhaps through democratic means, could neither begin nor could sustain itself with the masses, by professing defeatism or by surrendering the basic grounds.

 

Talking on the need to continue the struggle is not to rule out the need to negotiate.

 

But negotiation is not collaboration.

 

Negotiators need a firm platform supported by the hearts of the masses on behalf of whom they negotiate. Negotiation cannot take place when the platform is surrendered.

 

We don’t live in feudal times when a group of Muthaliyars of Jaffna signed a document with the Portuguese or the chieftains of Kandy signed the convention with the British, in renouncing sovereignty and confirming the setting in of colonialism.

 

It is to safeguard the platform for struggle and negotiation the Tamil circles are now keen in re-affirming the democratically mandated Vaddukkoaddai Resolution of 1976 that upholds independence, sovereignty and self-determination of Eelam Tamils, at least in places where there is freedom of expression. They have already demonstrated that in Norway and France and it is set to take place in the rest of the diaspora. But it is with sadness the Tamil circles note that exercising such a basic freedom is not possible today for Eelam Tamils in India, the greatest democracy in the world.

 

It is again impelled by the same need the Eelam Tamils think of a transnational government of them. The diaspora need not be apologetic of it as their issue is actually international but refused to be addressed as international even by the apex international body, the UN.

 

However, transnational governance is a novel democratic exercise. It needs firm theoretical basis to function as a transnational body, needs firm adherence to principles such as independence and sovereignty found in the Vaddukkoaddai Resolution to achieve the goal at home, needs a popular participatory structure beginning from grass-root democracy in the diaspora and the initiation of it needs to be above controversy for convincing the participation of people.

 

There are some efforts in the diaspora to begin this exercise country wise.

 

Transnational government is not merely for the immediate need of international negotiation, but to sustain the struggle that may take years and to look after the well-being of the people in the diaspora and at home for long times to come, in the context of unfolding global scenario.

 

The West should think of regaining its international credibility by recognising nations such as the Eelam Tamils and promoting their democratic moves struggling against genocide and oppression. This will bring in more durable acceptance of it and its civilization than what petty geopolitics could bring in.

 

A Tamil housewife in New Zealand was recently heard saying that she stopped buying Sri Lankan tea as a protest possible within her means for what the Sri Lankan state did to her people. Another person in the diaspora said that he will never claim himself a Sri Lankan hereafter and will stick only to his Eelam Tamil identity.

 

Such individual sentiments and protests may look insignificant but when organized they can become something like Mahatma Gandhi’s Khadar movement. Imagine global Tamils deciding not to buy Chinese goods and they joining hands with Tibetans and others affected, in campaigning against Chinese economic interests!

 

The diaspora, especially the younger generation, is sure going to tell the West to stop hoodwinking and to come out with substantial solutions, beginning from the recognition of Eelam Tamils as a nation and their struggle a national liberation struggle.

 

India is a unique issue for Eelam Tamils. They always look upon the country and its people. Its Establishment wouldn’t have dared to embark upon betrayal, had there been an intelligent show of strength and solidarity in Tamil Nadu. But forces of deception were at work from media to political parties. India has to be addressed internally by Eelam Tamils. Much anger is simmering in Tamil Nadu but it expects the Eelam Tamils to come out with their position on the national question.

 

The Eelam Tamils, especially the diaspora need to play the cards carefully.

 

Let there be negotiation on all fronts. But the national grounds for negotiation should not be lost, just because some ask for it. If it is lost it can’t be regained even if there are going to be favourable geopolitics.

 

Even after 2000 years the Jews were able to regain their land because they never lost their nationalism or the thought of Israel. 

Meningitis and encephalitis have erupted in Sri Lanka's northern Vavuniya district where over 300,000 Tamil civilians forcibly held in temporary shelters behind barbed wires, a local newspaper has reported.

 

Encephalitis is an acute inflammation of the brain. Meningitis is inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. Also, encephalitis with meningitis is known as meningoencephalitis.

Encephalitis has been on the increase among Vanni Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) held in internment centres located in Vavuniyaa, according to medical sources in the district hospital. Thirty-four Vanni IDPs of the sixty-four afflicted by encephalitis have died in three months. Majority of them who succumbed to brain fever were less than 24 years of age, medical sources said.

Over the past week 14 new encephalitis cases were detected in the hospital.

Vavuniya-based United Nations staff providing relief services to the Internally Displaced People (IDPs) have been advised to keep away from the Vavuniya General Hospital due to the outbreak of meningitis and encephalitis, health officials in Vavuniyaa said.

 

The UN warning to staff came amidst reports that hospital employees at Vavuniya had failed to inform authorities of the outbreak, the Sunday Times reported.

 

Dr. Hemantha Herath, Health Coordinator of the IDP camps, told the newspaper, “It is only now that we are getting a regular feedback from the hospital. They have not done in-depth investigations into these cases.”

A team sent by the Health Ministry is studying the causes for the outbreak of these diseases.

Meanwhile, according to a World Health Organization report, diarrhoea and hepatitis A are still prevalent in some of the IDP camps.

Dr. Herath said the number of cases of diarrhoea and hepatitis A was not going down and they were closely monitoring the situation.

According to the report, health care, water distribution and supply of food items still need more attention. The report has warned of the effect the approaching rainy season might have on the camps, especially in low-lying areas. It has called for an improved drainage system and shelters before the rainy season begins.

The paper also reported that there is a shortage of complementary food items in the camps as NGOs which were supplying such items are pulling out.

The report said there is not enough suitable land to build more toilets. The camps currently have only about 9,215 toilets while 15,000 are needed.

 

In June, chicken pox was rampant and cases of typhoid, tuberculosis, skin and respiratory infections, hepatitis A, scabies and diarrhoea have begun cropping up, according to U.N. reports.  

Five Sri Lankan doctors who witnessed the bloody climax of the country’s civil war in May and made claims of mass civilian deaths as a result of government shelling of Tamil Tiger positions recanted much of their testimony.

 

Their U-turn raises fresh fears that Sri Lanka, known as a holiday paradise to millions of Western tourists, has quietly become a quasi-Stalinist state.

 

The doctors, who appeared physically well but extremely nervous at a press conference on Wednesday, July 9, claimed that they had deliberately overestimated the civilian casualties suffered as the war reached its bloody endgame.

 

The Tigers had forced them to lie, they said as government officials looked on from the sidelines, adding that only up to 750 civilians were killed between January and mid-May in the final battles of the war.

 

The five men were taken back to prison, where they have been held for the past two months for allegedly spreading Tiger propaganda. The doctors added that they now hoped they would be released.

 

The number was far below the 7,000 fatalities estimated by the United Nations. An investigation by The Times uncovered evidence that more than 20,000 civilians were killed, mostly by the Army, which has claimed, incredibly, that it did not harm a single civilian.

 

As occupants of the tragically misnamed “no-fire zone” — a strip of coconut grove and beach in the northeast which was the last redoubt of the Tigers and where government guns directed a vast amount of ordinance — the doctors would have come under the control of the rebels.

 

It would be surprising if the Tigers, who were no slouches when it came to the manipulation of the media, had not attempted to modify the doctors’ testimonies.

 

The tragic thing is that having been picked up by the Sri Lankan Army and kept in custody for the past two months, the doctors find themselves in a terrible mirror image of their previous predicament — under pressure from the Government to deliver a story that fits its own agenda.

 

The doctors now deny former testimony — such as the government shelling of a hospital in the conflict zone on February 2 — for which there are also witnesses from the UN and the Red Cross.

 

“I have serious doubts over the latest statements,” one senior Sri Lankan journalist said. “What we’re seeing is that the LTTE (the Tigers) and the Government are in some respects mirror images of each other.”

 

There is little to surprise those familiar with Sri Lankan politics. Dissent is not tolerated by President Rajapaksa, who enjoys a massive amount of support from the Sinhalese Buddhist majority.

 

Journalists who have disagreed with his policies have regularly been abducted or killed. “The discourse used by the Government is of traitors and patriots,” said Paikiasothy Saravanamuthu, of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Sri Lankan analyst who himself has received threats. “There is no indication yet that this mode of thinking is slipping.”

 

Sam Zarifi, the Asia-pacific director for Amnesty International, said that the statements from the doctors were “expected and predicted”.

 

“There are very significant grounds to question whether these statements were voluntary, and they raise serious concerns whether the doctors were subjected to ill-treatment during weeks of detention,” he said. “From the time the doctors were detained, the fear was that they would be used exactly this way.”

 

The methods used by the President’s regime have raised doubts over the sincerity of his pledge to forge a lasting peace by reaching out to Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils.

 

A slew of poisonous proposals from prominent Sinhalese figures — such as the suggestion that Tamil villages could be renamed after Sinhalese generals — have done little to soothe those fears.

 

Suggestions that the internment camps set up in recent months to house an estimated 300,000 displaced Tamils will be made permanent have also stoked concerns.

 

The International Committee of the Red Cross revealed that it had been ordered to scale down its operations in Sri Lanka — more worrying news for those who feel that there should be more, not less, neutral witnesses to conditions inside the country.

 

Provincial elections due to be held in Tamil areas in the north early next month may give an indication of the community’s mood. It is not guaranteed, however, that these will be free and fair.

 

Meanwhile, in between the two distortions generated by the Tigers and the Government lies the truth. If ever there was a demonstration of why an independent enquiry is needed into the end of the war, the oscillating doctors’ testimonies is it.

Sri Lanka has asked aid agencies to scale down operations on the island. The government claims that now it has claimed victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), there is no longer a need for agencies like the Red Cross. 

                  

The move has raised concerns among aid groups about the care of the 300,000 Tamils who were uprooted during the last phase of the fighting that ended in May and are now being held in government-run concentration camps.

 

Although the government has announced its intention to dismantle the so-called "welfare villages" as soon as possible and plans to return the displaced in six months, aid workers are worried about Sri Lanka's treatment of its displaced, according to press reports.

 

These concerns include the lack of access to camps, continuing restrictions on aid going into the camps and the lack of movement to resettle the inmates of the camps.

 

Aid workers have complained about a lack of access to the camps which are run by the military. Sri Lanka’s military has already been accused by rights groups of abuses against the Tamil population, and are known for their poor record in dealing with civilian populations, both in Sri Lanka and overseas – Sri Lankan soldiers on a UN mission in Haiti were accused of rape and running prostitution rings, while Tamils have documented numerous instances of human rights abuses including rape, torture, disappearances and murder.

 

Many aid workers view the government's call for a scaling down of aid operations as a deliberate move to prevent outsiders from witnessing conditions inside the camps, saying that the lack of free movement for the displaced in the camps is tantamount to arbitrary detention.

 

Aid workers and rights groups are also concerned about violations such as abductions and disappearances that are reportedly taking place in the camps.

 

Separately, many aid workers say their ability to work continues to be hampered by the government denying visas to colleagues, interfering in recruitment and setting out rules that lead to a quick turnover of staff.

 

The restrictions on the types and quantity of goods that can enter the camps is an further hindrance they say.

 

According to a report in The Times, the government has imposed a 0.9 per cent tax on all funding for aid groups, saying the tax is designed to crack down on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that abused Sri Lankan law and squandered their funds on their own staff after the tsunami.

 

Aid workers are also concerned the Colombo government intends to keep the camps running indefinitely despite its vow to resettle most of the displaced in six months.

 

They say the government has been pushing for semi-permanent structures to be built in the camps and are worried the government may use slow progress on de-mining as a pretext for stopping people from going back home.

 

Rights groups say the government needs to have a more comprehensive plan to return and resettle all internal refugees in the country, including those displaced in previous phases of the conflict.

 

Some aid workers have even questioned whether it is worth staying in Sri Lanka given the restrictions on their activities, saying Sri Lanka is not an aid dependent country. 

US and Canadian law makers have called for Sri Lanka’s request for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan to be linked to unimpeded access to refugee camps and adherence international human rights rules.

 

The north American politicians calls comes amidst an announcement by IMF that a loan accord has been agreed with Sri Lanka and the Executive Board of the organisation will meet on Friday July 24 to approve it.

 

US democratic senator Patrick Leahy, from Vermont, has introduced language into the soon to be passed Appropriations bill requiring the US Treasury Secretary to instruct the US Executive Directors of international financial institutions to vote against any loan, agreement, or other financial support for Sri Lanka except to meet basic human needs, unless the Secretary of State certifies to the Committees on Appropriations that the Sri Lankan government is meeting the requirements of humanitarian conditions demanded by the US.

 

The language inserted in the Department of State Appropriations bill S.1434, has virtually blocked U.S. Treasury Secretary from authorizing the projected $1.9B IMF loan to Sri Lanka, unless Hilary Clinton certifies that Sri Lanka "is treating internally displaced persons in accordance with international standards, including by guaranteeing their freedom of movement, providing access to conflict-affected areas and populations by humanitarian organizations and journalists, and accounting for persons detained in the conflict," and Sri Lanka is promoting "reconciliation and justice including devolution of power to provincial councils in the north and east as provided for in the Constitution of Sri Lanka."

 

Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations, reported the original bill which was read twice and placed on the calendar.

The bill makes appropriations for the Department of State, foreign operations, and related programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes.

 

Meanwhile, the Liberal Party in Canada has said that conditions need to be strictly applied to any potential loan to Sri Lanka from the International Monetary Fund, based on humanitarian concerns, the proper treatment of internally displaced persons and a restoration of peace and security to the country.

 

“We must be responsible in our economic assistance to Sri Lanka,” said Liberal Foreign Affairs Critic Bob Rae.

 

“The government of Sri Lanka cannot expect massive economic assistance without paying full attention to their humanitarian obligations.

 

“The situation in Sri Lanka remains dire and requires international attention. Our efforts must be focused on helping those in need,” he said.

 

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has stated a similar position, saying that any use of IMF money must be in an appropriate and responsible manner.

 

“The international community is in full agreement on this point,” said Mr. Rae.

 

“Canada should be a leader in calling for the responsible use of international financial loans and be a vital partner in ensuring that these conditions are met.”

 

It is also learnt that the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations has asked US State Department to submit a report on possible war crimes committed in Sri Lanka between January and May this year.

The model indictment document produced by Washington Attorney Bruce Fein, and the submittals to the District of Columbia District Court on Tamils Against Genocide (TAG's) legal action against IMF loan have also been forwarded to the Leahy committee, according to TAG officials.

 

India has long aspired to a role in redefining the global order. Ask why they deserve it, and most Indians will point to their nation's size, its rich culture and tradition, and its special legitimacy—the product of the nonviolent freedom struggle against British rule and India's triumph as a secular democracy.

Ask for more detail on exactly how India should redefine the global system, however, and things get murkier. That's because, for much of its life, India's foreign policy has been about saying no—playing out a Gandhian boycott on the international stage. Throughout the Cold War, New Delhi refused to take sides, avoiding international pacts and steering clear of markets and trade, all of which it saw as skewed in favor of the powerful.

This approach was initially a product of India's economic and military weakness. Today, however, India is an economic powerhouse and, increasingly, a diplomatic one as well. The country's economic boom seems likely to continue, thanks to a high savings rate, strong investment, and a young population. The global crisis will temporarily slow India's rapid growth, but its economy is less export-dependent, and its financial system is more regulated than many, ensuring a quicker recovery. The country may not be poised to become a superpower, as some of its citizens like to imagine. But as its might expands—including military muscle (defense spending is up by a third this year)—New Delhi needs a clearer sense of how to use it.

Analysts like to lament the fact that India lacks a grand vision on the scale of Beijing's "peaceful rise" doctrine. But formulating a decisive strategy is much more difficult in an open democracy with many different definitions of the national interest. This lack of cohesion is not necessarily a disadvantage. It ensures that when India does finally get around to defining its world view, that will be after intense debate among its diverse social and economic groups, which should ensure that the new policy reflects something like the true will of the people—not just that of policy wonks in New Delhi. For a sense of how this process works, consider the bruising battle over confirmation of the U.S.-India Civilian Nuclear Agreement: what may have sounded like cacophony actually helped to refine the terms, ensuring that the final deal better reflected India's interests—for instance, by keeping several plants off-limits to inspectors.

Given the complex nature of Indian politics, it's too soon to say what any grand strategy will eventually look like. But one can get at least a sense of it from looking at the various external pressures it will have to account for. Here several facts are key. First, India is still home to the world's largest concentration of poor people. New Delhi is going to have to use its growing global clout to inject their interests into international debates. As India negotiates on agricultural terms of trade, access to energy, or climate change, this or any future government must push for greater equity—not by rejecting globalization, but by making it more inclusive.

Second, India finds itself in the world's most threatening regional environment, surrounded by unstable or authoritarian states: Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka, and, above all, Pakistan. To manage, New Delhi will need to balance toughness with magnanimity; unilaterally offering trade liberalization, for example, could help integrate the fractured region.

Finally, whatever policy India adopts will have to take into account Asia's two other great players: China and the United States. New Delhi is currently building strong ties with both Beijing and Washington by following the "Manmohan Singh doctrine," which stresses economic diplomacy and engagement. But this doesn't guarantee that relations with either country will be easy. India's bond with the U.S., though strong, will be seriously tested if India suffers another terrorist attack originating in Pakistan. As for China, Asia's other most dynamic economy and dominant civilization, the potential for conflict is greater. The two countries may share many interests on economics and trade, but experience shows how easily nationalism can trump such rational concerns.

India's emerging strategy should not try to balance these or other great powers. Instead, Delhi should use its diplomatic skills to strengthen its voice—in order to win permanent membership to the U.N. Security Council, for example. But India must also show the courage to venture into zones of conflict and meet threats with vigor. It is as a bridging power—between rich and poor, between the world's most powerful state (the U.S.) and its most populous one (China), and between the various religions that make up its own rich mosaic—that India can best define its new global identity.

 

Professor Sunil Khilnani is the author of The Idea Of India and is The Starr Foundation Professor at Johns Hopkins’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Hundreds of thousands of Tamils remain locked in camps almost entirely off-limits to journalists, human-rights investigators and political leaders. The Sri Lankan government says the civilians are a security risk because Tamil Tiger fighters are hiding among them.

 

But diplomats, analysts, aid workers and many Sri Lankans worry the chance to finally bring to a close one of the world's most enduring ethnic conflicts is slipping away, as the government curtails civil rights in its efforts to stamp out the last remnants of the Tigers.

 

"The government told these people it would look after them," said Veerasingham Anandasangaree, a prominent Tamil politician who has been a staunch supporter of the government's fight against the Tamil Tigers. "But instead they have locked them up like animals with no date certain of when they will be released. This is simply asking for another conflict later on down the road."

 

The Sri Lankan government has portrayed its final battle against the 26-year insurgency by the Tamil Tigers, which ended in late May with the killing of the group's leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, as a rescue mission to liberate civilians held hostage by one of the world's richest and most ruthless armed groups, branded terrorists by governments around the globe.

 

"We can't say this was a war; it was a humanitarian operation to safeguard the people of the area," President Mahinda Rajapaksa said in an interview last week. "They knew we were not against the Tamil people, against the civilians. This was only against the terrorists."

 

Although many of the camps' residents are grateful to the government for freeing them from the rebels, frustration and anger are building as it becomes clear that reconciliation and finding a political solution to the grievances of the Tamils and other minority groups in Sri Lanka will have to wait.

 

Rajapaksa said the residents of the camps, which the government refers to as "welfare villages," must be confined because anyone could be a hidden rebel. The government says about 10,000 fighters have been identified so far, most because they turned themselves in.