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  • TNA accuses Colombo of war crimes

    Jan 09
    Describing several recent escalation in incidents where Sri Lanka Armed Forces have targetted Tamil civilian during festive days between Christmas and Thaipongal, Tamil National Alliance (TNA), in a press release issued Sunday, said that the "stringent economic, food and medical embargos on the war affected areas, ... are not only War Crimes in contravention of the Geneva Conventions but are also a part of a policy of Genocide that the Sri Lankan State has been carrying out against the Tamil people."
     
    The release, issued by the Parliamentary Group of the TNA, also noted, with disappointment, the silence of the international community "whilst the Genocide of the Tamil people is taking place," and continuing military assistance of the international states to the Sri Lankan State "using various pretexts."
     
    Full text of the press release follows:
     
    The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) notes the deliberate and systematic targeting of Tamil civilians and civilian infrastructure, particularly hospitals, in the LTTE administered areas by the Sri Lanka Armed Forces. The escalation in such targeting has taken place during the current Christmas/New year/Thai Pongal festive season, when civilian activity is at a high. Such targeted attacks have included the following:
     
    ·         On Wednesday, 17 December 2008 a 5-month-old child and a 25-year-old male were killed and 13 other refugees including three children were wounded when Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) jets bombed refugee settlements in Vaddakkachchi four times.
     
    ·         On Friday, 19 December 2008, the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers attacked civilian settlements in Mullivaikaal village in the morning and at noon causing injuries to 11 civilians, including 6 children. On the same day the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) had also fired artillery shells on the Mullaitivu General Hospital injuring two members of the medical staff and causing extensive damage to the hospital complex.
     
    ·         On Saturday, 20 December 2008 the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) shelling killed 2 civilians in Vaddakkachchi in Kilinochchi. From morning the SLA artillery fire had targeted civilian settlements in Vaddakkachchi and Kilinochchi destroying several houses. On the same day the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers had also attacked a coastal area in Mullaitivu where thousands of recently displaced civilians had established temporary shelters. The bombers dropped eight bombs on fishing huts and boats.
     
    ·         On Thursday, 25 December 2008, Christmas Day, the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) fired artillery shells targeting the Kilinochchi General Hospital causing damage to the hospital buildings and narrowly missing several hospital staff, including the Medical Superintendent of Kilinochchi.
     
    ·         On Saturday, 27 December 2008 the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) jets bombed the Iyakkachchi, Iranamadu and Vaddakkachchi areas targeting three civilian settlements killing a 24-year-old woman and seriously injuring ten persons, including an 18-year-old girl who lost both her legs.
     
    ·         On Tuesday, 30 December 2008, the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) fired artillery shells hitting the Kilinochchi hospital causing damage to the building.
     
    ·         On Wednesday, 31 December 2008 Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers attacked a civilian settlement in Murasumoaddai on Paranthan - Mullaitivu Road killing two females of a family and a male on the spot. Another man, who was seriously wounded, succumbed to his injuries at the hospital. 16 civilians, including a couple, were wounded. The Sri Lanka Armed Forces also targeted fleeing civilians, Internally Displaced Person's huts in Karaichchi, a school, temple and agricultural lands on the same day.
     
    ·         On Thursday, 01 January 2009, New Years Day, the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers again attacked Murasumoaddai on Paranthan-Mullaitivu Road thrice and bombed the next junction at Kandaavalai, while hundreds of civilians were fleeing due to the previous day attacks at Murasumoaddai. Two civilians, a 60-year-old mother and a 20-year-old male were injured in the attack on the densely populated junction. Three shops were fully destroyed and six shops damaged.
     
    ·         On Friday, 02 January 2009 two persons who accompanied a convoy of ambulances from Puthukkudiruppu to Vavuniya were wounded when Sri Lanka Army (SLA) fired artillery shells at Mannaakandal. The two ambulances with 13 civilians with serious injuries, being transferred from Tharmapuram and Puthukkudiyiruppu hospitals to Vavuniya hospital, were targeted after clearance had been obtained through the ICRC. On the same day Artillery shelling by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) killed a civilian and wounded at least 10 civilians at 3rd Mile Post in Murasumoaddai. Another civilian was wounded at Pannangkandi due to SLA shelling. The Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers also attacked a petrol station and a bus depot killing four civilians and causing injuries to 8 close to Mullaitivu hospital. 8 buses were destroyed and the depot building was damaged and the petrol station completely destroyed.
     
    ·         On Saturday, 03 January 2009 Sri Lanka Army (SLA) shelling continued to target densely populated civilian area in Puliaympokkanai in Vanni where a 61-year-old civilian was wounded when at least 6 shells hit the settlement.
     
    ·         The abovementioned targeting of Tamil civilians and civilian infrastructure by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces is taking place whilst over 330,000 Tamil civilians are internally displaced in the Vanni. The Sri Lankan State has also imposed stringent economic, food and medical embargos on the war affected areas in the Vanni where there is a total population of nearly 500,000.
     
    These measures that collectively target the Tamil population cannot be justified under any circumstances. They are not only War Crimes in contravention of the Geneva Conventions but are also a part of a policy of Genocide that the Sri Lankan State has been carrying out against the Tamil people.
     
    The TNA notes with disappointment that the international community has not only been, by and large, silent whilst the Genocide of the Tamil people is taking place, but also that key international States are continuing to provide military assistance to the Sri Lankan State using various pretexts.
     
    It is whilst these crimes are taking place in the Tamil Homeland that the Sinhala political parties and the Sri Lankan State have been celebrating what they consider to be military successes. It is this approach of subjugation of the Tamil people by the Sri Lankan State that is at the root of the conflict. There can be little doubt that the continued desire to subjugate the Tamil people without addressing the long held legitimate political aspiration of the Tamil people, as overwhelmingly mandated at the 1977 General Elections to the TULF and thereafter to the TNA, will not produce any positive results. These events only further demonstrate the complete polarization between the Sinhalese and the Tamil peoples in the island.
     
    The aforementioned are a reminder to the 70 million strong world Tamil population that the success of the Tamil peoples struggle to live as a free people with dignity on this island depends on our unity, strength and determination.
     
    Parliamentary Group
    Tamil National Alliance
  • Sri Lanka announces subsides with an eye on elections

    Sri Lanka unveiled a 16 billion- rupees ($141 million) stimulus package that includes cutting fuel prices and removing some taxes saying it is needed to stimulate the economy in the face of a global economic downturn.

     

    However analysts believe that the subsidies and tax cuts are being announced by the government with a view of holding elections in the first half of 2009.

     

    "It's an intensive package for exporters and stimulus package for growth, so we expect the cost of living will get reduced ultimately," cabinet spokesman Anura Priyadarshana Yapa told Reuters.

     

    The government, in a special cabinet meeting held passed the package which includes cuts in the price of fuel and gas, concessions for industry and subsidies for main exports such as tea and rubber.

     

    Subsidised Fuel & Energy

     

    Diesel, kerosene and furnace oil prices were cut by 10 rupees a litre and

    gasoline by 2 rupees a litre. The government has reduced diesel prices by 12.5 percent to 70 rupees, petrol by 1.6 percent to 120 rupees, and liquefied petroleum gas by more than 10 percent.

     

    As part of the package, three-wheeler taxis will receive 75 litres of fuel a month at a reduced price of 20 rupees a litre.

     

    For industries, a 15 percent surcharge on electricity will be lifted from tourism, apparel, leather and rubber industries.

     

    Also as part of the package, to help exporters, the government will give an incentive payment of 5 percent of revenue to companies that do not fire workers.

     

    Rubber

     

    As part of the economic assistance package, the government announced the removal of taxes on rubber exports, supply of subsidised fertiliser to farmers and government purchase of the commodity to support prices.

     

    However, the Rubber manufacturers do not think the government plan would benefit the industry and say that the government has to come up with a new pricing formula, as the issues faced by the industry are mainly due to the drop in sheet and crepe rubber prices.

     

    Sri Lanka’s rubber industry is facing a severe crisis due to the decrease in demand and fall in prices.

     

    Tea

     

    According to the assistance package, the government will sell fertilizer to small tea farmers at 1,000 rupees a ton until the price of green leaf, an industry benchmark, reaches 45 rupees.

     

    The government also suspended repayments on loans given to modernize tea factories and said one month's working capital would also be given to tea factories through commercial banks on the recommendation of the Sri Lanka Tea Board, a state agency that regulates the sector.

    However, industry experts say, the Tea industry which sought  sought urgent government assistance in late 2008. is in severe crisis and  the government's intervention has come a bit too late. 

    The package also proposed a 5-15 percent cut in salary and perks for government ministers.

     

    Sri Lanka's economic growth will slow this year to near 6 percent, its lowest level since 2004, from last year's 6.8 percent, as the economy feels the reverberations of the global financial crisis, government officials have said.

  • Government takes over private bank; Depositors in limbo
    The Sri Lankan government took control of a private bank saddled with bad debt declaring that the action was required to ‘maintain the stability of the financial system’.
     
    Seylan Bank, part owned by Ceylinco Consolidated, faced a liquidity crunch as depositors started withdrawing their money following the revelation of a credit card scandal at non-listed Golden Key Credit Card Company also owned by Ceylinco Consolidated.
     
    Analysts estimate the amount involved to be around 26 billion rupees ($228.8 million).
     
    The Central Bank of Sri Lanka exercised its regulatory powers to dissolve Seylan Bank's board of directors with immediate effect and appointed the government-owned Bank of Ceylon to continue business operations at the troubled Bank.
     
    "The difficulties of Seylan Bank PLC presented a potential danger to the stability of the financial system," a statement released by the Central Bank said.
     
    Commenting on the bank bail-out, President Mahinda Rajapakse yesterday assured the nation that the Government would take all possible steps to stabilise the nation’s economy whenever there occurred a financial crisis.
     
    “That was a step we have already proved by intervening in the crisis faced by the Seylan Bank,” the Rajapakse said speaking at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB).
     
    Although the Sri Lankan Monetary Board has assured the safety of the deposits with Seylan Bank, according to latest reports, the troubled bank has stopped all withdrawals and is advising customers who have small and medium scale deposits as fixed savings that they could withdraw their deposits, only if they had matured and not otherwise.
     
    One customer who has two fixed deposits with a suburban Seylan Bank branch worth over Rs. 2 million and wanted one deposit withdrawn was told he could not, as it does not mature till June 2009, reported Lanka Everything website.
     
    "I am not a Golden Key depositor. I have my EPF money in the bank." said this customer who had retired as a Management level employee from a private company, 3 years ago.
     
    "I had two fixed deposits with one to be broken up when I needed money." he said in anonymity.
     
    He said it is totally illegal and an injustice to deny people like him to withdraw their own money, when they most needed them.
     
    "I was not asking a loan. I went to have my own money." he said with a tinge of dejection and anger.
     
    "I wish I could sue them for this. Its defaulting." he said, adding there were many like him who were turned back in desperation.
     
    Another customer said he was offered only a fraction of his deposit, "as a personal help" by a Seylan bank staffer, reported Lanka Everything.
     
    "This is stupid" he said, adding that he doesn't need personal help to withdraw his own money.
     
    Seylan bank customers who spoke to media said they have not been given any guarantee or a time frame as to when they could withdraw their monies in deposit with Seylan bank, added Lanka Everything.
     
    Lalith Kotelawala, chairman of Ceylinco Group has announced that he would sell his shares to repay investors in failed Golden Key Credit Card Company.
     
    Kotalawela did not say how much shares he would divest or what amount he is expecting to raise from selling his shares.
     
    But the bank's CEO Ajitha Pasqual was quoted in a newspaper saying "it could be 23-25 percent or even more."
     
    The collapse of the Golden Key Company and the run on Seylan deposits is seen as the first sign of international financial woes hitting economy of Sri Lanka.
  • Destruction of the economy is part of our defensive war
    The political head of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in an interview with Reuters admitted the organisation had faced some setbacks in the war, but said their options for fighting back included sabotage against Sri Lanka's $32 billion economy.
    The LTTE will target Sri Lanka's economy as part of their defensive strategy to counter a military offensive, said the Reuters report.
    "The destruction of the economy is also an aspect of our defensive war. When the economy of the government is destroyed, its genocidal war against the people will also be weakened," Nadesan was quoted as saying.
    An LTTE attack on the main international airport in 2001 dealt a heavy blow to the economy by hurting tourism revenues, a factor in a year that saw negative 1.4 percent growth.
    Political critics say President Mahinda Rajapakse's administration has mismanaged the economy, which now is facing a host of problems, including high loan costs, a potential balance-of-payments deficit and low foreign currency reserves, reported Reuters.
    However, allies of the president acknowledge the economic challenges, but do not expect it to extract too much political cost given widespread support for the war amid multiple military victories.
  • Sri Lankan rupee hits all time low
    The Sri Lankan rupee fell 0.9 percent on Monday, December 29, hitting a record low of 113.80/114.00 per dollar, surpassing the previous low of 113.45/113.55 on September 19, 2007.
     
    The rupee has fallen around 3.4 percent since December 8 and 5.2 percent since October 30.
     
    Currency dealers said a state bank, which usually represents the Central Bank, was not seen intervening in the market as it had done in past weeks.

    "Later a state bank which usually represents the central bank offered dollars at 113.80 to direct the market and avoid sharp volatility," said a currency dealer.
     
    The state bank’s action allowed the rupee to recover slightly from its all time low.
     
    In recent weeks Sri Lanka has intervened heavily to stabilise the rupee. Whilst the Central Bank says it is in favour of a ‘limited’ depreciation of rupee its actions, however, are having the opposite effect.
     
    According to Central Bank governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal the rupee has been allowed to depreciate ‘a little bit’ to improve export competitiveness, Reuters reported.
     
    Cabraal said exporters had clamoured for a weaker rupee because of "tremendous pressure" on their businesses.
     
    Although the Central Bank says the depreciation is allowed in the hope of a weaker exchange rate boosting exports, and replenish its dwindling foreign reserves, it could be in preparation for a request to the International Monetary Fund for a bail-out, as the latter would demand a weaker currency as a condition of any financial assistance.
     
    Sri Lanka is under pressure to shore up the dwindling foreign reserves that has fallen a third to just $2.37 billion between the end of August and the end of October, equal to about two months of imports.
     
    Foreign exchange reserves have declined as the economy was first hit by the soaring cost of commodity imports and more lately by the global economic downturn. The central bank has said it could have a balance of payments deficit in 2008.
     
    Whilst claiming it favoured a ‘limited’ depreciation of the rupee, on Tuesday December 30, the central bank ordered commercial banks to reduce their net dollar positions prompting the rupee to rise as much as 0.8 percent.
     
    Currency dealers said the central bank's action would force commercial banks to sell dollars in the market.
     
    "The cut depends on individual bank. Some banks face around 50 percent cut in their net long-dollar positions," said a currency dealer.
     
    The central bank, also said the government's exposure to foreign exchange risk has significantly declined, but analysts said the state was desperate for dollars after spending a third of its reserves to protect the rupee.
  • Top foreign exchange earner in trouble after mass lay-offs.
    Foreign remittance, Sri Lanka’s top foreign exchange earner, is suffering as tens of thousands of Sri Lankans employed over seas are laid off due to the global financial crisis.
    More than 30,000 Sri Lankans employed in the construction sector in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and South Korea are at risk of being laid-off owing to the global recession, the Sunday Times newspaper in Sri Lanka reported quoting Foreign Employment Minister Keheliya Rambukwella.
     “A highly reputed international financial institution in South Korea had recently terminated the jobs of some 4000 white collar employees including many Sri Lankans though the exact number was not known. This shows that not only labour staff but even those in higher posts might lose their jobs,” Rambukwella told Sunday times.
    Foreign Employment Bureau chairman Kingsley Ranawaka said the construction industry in the UAE had suffered a body blow and thousands of Sri Lankans might lose their jobs, reported Sunday times.
    Sunday Times further added that according to Ranawaka of the 238,000 Sri Lankans working in the UAE, 102,000 were men with most of them working in the construction industry. He said it was not only labour staff who would be hit but also quantity surveyors, engineers, architects and other professionals.
    Ranawaka further told the newspaper that many construction projects were at a standstill and that people were unable to get jobs in the UAE and he feared the situation might get worse.
    Ranawaka further said other West Asian countries also were affected, especially some construction projects in Qatar.
    Suraj Dandeniya, Former president of the Association of Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies (ALFEA), said the demand for construction sector workers in the UAE and other Gulf countries had drastically dropped and most of the job agencies here would also be affected, reported Sunday Times.
    According to the newspaper, S. Rajah, an official of Professional Manpower Recruiting Services Ltd, said that UAE employers and contractors had informed Sri Lanka of a 30 percent reduction in job opportunities and visas were not issued for jobs in some sectors.
  • Sri Lanka reinstitutes ban on Tamil Tigers - govt
    The Sri Lankan government says it has formally outlawed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
     
    The move was announced Wednesday evening by the Cabinet and was seen as a formality that ruled out the possibility of new peace talks between the bitter enemies who are fighting a brutal civil war, Associated Press reported.
     
    Speaking at a special press briefing in Colombo, Minister Maithripala Sirisena said the cabinet unanimously approved the proposal by the President Mahinda Rajapakse to ban the LTTE.
     
    The cabinet’s decision redesignates the LTTE as a terrorist group, Sri Lanka's defence spokesman said.
     
    "The cabinet has decided to ban the LTTE as they are not allowing civilians to leave the war zone," Reuters quoted defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella, also a minister, as telling a press conference.
     
    The move was viewed as a symbolic action with little concrete repercussions, Associated Press reported.
     
    Government officials had already vowed to destroy the group, the agency said.
     
    Though largely symbolic since the LTTE are already on U.S., E.U. and Indian terrorist lists and the government routinely calls them that, the cabinet vote is just one more sign Sri Lanka has no plans to negotiate, reiterated Reuters.
     
    This was the second time the Sri Lankan government has banned the LTTE.
     
    The original ban was imposed on the Tigers in January 1998, and lifted as part of a Norway-brokered truce four years later.
     
    Rajapakse scrapped the poorly observed truce a year ago, accusing the LTTE of using it to re-arm and vowing to wipe them out.
     
    But the main opposition United National Party has just recently defended the truce, saying that current victories are a result of assistance provided to the Sri Lankan military by the US and other countries during the ceasefire.
     
    The move comes as the UK and US released statements calling for a political solution to resolve the conflict.
  • Back to the Future
    Sri Lanka banned the LTTE this week. The United States endorsed the move in a statement making explicit its implicit stance for the past few years: "[the US] does not advocate the government of Sri Lanka negotiate with the LTTE, a terrorist organization." The subplot is that the war to crush the Tamil rebellion against Sinhala oppression will soon be won. This very much remains to be seen - though we can confidently repeat our assertion that the Sinhala state will continue to reproduce the existential conditions that compelled Tamils to violence in the first place.
     
    Amidst the myriad aspects of reality that analysts could focus on, it is the map of 'controlled areas' that has curiously come to dominate. Reducing the territory the LTTE controls, it is held, equates to putting down the Tamil struggle for freedom. The capture last week of Kilino-chchi, the former administrative capital of the LTTE, is thus hailed as a watershed in the conflict. This logic is even reflected in commentary by Sri Lanka's political analysts, in whose columns can be found more emphatic military-related assertions than practiced security scholars would dare pin their names to.
     
    In the meantime, crucial changes in   the island’s ethno-political imbroglio, whilst in plain sight, are simply ignored. Indeed, Sri Lanka's future is well signposted for those who care to look. A virulent form of Sinhala chauvinism is now all-pervasive, from the corridors of state power to public streets and chatrooms on the Internet. Rarely in the past, with the exception of the state-backed pogrom of 1983, has the sense of alienation been so acute amongst Tamils. The Muslims, meanwhile, are also waking up to their place in Dutugemunu's realm. What was being described as ethnic 'polarization' a couple of years ago is fast turning into commonsense. Ethnic enmity is now the very fabric of Sri Lanka's social ordering. And no amount of international funding for 'ethnic reconciliation' or 'peace building' is going to change this.
     
    This has nothing to do with the effects of conflict - the violence has, especially in recent years been confined largely to the Northeast and the deprivations of displacement, 'disappearance' and death have been borne overwhelmingly by Tamil-speakers, if not Tamils. Rather, the present is the result of the sixty-year-old Sinhala project to align state, army and citizenry towards a majoritarian vision of the island. This, by the way, is the 'solution' acceptable to the Sinhalese.
     
    Amidst all this the impotence of global liberalism is plain to see. Not that its international proponents recognize this. There is still a belief, for example, that the Sinhala nation gives a damn what the West thinks or says about human rights, democracy, pluralism, tolerance and such like. (Unsurprisingly, the former foot soldiers of global liberalism in Colombo have now either found accommodation with Sinhala chauvinism or, in the case of those who were too far in front of the Norwegian peace initiative, have been reduced to despondency and lament).
     
    For a very long time the international community has been seeing a very different problem to that which exists in Sri Lanka. In trying to solve the former, they have systematically and drastically fuelled the latter. Amid a preoccupation with developmental metrics and civil society, they have failed to see the plain reasons why, when flag waving Sinhala expatriates took to the streets in Canada, Tamil refugees in India despaired when Kilinochchi 'fell'.
     
    The 'concerns', in international parlance, of Tamils and Sinhalese cannot be met within a united Sri Lanka. This is not a question of Tamils' 'trust' in the state or Sinhalese' 'fears' about the country being divided. Rather, it is about what ‘the Tamils’ are. To the Sinhalese, they are the legacy of past invasions who must adhere to their proper (subordinate) place in a Sinhala land. The Tamils see themselves as a collective equal to its Sinhala counterpart, with just as much right to their homeland in the Northeast as the Sinhalese have to theirs in the South. No amount of constitutional 'capacity building', 'conflict sensitive' aid or 'security sector reform' will bridge this divide.
     
    In short, Sinhala chauvinism, emboldened by befuddled international actions, is going to pursue the genocidal reordering of territory, population and security called for by the Mahavamsa. The Tamils, meanwhile, will not go quietly into the night. In past decades they've engaged in some capacity building of their own. As Colombo again bans the LTTE and the Sinhala army once again seeks to put down the Tamil rebellion, there appears to be a return to the past. At the same time, as a racial polarization between Sinhalese and others becomes concrete and commonsense, the future is already here.
  • Tamil Nadu recognises genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka
    Politicians and activists across Tamil Nadu have expressed their opinion that the Sri Lankan state is engaged in genocide against the Tamils on the island.
     
    Calling the Sri Lankan regime a ‘genocidal’ one, Vaiko appealed to the Indian Prime Minister to stop military assistance to the island’s government.
     
    “I am registering my view that the present action, approach, attitude of the Indian Government amounting to assist the genocidal Sri Lanka regime is sowing the seeds of sorrow and despair, loss of confidence in the minds of the Tamils” the leader of the MDMK wrote in his letter to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh dated 18 March 2008.
     
    Similarly, Paatali Makkal Kadchi (PMK) founder S Ramadoss wondered whether the Indian government was silent only because those at the receiving end of "genocidal frenzy" were voiceless Tamils.
     
    In a letter to the Indian Prime Minister, he assailed “New Delhi's mindless and callous attitude”, reported the Times of India.
     
    Ramadoss said if India could do nothing directly, it could have acted through the UN Security Council, the paper reported.
     
    "This has not even been attempted despite the fact that Sri Lanka has been listed among the eight red alert' countries where genocide or mass atrocities were either underway or were in the risk of breaking out," he is quoted as saying.
     
    "For the scheming bureaucrats and unconcerned decision-makers in New Delhi, are the war-and-genocide-mongers in Colombo more important than the millions of law-abiding Tamilians? Is the honour and self-respect of these millions are of no concern to them?" the PMK leader allegedly asked.
     
    The poet and central government parliamentarian Kanimozhi has also expressed similar sentiment.
     
    Tamils were gradually being wiped out in the island nation, she said in a report in The Hindu on January 2 this year.
     
    Citing a few lines from Mr. Vairamuthu's poem, she said, "There was no point in living on the past glory without raising our voice against the genocide of Tamils."
     
    The strongest Tamil Nadu voice against the genocide has been from the Communist Party of India, which has been consistently at the forefront of the latest protests on behalf of Sri Lankan Tamils.
     
    A press release from the National Executive in September 2008 expressed alarm at the “worsening situation” in Sri Lanka, calling the actions of the Sri Lankan government ‘genocide’.
     
    “Instead of finding a political solution to the four decade old ethnic problem and take steps for a just, viable political settlement to solve the ethnic conflict the Sri Lankan government has unleashed an undeclared war against the Tamils in Sri Lanka, using indiscriminate aerial bombings on civilian habitats including schools and hospitals, which had resulted in the killing of hundreds of innocent children and women and had displaced hundreds of people,” the press release said.
     
    “The Sri Lankan government is neither providing them any relief or allowing voluntary groups to extend humanitarian help to them,” it noted.
     
    “While this genocide is on across the Palk Straits, and the Indian fishermen are often getting killed by the Sri Lankan army, the Indian government remains a dumb witness to these tragic events,” the National Executive chastised the Indian government.
     
    In the lead up to the hunger strikes organised by many organisations across Tamil Nadu in support of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the notion that the events in Sri Lankan were genocidal gained popular credence in Tamil Nadu.
     
    “Unlike in many other conflicts, in Sri Lanka, a group has taken up arms to defend its people from genocide,” noted a news report of the time.
     
    “Sri Lankan state has embarked on a focused effort to crush the struggle and to erase the Tamil people from the map of Sri Lanka. The Indian Government should recognize this and work towards saving the Tamil people. It should not be seen as collaborating in Sri Lanka's genocide of Tamils,” was an oft heard cry from the speakers at the various hunger strikes, including Tamil film director Seeman.
     
    The Tamil Protection Movement (TPM), an umbrella organization consisting of pro-Eelam political parties, NGOs, members of the film fraternity and Tamil associations also condemned the Indian state for extending military support to the ‘genocidal’ Sri Lankan Government.
     
    Politicians and activists across Tamil Nadu have expressed their opinion that the Sri Lankan state is engaged in genocide against the Tamils on the island.
     
    Calling the Sri Lankan regime a ‘genocidal’ one, Vaiko appealed to the Indian Prime Minister to stop military assistance to the island’s government.
     
    “I am registering my view that the present action, approach, attitude of the Indian Government amounting to assist the genocidal Sri Lanka regime is sowing the seeds of sorrow and despair, loss of confidence in the minds of the Tamils” the leader of the MDMK wrote in his letter to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh dated 18 March 2008.
     
    Similarly, Paatali Makkal Kadchi (PMK) founder S Ramadoss wondered whether the Indian government was silent only because those at the receiving end of "genocidal frenzy" were voiceless Tamils.
     
    In a letter to the Indian Prime Minister, he assailed “New Delhi's mindless and callous attitude”, reported the Times of India.
     
    Ramadoss said if India could do nothing directly, it could have acted through the UN Security Council, the paper reported.
     
    "This has not even been attempted despite the fact that Sri Lanka has been listed among the eight red alert' countries where genocide or mass atrocities were either underway or were in the risk of breaking out," he is quoted as saying.
     
    "For the scheming bureaucrats and unconcerned decision-makers in New Delhi, are the war-and-genocide-mongers in Colombo more important than the millions of law-abiding Tamilians? Is the honour and self-respect of these millions are of no concern to them?" the PMK leader allegedly asked.
     
    The poet and central government parliamentarian Kanimozhi has also expressed similar sentiment.
     
    Tamils were gradually being wiped out in the island nation, she said in a report in The Hindu on January 2 this year.
     
    Citing a few lines from Mr. Vairamuthu's poem, she said, "There was no point in living on the past glory without raising our voice against the genocide of Tamils."
     
    The strongest Tamil Nadu voice against the genocide has been from the Communist Party of India, which has been consistently at the forefront of the latest protests on behalf of Sri Lankan Tamils.
     
    A press release from the National Executive in September 2008 expressed alarm at the “worsening situation” in Sri Lanka, calling the actions of the Sri Lankan government ‘genocide’.
     
    “Instead of finding a political solution to the four decade old ethnic problem and take steps for a just, viable political settlement to solve the ethnic conflict the Sri Lankan government has unleashed an undeclared war against the Tamils in Sri Lanka, using indiscriminate aerial bombings on civilian habitats including schools and hospitals, which had resulted in the killing of hundreds of innocent children and women and had displaced hundreds of people,” the press release said.
     
    “The Sri Lankan government is neither providing them any relief or allowing voluntary groups to extend humanitarian help to them,” it noted.
     
    “While this genocide is on across the Palk Straits, and the Indian fishermen are often getting killed by the Sri Lankan army, the Indian government remains a dumb witness to these tragic events,” the National Executive chastised the Indian government.
     
    In the lead up to the hunger strikes organised by many organisations across Tamil Nadu in support of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the notion that the events in Sri Lankan were genocidal gained popular credence in Tamil Nadu.
     
    “Unlike in many other conflicts, in Sri Lanka, a group has taken up arms to defend its people from genocide,” noted a news report of the time.
     
    “Sri Lankan state has embarked on a focused effort to crush the struggle and to erase the Tamil people from the map of Sri Lanka. The Indian Government should recognize this and work towards saving the Tamil people. It should not be seen as collaborating in Sri Lanka's genocide of Tamils,” was an oft heard cry from the speakers at the various hunger strikes, including Tamil film director Seeman.
     
    The Tamil Protection Movement (TPM), an umbrella organization consisting of pro-Eelam political parties, NGOs, members of the film fraternity and Tamil associations also condemned the Indian state for extending military support to the ‘genocidal’ Sri Lankan Government.
     
    In a statement in March 2008, Ramadoss and Thol Thirumavalavan, President of the Viduthalai Chiruththaikal Kadchi (VCK or Liberation Panthers Party) demanded the "Indian Government to radically change its approach and actions in the Sri Lankan Tamils issue" and warned the union government not to be seen as collaborating in Sri Lanka's genocide of Tamils.
  • White vans and vanishing men
    When our white van stopped in the Muslim hamlet of Saintha Maruthu in Batticaloa district on the night of November 23, residents viewed us with fear.
     
    So my friend from the locality introduced me to them, "She is a journalist from Chennai."
     
    For the Tamils in Sri Lanka, a white van is terror on four wheels.
     
    "White vans have been used to abduct people, especially young Tamil men," my friend told me.
     
    It was in such a van that Madura Guna Singam was abducted from Colombo last June.
     
    "My son was staying with my eldest daughter, Kalanayagi, in Colombo. I knocked on all doors. God knows what happened to my son," said Madura's mother, Velayutham Pushpavalli, 60, from Kilinochchi.
     
    Madura's sister Sivapatham, who stays in Vavuniya, said her brother had no links with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
     
    "My brother was innocent. He was a van driver. They might have taken him thinking he was with the LTTE. Please give him back to us," she said with folded hands.
     
    Soon after the abduction, the family informed the police, but they did nothing.
     
    "We tried every avenue, the Red Cross and the human rights organisation. We met minister Douglas Devananda three times. We do not know who abducted my son and why," said Pushpavalli.
     
    Though fragile and old, she has not given up. "I am sure he is alive and will come back," she said.
     
    Jayanthi Krishnan's husband, Pushparaja Krishnakumar, 34, was abducted from Colombo in June.
     
    "Some people came to his shop in a white van and took him away," said Jayanthi, who has a two-year-old son, Vekesh.
     
    "To run the family, I had to sell off the shop. If my husband does not return, I will have to go begging with my child," she said.
     
    Mukunda Sivagunaratnam, 33, was waiting to join his wife in Canada when he was arrested in June.
     
    His mother, Selvajothi, feels she led him to his fate.
     
    "He was living in London and came here to get himself registered so that he could join his wife in Canada. I suggested he join a computer course. He was abducted from the computer centre," she said.
     
    Mukunda had called up his family saying that he was being taken by the police.
     
    Selvajothi and her daughter Darshini approached the police, who said they were unaware about the abduction.
     
    Said Darshini: "We are sure the army has done it because after the abduction, the special task force came to our house twice for inquiry."
     
    Unaware of Mukunda's fate, the Canadian embassy recently sent a letter to him, asking him to appear for a medical test.
     
    "Mukunda would have been overjoyed to see the letter," said Selvajothi.
     
    As proof of her son's innocence, she has the 'no objection' certificate issued to him by the police for his travel abroad.
     
    "He had a clean record. He was a simple person. Why would anybody want to snatch him away from us?" she asked.
     
    Idayarani knows that her son Robinson, abducted five months ago, is in Boosa detention camp in Galle, near Colombo.
     
    "There is no sign of his release. We are not allowed to see him. There is no inquiry. He just exists there," she said.
     
    The family received a ransom call, but Idayarani cannot pay it.
     
    Mano Ganesan, MP from Colombo and head of the Civil Monitoring Commission that tracks human rights issues of the Tamils, feels the abductions were carried out with the connivance of the army.
     
    "Anybody with a number on his mobile phone that the government thinks belongs to an LTTE cadre can be picked up, abducted or shot," he said.
     
    Reports say there have been around 3,000 white van abductions in Sri Lanka since the ceasefire ended in 2005; 300 of them were in Colombo.
     
    The Tamils live in constant fear of being abducted or shot.
     
    They suffer the ignominy of having to register themselves in their own places, and live as a displaced people in their own country.
     
    The government had made registration mandatory for Tamils who came to Colombo in the last five years.
     
    "They think every Tamil-speaking person is a terrorist. It shows they don't trust us," said Murugan, a hotel employee.
     
    Despite the government's statement that civilians are not affected by the war, 3,000 families are living in camps for Internally Displaced Persons in Batticaloa.
     
    Displaced during the 'liberation' of the east, they cannot return to their homes, which, as a woman said, "are in high security zones."
     
    The life of IDPs on the war front in the Vanni region is even worse.
     
    My attempts to get the permission to go to Jaffna failed.
     
    Later, a lawyer friend said it was easier for Sri Lankan passport holders to get permission.
     
    "In a family I know, the parents had UK passports and the daughter a Sri Lankan passport. The daughter went to Jaffna, but the parents' request was rejected," she said.
     
    "Your governments will make it a big issue if you are affected. We can be shot like dogs in Sri Lanka. No one bothers about Tamils."
     
    The peace in government-controlled areas is not without violence.
     
    Said S.L.M. Hanifa, a Tamil writer in Batticaloa: "We have suffered more during times of peace and ceasefire than during times of war."
  • ECONOMY: 'Financial Meltdown Decolonising Asian Minds'
    The year 2008 may well go down in history as a watershed in which the global financial crisis, precipitated by the collapse of Western economic models, ‘decolonised' Asians minds, say observers.
     
    “In the past, Asian governments expected Western counterparts to be role models of good governance,” observed well-known Singaporean diplomat and author Kishore Mahbubani in a recent commentary published in London's Financial Times.
     
    Pointing to how major United States and European financial institutions have fallen like packs of cards, due mainly to the failure of financial regulators in their respective countries, Mahbubani argues that Asian governments' belief in good governance and regulation may serve as a real asset in the storm.
     
    “The gold standard that the West assumed it had in the field of regulation has vanished,” Mahbubani points out. “Asians realise that they must forge their own standards.”
     
    An increasing number of Asian economists and commentators have pointed out in recent weeks how U.S. and European governments are doing exactly the opposite of what they had advised Asian governments to do during the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
     
    Asian governments are now quietly building a new financial architecture in the region that will not be dictated to by the West.
     
    Yung Chul Park, professor of economics at Korea University in Seoul, in a recent interview with the ‘New York Times' pointed out that when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pledged 20 billion US dollars to South Korea during the Asian financial crisis in 1998, one of the conditions it imposed was that the Korean government allow ailing banks and other companies to collapse rather than bail them out.
     
    “Washington is following a different script this time,” he noted. ”I understand why they do it [but] they've lost credibility to some extent in pushing for opening up overseas markets to foreign competition and liberalising economies.”
     
    Mahbubani agrees that the U.S. and European policy makers are doing the opposite to what they advised Asia to do in 1997-98.
     
    “Millions of Indonesians and Thais would have been better off if their governments had been permitted to do what western governments are doing now,” he argues, adding that “an apology from the West to Asia would not be inappropriate”.
     
    Asian media has not lost sight of the fact that Asian governments are quietly moving to increase regional cooperation and tighten up government regulation with respect to financial industries.
     
    These governments are also moving ahead towards a possible Asian Monetary Fund, which was quickly shot down by the West when Japan mooted the idea in the late 1990s.
     
    But, this time, without calling it such, moves are already in motion towards this goal.
     
    In mid-December, China, Japan and Korea met in Fukuoka for the first time exclusively to discuss a new financial partnership to make Asia the centre of global trade and economic vitality.
     
    The three financial powerhouses agreed unanimously that Asia should continue to be the engine of growth to counter the global economic crisis, not by opening up markets for global investors, but, by reviving their economies with infrastructure projects and bolstering domestic demand.
     
    The Nation newspaper in Thailand in an editorial on Dec. 22 hailed this move as “an important commitment” by the three Asian giants which would “help the overall integration of the East Asian economy,” known as ASEAN plus three.
     
    Hadi Soesastro, executive director of the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, pointing out that East Asian nations have accumulated close to four trillion dollars in reserves, argues that the time has come to set up a regional fund independent of Western control.
     
    Writing in the Jakarta Post, Soesastro notes that to make such a fund operational it would need some political decisions which would address issues such as the size of the fund, conditionalities of lending and regional surveillance mechanisms for the fund to function effectively.
     
    Ajay Chhibber, director of the U.N. Development Programme's regional Bureau for Asia and Pacific, agrees that Asia needs to build on the currency swap arrangements put into place during the peak of the Asian financial crisis a decade ago.
     
    In addition, says Chhibber, there should be greater coordination in the region to increase intra-Asia trade, and also strengthen programmes to help the poorest and neediest.
     
    In a commentary in the Business Week, Chibber welcomed China's 580 million dollar economic stimulation package as a good move and Singapore's blanket guarantees on deposits which has led to Malaysia following suit.
     
    If India can also encourage the already strong domestic demand, he believes that inter-Asian trade could help to boost the economies of countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Vietnam, which are heavily dependent on western markets.
     
    Even China may quietly move to demand changes to the IMF.
     
    Fan Gang, professor of economics at Peking University, believes that China is now in a position to increase its voice on a long-standing concern of theirs - the U.S. dollar's status as global reserve currency.
     
    He says that China would like to see an amendment to IMF's mandate so that they could “discipline America's money supply and debt accumulation”.
     
    Thus, though not making a big noise in the international scene yet, Asian countries and their policymakers are slowly but surely decolonising their minds of the idea that economic expertise comes purely from the West.
     
    “If Asian countries can work together, the region can not only deal with the financial tsunami, but lay the ground for a powerful future, one in which greater coordination prepares the path for the eagerly awaited Asian century,” predicts Chhibber.
    The year 2008 may well go down in history as a watershed in which the global financial crisis, precipitated by the collapse of Western economic models, ‘decolonised' Asians minds, say observers.
     
    “In the past, Asian governments expected Western counterparts to be role models of good governance,” observed well-known Singaporean diplomat and author Kishore Mahbubani in a recent commentary published in London's Financial Times.
     
    Pointing to how major United States and European financial institutions have fallen like packs of cards, due mainly to the failure of financial regulators in their respective countries, Mahbubani argues that Asian governments' belief in good governance and regulation may serve as a real asset in the storm.
     
    “The gold standard that the West assumed it had in the field of regulation has vanished,” Mahbubani points out. “Asians realise that they must forge their own standards.”
     
    An increasing number of Asian economists and commentators have pointed out in recent weeks how U.S. and European governments are doing exactly the opposite of what they had advised Asian governments to do during the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
     
    Asian governments are now quietly building a new financial architecture in the region that will not be dictated to by the West.
     
    Yung Chul Park, professor of economics at Korea University in Seoul, in a recent interview with the ‘New York Times' pointed out that when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pledged 20 billion US dollars to South Korea during the Asian financial crisis in 1998, one of the conditions it imposed was that the Korean government allow ailing banks and other companies to collapse rather than bail them out.
     
    “Washington is following a different script this time,” he noted. ”I understand why they do it [but] they've lost credibility to some extent in pushing for opening up overseas markets to foreign competition and liberalising economies.”
     
    Mahbubani agrees that the U.S. and European policy makers are doing the opposite to what they advised Asia to do in 1997-98.
     
    “Millions of Indonesians and Thais would have been better off if their governments had been permitted to do what western governments are doing now,” he argues, adding that “an apology from the West to Asia would not be inappropriate”.
     
    Asian media has not lost sight of the fact that Asian governments are quietly moving to increase regional cooperation and tighten up government regulation with respect to financial industries.
     
    These governments are also moving ahead towards a possible Asian Monetary Fund, which was quickly shot down by the West when Japan mooted the idea in the late 1990s.
     
    But, this time, without calling it such, moves are already in motion towards this goal.
     
    In mid-December, China, Japan and Korea met in Fukuoka for the first time exclusively to discuss a new financial partnership to make Asia the centre of global trade and economic vitality.
     
    The three financial powerhouses agreed unanimously that Asia should continue to be the engine of growth to counter the global economic crisis, not by opening up markets for global investors, but, by reviving their economies with infrastructure projects and bolstering domestic demand.
     
    The Nation newspaper in Thailand in an editorial on Dec. 22 hailed this move as “an important commitment” by the three Asian giants which would “help the overall integration of the East Asian economy,” known as ASEAN plus three.
     
    Hadi Soesastro, executive director of the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, pointing out that East Asian nations have accumulated close to four trillion dollars in reserves, argues that the time has come to set up a regional fund independent of Western control.
     
    Writing in the Jakarta Post, Soesastro notes that to make such a fund operational it would need some political decisions which would address issues such as the size of the fund, conditionalities of lending and regional surveillance mechanisms for the fund to function effectively.
     
    Ajay Chhibber, director of the U.N. Development Programme's regional Bureau for Asia and Pacific, agrees that Asia needs to build on the currency swap arrangements put into place during the peak of the Asian financial crisis a decade ago.
     
    In addition, says Chhibber, there should be greater coordination in the region to increase intra-Asia trade, and also strengthen programmes to help the poorest and neediest.
     
    In a commentary in the Business Week, Chibber welcomed China's 580 million dollar economic stimulation package as a good move and Singapore's blanket guarantees on deposits which has led to Malaysia following suit.
     
    If India can also encourage the already strong domestic demand, he believes that inter-Asian trade could help to boost the economies of countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Vietnam, which are heavily dependent on western markets.
     
    Even China may quietly move to demand changes to the IMF.
     
    Fan Gang, professor of economics at Peking University, believes that China is now in a position to increase its voice on a long-standing concern of theirs - the U.S. dollar's status as global reserve currency.
     
    He says that China would like to see an amendment to IMF's mandate so that they could “discipline America's money supply and debt accumulation”.
     
    Thus, though not making a big noise in the international scene yet, Asian countries and their policymakers are slowly but surely decolonising their minds of the idea that economic expertise comes purely from the West.
     
    “If Asian countries can work together, the region can not only deal with the financial tsunami, but lay the ground for a powerful future, one in which greater coordination prepares the path for the eagerly awaited Asian century,” predicts Chhibber.
  • Army enters ghost town as LTTE withdraws.
    The Sri Lankan military authorities on Friday January 2 said their forces have occupied the town of Kilinochchi in Vanni, situated 320 km north of Colombo.
     
    The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has entered a virtual ghost town as the whole civilian infrastructure as well as the centre of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) had shifted further northeast.
     
    It is the first time after a decade the Sri Lankan forces have been able to take control of the town after several months of fierce fighting that has claimed the lives hundreds of SLA troopers.

    Meanwhile, source close to the LTTE told TamilNet that the Tigers, who had put up heavy resistance so far, had kept their casualties as low as possible in the defensive fighting.
     
    Most of the buildings in the town were partly damaged or completely destroyed by continuous air strikes and artillery barrage by the Sri Lankan forces.

    The LTTE had also taken away a lot of the fittings and records held in the town, journalists who were taken to the town on a government-escorted trip reported.

    Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in a televised address over the state run TV Friday at 4.15 p.m., officially claimed that the SLA had captured Kilinochchi town.
     
    Meanwhile, the main opposition leader claimed that the Ceasefire Agreement paved the way for the military success.
     
    Ranil Wickremesinghe said the ceasefire paved the way for many countries including the United States to provide arms to the security forces.
     
    “The security forces successfully carried out operations with the weapons which were brought down after signing the ceasefire agreement,” he said.
     
    The lowered resistance by the LTTE was evidence that the organization had not used the ceasefire period to bring in arms, he said.
     
    Changing Hands
     
    12 years ago, the SLA captured the Kilinochchi-Paranthan area from the Tigers after fighting for more than a month in 1996 after losing more than 600 soldiers.
     
    The LTTE recaptured part of the town in February 1998. A few months later, in September 1998, the LTTE overran the Brigade Headquarters with 15 satellite camps guarded by a 15 km long defence line virtually destroying the whole establishment in a two-day long major operation code named 'Oayaatha Alaikal-2' (Unceasing Waves-2).
     
    The SLA garrison in Paranthan was compromised and the Tigers destroyed a large ammunition dump within the Elephant Pass base at that time. LTTE recovered more than one thousand dead bodies of the SLA in Unceasing Waves-2 operation.
     
    In the operation code named 'Oyaatha Alaikal-2' (Unceasing Waves-2) the LTTE brought the Kilinochchi region under their full control last evening.

    At the time, the leader of the main Sri Lankan opposition party, Ranil Wickremasinghe announced in parliament that over 1900 SLA troops had been killed and 2000 wounded when the Liberation Tigers overran the Kilinochchi SLA base complex.
     
    Wickremasinghe said that 1250 SLA troops had been killed and over 2000 wounded between September 27 when the Tiger assault began and 29, and that by September 30, when the fighting had eased, over 1900 SLA troops had died.

    The Kilinochchi base had been manned by 3,500 SLA troops under a Brigadier, he said.

    The UNP leader also listed some of the weapons and vehicles that he said the SLA had lost at Kilinochchi, though it was not clear if these referred to items destroyed or captured by the Tigers.

    The weapons included 4 artillery pieces, 2 T-55 tanks, 8 Buffel troop carriers, and 75 assorted jeeps, trucks and tractors.

    The SLA had also lost approximately 2,500 small arms, over 2 million rounds of small arms ammunition and over 1,000 artillery rounds.

    On September 30, 1998, the Liberation Tigers handed over the bodies of 600 soldiers killed when they overran the SLA's Kilinochchi base complex to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
  • Nadesan: ‘Freedom struggle not centred on a town’
    The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam vowed to fight on even if they lose more territory inside the area they want to establish as a separate nation for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority, reported Reuters.
    In an e-mail interview with Reuters, B. Nadesan, the political head of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam, said the group's "freedom struggle does not centre on a town or a city."
    "Losing land and recapturing it is common. It is not the real estate that matters. Our freedom struggle will continue to create war towns until our struggle reaches its goal -- until we win," Nadesan was quoted as saying.
    Nadesdan rejected President Mahinda Rajapaksa's precondition that the rebels surrender their arms before coming for peace talks, which the Tigers have offered, reported Reuters.
    "A peace talk at this juncture would not be possible as government has asked the LTTE to lay down their arms and surrender," Nadesan was quoted as saying.
    "We will teach a good lesson to the forces in this Kilinochchi battle," Nadesan said. "We are waiting for the time, place and setting to launch an offensive."
    The LTTE has lost around 2,250 fighters so far in 2008, he said. The military puts the number at around 8,000. Both sides in the past have repeatedly distorted battelfield statistics to their advantage.
    "Our military capabilities are intact and we have no difficulties in acquiring weapons," he said.
    "We have confidence and we will regain the swathes of land."
  • Congress calls for extradition of Pirapaharan
    Showing utter disregard to the sentiments expressed by the leaders and people of Tamil Nadu following the occupation of Kilinochchi by the Sri Lankan security forces, the Congress party asked Sri Lanka to hand over LTTE leader Pirapaharan if he is caught so that he faces trial for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
     
    “We will be happy if Pirapaharan is caught and handed over to India for the heinous crime he has committed. He should be brought to book for the assassination of our beloved leader Rajiv Gandhi,” Congress chief spokesperson M. Veerappa Moily said.
     
    Whilst party leaders across the political spectrum in Tamil Nadu called for protests against New Delhi’s inaction in brining about a ceasefire in the neighbouring island, Congress’s request is seen as clear indication of where the party’s priorities lie.
     
    Moily further said that Congress was not mixing terrorism and ethnic issue, reiterating that Congress wanted Sri Lanka to ensure the safety of Tamils and a policy of non-discrimination against them.
  • The Credit Crisis Comes to … Sri Lanka?
    We had just landed in Columbo, Sri Lanka’s capital, and these were practically the first words we heard.
     
    We were coming from Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India, where the effects — and potential effects — of the credit crisis were front and center.
     
    Would the Wall Street layoffs hurt the technology outsourcing firms that have proliferated here, they had asked.
     
    Would corporate America’s need to control costs help the booming business process outsourcing industry, they had wondered.
     
    Everywhere I went, people expected me to opine about the credit crisis.
     
    But in Sri Lanka, a small, lush, tropical island of 20 million people that neighbors India, and where we had come for holiday, I didn’t expect to hear the same fears.
     
    After all, this is a place where the economy is still largely agrarian; its largest export, by far, is tea.
     
    And this is also a place that has been consumed by a decades-old civil war. Yet the economic crisis found its way into almost every conversation we had over the next week.
     
    Because I was on vacation, I didn’t interview people in their offices. Instead, my conversations were over tea in the afternoon and drinks at sunset. I met people in Sri Lanka’s newly emerging resort business.
     
    They had survived the tsunami; now, they felt threatened by this new economic tsunami. Indeed, they could mark the exact moment when business fell of the cliff: it was September, when Lehman Brothers defaulted.
     
    The country’s cricket association — by far the biggest spectator sport in Sri Lanka — was essentially broke; the big, upcoming Test Series between Sri Lanka and Pakistan had not been able to find a single sponsor.
     
    Land development was largely on hold because financing was impossible to get.
     
    Oh, and on my second day in Sri Lanka, I picked up the local newspaper to discover that a large bank, Seylan, had been taken over by the country’s central bank.
     
    My new Sri Lankan friends told me the backstory: the bank was run by a businessman who was offering 25 percent interest to attract deposits, which he was then using to finance development projects that were unraveling because of the credit crisis. When the depositors found out, they raced to pull out their money, creating a run.
     
    After the central bank took over, its governor, Ajith Nivaad Cabral, gave a news conference in which he played down the bank’s mistakes, and chalked up the problem to an inexplicable crisis of confidence. It turns out the bank’s owner was politically connected.
     
    A few days later, we were in the south, having drinks with a friend, a British ex-pat who runs a small, high-end property. He had spent an anxious afternoon in nearby Galle, where the Seylan Bank had a branch, because he wanted to get his money out. He was worried. The bank told him to come back in seven days. That made him even more worried.
     
    For all the talk of the interconnectedness of world trade and global markets, it is still striking to see how events in America in 2008 have created turmoil in this small country. You shake your head in wonder. Sri Lankans, however, understand that interconnectedness all too well. Or at least some do.
     
    We made friends in Sri Lanka with Dominique and Rohini Nordmann — he runs a boutique resort company; she is the sales director for the Aman Resorts — and we spent time at their home, which looks out over the Indian Ocean.
     
    Gazing out at the water, Dominique told me about his own economic indicator.
     
    “See out there?” he said pointing to the distance. “A few years ago, you would have seen shipping containers from China, one after another, all day long.”
     
    I looked out at the empty ocean. “Now we see maybe one or two a day,” he said. The Nordmanns didn’t need to read the newspaper to know the world was in recession. They could see it from their lawn.
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