Diaspora

Taxonomy Color
red
  • Emblematic Act

    Twenty four years ago this month the Tamils of Sri Lanka suffered the worst racist rioting in the island’s post colonial history. The massacre, which has infamously been referred to since as ‘Black July’ (and occasionally as the Tamils’ Holocaust), was not merely an eruption of mob violence, but a systematic and violent cleansing of Tamils from Colombo and much of the south by the Sinhala-dominated state. Over three thousand Tamils perished as our people were driven first into refugee camps and then dispatched by ship to the north. In one week almost all Tamil homes and businesses in the south had been looted and burnt. The armed struggle that escalated amid the resultant Tamil grief and anger has since evolved into what is today a substantive state-building project.
     
    However, in the near quarter century since Black July, despite the tens of thousands of lives that have been lost in the conflict, there has not been an iota of change in the Sinhala leadership’s thinking – nor, for that matter, in the sentiments of the international community. The military campaign now being waged by President Mahinda Rajapakse is underpinned by the same racial superiority and exclusive, even annihilatory logic as that of President Junius Jayawardene in the eighties – and President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s ‘war for peace’ in the nineties; namely that Sri Lanka is a majoritarian (Sinhala) state in which Tamils would be tolerated provided they accept their secondary minority status and abandon their demands that political power be shared.
     
    For well over a year now, President Rajapakse has openly waged a brutal war against the Tamils. We say Tamils, rather than Tigers, firstly because the Sri Lankan strategy is directed primarily at raising popular (i.e. civilian) suffering to undermine support for the LTTE’s armed struggle and, secondly, the calculated purpose of this suffering is force the Tamils to lower, if not entirely abandon, their demand that the Sinhalese share power. Collective punishment was also President Jayawardene’s logic in 1983 when he unleashed the murderous Sinhala mobs, assisted by the security forces and armed with voters lists: to teach the rebellious Tamil the price of defying Sinhala rule. Last month President Rajapakse forcibly expelled hundreds of Tamils from Colombo, deeming them a security threat. The move was halted amid international protests, but the point had been made: the Tamils had better know their place in Sri Lanka. Now, as three decades ago, state terror remains the primary method of governing the Tamils - though the violence of the Sinhala mob has been replaced by that of the Army’s multi-barrel rocket launcher.
     
    President Rajapakse’s battlefield strategy, as executed during the past year in Sampur, southern Trincomalee and especially Vaharai, is identical to that of President Jayawardene’s twenty years earlier: militarily seal off and starve the population while subjecting it to relentless bombardment and air strikes. Jayawardene blockaded the Jaffna peninsula for months, relentlessly blasting the northern peninsula from land, sea and air. His siege was famously broken by the Indian airdrop which presaged the induction of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in 1987. President Kumaratunga’s strategy was the identical during her subsequent efforts to destroy the LTTE. For six years (1995-2001) the Vanni was subject to the same draconian embargo which blocked food and medicine from the residents as Jayawardene imposed on the northern Jaffna and Rajapakse on the eastern Tamil areas.
     
    The point is that throughout the conflict, every Sinhala leadership has readily inflicted widespread suffering amongst the hundreds of thousands of ordinary Tamils, as part of its bid to crush the Tamil liberation movement - which every government has always paradoxically insisted was numerically insignificant and on the verge of defeat. Like a mantra President Rajapakse, just like Kumaratunga and Jayawardene before him, repeatedly assures the Sinhalese and the rest of the world of the Tamil struggle’s imminent military destruction.
     
    And just like Jayawardene and Kumaratunga, Rajapakse also inflicts this suffering in the name of the Tamils themselves. Every Sinhala leader has declared his or her vicious violence as necessary to ‘liberate the Tamils from the Tigers’ (though it is underpinned by barely disguised notions of Sinhala racial superiority – ‘in Defence of the Dharma’ - as much as raison d’etat). Jayawardene’s merciless onslaught on the Tamil militant controlled Jaffna peninsula (exactly 20 years ago) was mockingly codenamed ‘Operation Liberation.’ Kumaratunga declared her self-styled ‘war-for-peace’ (waged a decade ago) was to liberate the Tamils from the ‘fascist’ LTTE. And now President Rajapakse is terrorizing the Tamils to ‘free them from Tiger rule’ and provide them with ‘democracy’.
     
    Amid reprehensibly weak international pressure for them to solve the ethnic conflict, all these Sinhala leaders have sought to delay and prevaricate on sharing power with the Tamils until the sole reason for that need to compromise – the Tamil armed struggle – has been destroyed. Rajapakse’s All Party Representative Council (APRC) has the same dissembling logic as Jayawardene’s All Party Council (APC). (And in another farcical parallel just as the SLFP walked out of the UNP’s sham APC, the UNP has today quit the SLFP’s APRC charade). President Kumaratunga unveiled her much-vaunted Devolution ‘Package’ in 1995 just as she unleashed her unrestrained assault against the Tamils of the Jaffna peninsula. In the wake of subsequent successes against the LTTE, the ‘Package’ was watered down until it was utterly meaningless, (even disillusioning the Tamils who collaborated in drafting what was arguably nothing more than a tool in the state’s counter-insurgency campaign).
     
    Nevertheless, the international community has supported each of these leaders in their pernicious efforts to break Tamil defiance. Each of these leaders has received near absolute military, financial and political support from the international community. (Yes, we know there are subtle variations amongst the positions of countries involved, but collectively it matters little in the killing fields of the Northeast.) For decades our people suffered and died in their thousands as the Sinhala military, unrestrained by law or morals, laid waste to our homeland. But it was our efforts to resist this genocidal violence that has been condemned by the international community as unacceptable, as terrorism. The Sinhala state was instead hailed as a struggling democracy and strengthened anew.
     
    Black July is thus not just a historical event. Rather, it is an emblematic act of Sinhala rule. In remembering Black July, we not only commemorate the thousands of Tamils who perished in the state-sponsored Holocaust of 1983, but we also remember the tens of thousands who were slaughtered before and since in the state’s internationally backed pursuit of Sinhala hegemony. Thus we also remember at the same time why the Tamil liberation struggle began, why it changed from ahimsa to arms, why it necessarily continues today. We remember that we are a nation resisting oppression.
  • Beyond federalism?
    This writer has been associated for the past several years with that much-maligned minority which can be broadly labelled ‘liberal federalists’ on the question of peace and constitutional reform in Sri Lanka.
     
    Allowing for individual nuances of emphasis and premise, Sri Lankan liberal federalists are those who have advocated (a) a negotiated resolution to the ethnic conflict (b) along the lines of a federal-type constitutional settlement that accommodates the secessionist ethno-territorial Tamil minority in the North and East (c) within a united Sri Lanka through regional autonomy and power-sharing at the centre.
     
    The key assumptions of this worldview are that a politically liberal conception of a unified Sri Lankan citizenship is both possible and desirable, that this notion of citizenship involves recognition of multiple identities, and that this can be institutionally expressed through federal-type constitutional arrangements reflecting some appropriate configuration of the shared-rule – self-rule ideal.
     
    That the constitutional prescriptions of liberal federalists retain enduring relevance in respect of peace in Sri Lanka is beyond reproach, for the federal idea as the fundamental organising principle of a constitutional order embraces a range of options from devolution to confederation.
     
    For reasons canvassed below, however, liberal federalists’ political premises about democratic citizenship and the ethno-political foundations of the Sri Lankan State would require to be fundamentally revisited, if the objective is a viable and united Sri Lanka.
     
    Even though the federal idea in Sri Lankan political debates is older than the post-colonial State itself, it only enjoyed a brief moment of mainstream respectability in the aftermath of the Oslo Declaration of 5th December 2003, when the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE stated that their future explorations of a substantive settlement would be guided by the federal idea.
     
    The LTTE’s commitment to federalism understood in a conventional sense was less than unequivocal from the start. Its subsequent ISGA proposals (which made no reference to Oslo) revealed that to the extent the LTTE felt constrained by the normative parameters of federalism at all, its understanding of federalism was highly unorthodox, asymmetrical, and concerned only with the maximisation of autonomy for the Northeast.
     
    In the South, the federal idea has been comprehensively defeated in the general elections of April 2004 and the presidential elections of November 2005. These two elections have seen a significant realignment of the Southern polity with the ascendancy of majoritarian nationalism, not only in the belief in a military solution to what is perceived as an essentially terrorist problem, but also in the rejection of any notion of political power-sharing apart from the most minimalist administrative decentralisation.
     
    Accordingly, we have seen the robust pursuit of counter-insurgency measures against the LTTE, with the government claiming victory in the East. The government vows similar commitment of purpose and conviction that the LTTE will be defeated in the North as well.
     
    Many believe that the Northern campaign is the litmus test for the hawks, in that while capturing the East is not unprecedented (although holding it would be), regaining and controlling the ethnically more homogenous North is another matter altogether.
     
    In a sense, this gravely misses the point, because conflict resolution is more about how the Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and others may coexist within a viable constitutional State, or indeed, peacefully separate, than about whether the LTTE or the government prevails in the battlefield. As the late Kethesh Loganathan used to frequently remind this writer, federalism in the Northeast is about a people and a region, not an organisation.
     
    Nevertheless, this is the current context that confronts any attempt at envisioning post-conflict possibilities for Sri Lanka. It is a context in which two nationalisms are pitted against each other, their differences sharpened and entrenched by armed conflict, and further complicated by factors such as the position of the Muslims, and Karuna’s assertion of Eastern Tamil distinctiveness.
     
    The ideological reversal of the federalists in Southern electoral politics and dismissal by the LTTE are made worse by what appears to be a distasteful reassertion of primordial ethno-nationalism, in which many of the liberals’ most cherished values are defiled and destroyed.
     
    It is clear in this context that what Sri Lankan liberal federalists face is not only a strategic challenge of popular persuasion; it is also a fundamentally theoretical challenge of how democratic politics and constitutionalism are conceptualised. It can be contended that the very idealism that characterises the liberal federalist project is also a failure to understand the real dynamics of ethno-nationalist politics, which has led to that project being totally sidelined.
     
    The challenge before liberals therefore is how to rationalise political conditions of competing nationalisms in a way that can promote conflict transformation. They are ill equipped to do so with their traditional theoretical tools such as individual autonomy and freedom of choice, because this discursive language clearly has no traction in the popular imagination of Sri Lankans of whichever ethnicity.
     
    This is why teleological liberal arguments about the need to conceptualise an overarching and inclusive Sri Lankan political identity based on liberal principles of justice such as equality, fairness and respect for diversity have failed.
     
    Of course, liberals have been concerned to recognise diversity and institutionally guarantee respect for it through federal autonomy of regions.
     
    But the flaw in this approach is that it elevates a politically deracinated conception of liberal democratic citizenship as the identity of the State, and relegates the more resonant sources of popular identity such as ethnicity to be dealt with regionally within federal structures.
     
    In this sense, liberal citizenship is actually a unitary ideology that conceives of a single, modern, values-based nation that must constitute the State. This reveals the liberal disdain for pre-modern notions of collective identity such as ethnicity, the persistence of which is an inconvenience that must be addressed through regional autonomy (suitably attenuated with human rights guarantees etc), in the wider interests of conflict management and peace, and not least in the hope that ethno-nationalism will one day wither away.
     
    It is not only in conflict-affected plural societies such as Sri Lanka that liberals become irrelevant because of this approach to Statehood; in prosperous and peaceful liberal democracies elsewhere, the experiences of Scotland, Quebec and Catalonia demonstrate that liberalism has had to make fundamental theoretical adaptations in order to rationalise powerful dynamics of sub-State nationalism.
     
    In Sri Lanka, what is clear is that armed conflict among nationalisms has consolidated a historically fragmented and plural society into two distinct polities. Any possibilities that were there for the constitutional accommodation of political space in the traditional liberal mould are now no longer available.
     
    The current military phase of the conflict will result in the consolidation of that separation, not unification of the polity, regardless of whether the LTTE (or indeed the State for that matter) is left standing at the end of it.
     
    The existence of multiple nationalisms therefore has to be taken at face value. Short of successful secession, the challenge before liberals then is about how to conceptualise Statehood that guarantees liberal values yet addresses the ground reality of plural nationalisms.
     
    It is essentially a modernising challenge of transforming hard and intolerant ethno-nationalisms into nationalisms that are collective identities which can coexist within a multinational State.
     
    Substantively, the departure from liberal orthodoxy lies in abandoning Sri Lankan nation-State building (i.e., the constitutional construction of a Sri Lankan political identity), as the principal purpose of post-conflict constitution-making.
     
    Likewise, traditional liberalism’s central principle of individualism needs reinterpretation in a way that accommodates intermediate ties of collective loyalty such as ethnicity, which intercede in the relationship between citizen and State.
     
    Structurally, the acrimony and division that has been generated by decades of military conflict, especially in the manner it has been and is conducted, has rendered conventional federal forms inadequate for the construction of a future Sri Lankan State.
     
    In this context, the future Sri Lankan identity can only be a minimalist legal personality. The political legitimacy of the State will need to be derived from the full and equal recognition of multiple nationalisms. Liberal individual autonomy can be guaranteed, but in the relationship between citizen and State, its exercise would be institutionally mediated through the self-determination of the sub-State nationalism to which the citizen belongs.
     
    Thus, federal-type arrangements in the architecture of State are not entirely rejected, but they would look more like a confederation than liberal federalists have so far been willing to countenance.
     
    It is only by overturning the unitary presumptions of liberal citizenship that underpin federal constitutionalism that liberals can hope to make any relevant intervention in conflict resolution in Sri Lanka.
     
    The danger of complete exclusion from the political process is that only liberals have the intellectual wherewithal to salvage democracy and human rights in a future constitutional settlement, which would otherwise be concluded by ethno-nationalists or conservatives.
     
    Needless to say, the ideas expressed here would be anathema to majoritarian nationalists in the South. However, the fact is that it is precisely their intolerance and myopia that has brought Sri Lanka to the present pass, and if that leads to secession, it is their problem.
     
    But for liberals, the challenge put simply is whether we are prepared to contemplate a multinational confederation, once the guns have fallen silent.
     
    Asanga Welikala is a Senior Research Associate at the Legal & Constitutional Unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), Colombo. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the CPA.
     
  • I am not a terrorist
    I believe the Tamil people have been, and continue to be, systematically discriminated against by the Sri Lankan state.
     
    I am not a terrorist.
     
    After decades of non-violent, political struggle was met with violent repression by Sri Lanka, I believe that armed-resistance was the only choice left to the Tamil people.
     
    I am not a terrorist.
     
    I believe a just peace can only be achieved in Sri Lanka if the Tamil people’s right to self-determination is recognised.
     
    I am not a terrorist.
     
    The conflict in Sri Lanka is not on the radar of most people in the West. The media only pick it up when there is something particularly horrendous or spectacular, or when it impinges upon the cricket or the beaches.
     
    The media coverage surrounding the recent arrests in Australia, the UK, France and the US reflects a global climate where the advocacy of minority rights and armed resistance to state-oppression is condemned. People who do so are labelled ‘extremists’ or ‘terrorist sympathisers’.
     
    The Colombo government has been able to use the language of terror to criminalise the Tamil population in Sri Lanka and in the Diaspora. Today the words Tamil and tiger go together as easily as Islamic and fundamentalist; as easily as Vietnam and war; as krispy and kreme.
     
    Like many young Tamils in the Diaspora I have struggled to reconcile my people’s armed struggle for freedom with the liberal values of my adopted home.
     
    It is a reflection of the times that I feel the need to say upfront that what I seek is peace with justice.
     
    Also, this is not a comment on matters currently before the courts.
     
    However, I hope this article will help form a more nuanced picture on what is being currently played out in the Diaspora.
     
    They need to be understood in the context of a foreign struggle. A struggle that the Western media seek to interpret through the lens of terror.
     
    I do not claim to speak for the entire Tamil community, like any community there are a range of views and voices.
     
    My ideas about the conflict have been shaped in two phases – the ‘angry brown man’ phase and the ‘intellectual brother’ phase.
     
    The ‘angry brown man’ phase lasted from my teens through to my second year of university. Feelings of teenage social exclusion and ‘otherness’ were fused with stories passed down through parents and grandparents. As a young man – mine is a gendered experience – I turned to the hip hop of Public Enemy and the romanticised resistance of the Tamil freedom struggle.
     
    However, I could not relate to the fiery passion of the older men; my liberal arts education made me question violence. I feared the label ‘radical’ or ‘extremist’.
     
    Then I did some post-graduate study on the conflict – what I like to call the ‘intellectual brother’ phase. Here I gained a deeper understanding of the roots of the conflict and was able to form an almost dispassionate position on the struggle. In 2002 I visited Sri Lanka for the first time in eighteen years.
     
    First the basics - the Tamils are fighting for an independent homeland in Sri Lanka following decades of discrimination. Over 70,000 of our people have been killed. A 2002 cease-fire brought a brief respite, but fighting has resumed since 2005.
     
    For many the history of the conflict begins in 1983 with the ambush of 13 Sri Lankan soldiers, for others it is the anti-Tamil race riots in the wake of that ambush. This may have been the start of the war, but the freedom struggle and the oppression it resists pre-dates this iconic moment.
     
    Today, the Sri Lankan government refers to `Tamil separatism’ and dare I say it ‘Tamil terrorism’. But these are but responses to the root cause of the problem-a racist ideology.
     
    It began in 1948 when the newly independent Ceylon deprived a million Tamils, who had worked the tea plantations for about 150 years, of their citizenship and then the vote.
     
    In 1956, the government passed the Sinhala Only Act declaring that ‘the Sinhala Language shall be the one and only official language of Sri Lanka’.  
     
    Frustrated by the government's failure to redress Tamil grievances, Tamil politicians stepped up their campaign of civil disobedience and protests.
     
    In 1971, the Government raised university entrance marks for Tamils. A Tamil had to score 250 marks to enter medicine or dentistry, while Sinhalese needed only 229. The logic was that the Tamils were over represented at university.
     
    In many Western countries, students of Asian origin are significantly over-represented in tertiary education. We do well because our parents see it as the only way for minority ethnians to get ahead in the white man’s world. Imagine if fifty years from now the white man feels discriminated against and ethnians have to get higher marks to get into university.
     
    Amid heightening tension and increasing militarism anti-Tamil violence erupted when 13 Sri Lankan soldiers were killed in an ambush by Tamil militants in July 1983. More than 3,000 Tamils were killed.
     
    These events have left a deep scar on the Tamil psyche. While the violence was not on the scale of the Holocaust – its effect on the Tamil people has been similar.
     
    Tamil militancy led in turn to increasingly ferocious crackdowns, arbitrary and retaliatory killings of Tamils and the disappearance of young Tamils in custody.
     
    As Tamils became vulnerable to ‘state terror’, more and more took to arms.
     
    In February 2002 the Sri Lankan Government the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam signed a ceasefire agreement (CFA) that brought to a halt two decades of war. The CFA had held for the best part of four years. However in the past 18 months Sri Lanka has slid inexorably into an undeclared, but all out war.
     
    The Tamil people have paid a high price for their dreams of freedom. The social fabric built on family and kin, music and dance, and an ethic of hard work has been torn to shreds as families have been separated by death and forced migration. Their homeland is dotted with orphanages and a whole generation has missed out on basic education.
     
    Why don’t I leave my war where I came from? I am burdened by the knowledge that it is a random twist of fate that has me fighting with the pen and not a rifle. The angry brown man phase would surely have taken me there.

    We are not terrorists.
  • Violence round up – week ending 1 July
    1 July

    • Four Tamil civilians, all residents of upcountry towns, were arrested by the Sri Lanka forces and police in Kandy and Gampaha in two separate cordon and search operations. The arrested were handed over to police stations and are being subjected to interrogation by the Terrorist Intelligence Division. Two Tamils arrested in Gampaha were taken into custody as they failed to provide satisfactory reason for their stay in the location, Police said. Two more Tamil civilians at Peradeniya in Kandy district were arrested as they were walking along the road close to Peradeniya depot of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation in suspicious manner, Police said. Both youths are residents of Nuwara Eliya.

    30 June

    • Gunmen shot dead Vallipuram Satgunarajah alias Nithiyananthan, 57, a father of four at Nelliyadi, Jaffna. The killers gunned down Satgunarajah, a former co-operative employee originally from Karaveddi and presently a trader in Thenmaraadchi, as he was returning with his wife after worshiping at a temple.

    • Rajaratnam Satheesh, 24, from Puttur was shot dead at Kalladi junction, Jaffna. He was followed whilst riding his bicycle along Kaladdi Raamanaathan road and shot in his head and chest before the gunmen escaped from the site. There was speculation that SLA Military Intelligence was behind the killing.

    • Four bodies were recovered in Mavilaru jungle area, Trincomalee, on information provided by local residents.

    • A young fisherman from Naavalar Veethi in Navanthurai, a suburb of Jaffna town, has been missing since going to Jaffna Teaching hospital for treatment, according to complaints made by his family to the SLHRC and ICRC in Jaffna. The fate of Arulnesan Jeftin, 20, remains unknown, his family said.

    • Mr. Samarasinghe, head of the Kandy office of SLHRC stated that he has received several complaints of abductions and disappearances of civilians in Kandy district.

    • Four civilians were found shot dead in eastern Sri Lanka, the military said. The bodies of the four farmers were found in a jungle in eastern Trincomalee district, an official at the Defense Ministry information center said on customary condition of anonymity citing policy. While the last two weeks have seen combat between the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and the LTTE, it is Tamil and Muslim civilians who have been the main victims of attacks.

    • The SLN said they found 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) of explosives in a truck in Colombo.

    29 June

    • Four Muslim villagers shot dead by Special Forces of the SLA in Maavilaaru, Serunuwara, were mistaken for LTTE cadres, two villagers who escaped the slaying told the media. The SLA has been conducting search operations in Maavilaaru to prevent LTTE cadre movement in the Thoppigala jungles. "We pleaded with the SLA soldiers not to kill us and that we were not members of the LTTE. But they fired at us killing four of us," the escaped fishermen told the media. The SLA handed over the four bodies to Kanthalaay hospital. When the relatives of the victims went to collect the bodies to the hospital they were told by the military officials that the LTTE had killed them. North Central Provincial Chief minister, Berty Premalal, told the relatives he will make arrangements to release the bodies. The National Security Media center had claimed the LTTE cadres "escaping from Thoppigala," shot and killed the four Sinhala civilians.

    • Gunmen triggered a claymore device targeting a Sri Lanka Transport Board bus in Cheddikkulam, Jaffna, injuring a SLA trooper and four civilians. The police claimed the LTTE was responsible for the attack.

    • Mohammed Hussein Mohammed, 34, a Mulsim trader from Kandy visiting Colombo for purchases of goods for resale, is missing, according to a report with the Colombo-based rights group, Civilian Monitoring Committee.

    • Sellan Nalliah, 53, and T. Velmurugan, 47, were seriously wounded in indiscriminate gunfire by SLA soldiers in Maasiyappiddi, Jaffna, after a claymore attack in which two soldiers were wounded.

    • Gunmen on two motor cycles, following Singaravel Logenthira, 29, and Subramaniam Ambihaipahan, 39, both residents of Aanaikkoaddai, Jaffna, as they rode their motor cycles, shot them dead in front of the former TRO office. The location is close to UNDP, UNHCR, UNICEF, ICRC offices in Temple Road, in the heart of the SLA HSZ in Jaffna. SLA troopers are present 24 hours guarding several International Organization offices. Three youths from Kachcheari-Nalloor road have been shot at the same location within the last three weeks.

    • SLA soldiers launched artillery, MBRL and motor attacks targeting the Puliyangkulam-Omanthai checkpoint, the entry point to the LTTE administered Vanni region. The attacks disrupted passenger traffic to and from LTTE controlled area through the checkpoint. SLA stationed at Vavuniya, Mannar and Manalaru fronts have been carrying out sporadic shelling towards Vanni region since the first week of June. The LTTE's Puliyangkulam checkpoint also has come under attack several times.

    • Kodithuwakku Pannasiri, 46, a SLA soldier, shot himself dead within the SLA camp at Polikandi coastal village in Vadamaraadchi north, Jaffna. The Officer-in-charge of the camp said in his statement to Point Pedro police that the trooper was distraught over not being granted leave. The magistrate said the body had suspicious injuries and directed the police to transfer the body to the Colombo for medical examinations.

    28 June

    • Gunmen shot and killed P. Nishanthan, a 16-year-old Tamil boy, at Siththaandi in Eravur. The painter had gone out to attend a festival at Maariamman temple.

    • Attackers triggered a claymore mine in Navanthurai, Jaffna, killing two SLA soldiers riding bicycles along Navaanthurai-Kakaithevu road, on the outskirts of Jaffna city. A SLA road patrol unit on bicycles was on its way to Kakkaithevu from Navanthurrai area when the claymore device was triggered by the attackers from an abandoned house near the Mosque in the area, Police said. Recently, 3 SLA troopers were killed and one seriously injured in a similar claymore attack at Eechchamoaddai area, situated within Jaffna Municipality limits.

    • The SLAF bombed Nedunkeni but casualty details were not known.

    • Gunmen armed with pistols shot dead Sangarapillai Sivakanthan 29, a pavement fancy-goods seller in front of Poobalasingham Book Shop, at the entrance to Jaffna Central Bus Terminus and next to Jaffna Teaching Hospital, in the SLA HSZ. The killers left the site of crime, in close proximity to several SLA sentry points, without showing any great haste, raising suspicion of SLA complicity in the killing.

    • Thillainathan Uthayakumar, 35, the chairman of the TNA Thirukovil Pradeshya Sabah in Amparai was assassinated outside his residence at Vinaayakapuram, Akkaraippattu. Gunmen took him away from his house and killed him by lobbing a grenade at him 100 meters away from his house. The assassination of the TNA politician comes after press reports in Colombo that the Government was planning for a new election in the East

    • SLAF fighter jets bombed two Tamil Tiger camps in the island’s far north, the military said, the second batch of air strikes in three days, but there were no immediate details of any casualties.

    27 June

    • A SLS FDL post between SLA controlled Thalliadi and LTTE controlled territory in Mannar was attacked by the LTTE. Five SLA troopers were killed in the pre-dawn attack, the LTTE claimed, adding that the FDL post, 500 meters from the Thallaadi SLA base, was destroyed in the attack.

    • The SLN shot dead a youth during a cordon and search operation at Ward No: 8 of Pesalai, Mannar. The SLN said they shot dead an unidentified youth in retaliation when he and another opened fire on the SLN troops. The other youth fled from the scene and a T-56 rifle was recovered from the site, the SLN said.

    26 June

    • Four men, Vadivel Raveendra, 32, Sinnathamby Sivanathan, 27, Nadarasa Jegatheeswaran, 24, and Navarathinarasa Ketheeswaran, 21, all daily wage earners, have been reported missing from Meesalai, Kodikamam and Inuvil areas, officials at the SLHRC in Jaffna, said citing complaints made by relatives. Raveendra and Sivanathan, both residents of Choalaiyamman Koayiladi in Meesaalai south, had been reporting to the SLA civil administration office in Chavakachcheri since May 23 to sign a register on SLA orders. Raveendra was not seen after June 23 and Sivanathan disappeared on June 16, both after signing the SLA registers. Jegatheeswaran was reported missing after he left for work on June 21 from his home at Inuvil. Ketheeswaran from Manthuvil, Kodikamam, was detained by the SLA and interrogated on June 16, and was ordered to report and sign the register at Kodikaamam SLA civil administration office. He has not been seen after he went to the Kodikamam office to record his signature.

    • P. Suhirthan, 23, a resident of Railway Station Road, Kokkuvil, Jaffna, is missing, feared abducted, after he left home in the morning to visit his relatives, according to a complaint by his family at the Jaffna office of the SLHRC.

    25 June

    • The SLA and police conducted a cordon and search operation in Pallimunai and Uppukulam villages in Mannar. Every house was searched during the operation and all vehicles passing through the areas were stopped and searched.


  • Increasing threat to Sri Lanka journalists
    International media watchdogs expressed their growing concern for the safety of journalists and the sanctity of media freedom in Sri Lanka.

    “Pressures on the media have multiplied over the recent months with increasing fears for the safety of journalists, especially those operating in the embattled North and East”, the International Media Group (IMG) said in a press statement.

    The group visited Sri Lanka between June 17 and 23 to discuss issues related to media freedom in the country.

    “There appears to be complete lack of progress in the investigation of cases of murdered and attacked journalists, and no suspect in such attacks has been taken to court since the current president came to office,” the IMG report notes.

    The media group statement also notes that since August 2005, eleven media workers have been killed, including Subash Chandraboas of the Tamil monthly, Nilram, and Selvarajah Rajivarman, of the Tamil language Uthayan newspaper. Both men were murdered in Sri Lanka government-controlled areas.

    The increasing hostility of the authorities towards the media and the willingness of the individual ministers to verbally attack for the perceived failings are encouraging a climate of self-censorship, the IMG report also notes.

    “In Jaffna the government has restricted the passage of newsprint and ink to the city’s Tamil media”, the report notes.

    The majority of the Jaffna population lack access to internet and most people depend on daily newspapers for their local information, residents said.

    The Centre for Policy Alternatives submitted a report to the International Media Group stating that “cabinet minister Champika Ramawaka had publicly advocated the brutal suppression of dissent, even through extrajudicial means,” the Hindustan Times newspaper reported.

    “Newspaper offices in Tamil-speaking Jaffna had been attacked with guns and bombs by pro-government Tamil armed groups,” the paper said.

    Within the past week, a Tamil journalist working for Thinakkural daily was assaulted by a group of airmen after being taken into a Buddhist temple in the High Security Zone in Fort in Colombo, TamilNet reported. He was on his way to cover an event at the nearby Presidential Secretariat.

    The safety of media workers was also highlighted by other watchdogs.

    “Of most concern to the mission is the continued targeted killing of media workers,” Jacqueline Park, director of the International Federation of Journalists, was quoted by Reuters as saying.

    “What's most worrying is the impunity, the fact that none of these cases are being investigated and being brought to court,” she said.

    "We were given assurances that the cases would be investigated," she added. "Eleven journalists and media workers have been killed since August 2005."

    The “[Sri Lanka] Army-held northern Jaffna peninsula [is] among the most dangerous places in the world to cover,” Reuters quoted the international press freedom mission that included Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists as saying.

    The mission called on President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government, under mounting pressure from the international community on human rights amid mushrooming abuses, to safeguard media workers during a raging propaganda war.

    The government has already ruled out one of the group's demands - that a United Nations human rights monitoring mission be brought to the island.

    “There is still an attempt by all groups to intimidate and harass the media, and that is having a very real effect -- a chilling effect -- on press freedom,” Park added.

    “Our message is very clear. The responsibility for creating a secure working environment lies with the government and it needs to do this by not tolerating any attacks or killings of journalists and media workers.”

    “What we found is in the government-controlled areas there is a general feeling of fear and it has a huge impact on the way the people living in the Jaffna region can get access to information,” said Vincent Brossel of Reporters Without Borders.

    “There is no political will to investigate such crimes and that is perpetrating a feeling of fear among the Jaffna journalists,” he added, referring to killings.

    Reporters Without Borders also called on the government to stop censoring the TamilNet website, local access to which has been blocked for days.

    Though Sri Lanka's government and military both denied they had ordered internet service providers to block www.tamilnet.com, Sri Lanka's leading mobile operator Dialog Telekom, which also offers internet services, told Reuters that it had blocked access to the site on the orders of the government.

    “Tamilnet is a source of news and information that is known throughout the world and for the past 10 years its coverage of Sri Lanka's civil war has proved essential,” Reporters Without Borders said.

    “The government must put a stop to this censorship and restore access to the site at once.”

    TamilNet’s editor, Dharmaretnam Sivaram, was murdered in 2005. He was one of six Tamil journalists and five other Tamil media workers killed since 2004, according to the Free Media Movement.

    The government denied any wrongdoing. “The government has nothing to do with this,” Media Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said. Another minister joked he wished he could hire some hackers to block TamilNet.

    IMG recommended the government amend or revoke various pieces of legislation that it said failed to meet international standards on press freedom of expression.

    The recent visit by the IMG was a follow up session to the initial mission that began in October 2006 to assess the impact of the conflict on the media.

    The initial report, Press Freedom and Freedom of expression in Sri Lanka: Struggle for Survival, published in January 2007, found that media, especially the Tamil Media was “under heavy and sustained attack”. This session was aimed at monitoring the progress so far.

  • Concerns over evidence in aid workers’ murder inquiry
    There may have been evidence tampering in the investigation into the murder of seventeen aid workers killed in Sri Lanka, an international body observed last week.

    Seventeen workers of Action Contre La Faim (Action Against Hunger) were murdered in Muttur in August last year, in the midst of heavy fighting between the Sri Lankan military and the Liberation Tigers.

    While the government initially blamed the Tigers, international monitors accused government soldiers, and government officials too have in recent months begun to accept ‘some soldiers’ may have been responsible.

    The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the body of lawyers observing the government inquiry into the murders, raised concerns over the evidence in the murder investigation via an “addendum” to their original report on the investigation.

    Their concerns centered on reports by two pathologists into the caliber of bullets found in the bodies.

    A government pathologist said eight bullets found in seven bodies were 7.62 calibre, which contradicted a report from an Australian pathologist that one of the eight bullets was 5.56 calibre.

    Consequently, the ICJ report concluded, “there is therefore evidence to indicate that the 5.56 calibre bullet was removed from the evidence submitted as exhibits to the Kantale Magistrate, and that another bullet of a different type was substituted”.

    “5.56 calibre bullets are used in M-16 riffles and that Sri Lankan Special Task Force and some Special Forces within the army and navy are known to use such weapons, and also the members of a naval special force armed with M-16s were reportedly in Muttur in early August of 2006,” the report also notes.

    The ICJ report has reinforced a perception that aid workers operating in the Northeast are increasingly more threatened, with a rising number of attacks against them, and a lack of basic protection and support.

    Local press reports suggest many aid workers are leaving the northeast for their own safety.

    Just last month another aid worker was shot dead in the east. A Sri Lankan guard in Trincomalee shot a Filipino man from the US charity Mercy Corps as he was walking along the beach. This followed the abduction of two local Red Cross staff earlier in the month.

    Further, press reports suggest members of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces and unidentified armed persons continue to intimidate and threaten other local humanitarian staff, especially employees from Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission (SLHRC) based in Tamil areas.

    Police officers at Jaffna University stopped a SLHRC official vehicle and harassed the officials inside, interrogating them for nearly half an hour according to press reports last week.

    Similarly, Sri Lanka Army soldiers manning a check post in Panai, Jaffna stopped a SLHRC vehicle and carried out a thorough checking, lasting for about half an hour, claiming they suspected explosives hidden in the vehicle.

    Though SLHRC staff have complained to senior army officials, no disciplinary action has been taken, the press reports said.

    This has resulted in many SLHRC coordinating officers serving in the Jaffna peninsula leaving or contemplating relocation as they fear for their lives if they continue to serve in the north.

  • Government blocking UN’s Vanni fuel supplies
    The United Nations is accusing the Sri Lankan government of starving its humanitarian agencies of much-needed fuel to operate vehicles and also generators which power freezers storing life-saving vaccines and other medicines.

    The continued power shortages, caused by lack of fuel, will soon affect the preservation of vaccines and essential medicines, the UN warned in a letter to Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa.

    The UN, which is engaged in the humanitarian task of providing relief supplies to refugees caught in the crossfire in the north-east, says its operational activities are expected to come to a complete standstill unless there is urgent action.

    In the letter to Mr. Rajapaksa, the UN's Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Frederick Lyons says that since March "none of the UN offices in the Vanni has received their fuel allocation, despite the written approval received from the Commissioner General for Essential Services (CGES) for April, May and now June."

    "This unfortunate situation has compelled all UN agencies in the Vanni to reduce their operations dramatically, and cut the usage of generators and vehicles," Mr. Lyons said in the letter to Rajapaksa.

    The UN agencies operating in the north-east include the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the UN Development Programme and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

    The letter also said that although some of the fuel allocations had been approved (with copies of letters of approval to the Chief of Defence Staff Joint Operations), the Ministry of Defence had failed to provide clearance for shipment and delivery through the checkpoint at Omanthai.

    The letter, dated June 15, also points out that the WFP office in Kilinochchi "has now just enough fuel for four to five days under minimum operation procedures and has now started shutting down its generators at night."

    The letter also warns that UN offices will soon be deprived of basic power supply and communications. "This in turn will seriously affect staff security."

  • UN Security Council condemns Sri Lanka abuses
    Sri Lanka was placed in the same league as Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia at a UN session last month, with members calling on the International Criminal Court of Justice to play a more prominent role.

    Speaking at the at the June 22 briefing of the UN Security Council, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere of France said that his country was extremely concerned that civilians were increasingly targeted and that "humanitarian space" was no longer a sanctuary.

    He invited States that had not yet ratified the two Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions to do so as soon as possible and said that impunity must be ended.

    "In addition, from Darfur to Iraq and Sri Lanka, millions of displaced people needed protection. He expressed great concern over attacks against humanitarian personnel and journalists, who must be protected using relevant Security Council resolutions," the Security Council said quoting Sabliere.

    Sabliere added that unimpeded access should be provided to vulnerable populations and that the Council must be informed of obstacles to humanitarian assistance.

    Karen Pierce, the United Kingdom representative, aligning her statement with the one made by Germany on behalf of the European Union, said ensuring the protection of civilians was central to the Council’s work.

    She added that gender based violence was rampant and millions were displaced while humanitarian workers and journalists were being attacked. She also expressed concern over the impact on civilians in Burma, Sri Lanka and Somalia.

    German representative Michael Von Ungern-Sternberg noted that while the number of conflicts had gone down, the number of civilians suffering due to armed conflict was on the rise. He also said parties to conflicts were increasingly disregarding respect for basic humanitarian law.

    "The growing number of journalists being killed was also extremely disturbing, as was the number of humanitarian personnel being killed and attacked while on mission to help people in need,” he said.

    “In that regard, he strongly condemned the recent killing of two workers of the Lebanese Red Cross, two Red Cross workers in Sri Lanka, two United Nations workers in Gaza, a member of Médecins sans Frontières in the Central African Republic, a member of Caritas International in Darfur and all other killings of humanitarian personnel," the Security Council quoted Ungern-Sternberg as saying.

    International human rights law continued to be applicable to everyone within the jurisdiction of the State concerned in time of armed conflict Ungern-Sternberg said, adding that Council resolution 1612 set an enhanced framework for the protection of children in armed conflict.

    International humanitarian law urged all parties to allow full, unimpeded access by humanitarian personnel to civilians in need of assistance.

    Canadian representative John Mcnee, who also spoke on behalf of Australia and New Zealand, said the protection of civilians was not a theoretical debate and that men, women and children were being deliberately targeted by warring parties.

    "Men, women and children continued to be the deliberate targets of warring parties and terrorist entities in Darfur, Afghanistan, Northern Uganda, Lebanon, Somalia and Sri Lanka, among other areas. The Council has given much laudable attention to the topic, but words must continue to be turned into deeds," he said.

  • Sri Lanka intensifies war, exaggerates casualties, increases recruitment - paper
    While war preparations are widening, the ongoing undeclared war in between the government and the LTTE is taking an increasingly heavy toll on the truth, as casualty figures become part of the war effort, a Sri Lankan defence column reported last week.

    “Adding statistics of claimed guerrilla deaths as well as injuries in the recent months would have surpassed the numbers military top brass give as the total strength of the LTTE,” Sri Lanka’s leading defence columnist said in his weekly column.

     The Sri Lankan military has advanced its FDL, enroaching into Tiher held land. Graphics Sunday Times.
    Writing in the Situation Report column of the Sunday Times newspaper, Iqbal Athas notes that the military was also tight lipped about their own casualties.

    The columnist notes that the Sri Lankan military is intensifying its actions in the northeast.

    “The focus of such action in the North in the recent weeks is the Wanni region, areas ahead of the defended localities of the Security Forces west of the Omanthai entry-exit point. [The Sri Lankan military] had in fact re-adjusted their Forward Defence Lines (FDL) further to the front from their original position,” his column reported.

    “On June 2, the 56 Division (four battalions) and 57 Division (seven battalions) launched a limited pre-dawn operation to seize more terrain. The general areas of Villatikulam, North and North West of the village of Kalmadu (already under Security Forces control) were the scenes of fierce battles,” the Situation Report stated, siting an example of an actual clashes in the north.

    “By 8 a.m. that day, Tiger guerrillas launched a counter attack. Groups of guerrillas confronted the troops almost head on. Heavy fighting continued for over seven hours. Troops were forced to make a tactical withdrawal,” the column reported.

    “Later that evening, the guerrillas fired 130 mm artillery. More than 800 of the Army's own 130 mm artillery shells were destroyed after one of them fell at a storage area south east of Pompeimadu. It led to deafening explosions and a massive bonfire,” the column noted.

    “The Sunday Times has learnt from highly placed Army sources that five officers and 67 soldiers were killed. A further two officers and 24 soldiers are declared missing in action. Twenty officers and 298 soldiers were wounded in action,” the defence columnist reported.

    “These sources claimed that 800 guerrillas were killed and a further 700 were wounded. The claims of guerrilla casualties, no doubt, are on the higher side,” he noted in the column.

    Moving to clashes in the east, Mr Athas states: “Another operation to seize areas in and around Baroni’s Cap or Thoppigala - Narakamulla began on June 8. Before the crack of dawn that day, commandos ventured into guerrilla-held area to launch attacks on their camps. Some of the camps were captured and later destroyed. By 7.30 a.m. ahead of the villages of Panjimarathadi and Narakamulla, the guerrillas launched fierce counter attacks. By evening troops were forced to make a tactical withdrawal to their original positions north of Rugam.”

    “The next day troops fired artillery at guerrilla positions. It drew retaliatory fire. In the days that followed, they gradually advanced to encompass the area. Bitter fighting continues,” he wrote.

    “In the fighting 15 soldiers have been killed. Six officers and 142 soldiers have been wounded, according to highly placed Army sources,” the column noted.

    “These sources claimed 400 guerrillas were killed and 100 more were wounded. Here again the number is on the higher side. If past guerrilla casualties in the East were added to these figures, it would have exceeded the [military estimates of] guerrilla strength there,” the Situation Report column noted.

    The defence columnist also noted that the armed forces “have embarked on a programme to enhance their strength by 50,000.”

    “The Army will recruit 25,000 more whilst the Navy will recruit 15,000 and the Air Force 10,000,” he wrote.

    “The Sri Lanka Army now has an approved cadre of over 100,000. That strength, at least on paper, exceeds the strength of the British Army. However, Since January 1, 2005 until April 20, 2007, Army records reveal that a total of 93 officers and 10,060 other ranks have deserted their posts,” he notes.

    “Some availed themselves of periodic general amnesties. The last general amnesty from January 20 to February 12 this year saw a total of 3979 (2758 regulars and 1221 volunteers) return to service. Added to these are the vacancies caused by troops killed or left out of battle due to injuries,” the defence column said.

    “Enhancing the strength of the Army has drawn mixed reactions from serving senior officers,” the columnist said.

    “Some are of the view that existing battalions, with some exceptions, are under strength. Whilst the ideal strength was 855 troops per battalion, there were some with a strength of 400 to 500 troops. Hence, they were of the view that depleted battalions should be merged and made full strength to ensure the maximum utilisation of resources,” the column said.

    “But others held a different view,” the defence columnist noted.

    “Though depleted, allowing the battalions to remain that way, they argue, enabled them (though small in number) to obtain their entitlements. More importantly, it also means an increase in the number of officer cadres thus throwing open the doors for rapid promotions,” he wrote.

    “When the new recruitment drive is over, the total military strength – Army, Navy, Air Force, Police, Special Task Force, Home Guards would be over 300,000,” the column reported.

    Mr. Athas also focused on the increasing focus by the military on their propaganda.

    “Whilst stepping up the military offensives in the North and the East, the defence establishment is now devising new ways and means of heightening their publicity drives,” he wrote.

    “This is particularly in the light of political developments that have generated adverse publicity and thus given them a poor public image. Top rungers in the defence establishment believe fresh initiatives to project the "vast military gains" would reverse this situation,” he notes.

    “One such measure is to brief members of the clergy representing important temples in the country. Military top brass are to give them a full briefing next week on successes in the North and East and the plans that have gone in so far to "defeat" the LTTE. The idea is to get them to go back to their towns and villages and tell the public there of what they have learnt,” he wrote.

    The defence columnist also reported that even as the military steps up its action in the northeast, Sri Lanka’s President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has continued to state his opposition to a military solution.

    "I do not want to pursue a military solution. I want to talk with the LTTE without any pre-conditions. Velupillai Prabhakaran must convey his moves and not others," the column quoted President Mahinda Rajapaksa as having told the Norwegian facilitators.

    In response to a question on what the government of Sri Lankan wanted from the Norwegian government, Mr Rajapaksa “made clear if there was an assurance from the LTTE leader that guerrilla attacks would cease, the Government would follow suit,” the Sunday Times column said.

    The Situation Report column said the President had urged Norway to continue its efforts to bring the LTTE to the negotiation table.

    But the President also did not favour an immediate visit to Sri Lanka by Special Envoy Jon Hanssen Bauer, the paper said.

    “President Rajapaksa was of the view that Norway should make contact with the LTTE leadership from Oslo since a visit at this juncture would not be opportune,” the column said.

    “Even if he did not say so, the Government would have found it difficult to facilitate such a visit in the coming weeks,” the paper noted, adding “there was heightened military activity in southern parts of the Wanni, particularly west of the A-9 highway. It would have necessitated the suspension of such activity, a move that would have drawn protests from military commanders.”

    “In his first dialogue with Norway's peace facilitators after a break of over a year, President Rajapaksa, has made it unequivocally clear the war on the LTTE will continue. This is not withstanding his assertion that he was not committed to a military solution,” the paper noted.

    This stance leaves Norway with only “remote control diplomacy” Mr. Athas noted, adding “the peace facilitator has heard the Government of Sri Lanka in Geneva and not in Colombo. And the President has told them they could hear the LTTE by making contacts from Norway. A visit to Sri Lanka has thus been stalled.”

    “In reality, Norway's peace facilitator role has been, at least for now, temporarily confined to outside the shores of Sri Lanka,” the Sunday Times column said.

    “Added to that, the second arm of the peace facilitator mechanism, the role of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) has also become curtailed,” the Mr. Athas noted in his Situation Report column.

    Citing the fact that the SLMM has declared it would no longer issue rulings, the defence columnist notes: “The [SLMM] spokesperson insisted that the decision not to issue rulings was made by the SLMM and not at the instance of anyone in the Government.”

    "This is mainly because of the extended number of incidents. We cannot pretend to know every one of them," Thorfinnur Omarsson, media spokesperson for the SLMM told The Sunday Times.

    "This temporary move, however, did not mean the SLMM will not monitor the ceasefire. We will cover the incidents, have them in our database and issue our own reports," he was quoted as adding.

  • New eastern security zone 'discriminates against Tamils'
    Calling it a “blatant violation of the fundamental human rights of the Tamil people”, the leader of the Tamil National Alliance condemned a Sri Lankan government move to establish a new high security zone in Muthur East and Sampur in Trincomalee.

    The establishment of a Security Zone around Trincomalee harbour will deny several thousands of Tamil families to settle on their ancesteral lands.
    Mr. R. Sampanthan, a Tamil MP for Trincomalee, charged that the new security restrictions would deny Tamils “their fundamental right to resettle on the lands owned and possessed by them” and urged Colombo to rescind the regulations in a speech delivered in parliament on July 20.

    An edited version of the text of his speech follows:

    The President has promulgated regulations which state that there shall be a Zone, to be called “Muthur (East) / Sampoor High Security Zone.”

    A great deal of uncertainty and confusion prevails in regard to the regulations.

    The regulations constitute a blatant violation of the fundamental human rights of the Tamil people, who have historically inhabited these areas, and are deliberately discriminatory against them on grounds of race.

    The implementation of the regulations could result in several thousands of Tamil families, who have been historical inhabitants of several ancient Tamil villages in the areas, and who were displaced by the indiscriminate aerial bombardment and multi barrel rocket launcher fire in the course of military operations in the areas by the Sri Lankan State, being denied their fundamental right to resettle on the lands owned and possessed by them, to carry on their livelihood, and pursue their economic social and cultural aspirations in the villages.

    This is their birthright and cannot be denied to them.

    This action has been capriciously taken by the Sri Lankan State without any form of consultation with the Tamil people or their democratically elected representatives.

    This action if pursued will inflict immeasurable and irreparable harm to the lives of these thousands of Tamil families and their descendants.

    We therefore call upon the Government:
    (I) to refrain from taking any steps to implement the said regulations and
    (II) to take steps to rescind the said regulations.

    So that these thousands of Tamil families can resettle on their lands possessed and owned by them in the villages, and recommence their lives.

    This Gazette notification seems quite vague and quite confusing in regard to several matters.

    Be that as it may, it would appear that the area covered by the Gazette notification, which has been declared a high security zone, would cover approximately 50 percent of the present Muthur Divisional Secretary's Division.

    The present Muthur Divisional Secretary’s Division is 179.4 square kilometers in territory, and if it would cover 50 percent of that territory, it would appear that this high security zone would encompass about 90 square kilometers of territory, which is a very substantial extent of land.

    That is the extent of land which apparently is covered by these regulations and which has been declared a high security zone, if these regulations are implemented in the way in which it is proposed.

    There are within this territory 12 Grama Sevaka Divisions. There are 28 villages comprising of 4249 families and making a total population of 15648 people. I will not read out the names of the Grama Sevaka Divisions nor the names of the villages.

    In these villages there are 19 schools, and one of them is Chenaiyoor Central College which is the most leading educational institution in the entire Muthur area.

    In these 19 schools, several thousands of children, according to my information approximately 5000 to 6000 children, are being educated.

    In this area, which is supposed to be declared as a high security zone, 18 Hindu Temples and one Methodist Church are situated.

    This area has 88 minor tanks under which people cultivate. It has grazing lands meant for the livestock owned by the people in the area, which is approximately 2000 hectares in extent.

    Farming, fishing and livestock breeding are the main occupation and source of income of these people. There are several fishing villages in this area comprising of a large number of families who depend upon fishing.

    There are two hospitals in the area. One is the Sampoor Hospital and the other one is the Paddalipuram Hospital.

    If this high security zone concept or proposal is to be implemented in this area, I would earnestly request the House to visualize the havoc, the utter havoc, that would be created in the lives of these large number of people living in that area.

    We are also very concerned because of the impression that is sought to be created by certain very highly placed Government persons that this Sampoor area was indeed a Sinhalese village in ancient times.

    In fact I do not mind mentioning on the Floor of this House, that some diplomats have inquired from me, and asked me about the correct position on the basis of some statements made to them by persons in high Government positions.

    This has become a matter of grave concern to us and I therefore want to put the record straight, and put the matter beyond doubt, for these are not matters which can be allowed to be left in the realm of doubt, and in the realm of myth, for people to play around with.

    I have with me the Gazette of the Census of Ceylon 1881 where it is stated that there were in 1881 four Wannivar Divisions- Assistant Government Agent’s Divisions - in the Trincomalee District.

    The first was Trincomalee Town, the second is Kaddukulampattu the third is Kottiarpattu and the fourth is Thampalakamampattu, and this entire area Sampoor and Muthur East area comes within the Kottiarpattu Wannivar’s Division or the Kottiarpattu AGA’s Division.

    According to the Census of 1881, the population breakdown ethnic-wise in the Kottiarpattu Division is as follows: Europeans – 01, Eurasians and Burghers – 13 (Males – 07, Females –06), Sinhalese -11 (Males – 11, Females – none), Tamils – 3027, (Males – 1646, Females – 1381), Moormen Muslims 1673 (Males – 881, Females – 792), Veddas – 38, (Males – 21, Females – 17).

    I have with me the Census of 1827, based upon religion and according to that, the Hindus were 14,182, the Buddhists were 250, the Moors were 3245 and the Christians were 1481, in the whole of the Trincomalee District. Most of the Christians would have been Tamils. What is important is that the Hindus all of whom would have been Tamils were 14,182, and the Buddhists all of whom would have been Sinhalese were 250.

    I am only mentioning these figures because as I said before, there is the need for this confusion and these myths that were growing in the minds of these people to be dispelled, and they should realize that they have been seriously mistaken in expressing this point of view to some diplomats and others with whom they have discussed this matter.

    We are concerned also because the Government thinks that there are certain security considerations which need to be addressed. It is our view that such Security considerations can be addressed without a severe and total denial of the fundamental human rights of the long standing Tamil Civilian residents of these areas.

    The Government action is indicative of a total lack of sensitivity to the rights of the Tamil Civilian population and is strongly reflective of anti-Tamil racial discrimination.

    The Government is insensitive to such severe and total denial and deprivation of civilian rights, because the civilians are Tamils.

    The Government has not and will not on grounds of security, inflict such denial and deprivation on the Sinhala civilian population.

    This leads me to the more fundamental question of why this distinction exists in the mind of the Government, between the Sinhalese and the Tamils relating to security.


    Is it not, for the simple reason, that you have not accommodated diversity, and pluralism, and recognised the most fundamental human right of the Tamil people, the right to internal self determination in the areas of their historical habitation?

    It is this failure on your part that compels the Tamil people to disaffect and rebel, more particularly the Tamil Youth to rebel.

    Have you honestly and meaningfully addressed the cause of such disaffection? Is not the solution, the granting of substantial self-rule to the Tamil speaking people, in the territories in which they have historically lived and are in a majority?

    Your lack of will, or ability, to do the correct thing drives you to confiscate and expropriate the land, the property, which belongs to these Tamil people and which they have historically inhabited. You will not stop at that, indeed with such thinking, you cannot stop at that.

    Your task, in accordance with your thinking, will be fully accomplished only when this land, this property, of the Tamil people, is occupied by Sinhala people of your choice.

    The Tamil people see this move of your’s as yet another step to spread your tentacles into the Tamil speaking historical habitation.

    It is my duty to state, that such diabolical action on your part cannot and will not achieve either of your objectives; neither the security you seek, nor the Sinhalisation of Tamil speaking territory, both of which you believe can be achieved through military aggression.

    But in the process, the Tamil civilian population is being grievously victimised. Such action on the part of the State can only be described as heinous.

    It is also my duty to state, that security can be achieved only through a just and honourable peace- and this is not achievable by mere words – by empty rhetoric, it is achievable only through action, primarily by the Sri Lankan State that demonstrates a strong commitment to a just and honourable peaceful resolution of the conflict.

    We call upon the Government to facilitate the resettlement of the displaced Tamil civilians on the lands from which they were displaced. Nothing less would be acceptable.

    [The people] have been evicted as a result of military action, and now you are contemplating to keep them out completely, by declaring this area, 90 square kilometers of territory, 50 per cent of the Muthur AGA's Division, as a High Security Zone, so as to ensure that these people will not be able to return and live in those territories.

    And thus these people will be denied the right to lead a decent life as human beings, to carry on their livelihood, their farming, their fishing, their livestock breeding, have their children educated, and pursue their economic social and cultural aspirations in the area in which they and their ancestors have lived for generations and centuries - and in which their descendents, will continue to reside for many more centuries and generations to come.

    If the Government persists in its proposal to retain this area as a high security zone, and to keep these people out of this area, it would mean that the Government is deliberately engaged in a policy of ethnic cleansing, of keeping Tamils out from areas, which they have historically inhabited and the Government would render itself liable to the charge of deliberate ethnic cleansing in these areas.

    I would appeal to the Government to abandon this idea, to refrain from implementing this proposal, to discuss this matter with the democratically elected Members of this area and arrive at a solution which will not result in the people being harmed in this way.

    The Government should reverse their decision and decide not to proceed with this proposal.
  • Two charged in UK for supporting LTTE
    Two Tamils in Britain were charged last Wednesday under the Terrorism Act 2000 with providing support to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is proscribed in UK.

    Arunachalam Chrishanthakumar, (also known as ‘AC Shanthan’), 50, and Goldan Lambert, 29 appeared at City of Westminster Magistrates Court last Thursday.

    According to details released by the British Police, Mr. Chrishanthakumar is charged with five counts. Two of the charges are linked to his alleged role in organising a mass rally last July to mark the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka.

    The single charge against Mr. Lambert is that he was also involved in organising the event.

    The rally on July 25, 2006 was attended by 15,000 Tamils in UK.

    The pair are due to appear again at Westminster Magistrates; Court on 9 August when their pleas against the charges will be entered.

    At the end of the court appearance last Thursday Mr. Chrishanthakumar was remanded in custody, while Mr. Lambert was released on bail.

    The charges against Mr. Chrishanthakumar are:

    “1. For that you between the 1st day of June 2006 and the 26th day of July 2006 within the Greater London area assisted in the arrangement of a meeting which you knew was to support a proscribed organisation namely the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Contrary to Section 12(2)a and (6) of the Terrorism Act 2000

    “2. For that you on the 25th day of July 2006 in a public place, namely Hyde Park London, addressed a meeting and the purpose of the address was to encourage support for a proscribed organisation, namely the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Contrary to Section 12(3) and (6) of the Terrorism Act 2000

    “3. For that you on or about the 24th day of January 2005 within the Greater London Area received £1500 intending that it be used or having reasonable cause to suspect that it may be used for the purposes of terrorism Contrary to Section 15(2) and Section 22 of the Terrorism Act 2000

    “4. For that you between the 17th day of January 2006 and the 22nd June 2007 within the Greater London Area received a quantity of literature and manuals including Underwater Warfare Systems, Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Naval Weapons Systems, six trenching spades, thirty nine compasses and a piece of ballistic body armour intending that they be used or having reasonable cause to suspect that they may be used for the purposes of terrorism Contrary to Section 15(2) and Section 22 of the Terrorism Act 2000

    “5. For that you between the 23rd day of January 2005 and the 22nd day of June 2007 within the Greater London Area belonged or professed to belong to a proscribed organisation, namely the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Contrary to Section 11(1) and (3) of the Terrorism Act 2000”

    The charge against Mr. Lambert is: “you on the 25th day of July 2006 at Hyde Park London assisted in managing a meeting which you knew was to support a proscribed organisation, namely the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Contrary to Section 12(2)a and (6) of the Terrorism Act 2000.”

    The Sri Lankan press had earlier reported that two Tamils had been arrested in Britain on suspicion of connections to the Liberation Tigers, but at that time the Police in the UK would only say that two unnamed men have been detained on suspicion of providing support to a banned organisation they did not name.

    The arrests were made late on Thursday two weeks ago, from two different locations in London, the BBC reported, adding the men were being held under British anti-terror laws which meant they could be held for 14 days without charge.

    "Two men, aged 29 and 50, were arrested on 21 June - one in west London and the other in south-west London," Metropolitan Police spokesman Alastair Campbell told the BBC

    "They were arrested on suspicion of providing support to a proscribed organisation... and taken to a central London police station, where they remain in custody,” he said.

    "Some addresses in various locations in London are being searched in connection with the enquiry."

    This is the first time that people of Tamil origin have been detained and charged in the UK under the Terrorism Act. But the move comes after the arrests in separate incidents of Tamils in France, Australia and the United States on charges of supporting the LTTE.

  • Co-chairs refuse to sanction Sri Lanka; give more time
    Sri Lanka’s main foreign donors last week declined to issue a statement, but also decided against sanctioning Sri Lanka for its human rights abuses.

    Top diplomats from Japan, Norway, the United States and European Union - known collectively as the Co-Chairs - meet in Oslo Tuesday last week at a time when Sri Lanka's relations with the international community are increasingly strained.

    Among the items discussed at the June 25 meeting was the possibility of sanctions against Sri Lanka, diplomatic sources said.

    However, Japan and the United States had argued strongly against such a move. And as a result, the co-chairs agreed to give Sri Lanka more time, political columnists from Colombo quoted diplomatic sources as saying.

    This latest phase of the war has been marked by widespread human rights abuses, for which most blame has been laid at the government's doors.

    "Human rights and humanitarian affairs are definitely the issues of the day," Reuters quoted a foreign diplomat as saying on condition of anonymity.

    "It's fair to say that some of the Co-Chairs are still very much concerned about the situation in those fields today and will be focusing on that in the time to come."

    For the first time, the co-chairs did not issue any public statement after their consultations, which were described as a ‘working meeting’ to exchange notes in the wake of several recent high profile visits to Sri Lanka.

    "The Co-Chairs will explore ways and means in which the group, as a whole or as individual countries, can continue helping the parties to cease violence and return to the negotiating table," Eric Solheim, Norwegian Minister for International Development and the host of the meeting, said in a statement prior to the meeting.

    However, observers said one reason donors did not comment publicly after the meeting is that they could not agree among themselves on how far to openly pressure the government, Reuters reported.

    The co-chairs also agreed to ask the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers to return to peace talks, stressing that they did not support a military solution to the conflict.

    At the same time, the US, Japan, the European Union and Norway decided that it was time for Norwegian diplomats to resume playing the role of active peace facilitator in the seemingly never ending conflict, IANS reported.

    This decision follows a statement by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa last week that while the Norwegians were encouraged to get the LTTE to agree to talks, they should not think about making a trip to the Vanni to meet then directly.

    “President Rajapaksa was of the view that Norway should make contact with the LTTE leadership from Oslo since a visit at this juncture would not be opportune,” the Sunday Times reported last week, of a meeting between Mr. Rajapaksa and Norewegian Minister for International Development Erik Solheim.

    The co-chairs will also privately call for an end to human rights abuses and access to the northeast for humanitarian workers, IANS reported.

    The co-chairs feel that even if the Tigers are pushed out of the east completely, there can never be a military solution to the conflict and that both parties will have to return to talks to arrest the rapidly deteriorating situation, the IANS agency said.

    “At the same time, Sri Lanka seems to have no system or plan in place for talks. The military is also gung ho about its victories and strongly feels there should be no let up in the pressure being put on the LTTE,” the newsagency reported.

    Another factor the co-chairs called for is the formulation of a “credible” Political Package to end the conflict, the Sunday Times reported.

    “The Co-chairs have expressed the view that parties can be brought to the negotiation table by them provided the commitment to peaceful negotiations first comes from the Government,” the Sri Lankan weekly reported.

    “They are of the opinion that proposals formulated by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) which incorporates devolution at district level will only move the peace process backwards rather than moving forward,” the paper said.

    Though Indian officials from New Delhi were invited, their envoy in Oslo was expected to attend the meeting as an observer, the Sunday Times reported before the meeting.

    Besides Solheim, those who took part in the talks included US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, Special Representative Yasushi Akashi of Japan, Andreas Michaelis from the European Union presidency and Acting Deputy Director General James Morran of the European Commission.

    The Oslo meeting was the first of the co-chairs after November 2006 when the grouping met in Washington.

    Diplomats and analysts say Sri Lanka is increasingly at risk of isolation over human rights abuses, Reuters reported.

    The government was forced into an embarrassing U-turn earlier this month after authorities forcibly evicted nearly 400 Tamils from the capital citing security concerns - prompting international outrage and a Supreme Court ruling blocking such evictions.

    Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the President's brother, openly accused Western countries of bullying the government on human rights, saying they are misinformed and Sri Lanka does not depend on them.

    He also justified evicting Tamils from Colombo, saying all measures were fair to defeat terror. He also accused United Nations agencies who expressed their concerns of having been infiltrated by the LTTE.

    Also, international experts have criticised a presidential probe into a series of abuses, including the massacre of 17 local staff of aid group Action Contre La Faim in August which Nordic monitors have blamed on security forces.

    The experts have said the probe fails to meet international standards and is headed for failure.

    And with nearly a dozen media worker murders since 2005, international press freedom groups have described Sri Lanka as one of the world's most dangerous places for journalists, accusing the state of failing to probe the killings and intimidating reporters.

    The government has rejected calls for a United Nations human rights monitoring mission, instead vowing to destroy the Tigers militarily.

  • Military action need for Sinhala support – G. L. Peiris
    Sri Lanka has to militarily defeat the Liberation Tigers to encourage the majority Sinhalese to accept a peace deal with the Tamils, Colombo's trade minister, Prof. G. L. Peiris said Friday in an interview with Reuters. Prof. Peiris, a former chief negotiator for the SriLankan government who was famously associated with a landmark agreement with the LTTE in 2002 to explore federalism as a solution to the island’s ethnic conflict, said international criticism about his government’s human rights record was undermining peace.

    Prof. Peiris with Jan Peterson, Norwegian Foreign Minister, and LTTE's theoratician, Anton Balasingham, in 2002. Photo TamilNet.
    "There really has to be a military response to terrorism, but there's no contradiction between that stance and our clear acknowledgment of the fact that a political process is necessary," Peiris told Reuters in an interview in Washington.

    He told Reuters the recent reversion to war taught the government that it needed to be tough militarily to win majority Sinhalese political support for political compromises with the Tamil community.

    "There must be no lurking fear in their minds that they're vulnerable to attack by the (Tamil Tigers), and that feeling of security must be established in the minds of the people before any of this can really work on the ground," he said.

    Speaking ahead of meetings with US State Department and trade officials, Peiris stopped short of criticizing the decision to trim some aid over human rights concerns. But he said they made the job of seeking peace more difficult.

    "A political solution is going to be made much, much more difficult than it needs to be if there is economic adversity and deprivation," he said.

    "If the country's squeezed and if the resources are cut off, you are unwittingly creating conditions that are exactly what the extremists would like," Peiris added.

    Echoing a lament heard from US officials battling Islamic extremists Prof. Peiris said the Tamil Tigers are "not constrained by any norms or principles, but a government has to act in conformity with the rule of law."

    Five years ago Prof. Peiris and the LTTE’s chief negotiator, Anton Balasingham, struck a landmark agreement to explore federalism as a solution to the island’s long running ethnic conflict.

    The December 2002 agreement, struck in Oslo at the third round of Norwegian facilitated talks between the government and the LTTE, came to dubbed the ‘Oslo Declaration.’

    But in January this year Prof Peiris defected from the opposition United National Party (UNP) back to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) which he had previously left for the UNP in 2001.

    Following his return to the SLFP and his joining the hardline Sinhala-nationalist government of President Mahinda Rajapakse, Prof. Peiris publicly distanced himself from the Oslo Declaration, dismissing the notions of ‘federalism’, ‘unitary’ and ‘united’ as "mere words."

    "Today the intellectuals and experts worldwide agree that terms such as federalism, unitary and united have no clear definition and are indistinct at best," Prof. Peiris said at the time.

    "If you take the Indian model for instance, it is neither federal nor unitary in nature but a mixture of both," he explained.

    What was required was a "practical solution" to the ethnic conflict, he added.
  • Sri Lanka battles cash crunch
    Due to inefficiency, corruption, fall in income and the mounting expenditure on war, the Sri Lankan government is facing a financial crunch. This is likely to get worse in the future because of a planned rise in defence expenditure.

    At last Wednesday's cabinet meeting, President Mahinda Rajapaksa had turned down requests from a number of ministers for more financial allocations, The Sunday Times reported.

    A cash strapped Central government had slashed allocations to the Provincial Governments by as much as 60%, the paper said. This would affect on-going grass roots level projects.

    In an economy which is highly dependent on tourism, a 23.4% fall in arrivals in the first five months of 2007, and a 40% fall in May,should cause great anxiety. According to the Central Bank, earnings from tourism had fallen by 14.8% in the first four months of this year.

    Contributing to the fall in arrivals were factors like travel advisories by Western governments and the closure of the Colombo airport at night in the last three months.

    Export of garments has been another major source of income.But due to increased global competition and bad industry practices, 85 factories had to close in 2006 and about 16,000 workers were thrown out of job, Lakbima News reported.

    Contributing to the stress in the garment industry is a 35% increase in the Terminal Handling Charge at the Colombo port. Small garment factories, which have been the most vulnerable to hikes in rates and severe competition, have come down from 700 to 350.

    As regards the other major export commodity, tea, the Chairman of the Colombo Tea Traders' Association, Tybre Akbarrali, had this to say:"The prevailing situation has not only destroyed the country's image but has become a principal factor for rise of inflation which had a bad impact on the industry during the last year."

    Due to the mismatch between the international and domestic oil prices,the state owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation is running at a loss of LKR (Lanka Rupees) 1360 million.

    Sri Lanka is the most militarised county in South Asia with the highest per capita expenditure on defence, according to a Mumbai based think tank. Expenditure on the non-productive defence sector has been growing by leaps and bounds and is set to grow faster. It will pinch the economy when repayment time comes.

    According to Jane's Defence Weekly, Sri Lanka has signed a $ 37.6 million deal with China's Poly Technologies. This company would have to be paid a 25% advance, and the balance in ten quarterly instalments. Sri Lanka already owes $ 200 million to another Chinese arms company NORINCO.

    Sri Lanka is to buy 3D radars for $ 5 million and five MIG 29s, including a UB trainer to replace the MIG 27s which were bought only in December last year. The manpower in the Security Forces, currently at 250,000, is to be increased by 50,000.

    There is really no money to pay for all this. According to The Sunday Times the Secretary to the Treasury has been making this clear.

    "The only option that remains is to call upon the public to tighten their belts even further," the paper said. But this is going to betough, as inflation is already at 17%.

  • President threatens parliamentary dissolution
    Faced with the prospect of more parliamentarians defecting to the breakaway Sri Lanka Freedom Party (Mahajana Wing) founded by sacked cabinet minister Mangala Samaraweera, President Mahinda Rajapaksa last Friday threatened to dissolve parliament and seek a fresh mandate.

    According to media reports, Rajapaksa told a special meeting of ministers and senior SLFP leaders that the situation was "worsening day by day" with the breakaway group under former minister Mangala Samaraweera trying to form a common opposition front and begin agitations.

    The threat came after Samaraweera said that 15 to 20 MPs from the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) might join the SLFP (MW).

    Rajapaksa said that if the threat from the combined opposition mounted, he might have no option but to dissolve parliament and seek a fresh mandate.

    That Rajapaksa cannot take his party men for granted any more was evident in the way SLFP MPs reacted to Samaraweera's vituperative attack on the Rajapaksa regime and the "Rajapaksa Brothers" in parliament earlier this week, the Hindustan Times reported.

    “No SLFP MP rose to contradict Samaraweera or defend the government,” the paper said.

    “This suggested the possibility that if Samaraweera's SLFP(MW) grew in influence, some SLFP MPs and even Ministers might be tempted to defect to it,” the paper said.

    The political atmosphere in Sri Lanka is becoming unfavourable for Rajapaksa with the opposition United National Party (UNP) making serious charges against the government and publicly proposing an alliance with the SLFP (MW).

    UNP General Secretary and parliamentarian Tissa Attanayake told a news conference the UNP was inviting all democratic political parties to team up with it in the struggle against the government.

    Mr. Attanayake, who participated in talks between the UNP and SLFP (MW), said the two parties decided to appoint a joint committee to study Mr. Samaraweera’s policy statement titled ‘Daring to dream towards a new Sri Lankan order.’

    Separately, the spiralling cost of living has alienated the urban population, and there is also unbridled high-level corruption and abductions for extortions in the capital Colombo.

    Rajapaksa hopes to pacify his critics by taking corrective economic measures. The contours of these measures will be presented as a document to the SLFP's 17th General Convention on July 21.

    The state-owned Daily News quoted the General Secretary of the SLFP, Maithripala Sirisena, as saying that the new proposals would cover a wide range of national problems, with special reference to agriculture, the mainstay of the rural economy.

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