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  • Former government strongman forms new party

    Jul 03
    Two former ministers of the main ruling party in Sri Lanka launched a new political party last week, and the main opposition is exploring the possibility of an alliance.

    Separately, the country’s Sinhala nationalist Marxists called for the new party to join an alliance with it.

    The Sri Lanka Freedom Party- Mahajana Wing (SLFP(MW)) or 'Peoples' Wing' was formally launched last Friday, by ousted former ministers Mangala Samaraweera and Sripathi Sooriyaarachchi.

    They announced the formation of the new party after crossing over to sit in opposition benches last Tuesday, deepening divisions in the ruling coalition. Samaraweera invited former President Chandrika Kumaratunga to come back from "political retirement" and "guide" the SLFP (MW) and the country.

    After talks with the SLFP (MW), the main opposition United National Party (UNP) said the next three months would be a decisive period for the country because of a series of politically significant events.

    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.

    The party said some government Ministers had already agreed to join forces with the opposition to form a broad political alliance against dictatorship. “We will not give the names of these Ministers right now. But, there will be crucial political developments within the next few months,” Attanayake said.

    He said the two parties decided to appoint a joint committee to study Samaraweera’s policy statement titled ‘Daring to dream towards a new Sri Lankan order.’

    Meanwhile the Marxists Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) was reportedly planning to invite Samaraweera to join forces with them for a broad alliance against the government.

    The invitation was to be made at a meeting this week and the UNP was not being invited to join the alliance, the Daily Mirror reported.

    In an interview with the Daily Mirror, JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva said they had planned to form a broad front even by including disgruntled members from the government as well as the UNP.

    Mr. Silva said they would never opt for an alliance with the UNP, which he cited as a party without solutions to the major problems confronting the nation today.

    “We want to form a broad front. Even government members who are disappointed with the present system can join us. It is a front open to all progressive and patriotic forces. Mr. Samaraweera should also join it, but not the UNP,” he said.

    The SLFP (MW) was launched with an offering of flowers at the memorial of SLFP founder Solomon Bandaranaike, the father of Kumaratunga, at the family's ancestral home in Horagalla.

    Samaraweera was a close ally of Kumaratunga, but was sacked by President Mahinda Rajapakse, who is from the SLFP, along with Sooriyaarachchi and Anura Bandaranaike, Kumaratunga's brother earlier in the year.

    Anura Bandaranaike rejoined the government.

    Samaraweera made a 'private statement' in parliament last Wednesday, claiming that the ruling coalition has betrayed the "principles and political philosophy" of the SLFP.

    "They have rejected the party's centrist policies and are taking our country in an extreme direction," Samaraweera told the speaker in a letter prior to his speech.

    "We are totally opposed to this path of extremism and in order to protect the principles of the SLFP we shall represent the Mahajana Wing of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party."

  • Sri Lankan media sceptical about new party
    Media reactions to the formation of the SLFP (MW) have been cynical.

    In the media's view, the SLFP (MW) doesn't look as if it will make a difference to the political scene, the Hindustan Times reported.

    “But at the same time, it is acknowledged that President Mahinda Rajapaksa may be a worried man,” the paper said.

    “The prospect of former President Chandrika Kumaratunga's coming back to active politics through the SLFP (MW) and leading a combined SLFP (MW)-Opposition assault on the government, does disturb him.”

    During his address to the parliament, Samaraweera made an appeal to the former president, and daughter of the SLFP’s founder, to come back from “political retirement” and join hands with the new party to usher a new era in Sri Lanka.

    The Daily Mirror described Samaraweera's move as "disruptive" at a time, when the crying the need was political unity to face the "multifaceted crisis" facing Sri Lanka. The split in the ruling party would only "push the country towards greater instability" the paper warned in an editorial.

    Questioning the motives of the defecting duo, former Ministers Mangala Samaraweera and Sripathy Sooriyarachchi, the paper said that the "crux of the matter appears to revolve around ministerial positions and personal vendettas."

    The Island daily said in its editorial that the defection and the emergence of a new political outfit would only help the LTTE.

    "Their (the defectors') game plan is clear: While the LTTE is targeting the government on the war front, the dissidents and the UNP (the opposition United National Party ) will engage it on the political front."

    Noting that President Mahinda Rajapaksa is getting rattled these days, the paper advised him to stay cool, as any rash reaction would only help the detractors and the LTTE.

    It asked him to concentrate on good governance, because the success or failure of SLFP (MW) would depend on his ability or inability to govern the country.

    But as of now, The Island is not sanguine about the SLFP (MW)'s prospects. It would "lose its magic" after its ceremonial launching on Friday, it predicted.

    The Tamil daily Thinakkural went along with Samaraweera on his description of the sordid state of affairs in Sri Lanka, but it did not relish the prospect of former President Kumaratunga's leading the SLFP (MW).

    In her 11 year rule, which ended in December 2005, Kumaratunga did not achieve anything concrete, Thinakkural said. She only confused issues to the detriment of Sri Lankans, it said.

    However, Thinkkural notes that Rajapaksa is less wary and apprehensive about Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Leader of the Opposition and his formal rival, than he is about Kumaratunga, a retired politician. Many of Rajapaksa's actions betray apprehensions about a Kumaratunga come back, the paper points out.

    Political circles say that Rajapaksa feels that Kumaratunga may be having her loyalists in parliament and the Council of Ministers, even now. They also say that disgruntlement is widespread in the SLFP and the government, the Hindustan Time noted.

    They point out that during Samaraweera's highly vituperative speech in parliament on Wednesday, none from the ruling party ventured to challenge him. The stony silence was pregnant with meaning, they felt, the paper said.

    However, several ministers told the media that the SLFP ( MW) posed no danger to the government. Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle said that there was no likelihood of Kumaratunga's coming back to active politics.
  • Sri Lanka rejects peace calls
    Sri Lanka’s hardline government this week dismissed international calls for it to seek a peace process with the Tamil Tigers and as senior government ministers criticized international pressure, the military stepped up military operations against the LTTE.

    In the wake of a meeting last week of the United States, European Union, Japan and Norway, the four donors backing the now drifting Oslo-led peace process, Sri Lankan and Indian media reported that President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government had asked Norway to help resume direct talks with the Tigers.

    Norway also reiterated its readiness to facilitate. Oslo’s special envoy for Sri Lanka, Jon Hanssen-Bauer, telling Reuters: “We are ready to resume (mediation efforts) if the government wants us to. We are committed to our role as facilitator and we are ready to carry out that role as soon as the parties want us to do that.”

    But this week the Colombo government quashed the reports, saying there was no change in its stance and that it would not halt military operations and allow the LTTE, which it described as weakened, to regroup and rearm.

    And the Norwegian embassy in Colombo also came out to deny rumours Oslo was about to resume facilitation.

    "There is no such visit [to LTTE headquarters] planned for the near future, all these stories are speculation," Embassy spokesperson Erik Nurenberg told The Morning Leader.

    The paper, quoting European diplomatic sources, reported Wednesday that the Norwegians however, also have no immediate plans to request the government for security clearance to visit Kilinochchi. They said that a visit by Hanssen-Bauer could take place some time later if both sides show a willingness to accommodate.

    Sri Lanka’s Defence Spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella told the weekly defence briefing at the Media Centre for National Security that is no need to make a fresh initiative as the peace process stands as it is.

    There is no shift in the government policy as far as the peace process is concerned and the government will not allow the Tigers make use of the Peace Process to re-arm and re-group and attack civilians and security forces, he said.

    Government ministers also attacked the international community’s pressure.

    Minister Rambukwella singled out the UK and the US, saying these countries are trying to show the world that they are superior democracies, but actually they don’t practice what they preach.

    “They are talking about human rights violations here but ignoring what the LTTE has been doing for the last three decades, brutally massacring thousands of civilians and security forces personnel.”

    Highways Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle rejected the US government’s call for the Army-backed paramilitary outfit, the Karuna Group, must be disarmed.

    “Richard Boucher (Asst. Secretary of State for South Asia and the Middle East) has said the Sri Lankan government must disarm the Karuna Faction. Why haven’t they asked to disarm the LTTE? Both are terrorists groups,” he asked.

    Meanwhile the Sri Lankan government bar on visits by international diplomats, including Peace Envoys, to LTTE areas continues.

    Two prior visits planned by Norwegian ambassador Hans Brattskar were cancelled due to the absence of security guarantees from the government. A similar visit by the deputy British High Commissioner too was cancelled for the same reason.

    Despite the government’s reluctance to give security clearance, the Tigers have said that they could guarantee the safety of visiting diplomats from beyond Omanthai. "We can look after them, there is no issue," Tiger military spokesperson Rasiah Illanthirayan said.

    The absence of international shuttle diplomacy alone indicates a resumption of the peace process is not likely.

    This week Minister Rambukwella told reporters: “If people like Jon- Hansen Bauer want to move to Kilinochchchi to meet the Tigers, we have to caution them that they can’t do it the way they did it in the past.”

    Measnwhile Sri Lanka Air Force jets on Wednesday carried out a second straight day of bombing raids against LTTE positions in jungles in the east of the island, the military said.

    The raids were part of a months-old effort aimed at dislodging the Tigers from bases in Thoppigala, an area around the eastern lagoon town of Batticaloa.

    Taking and retaining Thoppigala will be costly, both in men and material, the Hindustan Times this week quoted independent military experts as saying.

    But since the Sri Lankan government is hell bent on militarily defeating the LTTE, it would go ahead regardless of the cost, they added.

    LTTE spokesman Ilanthirayan told Tamilnet recently that the Sri Lankan Army was walking into a "trap" as the LTTE's withdrawals were "strategic" in nature.

    He admitted that the Sri Lanka Army had entered the Thoppigala area, but maintained that only the future would be able to say if the government's assertions were well founded.

    As regards the LTTE's plans he said: "At the moment we can only say that we are recasting our plans for the East."

  • Revealing Silence
    The much anticipated meeting last week of the quartet overseeing the 'peace process' in Sri Lanka has, unsurprisingly, delivered little substance. There wasn't even a joint statement from the US, EU, Japan and Norway afterwards. There have been vague suggestions of demands for a resumption of peace efforts. The Sunday Times says the Co-Chairs representatives had been 'very critical' of the state of affairs in Sri Lanka. But, tellingly, no concrete action was agreed on. Little wonder - given the diverse and utterly contradictory approaches of the quartet. It is clear that some European countries are dismayed by Sri Lanka's inexorable decline anew into nasty conflict - marked prominently again by indiscriminate and vicious violence against civilians. But other powers are more concerned with their own economic interests or the coherence of the '(global) war on terror.' The demonstrable contempt with which the Sri Lankan government has responded to the Co-Chairs' calls for peace efforts says it all: the international community is, collectively, going to do absolutely nothing to restrain the state's violence.

    It has been a while since the Co-Chairs last came together. There was that ambassadorial level event earlier in the year. But what stands out now is the thundering statement that came out after the high-level meeting in November last year. The Co-Chairs then viewed "with alarm the rising level of violence in Sri Lanka that has led to significant loss of life and widespread human rights violations." There was a specific call, too: "We call on both sides to seize the historic opportunity created by the 2002 Cease-Fire Agreement to resolve the country's conflict peacefully. Only by committing to sustained and substantive negotiations can the downward spiral of hostilities and human rights violations be reversed."

    But at the same time, the US representative, Under Secretary for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns observed: "I'd just say on behalf of the United States that we have faith in the government and faith in the President [Mahinda Rajapakse] of Sri Lanka. They do want to make peace. We also believe that the LTTE is a terrorist group responsible for massive bloodshed in the country and we hold the Tamil Tigers responsible for much of what has gone wrong in the country." If there was any doubt, he also declared: "We are not neutral in this respect. We support the government."

    Those statements outline the context in which the international community's commitment to promoting peace or to restraining Sri Lanka's racially motivated violence ought to be viewed. It should be recalled that at the time of that Co-Chairs meet last November, the Sri Lankan military was continuing a massive onslaught against Tamil Tigers, one which killed and wounded hundreds of Tamil civilians and drove hundreds of thousands from their homes. There was absolute confidence amongst a great many international observers the LTTE could be wiped out. It is also worth keeping in mind that this year the US has increased arms sales from $2m to $60m while Britain has sold as much in arms as London donated in post-tsunami aid. Japan's Peace Envoy Yasushi Akashi last month emphatically ruled out cutting aid to Colombo.

    The Co-Chairs dissatisfaction with the Sri Lankan government has more to do with clumsy execution of the 'war on terror' than with any principled commitment to resolving Tamil grievances. The confidence that President Rajapakse's military solution inspired has dissipated somewhat - the armed forces are unable to breach the Vanni, despite relentless bombardment and the east remains volatile despite being 'captured' (or to use the parlance the Co-Chairs also adopted last year, being 'cleared') and, meanwhile, the emergence of a Sinhala nationalist emerging not as a viewpoint but the overarching order of things in which Tamils, Muslims and foreigners know their place.

    The Tamils know some countries are making a principled commitment to human rights and humanitarian law. But the overarching logic of international engagement in Sri Lanka is self-interest and real politik driven. This is not a howl of moral protest, but acknowledgement of why Tamil suffering continues after so many decades. International interests are achieved through relationships with the state - that means with the Sinhala leadership. As long as Sri Lanka's leaders can convince international community of the efficacy of a military solution, they will receive the financial, military and political support to pursue it. In contrast, in the absence of violent rebellion against the state, why would any of the international community's diverse interests be furthered by standing up against the Sinhala leaders on behalf of the rights of Tamils?
  • What the Co-Chairs want
    Even if Norway did not issue a formal statement at the end of the two day meeting of the Donor Co-chairs in Oslo, Norway's International Development Minister Erik Solheim, the key player in the Sri Lankan peace process was quoted in the Norwegian media as saying that the Co-chairs remain worried. He had said that they had resolved to push forward for the resumption of the peace process.

    The Sunday Times learnt that participants made a very critical assessment on a number of issues.

    They had included the political situation, the security situation, human rights, the plight of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), kidnappings, killings, abductions in addition to the deteriorating law and order situation.

    Many were deeply critical of the way the Government handled the issues and felt the need for immediate action.

    Similarly, there was also strong criticism of the LTTE for resorting to violence, violating human rights and for deploying children in conflict.

    The Donor Co-chairs, it is learnt, had decided that both the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE should be given a detailed debrief of the deliberations and decisions at their Oslo meeting.

    The Government is to be debriefed by Ambassador for Germany in Sri Lanka, the controversial Juergen Weerth. He is doing so representing the European Union, of which Germany remains president.

    Months ago, Mr. Weerth earned the wrath of the Government for his alleged unprofessional conduct. He was on the verge of being declared persona non grata. However, the envoy was on home leave at that time and no action followed.

    The Donor Co-chairs resolved on four major issues. They are:

    * There is no military solution for the ethnic conflict. A lasting political solution is possible for the current conflict between the Government and the LTTE. Concerns were expressed on (a) Military operations of the Karuna group in the east. (b) Developments in the east that may lead to an alteration of the ethnic balance. (These concerns are based on the declaration of Mutur-Sampur area as High Security Zones and making Tamil speaking people to leave the area. Added to this was concern over the re-settlement of IDPs by the Government in this area).

    * Human rights violations both by the Government and the LTTE must be stopped. Disappearances and abductions committed by all parties, forced recruitment by the LTTE etc. in the long term will not lead to resolving the current problem. The Government of Sri Lanka being party to all major human rights conventions and as a democratically elected Government has more responsibility and a legal obligation to safeguard human rights. The Government should send clear instructions to Police and the Security Forces on the need to maintain human rights. Access to IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) by the INGOs (International Non Governmental Organisations) for delivery of assistance should be provided by the Government in the relevant areas including Wanni.

    * If the Government of Sri Lanka accepts Norway as peace facilitator, in order to assist the two parties to come back to the peace process/negotiation table, Oslo should be allowed to meet LTTE hierarchy in Kilinochchi.

    * A credible Political Package to address the genuine grievances of the Tamils should be tabled by the Government. The current proposals by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, it was argued, could not be considered "credible." Devolution at the district level will only move the process backwards. If the support of the international community is to be mustered, it was felt that the proposals should be seen to be "credible." Co-chairs hold the view that the parties can be brought to the negotiation table by them provided the commitment to peaceful negotiation comes from the Government.

    (Edited)

    Mr. Iqbal Athas is the Defence correspondent of the Sunday Times. His analysis appears in the ‘Situation Report’ column.
  • Visa bar to rights abusers
    WESTERN diplomats in Colombo said yesterday Sri Lankan security forces members may be denied visas if they have human rights abuse charges  against them, after one senior police officer said a European country had rejected him, the AFP reported.
     
    “The checking on any reports of abuses was something that was done even before, but now there is a new urgency to screen more thoroughly,” an official at a Western embassy said.
     
    He said all visa applicants were routinely subjected to interviews, but in the case of military personnel and police any adverse rights record would be grounds to deny a visa.
     
    An inspector involved in expelling minority ethnic Tamils from Colombo this month told reporters at the weekend he had been denied a visa to an unnamed European country because of the action.
     
    The Supreme Court on Friday restrained police Chief Victor Perera and all officers in charge of stations in Colombo from carrying out any more evictions of minority Tamils. All military personnel and police would also face tight screening and could be denied visas if they faced court charges for rights abuses in the country's bitter ethnic war, other Western diplomats said.
    Human rights organisations have already called for foreign travel bans on Sri Lankan officials implicated in rights abuses
  • Misery and death stalk Jaffna
    The nights are broken again by artillery fire across the black lagoon.
     
    The road out of this peninsula has been closed since last August, making the area nearly inaccessible. Today, though food and fuel manage to arrive, the town market shuts by afternoon, and shopkeepers are reluctant to keep stocks, not knowing when they might have to close up and run.
     
    By 7 p.m., barely sundown, stray dogs have the run of the streets of Jaffna. Its people are indoors, doors locked, well before an 8 o'clock curfew, which is the most liberal in 10 months. Sri Lankan soldiers linger in the edges of the alleys. Flashlights come on when a car passes. All is still, except for the dogs.
     
    This is Jaffna, the picturesque prize of the quarter-century-long Sri Lankan ethnic war, girding for a new storm.
     
    The army commander for the area, General G.A. Chandrasiri, said he expects a major battle for Jaffna before the August monsoon.
     
    A 2002 cease-fire, which had stanched the bloodshed for a time, has collapsed. For a year, fighting has spread across the island between the Sri Lankan military, dominated by the ethnic Sinhalese majority, and the separatist rebels, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
     
    According to the Sri Lankan Defense Ministry, more than 4,800 people, civilians and fighters, have been killed in the past 18 months, and though the number is not entirely reliable, it points to a significantly lethal epoch in this long, ugly war.
     
    It is likely to continue for a while. Gotabhaya Rajapakse, the influential Sri Lankan defense secretary, says the military is under instructions to eliminate the rebel leader, Vellupillai Prabhakaran, and eradicate his organization once and for all.
     
    "That's our main aim, to destroy the leadership," Rajapakse said in an interview late last month. The job, he went on, would take two to three years.
     
    Peace talks are nowhere on the horizon. Pressure from abroad, including suspensions of aid from countries like Britain and the United States, have done little to temper Sri Lankan military ambitions. The Tamil Tigers, banned in many countries, including the United States, upped the ante this spring by conducting air raids with the aid of modified two-seater propeller planes.
     
    The weapons of war are dirtier than ever today.
     
    Targeted killings and land mine attacks in crowded civilian areas are common. The Tamil Tigers regularly deploy suicide bombers.
     
    Journalists, diplomats and aid workers face hostile scrutiny for any criticism of the security forces. On a Sunday morning in April, a young reporter for a Tamil-language newspaper in Jaffna was shot and killed as he rode his bicycle to work. In May, fliers appeared at Jaffna University, containing a hit list of alleged rebel sympathizers.
     
    At least 15,000 people are waiting to get on government ships to the relative safety of Colombo, the capital. Those who remain dare say little. "Anytime, anything can happen," offered Ravindran Ramanathan, a tailor. "People are afraid of everything."
     
    Jaffna is no stranger to war. Its temples and churches bear the pockmarks of battles past. Its people are familiar with running and dying. No other place is so scarred because no other place carries Jaffna's special curse: it is the heart of the homeland that the Tamil Tigers have fought to carve out, and the trophy that soldiers and rebels have fought over all these years.
     
    Lately, a new fear stalks Jaffna, and it is more ominous than anything its people recall from their grim past: a spate of mysterious abductions usually carried out during curfew, when soldiers and stray dogs rule the streets. No one is quite sure who is being taken, for what reason, by whom. Sometimes, corpses turn up on the street. More often, they don't turn up at all.
     
    One night in May, well into the curfew, C. Kuharajan's son, Kanan, 18, was watching television on the floor of his parents' bedroom when four armed men pushed open the front door of their house and demanded that Kanan come with them for questioning.
     
    His captors refused to identify themselves - "none of your business," Kanan's father recalled them saying - nor explain where they were taking him or why. The gunmen, all in civilian clothes and with pistols, promised to return him soon.
     
    That was on May 4. Kanan, a high school senior, has not been heard from since.
     
    According to his family, Kanan had been active in a high school group affiliated to the student union at Jaffna University, which security forces describe as a den of anti-government activity. But the father says his son was under strict instructions to avoid anything political. He planned to send Kanan abroad to study next fall.
     
    After a month of waiting and searching, Kuharajan wondered why those who abducted his son did not come to the house and interrogate him, or at least arrested him and taken him to jail. "That's the terrible thing," he said, "snatching children from parents' hands."
     
    The Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission, a government agency, says it has received 805 complaints of abductions in Jaffna from December 2005 to April 2007; the army says they are aware of 230 abductions.
     
    Occasionally, someone survives to tell of the horror. In January, Arunagirinathan Niruparaj, a university student, was plucked from his village, taken to what he later identified as a series of military camps and interrogated about his rebel links.
     
    He said his captors hung him upside down from the ceiling and beat his feet. They covered his head with a plastic bag soaked in gasoline. They rammed a stick into his anus.
     
    After seven days, they left him on the side of a railway track. By then, his kidney had failed, one of his ears was damaged, and he could not keep down any food. In April, Niruparaj, 26, fled to Madras, in southern India. He maintains he has no links to the rebels. No one has been arrested for his kidnapping.
     
    Chandrasiri first blamed the abductions on pro-government Tamil paramilitary groups who, as he put it, try to "eliminate" Tamil Tiger operatives. He later acknowledged that some in the security forces could also be complicit. "I'm not saying all our people are clean," he said. "Our duty is to catch them and punish them."
     
    Most of those abducted, he added, are not innocent civilians, but known Tamil Tiger operatives.
     
    As for Kuharajan's son, the Chandrasiri said he had personally resolved to find him. "I don't want internationally anybody to think everyday we are killing people," he said.
     
    Reports of abductions have been sharply criticized by even Sri Lankan allies like Richard Boucher, a U.S. assistant secretary of state who met with Chandrasiri during a visit here in May. In the weeks after Boucher's visit, reports of abductions fell
     
    Not far from the general's office, another kind of uncertainty hovers over a Catholic church, now home to refugees from Allaipiddy, a fishing village just west of the town. The United Nations estimates that there are roughly 300,000 people displaced across Sri Lanka.
     
    At this church, some families have fled their homes as many as four times since the war began. The last time was in August, after rebels and soldiers clashed in Allaipiddy, driving its residents into a local church. When it, too, was shelled, the Reverend Jim Brown knelt before the troops and, waving a white flag, led the villagers here.
      
    Brown, who had rebuked the Sri Lankan Navy for attacking the village, disappeared days later. He has not been heard from since.
     
    The families here somehow carry on. The men cannot fish any more because the coast is occupied by soldiers. Food aid has not come for weeks. Women have sold their gold bangles for rice. Or they have gone without eating, saving what little there is for their children.
     
    So little had one mother, Sathyaseelan Thilaka, been eating that she could no longer produce enough breast milk for her youngest child, a boy of 4 months born in this camp.
     
    Sathyaseelan, 39, said she raised four children through this war. Never before had she been without milk. This morning, she sent the older children to school without breakfast. She had eaten nothing herself, and it was almost sundown.
      
    An emergency assessment by the United Nations found signs of more child malnutrition in Jaffna. The government has blocked the study's release.
  • And Then They Came For Me...
    Secular Sinhalese hung their heads in shame last week as government storm-troopers rounded up the Tamil citizenry of Colombo and herded them into busses, to be taken to God knows where. Young and old, shy and bold, they were equally affected: no one was spared. Grandmothers separated from their grandchildren, sisters separated from their brothers, diabetics separated from their insulin. In scenes reminiscent of the Final Solution, the Mahinda Chinthanaya swung into action, leaving no one in doubt that Sri Lanka's is a government of the racists, by the racists, for the racists. It is but a short step from here to requiring Tamils to wear a mandatory arm-band with a 'T' (in black, of course) emblazoned on it.
     
    No one knows how many Tamil people were bussed out of Colombo last Thursday. Guesstimates varied from 200 to 800. The government, however, made it known that "20,000 Tamils have taken up lodgings in Colombo", a clear signal that more is to come unless the justices of the Supreme Court (bless their hearts) continue to step in and stop it. The government's claims that the deportees had always wanted to return to wherever it was they had come from, but could never find the bus fare, brings to mind the picture painted by the Third Reich, of Jews stepping voluntarily into the gas chambers of Buchenwald and Auschwitz, arm in arm, gaily whistling Hava Nagila.
     
    In a sense, last Thursday must have come as a relief to Sri Lanka's minorities. The state has now shorn off its whiskers and made it patently clear that this is no longer a battle against the LTTE, or even against terrorism: it is a battle against Tamils. Ethnic cleansing has begun, and no Sinhalese can be safe until the last Tamil has been evicted from their midst.
     
    For its part, the Rajapakse Administration, having hidden behind a variety of colourful euphemisms all this while, has finally come out in the open, calling a spade a spade, a Tamil a Tamil: the Sinhala nation can never be safe until the Tamils in its midst have been evicted. In doing so, and deporting Colombo's Tamils thence, Rajapakse has finally accepted the reality of Eelam, a Tamil homeland in the north and east. It defies irony that the first seed of Tamil secession has been sown not by Pirapaharan, but by Rajapakse. Little must Rajapakse realise that the insult and humiliation he cast on those citizens (most of who, no doubt, refrained from voting in the last presidential election so as to secure his victory), would not lightly be forgiven or forgotten. They aren't likely to turn the other cheek. No one would be surprised if many of them would in time to come number among the LTTE's suicide cadres, determined to get even with the Sinhalese. In a move of almost touching imbecility, the government has given the cause of terrorism an unprecedented shot in the arm.
     
    It is only a sick and cynical society that can countenance so brazen an assault on human rights and look the other way. It is gratifying that all Sri Lanka's political parties, barring the SLFP, JHU and CWC, vociferously opposed Rajapakse's action. No one knows what brand of Buddhism it is that the monks of the Urumaya profess to follow, but it is evident from their action that it is not that advocated by the Gautama Buddha. The CWC's silence, however, is more ominous; evidently a signal that it's leadership wishes to distance itself from the cause of Tamil emancipation as a whole. After all, if the upcountry Tamils were to be emancipated, they'd be out of a job.
     
    The past two years have seen Sri Lanka slipping inexorably into an abyss of intolerance. There is about the Rajapakse administration a sick and fathomless cynicism to which we run the danger of becoming inured: blatantly false propaganda in the state media; intimidation of the free media; widespread abductions, disappearances and murders with nonchalance bordering on the blas‚. So accustomed are we to this, that we are no longer shocked by any of it. We take it in our stride. In doing so, however, we need to remember that each blow the Rajapakse Brothers deal on secularism and liberal values is a blow against each one of us individually. Our turn - your turn - will come. And when it does come, who will speak for you?
     
    There are those among the Sinhalese who see the Tamil question in terms of a military victory against the LTTE. It defies reason as to how soon they have erased from their minds our post-independence history. Even the JVP accepts that we must accept the Tamils of this country as equal citizens: they have as much historic right to this land as the Sinhalese. From even before independence, however, the Tamils quite sensibly asked that the Tamil language be given parity with Sinhala, and that the areas in which Tamil was the predominant language spoken be administered in Tamil. Then, in 1956, just eight years after independence, the Sinhalese majority fired the first shot, making Sinhala the official language of the state,
    From 1956, the slide into the abyss was both steady and inexorable. The Sinhala alphabet was introduced for car number-plates, the national anthem was to be sung only in Sinhala, the country's name was changed to the Sinhala name (in law, even when spoken or written in Tamil) and, in a bizarre diversion from secularity, Buddhism was awarded constitutional precedence ("the foremost place") over any religions Tamils might choose to espouse. So effective were these devices in achieving their aims that Tamils were almost totally purged from the armed forces and reduced to trivial minorities in the police and government service. Added to all that were the anti-Tamil pogroms of 1958 and 1983, in which Tamils were burnt alive, their shops and homes looted, and the Tamils finally recognised the impossibility of peaceful cohabitation with the Sinhalese.
     
    Sinhalese people who laugh these off as trivial pinpricks should imagine what life would be like were the tables turned. What if the official language of Sri Lanka were Tamil - together with the national anthem, car number plates etc.? What if Hinduism was constitutionally recognised as having "the foremost place" in our state? What if every time you were stopped by a policeman, he addressed you only in Tamil? How long would you tolerate that before you looked to extreme remedies?
     
    What messages were the Tamils supposed to derive from this systematic assault on their heritage? They, after all, saw themselves as having an equal right to be Sri Lankan (or at any rate, Ceylonese), as the Sinhalese. For 30 years - a generation - from 1948 to 1977, fought for their rights through purely political means. But the Sinhalese just did not listen and things got steadily worse, with, for example, J. R. Jayewardene's infamous Constitution of 1978 and before that of Colvin R.De Silva in 1972. Then, slowly, a minority of Tamils concluded that parleying with the Sinhalese was futile, and took to arms. It was the wrong thing to do - but then again, it was the only thing they could do to try to get the attention of the Sinhalese government. Then, when they did that, rather than recognise the frustration of the Tamil minority, successive Sri Lankan governments chose to respond with a bullet for a bullet.
     
    In the last couple of years we have taken to bombing the villages in the north that are thought to harbour Tigers. One rarely meets a Sri Lankan, however, who sees how utterly bizarre this is - bombing your own people. When the JVP attacked Colombo, did the air force bomb Akuressa and Hambantota, its strongholds? What would people think of a government that bombed Sinhalese? Yet, the Tamils are bombed daily as a matter of routine, and not one Sinhala voice of protest, be it ever so small, is heard. Now we seem slowly to be discovering that there simply are too many dissident Tamils (= 'terrorists') to kill: we are deporting them back to their homeland.
     
    Tragically for Sri Lanka, the Rajapakse Brothers have neither the collective wit nor the wisdom - there isn't, after all, a university degree among them - to see the struggle for Tamil emancipation for what it is. Even if they did, so steeped in Sinhala-Buddhist dogma are they that they could never bring themselves to undo the original wrongs that gave aid and succour to the cause of Tamil militancy from 1956 to 1978.
     
    Terrorism is horribly wrong, and there is no gainsaying that the LTTE are a bunch of terrorists. Moderate Tamils - if there could persist such a breed after the events of last Thursday - may believe there is yet hope. But they are a minority within a minority, and for fear of the Tigers, for the most part mute. Thanks to Sinhala intransigence, it is only the LTTE that is left to negotiate with us.
    And it is time those Tamils and members of other minorities who sit on the government benches in parliament searched their souls for their reasons for doing so. What truck do they have with an administration such as that presided over by the Rajapakses? For their part, the Rajapakse Brothers need even now to recognise that Tamil liberation is not a question of law-and-order: it is a profoundly political issue that demands calm, mature reason and a genuine embracing of democratic values. By adopting the gehuwoth gahannan (if you hit, then I'll hit) attitude he publicly espouses, Rajapakse, as he has done from the beginning of his presidency, is simply missing the plot.
     
  • Life for ordinary Tamils gets worse
    Every time 16-year-old Suresh Subramanium steps out of his home in Sri Lanka's heavily-guarded capital, his father says a silent prayer for his son's safe return.
     
    The Subramaniums are ethnic Tamils, and run a grocery store in Colombo. They have lived in the city all their lives, and have little connection to the north and east where government troops are fighting Tamil Tigers.
     
    But they say life for ordinary Tamils in Colombo is getting worse.
     
    "I can't step out of the house without my identity card and police papers. If I don't have them, I will be detained," Suresh said.
     
    Tamils, whose national identity cards are written in Tamil, are instantly segregated at check points for a sometimes lengthy grilling. Members of the majority Sinhalese community have an easier time from the Sinhalese-dominated security forces.
     
    Tamil visitors to Colombo also need to register with police, who are fearful of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suicide bombers or assassins infiltrating the city of around 650,000 people.
     
    The collapse of a 2002 ceasefire agreement over the past 18 months has also brought with it a spate of unsolved abductions and murders. International rights groups have said that more than 1,000 people, almost all Tamils, have "disappeared" in the past year.
     
    "There is a climate of fear hanging in the air, we seem to be sliding into lawlessness," said 30-year old Joseph Sunderalingam, a financial analyst and ethnic Tamil who works in the city.
     
    "My parents feel things are getting worse and they would like me to leave."
     
    Tensions reached a head on Thursday, when armed police swooped on low-budget hostels in an operation that saw hundreds of Tamils expelled back to the war-torn north.
     
    Rights groups and opposition politicians said the move was tantamount to dealing out "collective punishment" to Tamils.
     
    Although authorities have backed down in the face of stiff international criticism, community members said Thursday's operation was merely a small part of a wider pattern of abuses they have to endure.
     
    "I'm often asked if I support the LTTE, when people realise I am a Tamil," said 23-year-old Krishnan, who only gave his first name.
     
    Krishnan shares a cramped room with three others on the outskirts of the city in Ratmalana while he works as a cleaner.
     
    The night raids have got worse, he said, since nine people were killed in and around Colombo in two blasts last month by suspected Tamil Tigers. The government says the bombings are hatched in low-budget hostels.
     
    Tamil populated neighbourhoods in Colombo are also periodically cordoned off and swept by security forces, and Tamils have complained of mass arrests.
     
    "It's like going back in time to the late 1980s and the 1990s," says S. Subramanium, a lodge owner in Colombo.
     
    "Tamils and some Muslims have been the main target of recent kidnappings, disappearances and assassinations. People are scared."
     
    Still, many Tamils from the embattled northern and eastern regions look likely to continue to pour into Colombo -- a stepping stone out of a country where they either face Tamil Tiger extortion and forced recruitment in the north or state intimidation in the south.
     
    Sharing a tiny room with his parents, S. Yogananthan, 27, from besieged Jaffna peninsula in the far north, sips tea as he counts the days to emigrate to Canada and get married there.
     
    Yogananthan has been living in Colombo for the past seven months, was expelled in the sweep but has returned again to try to sort out his immigration papers.
     
    "Write something about our plight so that the Canadian embassy will process my papers quickly," he pleaded. "I can't live like this."
  • ‘Every night now, I am afraid’
    Sri Lankan authorities were rounding up hundreds of ethnic minority Tamils in the capital of Colombo, forcing them onto buses to destinations unknown.
     
    They were allowed to return two days later , after an international uproar , but many Tamils are afraid the expulsions could mark the beginning of a new wave of persecution, and that the next knock on the door might be even more dangerous.
     
    "I'm scared about what will happen," said the woman, Sanmugam Rasamma, who came back to Colombo after her expulsion. "I'm scared it could happen again."
     
    For two decades, the Tamil Tigers , a highly secretive, well-armed group labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. and many European governments , have fought to carve out a separate homeland for the country's 3.1 million Tamils, citing decades of discrimination.
     
    As violence has ratcheted up over the past two years, the harassment of Tamils has increased as well.
     
    Sometimes it's petty harassment. Sometimes it's worse.
     
    There are now far more roadside checkpoints, and Tamils usually take far longer to clear them. Tamils say they have a harder time finding work or gaining entry at universities. After rebel attacks, random Tamils , particularly the poorer ones, are often rounded up and interrogated.
     
    There are plenty of Tamils who do not suffer harassment , a handful of cabinet posts, for instance, are held by Tamils, and there are wealthy Tamil businessmen. But stories about anti-Tamil discrimination are a constant in the minority community.
     
    A retired literature professor recalled passing through a checkpoint without a problem when he was wearing pants and a shirt, but being stopped for hours when he went by wearing the flowing, white traditional Tamil cloak, called a vetti.
     
    "It was a nasty experience," said the professor, who asked not to be identified, fearing retribution. "These things happen quite often in Colombo."
     
    The reason for this: "There is a general suspicion that Tamils are potential terrorists," said Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of Center for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo-based think tank.
     
    On June 6, authorities raided Tamil guest houses in Colombo, saying they were teeming with rebel activity and the move was a security precaution amid violence that has claimed more than 5,000 lives in the past 19 months.
     
    The government has not said if any of the 376 people rounded up were suspected in any attacks. Rights groups called the roundups arbitrary.
     
    The next day, after an outraged international response, the Supreme Court ordered police to stop the expulsions.
     
    Authorities bused 186 of the expelled back to Colombo. The others chose to return to their hometowns, police said.
     
    Thousands of Tamils have left their homes in the north and east , areas that have been wracked by bloodshed for most of the past year as government troops and Tigers battle , and come to Colombo with hopes of securing foreign visas and leaving the island.
     
    They often stay in cheap guest houses run by Tamil families while waiting for their paperwork, a process that can take months, if it happens at all.
     
    Now, despite the apologies for the expulsions, many fear what could happen next.
     
    "We were taken from the lodge so the manager and others knew what happened, but if you're caught alone, no one would know what was happening," said a young man who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.
     
    "I'll sleep afraid tonight," he said. "Every night now, I'm afraid."
     
    The police often came to the hotel in the early morning to check the registry, particularly after Tiger attacks, said S. Yathavan, the hotel owner's son.
     
    But this time was different.
     
    "They said, 'Pack your bags, we have to send you back to your own place,'" said Yathavan.
     
    Rasamma, who said she was 65 but appeared older, knelt before the four policemen at her bedroom door, touching their feet to ask for mercy, she said.
     
    But they did not listen.
     
    "We were not told where we were being taken," she said.
     
    Twelve hours later, the bus stopped at Vavuniya, the last government-held garrison town south of the LTTE-held areas. Other buses went to Trincomalee and Batticaloa in the restive east.
     
    The group of roughly 30 Tamils were taken to a school yard, where they were given sleeping mats, Rasamma said. Human rights groups came the next day to take down names, and that evening they got back on buses to Colombo , scared, tired, but safe.
     
    "We didn't do anything wrong," said Rasamma, who is hoping to join a son in Canada, and is more determined than ever to leave Sri Lanka.
     
    "Until then, I hope nothing bad happens again," she said.
  • From democracy to farce
    “…there is no room anymore to assist terrorism directly or indirectly, and talk about democracy. This is because they use this democratic space to design the destruction of the entire society. The democracy that creates an opportunity for terrorism is a joke. It is no simple joke but a deadly joke.” - The President, Address to the Nation, 6th December 2006
     
    The President’s statement is a chilling reality of what democracy is in Sri Lanka today. There is no cognition of diversity in the timbre of democracy, or what passes for it, in Sri Lanka today. Indeed, it is the democratic space itself that is a threat to “national security” - since my own voice, and that of others not in line with the government, is seen, branded and subsequently eliminated as those directly or indirectly supportive of the “terrorist threat”. So the overt war on terror is covertly also about defining the art of the possible within a democracy. To paraphrase Fareed Zakaria writing in the late 90’s on the rise of illiberal democracy, Sri Lanka’s emergent socio-political cancers are those within democracy. This makes them more difficult to handle, wrapped as they are in the mantle of legitimacy given by peoples kept largely in the dark. In Sri Lanka today, there is single Chintanaya - an omnipresent and omniscient vision - that trucks no dissent or question. Like Chavez in Venezuela, this President preserves democracy only to gradually and inexorably eviscerate it. In an incredible yet revealing move, there is now even a special police unit formed to monitor any public admonition of the Chintanaya in particular and the government in general. Free speech, it seems, is increasingly an unwarranted appendage to what is required of true patriots in a time of war - blind faith, a slavish subservience and supine acceptance of Truth as determined by a coterie not known for their intellectual rigour.
     
    A case in point of this singular dullness was the President’s recent interview with Al-Jazeera. It is a confused and confusing riot. Reading it, I was almost convinced that all one really needs to do to secure peace, and indeed, for the LTTE to take the upper hand in global media stakes, is to stay silent and watch the ignominy of this government drowning in a quagmire of its own confusion. And yet, some of that which the President asserts is so outrageous, so incredible, that to allow them to pass without question is untenable.For example, the President on human rights in Sri Lanka: 
     
    Are you willing to accept that there are violations of human rights occurring?
     
    Knowingly, a state will not violate human rights, abduct people. That must be stated very clearly.
     
    But Human Rights Watch has documented at least 700 and more abductions during your term.
     
    Many of those people who are said to have been abducted are in England, Germany, gone abroad. They have made complaints that they were abducted, but when they return they don’t say. Some talk of a few people abducted from Colombo. We do not know whether they are fighting in Killinochchi, we have no way of finding out. This is all against the government.
     
    The first answer gives rise to all manner of glorious possibilities as to how human rights violations grow apace without the knowledge of the head of the state. Plausible deniability after all is a centre-piece of diplomacy and especially when one has trusted family to take care of the unpleasantness of contrary opinions voiced against one’s thought and actions. But it is the second that is really incredible.
    Clearly, my erstwhile colleague Vijayan, abducted from the heart of Colombo recently and transported some 200km to Badulla - traumatised and more than a little lucky to be alive - must have been attempting passage to Europe. And the hundreds of persons who have been meticulously documented by the Civil Monitoring Committee and human rights groups local and international, as having been abducted, missing or killed over the past year alone, are quite possibly enjoying the dolce vita on the French Riviera.
    This is farcical and to reiterate the gravity of the human rights situation in Sri Lanka at present is really to flog a dead horse - the damning facts and figures are a matter of public record. Multiple parties have been involved in the violations and they are growing unabated in a culture of total impunity.
     
    We are fighting terror with terror, with democracy, or what little is really left of it, blind and powerless. As the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) recently said in response to an accusation that it was harder on the Government and softer on the LTTE which is a greater violator of human rights “...that the point here simply is that a democratically elected government that functions under the law is obviously to be held to higher standards of behaviour than an organisation recognised to be terrorist in nature. The point is not who is the greater offender. It is bad enough that the government is an offender.”
     
    During the course of the interview with Al-Jazeera, the President contradicts himself (“As a government we cannot have talks. We say that we are ready for talks always”), confuses (“Like I said before, [Prabhakaran] thought that we were weak, that the state is weak, that he is strong. But now, he has come to a point, where he has accepted that”), perplexes (“For the people, LTTE, peace - the people want peace, that is the truth, without defeating the LTTE, without defeating the terrorism of the LTTE. There is no politics in this”), and ends up undermining his own war against terror (“If they do not attack me, I will not attack. If they stay where they are, keeping their arms, I have no problem with that”). Out of a confounded farrago of befuddlement, we are left with the suggestion that an armed terrorist group in Sri Lanka is not a problem if they stay where they are and don’t bother “us”. Question obviously is what we make of the recent hue and cry of “liberating” the peoples of the North and East from the clutches of the LTTE?
     
    Quite frankly, the problem here is not even one that is based on the significant differences of opinion with the President on matters of conflict transformation and peace building. Fundamentally, it is one of communication. Except through coercion, outright terror, spin and disinformation (in Sinhala primarily) this government, like any other illiberal regime, is unable to secure and strengthen support for its war against terror domestically or internationally. A coherent, principled articulation of and for war requires an intelligence, moral authority, strategic vision and process design well beyond the capacity of this government. Ignorance is bliss and an electorate enveloped in bliss is one that will countenance economic depravity, corruption, nepotism and a further erosion of rights.
     
    But for how long?
     
    Already, signs are growing of sky-rocketing inflation and economic downturn that will be exacerbated by soon to be introduced insurance surcharges on shipping, which will render unworkable and useless the three year plan of this government for ultimate victory against the LTTE. This is quite simply the inescapable reality of asymmetrical warfare - the LTTE only has to strike occasionally and approximately at key financial, public and military targets to maintain a fear psychosis, whereas the Government has to (in principle) avoid civilian casualties, maintain human rights and regularly drum up significant victories against the LTTE in order to show its local support base, and the international community, of progress in the battle-field. Ultimate victory will be invariably Cadmean in nature - a victory that damages the victors as much as the vanquished. Put another way, there is emphatically no military solution to this conflict – only a political one, founded on a radical, democratic transformation of the State and the manner in which it is imagined, constituted, governed and given expression to in a new constitution.
     
    It is incontrovertibly not a task this government is up to.
     
    I fear that if we as a nation and peoples cannot find expression at all levels of polity and society to that which binds us in a greater humanity and overarching Sri Lanka identity, we tacitly contribute to the emergence of careerist political prostitutes, illiberal regimes and in essence, terrorists, that make a mockery out of democracy. 
  • Tamil Canadians back independent state
    On June 12 Tamil Canadians gathered at the Scarborough Albert Campbell square to urge the International community to accept an independent Tamil state.
    More than 10,000 Tamil Canadians gathered at the Scarborough Albert Campbell square to urge the International community to accept an independent Tamil state through Tamil people’s right to self determination applicable under International law.
     
    Traffic in major roads came to a standstill in Scarborough as thousands of men, women, children and elderly flocked to the streets to converge on the Albert Campbell Square in Scarborough to voice their solidarity with their brothers and sisters to win back their rights in Sri Lanka.  
     
    The square reached the maximum capacity when it began and therefore crowd started to gather around the Civic Center area and the adjacent buildings.
     
    Participants were holding placards displaying the messages “Recognise Tamil Nation”, “Isolate Sri Lanka” and “Prevent another Dafur”.
     
    “Our Leaders have signed more than 12 pacts and treaties with the Sri Lankan Political Parties within the last 60 years, only to be torn by them as soon they were signed.” Said Sujani Krishnalingam, a student leader from the University of Toronto
     
    “The Government of Sri Lanka is not willing to listen to the International community but bent on violating all human right codes of the UN including reprehensible human right abuses, indiscriminate bombardment, killing of International Humanitarian workers, starvation by embargo, disappearances and extra judicial killings. The International Community has an obligation to provide fundamental security to the Tamil people from a failed and corrupt state,” she added.
     
    The rally had to be closed one hour ahead of schedule, as it had exceeded its capacity of the venue and the organizers had to ensure that the large number present would not overcrowd the Public Transit system and the adjoining major shopping centre.
     
    Number of federal and local parliamentarians, union leaders and human rights activists addressed the rally including the Leader of the Provincial NDP Howard Hampton, Hon. Jim Karygiannis MP for Scarborough-Agincourt, Brad Duguid, MPP for Scarborough-Centre and Raymond Cho, Toronto City Councillor. Tim Dobson, Chuck Konkel and George Khourie of the Conservative Party of Canada also spoke.
     
    Hon. Jim Jim Kariyanis speaking at the gathering blasted the Canadian federal government’s inaction on Sri Lanka and proscribing the Tamil Rebels while they were participating in negotiations.
     
    Hon. Judy Sgro spoke to crowd on telephone from the Parliament Hill in Ottawa. In today’s session in Parliament Judy Sgro urged that “It is time for the Canadian government to step up and take on a leadership role in finding a resolution to this conflict once and for all.”
     
    According to organizers many speakers including Hon. Albina Guarnieri Liberal MP for Mississauga East - Cooksville, Hon. Dan McTeague Liberal MP for Scarborough East-Pickering, Mark Holland Liberal MP for Ajax-Pickering and Derek Lee Liberal MP for Scarborough-Rouge River could not be accommodated due to time constraints.
  • Tamils rally in Geneva demanding independence
    Thousands of Tamils marched towards the United Nations Office at Geneva urging solidarity from the World Community for Tamil people's right to Self Determination and Statehood.
    Thousands of Tamil diaspora members from across Europe gathered in Switzerland Monday and marched towards the United Nations Office at Geneva urging solidarity from the World Community for Tamil people's right to Self Determination and Statehood.
    The Tamils across Europe have gathered here "demanding that the international community recognize an independent Tamil state in the island of Sri Lanka," said Shan Thavarajah, co-president of the Swiss Tamil Forum, which organized the rally.
    The demonstration was planned to coincide with the start on Monday of the fifth session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, which runs through June 18 in Geneva.
    The procession started at Groppetee park, Geneva at 2:00 pm, and ended in front of UN at 3:30 p.m. According Swiss police over 9,000 people assembled in the main square in front of the United Nations headquarters in Geneva.
     "We are here to express our unyielding support to our brethren struggling for freedom in the homeland of our origin," said K. Ampalavanar, the patron of Swiss Tamil Forum that organized the confluence march. He was speaking to media after the event describing the march as a successful in conveying the intended message.
    "The participation of thousands of Tamils living in Switzerland and all over Europe shows the seriousness and the urgency of the situation," the organizers said in a statement, blasting the "genocidal intentions" of the Sri Lankan government.
    People from across Europe marched with Tamileelam flag, voicing support for the armed struggle for Tamil independence, spearheaded by the Tigers.
    The marchers also carried placards with Sea Tiger and Air Tiger emblems.
    We have not come to this symbolic place to beg for inalienable rights of our people," said Shan Thavarajah, co president of the Swiss Tamil forum.
    "We have come to urge the U.N to exert pressure on its member state, the Sri Lankan government, to adhere to international standards of human rights enshrined in the International law."
    "And we urge solidarity from the world community, as our brothers and sisters are taking the struggle forward in our homeland."
    He and Thampippillai Namasivayam, secretary of Tamil Forum Swiss, handed over a memorandum addressed to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to Aida Nejad, a representative from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at 2.30 pm at Palaise de Wilson.
    Sriskantharajah, a father of a fallen Tiger fighter, hoisted the Tamileelam flag.
    Dr Brian Seneviratne from Australia, a Sinhala expatriate physician supportive of Tamils right to self-determination, Ms. Karen Parker, a Human Rights activist from U.S., Mr. Karl Grunburg, the founder and president of SOS Racisism, Ms. Deirdre McConnell, Director International Program of Tamil Centre for Human Rights (TCHR), V. Kirubakaran of TCHR, Tamil Nadu based Tamil Nationalist Movement (TNM) leader P Nedumaran, Tamil National Alliance Parliamentarian M.K. Sivajilingam, Ms. Dorrit Bruselivs, the Secretary of Danish Federation of Tamil Associations, Professor John Neelson, Anna Annor Urech, a Human Rights Activist from Switzerland, Ms. Verena Graf, the General Secretary of the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples addressed the gathering.
    The declaration of the event, sounding "our nation, Tamileelam, will be ours forever," was read by Krishna Ampalavanar.
     
  • Japan says human rights not a priority when fighting war on terror
    Mr Yasushi Akashi, Japan's special envoy to Sri Lanka reassured President Rajapakse his country's continuing support for Sri Lanka despite spiralling human rights violations by the latter.
    Japan will continue to give aid to Sri Lanka despite the country’s failure to address the spiralling human rights violations. Mr Yasushi Akashi, Japan's special envoy, made the announcement on Saturday June 9 at the end of his four-day visit to the country. Further, he told local press reporters that human rights issues takes second place when fighting terrorism.
    Japan is the single largest donor to Sri Lanka, and provides nearly two thirds of all international aid to the island. It has contributed 63 percent of total bilateral aid received by the country since 2003. Japan is also one of the Co-Chairs of the 2003 Aid Sri Lanka Conference along with the US, the EU and Norway that backed the peace process.
    When asked about the forced eviction and deportation of Tamils from Colombo, Akashi stated that “these certainly did not accord with the "values of a civilised society", but it was natural that these values sometimes suffered and were likely to be given "second place" in a country fighting terrorism”.

    Japan is the only co-chair that has not condemned the deportation of Tamils from Colombo on June 7.
    Whilst reassuring continued assistance to Sri Lanka Akashi was quoted as saying, “we have concerns and guidelines. We are for the rule of law, democracy, human rights and security,"
    The 2003 Tokyo declaration linked aid to progress in the peace process, but according to Kyodo News Akashi justified continuing assistance to Sri Lanka by staying “Japan does not want victims of the war to pay the price for the problems in the peace process”
     
    Other donor countries, such as EU and the US, have reduced their aid to Sri Lanka based on the country’s poor rights record.
     
    Over the past few months, number of governmental and non-governmental organizations, have condemned the increasing violence in the country, and the deterioration of the peace process.
     
    However, Akashi claimed that “it is difficult to measure or "quantify" progress in the peace process in an ever changing and complex conflict situation”,
     
    In a donor conference held in 2003 donor countries pledged $4.5 billion dollars to Sri Lanka, which was conditional upon progress in the peace process. However, most of this fund has already been dispersed despite the failing peace process.
     
    Akashi acknowledged that there were ‘deficiencies and shortcomings’ in regard to human rights in Sri Lanka, but he got the impression that these were being addressed by the government of the land.
     
    However, his statement contradicts the report published, last week, by the international human rights panel - International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) - appointed by the international community to investigate Sri Lanka’s handling of human rights abuses.  
     
    In the highly critical report IIGEP has concluded that, Sri Lanka has shown hardly any progress in dealing with human rights violations. In addition, the report went on to state Sri Lanka lacked proper procedures to deal with rights issues.
    When Akashi arrived in Sri Lanka on Tuesday, he said he found the atmosphere "heavy and depressing with a sense of crisis and tension. But at the end of the visit following talks with President Mahinda Rajapakse, he is leaving with a "certain amount of hope and optimism about the future of the country, reported the Kyodo News.
    Akashi did not meet the representatives of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or the Tamil parliamentarians. The LTTE confirms that they were not approached regarding any possible visit to Vanni by the visiting envoy. This was Akashi’s fourteenth visit to the country since the peace process of 2002.
  • Britain calls for end to Sri Lanka’s military efforts and to resume talks with the LTTE
    Without a political solution resentment will build up and there will be more violence, in twenty-five or fifty years says Howells.
     
    Dr Kim Howells, Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Office meets Rajapakse
    Dr Kim Howells, Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Office, during his third visit to the country called for Sri Lanka to end all military efforts and to resume talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), reported the Island newspaper.
     
    He said the ongoing military efforts will not bring peace to the country and the government had “no option but to negotiate with the LTTE”, said the paper.
     
    Further, he argued that “war has only moved the front lines North and South along A9 and has but neither side has been able to win a decisive victory”.
     
    He went on to state that “even if the security forces were able to win - what then? There would still need to be a political deal, otherwise resentment will build up and there will be more violence, in twenty-five or fifty years", the Island quoted him as saying.
     
    In the recent months, Sri Lankan government has been actively involved in strengthening their military capabilities, especially its airpower with purchases of highly sophisticated fighter planes.
     
    Howells also expressed deep concern for the human rights abuses, and said “they damage Sri Lanka’s image overseas and make it more difficult for the international community to give the Sri Lankan government the political support it wants”, the paper said.
     
    As a way of justifying the interest and attention given to Sri Lanka’s rights abuses by the international community, he said “some claim that comments about human rights are interference in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs. But Human Rights are not a purely domestic matter. Both Sri Lanka and the UK are signatories to the United Nations human rights conventions, which means we both have an obligation to uphold the highest standard of human rights”.
     
    Last week, the international panel International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP), appointed by the international community to monitor Sri Lanka’s handling of the rights abuses, condemned the country for its inability to address the rights issues.
     
    Despite all the violence and the human rights abuses, he said the British and Norwegian governments and the wider international community want to see “Sri Lanka remain as a single country”.
     
    However, he acknowledged the discrimination of the government against the Tamils, and said “Sri Lanka needs a sustainable political solution, one that allows its Tamil population to feel they will be able to prosper within a Sri Lankan state that takes pride in the identity of all its people”.
     
    He urged the government to work with the “moderate Tamils” to find a solution to the conflict.
     
    Howells met President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, Norwegian Ambassador Hans Brattskar, Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa, several other politicians and civil society leaders. However, he did not meet the LTTE or the Tamil parliamentarians.
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