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A need to re-write the international rule book

Jun 30

The Liberation Tigers’ insistence that the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) would need to be reconstituted to only contain representatives from countries that do not criminalise the LTTE has been met with some surprise by the Norwegian facilitators and the international community at large. But prior to the proscription of the organisation by the European Union (EU), the LTTE had informed the Nordic facilitators that they could not allow representatives from countries that had deemed the LTTE an illegal organisation to participate in such a vital observer mission.

The startled response by the Norwegian facilitators to the LTTE’s request in Oslo to reconstitute the SLMM following the EU’s designation of the organisation as a terrorist organisation can only be interpreted as a gross diplomatic miscalculation on the part of the Nordic facilitators. The subsequent bout of frenzied diplomacy has bought the SLMM some more time to find its new participants (the LTTE has agreed to two months, not one, as opposed to the six asked for by Norway) but failed to waive the LTTE from its principled position that proscription is the highest form of political aggression available and states which choose to apply such policy tools to it should be limited from meaningfully participating in resolving the island’s conflict.

This was first of a number of faux pas by the facilitators in engaging with the organisation. Another major blunder was the failure to understand the seriousness of the LTTE’s repeated requests to the SLMM to either desist from placing monitors on Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) vessels or to place monitors on LTTE vessels as well. The LTTE had reasoned that the monitors were being used as human shields by the Sri Lankan military as it transports supplies and personnel to Jaffna and, more recently, attacked Sea Tiger vessels on training exercise.

The SLMM’s actions placed the LTTE at a tactical disadvantage and the organisation had requested that the situation was untenable. In what can only be assumed was an act of brinksmanship the facilitators ignored the LTTE requests – issued three times. Events came to ahead when, following an attack on the Sea Tigers whilst on manoeuvres near their coast, the LTTE attacked an SLN convoy in late May.

Two SLN gunboats were destroyed. But the Sea Tigers’ attack on the troop transport, MV Pearl Cruise was called off following frantic SLMM calls to Kilinochchi to alerting the LTTE high command that the vessel had SLMM members on board. Contrary to reports in the southern media, it was the presence of SLMM monitors that save the Pearl Cruise, not valiant counterattacks by the SLN.

In the subsequent media release the SLMM made sweeping assertions that according to the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) LTTE had no claims to the sea. However, this interpretation contradicted earlier rulings by the SLMM (indeed former SLMM chief Maj. Gen. Trygve Tellefson was removed at Colombo’s insistence when he attempted to work out an arrangement to separate forces at sea). The matter was taken up forcefully by the LTTE in Oslo and the SLMM backtracked, agreeing no longer to post its monitors on SLN vessels.

And these are not the only times the Norwegian facilitators have, unwittingly or otherwise, tested the resolve of the LTTE in demanding complete parity in the peace process. In April 2003, Norway was a key organiser of an international aid conference. It was held in Washington, even though the LTTE would not be able to attend due to its proscription in the US. The LTTE’s subsequent ‘temporary’ withdrawal from peace talks prompted another bout of frantic – but unsuccessful - diplomatic activity to cajole or coerce the Tigers back to the table.

Norway is largely a conduit for the collective policies of a number of international actors involved in Sri Lanka. Nordic representatives no doubt offer their expert opinion on matters concerning the two protagonists, the LTTE and the Sri Lankan state, but are also helpless once these key international actors decide on a specific course of action. Whilst some veteran Norwegian diplomats know the LTTE and its mindset quite well, they ultimately operate within international strategies.

It is therefore important to understand the logic from which the international community is approaching the LTTE. The primary myth that needs dispelling is that the LTTE engaged in the peace process as a consequence of post 9/11 policy shifts. The flaws in that axiom have become increasingly clear this year. It was the result of the November 2001 elections that resulted in the LTTE’s shift in policy - President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s government was simply not prepared to engage in any peace effort.

Therefore, regardless of the policies of the international community, the LTTE would not have engaged in a peace process with the People’s Alliance had it returned to power in the 2001 polls - the (now no longer) secretive talks between the opposition United National Party and the LTTE formed the basis for the beginning of the ‘public’ peace process in early 2002.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had pledged to deliver real changes to the Tamils of the North-East and, with the facilitation of the international community via the Norwegians, the LTTE had expected the peace process to provide a suitable forum to address Tamil grievances and, more pressingly, to deliver the much needed rehabilitation to the war torn North-East.

But hostile military commanders and hardline elements in the South, including President Kumaratunga, impeded the progress. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe prevaricated also, refusing to mobilise international support to overcome these resistors.

The LTTE for its part engaged with the spectrum of international actors, from several states to non-governmental organisations and watchdogs. LTTE delegations went abroad, seeking advice and expertise on their legal systems, human rights, and a better understanding of constitutional law, all essential ingredients for arriving at a solution to the conflict.

Yet over the next five years, the Tamils and the international community observed the collective failure of the Sri Lankan political system to deliver on a single agreement made with the LTTE. The final straw was the torpedoing of the Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure (P-TOMS) by the Sri Lankan Supreme Court that deemed it unconstitutional to share aid with the LTTE and, thus, the Northeast.

The willingness of both the UNP government and the international community to circumvent Sri Lanka’s constitution to engage the LTTE at the outset of the peace process dissipated when it came to implementing agreements reached with the LTTE.

The debacle of the Washington donor conference served to confirm Tamil suspicions that this was not a peace process of equals with the objective of addressing their legitimate grievances. Instead it transformed gradually from an engagement at parity to a pro-state one process, where the government could renege on its agreements with little or no consequence. Indeed, diplomatic pressure on the state would only occur from time to time when the peace process was deemed to be in absolute jeopardy.

And following the tsunami of December 2004 this shift away from parity towards the state became more marked. The overwhelming assumptions amidst the international community - fuelled by the Sri Lankan state - was that, following the Karuna defection and the tsunami, the LTTE was now a shell of its former self and that political and aid concessions were no longer necessary to keep it in the peace process.’

This perception resulted in a complete reversion to type amongst international policy makers. The situation was once again analogous to other conflicts between state and non-state actors: the generally weaker non-state actor is invariably pressured to concede to watered down agreements ‘lest the peace process fails’ and the state actor unleashes further violence against it.

The modus operandi for such situations was relatively straightforward: use aid, (promise of legitimacy) and, where necessary, violence by the state to extract concessions from the non-state actor. The Sri Lankan state was therefore funded liberally, the military given external training and substantial breaches of the truce largely ignored.

Even the expansion of the paramilitary forces, especially the Karuna group, was tacitly accepted, given the overall objective of coercing the LTTE to the table. As was the murderous campaign unleashed by the paramilitaries against LTTE cadres and supporters.

It was the alarming deadline set by LTTE leader Vellupillai Pirapaharan during his annual Heroes Day speech that suggested that the LTTE was not willing to meekly go along with this diffuse form of coercion. In particular, the subsequent rise in tit-for-tat violence between the state’s paramilitaries and the LTTE demanded that the international community revisit the conceptual paradigm from which they were working.

But then the LTTE offered another (but in its view final) opportunity to salvage the peace process by attending ‘ceasefire’ talks in Geneva in February. This must have been interpreted once again as a sign of weakness. The collective international silence over assassination of a Tamil politician in Trincomalee six weeks after the Geneva talks by suspected state backed paramilitaries reveals international assumptions.

If the key international actors had wished to maintain the parity in the peace process they would have acted swiftly and effectively against the state for failing to end the paramilitary campaign, for not facilitating the transfer of LTTE eastern commanders for a pre-Geneva 2 conference, for not allowing LTTE political cadres back into government-controlled areas.

Instead, as the tit-for-tat violence escalated in the wake of Vanniasingham Vignaswaran’s assassination, first Canada, and then the EU proscribed the LTTE. These moves, particularly the EU’s, were clearly intended to intimidate the LTTE into ending its violence and returning to the table. The state received, at worst, polite admonishments. Instead, the LTTE has demanded EU monitors quit their roles on the island and has began mobilising for what it warns will be an inevitable war if Sri Lanka is not restrained.

A brief study of the LTTE’s history will reveal that there is very little militarily or politically which the organisation considers daunting. This is with good reason. Unlike other armed non-state actors, the LTTE has transformed itself from a guerrilla organisation to a semi-state administration without a single international state ally and under near-continuous conditions of war. Consequently, its dependencies, long term calculations and, thus determination, are quite different. Attempting to affect the organisation’s policies by using the deterrents applied to guerrilla movements elsewhere is unlikely to elicit the same response.

There was widespread acceptance of (battlefield) parity between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan state at the outset of the peace process, which resulted in relatively successful initial progress. It was arguably the failure to maintain equal pressure on both protagonists that resulted in the peace process stalling. The failure occurred because at some point the international community assumed that it was no longer necessary to apply the concept of parity to resolving the Tamil question. It may have been a sense of LTTE vulnerability following Karuna’s defection or perhaps after the tsunami, perhaps both. In any case, this turning point sowed the seeds of Norwegian peace process’s disintegration.

It is fairly clear, therefore, how the peace process can be recovered. Parity needs to be restored. This would include going outside Sri Lanka’s constitutions to engage with the LTTE. It would require sanctions (economic, diplomat and political) against the Sri Lankan state to get it to be serious about power- sharing and the provision of direct aid to the Northeast to ensure rehabilitation is not impaired by southern bureaucracy. In short, the strategic parity between the protagonists needs to be restored.

The international community moan that there is little they can do to curb the hard liners on both sides. This is an duplicitous excuse to avoid taking an even handed approach. There is plainly a lot the donor community could have done and still could do. However it lacks the will. But parity is the foremost principle behind ensuring peace in Sri Lanka. International actors need to disavow themselves of their assumptions about dealing with non-state and state actors. Particularly when it comes to resolving Sri Lanka’s ethnic question, they need to commit to the notion of parity - much like when maintaining peace between rival states.
11,000 refugee arrivals in India

MORE than 11,000 Tamil refugees have fled to India since January to escape renewed fighting between the Sri Lankan army and Tamil Tigers and more are likely to come, officials said Thursday.

The figure includes a batch of about 500 refugees who travelled by boat to reach Mandapam camp in southern India`s Tamil Nadu state late Wednesday, said a senior government administrator from Ramanathapuram district.

Ramanathapuram, 700 kilometres (434 miles) from Chennai, capital of Tamil Nadu state, is the district nearest to Sri Lanka, ravaged by ethnic conflict since the early 1980s.

“So far 3,310 (Tamil) families have crossed over since January this year,” said the Ramanathapuram official who asked to remain anonymous.

“In figures, we are talking of 11,193 refugees,” he said.

India, whose Tamil population totals 62.2 million, shares close ethnic and cultural links with the Tamil community in Sri Lanka, who living mainly in the island`s north and the east.

The refugee tally was confirmed by C P Chandrahasan, who heads the Organisation of Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation, a non-government organisation in Chennai.

“With the new refugees, we have more than 70,000 displaced Sri Lankan Tamils who have sheltered in India since the early 1990s,” said Chandrahasan, a Sri Lankan Tamil living in India since 1983.

Chandrahasan warned of more refugees streaming into India because of the escalating violence in Sri Lanka.

“People are obviously feeling threatened they feel there is no one to protect them. Naturally they want to flee to India,” he said.

The latest exodus of refugees has come amid a bloody new phase in the three-decade ethnic conflict that has left a February 2002 truce in tatters.
US, EU blacken hopes for Tamils

Desperate people do desperate things. The world has witnessed many instances where minority groups _ discriminated against, taken advantage of, and who want to attempt to improve their lot for their children’s future _ have resorted to violence against their oppressors. It is a human reaction that when requests and negotiations fail, people will fight, often physically, for their rights. Often when a government is the oppressor, the United Nations, a super power or a neighbouring alliance of countries, will put pressure on that government to show restraint and end the discriminatory practices.
The United States has correctly branded Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the pilots and hijackers aboard the 9/11 planes as terrorists. But President George W Bush is leading the White House and persuading its allies in misusing the label ‘‘terrorist’’ when referring to those minorities who are fighting, sometimes violently, their oppressors. These ‘‘Davids’’ of the world, in most cases, are only standing up to their ‘‘Goliaths’’ in the only way left to them after all else has failed.

It is extremely hypocritical that while Mr Bush touts democracy as being a main reason for the invasion of Iraq, when the Palestinians duly elect their democratic government in a free and fair vote, Mr Bush and his White House colleagues refuse to deal with them. The Hamas government is labelled a terrorist organisation, when in fact the Palestinians are in a desperate fight against their oppressors.

Last Thursday, under pressure from the US, the European Union agreed to label the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka as a terrorist organisation by June 1, unless it renounces violence. Yet the Colombo government historically discriminates against Tamils in Sri Lanka, limiting their education opportunities, denying them a place in government employment and restricting them in many other areas. This week, men in soldier’s uniforms gunned down an entire Tamil family and the second-highest Tamil Tiger leader was assassinated. Late last month, the Sri Lankan navy moved to close the shipping lane in the north which provides the only link to the outside world that the Tamils have. This vital transport route, if closed, would bring starvation and further destitution to the Tamils, so they retaliated with every means that they had available and a navy vessel was sunk with the loss of some sailors’ lives.

When the tsunami struck Asia, it wiped out many homes and infrastructure in the region which is under the control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), but international aid remains blocked and certainly no government expenditure has been forthcoming to this desperately poor area.

In June 2003, the US, EU, Norway and Japan raised $4.5 billion in pledges of aid for the Colombo government but tied much of it to the progress of peace talks with the LTTE. Peace broker Norway has failed to bring the parties together for months as the supposed cease-fire continually is broken. Because no progress has been made in peace talks, it is unlikely these pledges will be called upon any time soon. This quartet of powerful nations is to meet again on May 30 to decide their future role in Sri Lanka.

The LTTE’s political-wing chief, S P Thamilselvan called the EU move ‘‘shocking and surprising’’, and added that the Tamil people were ‘‘banking their hopes’’ on the peace process. For the US and EU to be blacklisting the already downtrodden LTTE is humiliating for them and sending them further into global isolation. The Tamils began their fight in 1972 and reports suggest 60,000 lives have been lost since then, with more than 200 dead in April alone. Blacklisting puts travel restrictions on their leaders, freezes bank accounts and puts in place other hurdles at a time when the only solution appears to be just the opposite.

When the four big powers meet on May 30, they need to find a way to give the Tamil people some hope for the future. Because if not, desperate people do desperate things.

Published May 24, 2006.
A Tiger under every stone?

The recent escalation of violence that has put the Ceasefire Agreement under severe pressure, seems in many ways to reflect the mutually reinforcing relationship between Sinhalese and Tamil nationalisms and their respective protagonists. In such circumstances an argument is put forward more vociferously that the ‘extremism’ and ‘provocation’ of the LTTE’ feeds and justifies and the ‘hardline’ political rhetoric of Sinhala politicians and the violence of the state’s armed forces. This perspective has in many ways informed the myriad of actors who have contributed to the recent peace process, either as direct participants or as advisors offering comment and analysis to the major players.

Advocates of this perspective have argued that the only way to wean the Sinhalese population away from the uncompromising positions of nationalist actors is to transform the LTTE. Transformation of the LTTE has thus been the mantra that has guided many international analysts and policy maker for the last three or four years.

The argument goes thus: if the LTTE’s military capacity is radically curtailed and its political autonomy contained within the boundaries of commitment to a ‘united’ or ‘unitary’ Sri Lanka, the Sinhala hardliners will no longer be able to mount such vehement opposition to any mention of devolution or federalism. Once the LTTE has been de – fanged, more moderate Sinhala politicians will be able to confidently advocate a political solution that grants significant autonomy to the Tamils.

It is also argued that while the LTTE remains a significant military and political ‘threat’, ‘spoilers’ in the south will always outbid moderate Sinhala politicians attempts to find a negotiated settlement by whipping up the Sinhala polity’s anxieties about a separate Tamil state. In the idiom of its exponents, the claim that transformation of the LTTE will undermine Sinhala ‘spoilers’ of the peace process and thereby allow for the ‘reform of the state by liberal actors is now almost axiomatic.

Given the current perilous standoff between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE, it might be time to examine the basic premises of this argument. According to the ‘transform the LTTE first’ mantra, the political plausibility of Sinhala nationalist positions is directly related to the actions and perceived intentions of the LTTE.

However, a close examination of the dynamics of politics within the Sinhala polity would suggest that southern opposition to any form of political devolution for the Tamils is sustained through sources that are completely independent of the LTTE per se.

The ideal of a unitary Sinhala Buddhist state in which the minorities have a politically recognised but subordinate position, resonates with the interests of a multitude of groups within the Sinhala polity. A compromise with the Tamils is rejected, not because of anxieties or loathing of the LTTE (alone), but because such a compromise would necessarily destroy this utopian vision, the most basic political assumption and aspiration of Sinhala Buddhist common sense.

The vision of a unitary Sinhala Buddhist state in which there is both a massive centralisation of resources and seamless continuity between the language, rituals and beliefs of the Sinhala Buddhist world and the institutions of the state, clearly has its appeal both for political elites and for non elite sections of the polity. For aspirant social groups, a centralised Sinhala Buddhist state not only provides opportunities through public sector employment through which they can achieve upward mobility, it also protects and fosters the integrity of their Sinhala Buddhist world.

It is for this reason that all political concessions to the Tamils, however mild, are immediately interpreted as both a material and moral threat. Any minor political recognition of a Tamil claim to the island or the state can be seen as undermining both the Sinhala Buddhist state and the Sinhala Buddhist religious, cultural and linguistic world that it protects. So for example, attempts during the 1950’s and 1960’s to replace the Sinhala Only’ legislation with official recognition for Tamil were decried as attempts to ‘destroy the Sinhala race’ or ‘make the Sinhalese learn Tamil.’

The continuation of this phenomenon can be seen in the fierce opposition that was mounted against both the PTOMS and the LTTE’s proposals for an Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA). The ‘transform the LTTE’ school of thought often argues that both these proposals conceded far too much to the LTTE and thereby played straight into the hands of the Sinhala ‘spoilers.’

However, it must be remembered that opposition to both proposals mounted well before the actual details of the proposal were released. The substance of the proposals was therefore irrelevant, what was problematic for the Sinhala Buddhists was the recognition of a Tamil political identity that these proposals entailed. Both the PTOMS and the ISGA contained the assumption that the Tamils have legitimate political interests that have to be recognised and accommodated through institutions outside the control of the Sinhala Buddhist polity. It is this possibility that is deeply problematic for the Sinhala Buddhist psyche. This is not a recent phenomena, either; well before the emergence of the LTTE, attempts by Tamil political leaders to negotiate a compromise with their Sinhala counterparts were destroyed by opposition using the imagery of a Sinhala Buddhist state and world under threat.

While the Sinhala Buddhist state fosters and protects the social aspirations of non – elite Sinhalese, it is also a useful resource for political elites. The excessively centralised state gives political actors vast resources with which to build patron – client networks and consolidate their power. Neither the UNP nor the SLFP, the two main Sinhala parties, have robust party structures and both rely on access to the state’s resources to build and maintain a support base. Political competition therefore revolves on the distribution of the state’s resources. The parties in power can distribute resources through subsidies and patronage while the parties in opposition promise greater resource while mobilising the discontent of sections who have been excluded from government largesse.

Crucially, the political parties have no incentive to aggressively promote a political settlement and even if they had an incentive, they do not have the party organisation through which to spread such a message. Political competition is played out in a public sphere dominated by Sinhala Buddhist common sense.

Alongside their deep antipathy to any form of political recognition for the Tamils, Sinhala Buddhist nationalists are also deeply intolerant to every form of autonomous Tamil political activity. In Sri Lanka this leads this results in all expressions of an autonomous Tamil political identity being dismissed as results of LTTE manipulation and coercion. The same principle is increasingly being extended to the international arena and Tamil Diaspora political activity is carefully watched for ‘pro-LTTE’ tendencies by the Sinhala nationalist press. The baleful distrust and anxiety created by Tamil participation in local government (council) elections in far away England recently led The Island newspaper to print a front page story. IAccording to the paper, ‘pro LTTE’ individuals standing for local council elections are promising a mini Eelam in London with sports facilities, funding for Saturday schools and centres for the elderly, exclusively for Tamils. The argument of the story is clear – all Tamil political activity, however mild and unconnected to the ethnic question, is inherently separatist and dangerous. The fact that local councils in Britain have long provided such community facilities for their Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Chinese, Turkish and Pakistani citizens is somehow missed. ‘Even’ in Britain, today the Tamils are asking for a Saturday school, tomorrow they will want a separate state, the logic goes.

The poisonous racism that pervades mass circulation Island’s reporting of British Tamils is pervasive in wider Sinhala society and is reproduced within a variety of sources, over which the LTTE can have no possible influence. The political vision of a united Sinhala Buddhist Sri Lanka is reinforced and repeated through the media, the education system, public institutions, the rhetoric of politicians and recently the interventions of international actors.

Meanwhile, the biased and one sided international response to events in Sri Lanka simply reinforces the Sinhala Buddhist conviction that all Tamil political demands are indeed a moral threat to the Sri Lankan state and the Sinhala Buddhist world it protects. Each condemnation of the LTTE and its ‘reprehensible terrorist’ nature, every failure of the international community to stand by agreements such as the PTOMS, every instance where incidents of high profile violence against Tamils are followed by indifferent international silence, the Sinhala Buddhist position is once again assured of its (international) legitimacy.

Given that the sources of Sinhala Buddhist nationalist are demonstrably independent of the LTTE, transforming and containing the LTTE is unlikely to produce an attitude of compromise within the Sinhala polity. Indeed, once the Tiger has been de – fanged, there will be even less reason for Sinhala political leaders to concede even a modicum of political devolution. Attempts to transform the Sri Lankan state, which would give the Tamils some form of political recognition, would, as always, instantly arouse opposition as a cloak for dangerous Tamil separatist aspirations.

In order to transform the Sri Lankan state both pro peace advocates and the Sinhala polity have to replace their unhealthy fixation with the LTTE with a serious consideration of the sites and mechanisms through with Sinhala Buddhist nationalism is reproduced. International actors have to consider why they cannot confront Sinhala Buddhist nationalism of the Sri Lankan state with the same open contempt with which they dismiss Tamil aspirations.

As is increasingly argued on the Tamil street, in the absence of any change in either the Sinhala Buddhist or international mindset, the Tamils, whose struggle has never enjoyed or needed external legitimisation, may be better off concentrating on changing facts on the ground.
White Pigeon (UK) marks tsunami

An event to remember the tragic suffering caused by the December 2004 tsunami was organised by the White Pigeon UK on January 22 at Trafalgar Square, London.

Despite the very cold weather, several hundred people gathered for two hours to listen to speeches and pay their respects beneath the White Pigeon Banner displayed on the bottom of Nelson’s Column.

There was display of photographs of the tsunami-struck parts of Sri Lanka, whose northern, eastern and southern coastlines were badly hit, killing over thirty thousand people from all ethnicities.

In his welcome speech, Dr N S Moorty, Director of White Pigeon welcomed religious leaders of all faiths and other distinguished guests in attendance. He thanked the generosity of the British public, who helped to raise almost £1 million.

WP was able to send 25 doctors immediately and set up about 250 medical camps with medicine and medical equipments, preventing the spreading of epidemics and saving many lives.

He paid tribute to the efforts of the thousands of volunteers from the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) and Tamil Tiger cadres who struggled without rest for days to help survivors of all communities. This type of disaster relief structure was not available even during the cyclone in America or the earthquake in Pakistan, Dr. Moorthy said.

WP was initially set up to help the landmine victims in Sri Lanka. More than 19,000 landmine victims were helped by the artificial limbs. But after the tsunami WP expanded its activities supplying survivors with immediate relief, such as prepared food, clothes, and medicine and hygiene facilities, intermediate relief, such as temporary shelter and food for cooking and water for drinking and washing and permanent settlement, such as brick-built houses and employment opportunities.

“In providing the relief, we did not discriminate against people on the basis of race or religion,” Dr. Moorthy said.

Multi-faith prayers were given by Imam Shahid Hussain (Regents Park Mosque), Rev Liz Russell (St Martin-in-the-Fields Church), Venerable Sangthong (The Buddhist Temple) and Kamalanatha Kurukkal (Edmonton Nagapoosani Temple).

After the prayers, Robert Evens and Jean Lambert, members of European Parliament addressed the crowd.

Mr Robert Evens said that at the time of the tsunami he was on holiday in America where there was not much coverage on the media about the tsunami, but only after retuning to the UK he was able to understand the situation and he was amazed by the response of the British public.

Jean Lambert in her speech emphasised the problems recovering from the tsunami, including allocation of land, bureaucracy, lack of compensation and the on going conflict.

Then children aged from 5-10 from Sivayogam Arts Society, dressed in white, sang songs about the tsunami in Tamil.

Bala Karunakaran, a medical student from Kings College, London described his experience with the tsunami victims - he was on medical assignment in Kilinochchi hospital when the waves hit the coastline. Designed to treat a maximum of 100 patients per day, the hospital handled more than 1000 patients on December 26, 2004.

He said the hardest part of his work was to take pictures of the dead bodies by the only one digital camera. There were bodies of children in their best clothes as it was Christmas day, and there were no counsellors to console the survivors. On the following day they created a website to identify the dead bodies, he said.

Carmel Budianrdjo, an Indonesian human rights campaigner, spoke about how tsunami brought peace to that hard-hit country, bring the Aceh rebels (GAM) and the Indonesian Government to a settlement.

Kavitha Sathyamoorthy recited a poem in English about the tsunami followed by a poetry reading by Parm Kaur, a poet, playwright and director.

Peter Quiny, a relief worker, described his experience in Batticaloa, which had a high toll of death due to the tsunami: he felt that welfare centres there were well below international standards, particularly denying occupants privacy.

The Remembrance event concluded by Vote of thanks by Evelyn Rodrigues, a WP volunteer.
Silent lessons: so much for free speech

Since the assassination of Tamil parliamentarian Joseph Pararajasingham on Christmas Eve, the dissonance between the vocal anger of the Tamil expatriate community and the studied silence of their host governments has been jarring. Reports of the ‘Murder in the cathedral’ began to circulate amongst expatriates at least an hour before it hit the major news channels, thanks to the Tamil electronic media and vibrant social network of relations and friends.

Some people, frustrated at the delay in international coverage of the killing, began to lobby key media. In Britain, Tamils contacted the BBC, questioning the lack of coverage – which was belatedly forthcoming. Three weeks after the killing, the BBC responded to some of those who contacted it, saying: “Sri Lanka, unfortunately, is a very difficult place for journalists because both sides have strongly opposite views and also restrict your movement. It is very difficult to verify every detail in what is effectively a conflict zone and in which both sides give varying accounts of the same incident.”

Some of the reasons given by the BBC for the delay in its reaction were valid. The Sri Lankan government and the Sinhala-owned press went into overdrive almost immediately with accusations that the Tamil Tigers were responsible, an allegation that met with derision from the Tamils – irrespective of their sentiments towards the LTTE.

In contrast, every major Tamil press gave the assassination and the subsequent funeral prominent coverage. They emphatically attributed the murder to Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives and anti-LTTE paramilitaries. This view was also consistently expressed by those closest to Joseph Pararajasingham, including his family, his party, the Tamil National Alliance, and the North East Secretariat of Human Rights (NESOHR), of which he was a founder member.

There was, very early on, a broad consensus on both the motivation for the murder and the identity of those responsible. In an article, expatriate writer Brian Seneviratne, spelled it out: “Para was fluent and articulate, he was outspoken and obviously credible. He could present, to the Sinhala Parliament and to international audiences, the suffering and problems faced by the Tamil people and the outrageous violation of human rights that they have had to endure. The Sri Lankan government and its armed forces simply had no answer other than [his] assassination.”

Pararajasingham was one of the most popular and senior of Sri Lanka’s Tamil MPs. He was, furthermore, one of the figures best known to the international community, having repeatedly met with their representatives in Colombo and abroad. Notably, Tamil media and community organizations also began, almost instantly, to call for international action against the government of Sri Lanka.

The European Tamil Initiative for Peace issued an Appeal for Action the very next day asking the UK Presidency of the EU to ensure “immediate steps are taken with the genuine intent of protecting the civil rights and security of the Tamils of Sri Lanka that the Tamil legislators who are engaged in service to their constituents and international advocacy to restore the rights and fundamental freedom of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka are well protected.”

The Geneva based International Federation of Tamils (IFT) went further, calling on the European Union to “impose sanctions on the government of Sri Lanka until all pro-government death squads have been dismantled and the military intelligence officers who control these squads investigated and disciplined.”

The US Tamil Sangams issued a joint statement which concluded, “the international community must show political and moral courage and impose sanctions on the government of Sri Lanka in order to put an immediate end of this deliberated and calculated violence. Such an action would restore confidence of the Tamil people in the peace process.”

And so it went on, from Tamil expatriates in US and Canada, to those in several members of the European Union (as well as Norway and Switzerland), to Australia and New Zealand.

The Tamils’ appeals were based on the face value of numerous statements by international actors, including key states such as the United States, and EU members expressing unequivocal respect for the democratic process, the rule of law and the sanctity of the life. Many states had expressed a direct interest in Sri Lanka’s peace process. Foremost among them the US which had expressed such a keen desire to see peace and prosperity in Sri Lanka, and Britain which held the EU presidency. International actors and donor community had long been calling for the free expression of Tamil political will. Here, now, was the brazen murder of a prominent Tamil politician who symbolised that electoral process at work. And so began the wait for a reaction from the foreign ministries of the world.

But the Tamils are, of course, still waiting. Not one protest or expression of outrage has been forthcoming. The silence itself seems to confirm international recognition of where responsibility lies.

Moreover, that the standards of democracy, liberty and security that the foreign governments apply to the citizens of their own countries are quite different from those they are happy to see applied to the Tamils of Sri Lanka. No one is better placed to observe and understand this two-tier system of diplomacy than the expatriate Tamils of course.

We recall the assassination of that Sri Lanka’s foreign minister - a ‘Tamil’ minister who had never actually stood for election amongst the Tamils - where without any actual evidence to hand, the EU assigned blame on the Tigers and slapped a travel ban on them. It is precisely actions such as the travel ban that have placed such a heavy burden of international advocacy on behalf of the Tamil people on to the foreign affairs committee of the TNA and on Pararajasingham, ultimately making him a target of those who would silence such advocacy.

And so, having placed the burden on Pararajasingham and effectively invited his death, what did the EU and the US hope to achieve by so pointedly looking the other way?

The refusal to condemn the assassination stems wholly from what Pararajasingham stood for. The TNA has twice decisively won elections on a platform of Tamil self-determination and of support for the LTTE. Although the international actors were apparently keen for Tamils to ‘express their political will’, they are now unhappy as this political will seems to conflict with their geopolitical interests (the parallels to the recent elections in Palestine - and the unpleasant shock the result gave many international actors - are inescapable).

Furthermore, we must understand that not all lives are of equal value because not all political leaders are valued equally. A leader elected on a platform that the geopolitical actors do not find to their liking is necessarily of less value than a ‘leader’ who is not elected at all but granted his ministerial post through political patronage (perhaps precisely because he is not elected, the latter can espouse views that are convenient to the geopolitical actors but deeply unsatisfactory to the long-suffering Tamils).

The not so subtle international subtext is: ‘if your political views do not agree with ours then don’t look to us for the same protection as those whose views are.’ Pararajasingham is, in this sense, as much a victim of an utter lack of respect for free speech and political diversity on the part of the liberal democracies, most notably the United States and the members of the European Union, as the chauvinism of the Sri Lankan state.

An alternative, less cynical, argument might be that the international actors do indeed see the trail of blood leading to Colombo but do not see what can be gained by publicly acknowledging it. They are, it is argued, concerned that criticism of Sri Lanka will impede their program of gradual reform and lead to further destabilization of an ally and fellow government, which ought to be cajoled rather than brow-beaten into good behaviour. To quote senior US official, Mr. Nicholas Burns, international actors would prefer to ‘have a chat among friends’ on the subject of murder, rather than outright condemnation.

In any event, the decision of the international actors to ignore the murder of Pararajasingham has far-reaching consequences. At a critical point in the peace process, foreign participants pointedly and silently looked away from the trail of blood which leads so clearly to the government of Sri Lanka. Their credibility as neutral actors and sponsors of the peace process is therefore very much suspect. As is their commitment to the principles of civil liberty and democracy, particularly when it applies to the Tamils of Sri Lanka.

Coming as it did at a sensitive point in the peace process, the lessons drawn from the lack of international reaction to Pararajasingham’s killing have been learnt by a far broader spectrum of Diaspora and local Tamils than might usually have been the case. These lessons, moreover, have to be situated amongst others stemming from other scenarios, such as Iraq, the so-called ‘war on terror, Guantanamo, the ‘rendition’ of terrorist suspects to countries suspected of practicing torture, and so on.

The sub text that has been understood by the Tamils is that the US and its allies respect human rights and free speech, but only of those whose beliefs and interests do not conflict with their geopolitical interests. So much for Voltaire.
‘We call for your help’

At the start of December 2005 there was an increase in the level of violence in the Jaffna Peninsula, Trincomalee and other regions of the NorthEast of Sri Lanka. The NGO Consortium and local NGOs have stated that, “Many families in the Jaffna peninsula and Trincomalee felt that due to escalating violence that there was a threat to their personal safety from the Sri Lankan Security Forces and paramilitary forces. Many of these families identified the Vanni region as a place where they could temporarily move for safety.”

Over 3,325 families (approximately 14,500 individuals as of 16/01/06) have left their permanent housing, taking only what they could carry on their backs, and have crossed the checkpoints and lagoon into LTTE controlled areas of the Vanni.

In light of this influx of IDPs TRO is making an “URGENT APPEAL” to the Tamil Diaspora and the international community for desperately needed funds to build temporary shelters, provide food and water, non-food relief (NFR) items, medical treatment and transportation to meet the needs of these families.

Due to TRO’s extensive work with the post-tsunami internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the continuing work with conflict affected populations the demand placed on TRO is so great that the funds received to date are inadequate to deal with this crisis. TRO has the staff, structure, and expertise to effectively serve these IDPs if adequate funding is found. It is only through the immediate, generous support of the Tamil Diaspora and TRO’s other international partners that we will be able to deal with the impending humanitarian crisis.

In the present acute circumstances we call upon the well wishers of the Tamil community to urgently contact their local governmental, non governmental agencies, humanitarian agencies and religious institutions in their countries of residence and apprise them of the grave humanitarian crisis that will only get worse as the numbers of IDPs continue to increase. The situation is critical and the people of the NorthEast require the urgent assistance of these agencies and institutions to alleviate the suffering.
Oppression, resistance and war

She also spoke frankly to Tamil Guardian about the politics of gender empowerment in Tamil society and the role of the diaspora in the Tamil struggle.

Military violence against women

“Women are a voiceless people, so the Army can do anything. Women don’t even like to be alone in their houses, it’s not safe for them. But women are also scared to leave their houses because of the Army. So they are idle, imprisoned in their own homes and even there they are fearful. The Army can come quickly and quietly into their homes, do whatever they want, and get away without ever being punished.”

“Women have been comparatively more affected by living under the Army’s rule, so they are turning to the Tamil Tigers more. Rape and sexual assault is pervasive under military occupation, so women are more compelled to take arms and protect themselves.”

A change in social norm

“Our culture says that women cannot do everything men can, so men must take care of the women. Thus women have to get permission to go to work, to leave the house, to do anything. All sisters are scared of their brothers, afraid of their father and mother, very afraid of all these people who have control over them. As children, they don’t realize this is wrong, they just think it is the way of life. But now that there are women fighters, people are realizing women should be equal.”

“In old Tamil literature, women were very soft and passive. They were shown as helplessly dependent upon others. When people have been brought up in this culture, they don’t think women can use big vehicles and big weapons. In our culture, women aren’t even allowed to enter the sea for fear of ‘tainting’ the water – only men can do the fishing. But now women fight in these seas as Sea Tigers. Women also used to not be allowed to enter paddy fields traditionally, but now there are women everywhere. Women used to not even be taken to cemeteries to mourn the death of loved ones, but now women are in charge of martyr’s homes. Now female cadres even drive huge buses. No one would have imagined it.”

“The movement has shown that women can and should be equal. Before women’s liberation simply talked about these vague qualities but never had any proof that women were equal. The movement proved everything. Women have now become recognized for their talents and capabilities. People’s opinions are changing, and families give higher respect to women. They have realized society must also become equal.”

“Initially male cadres didn’t believe women could fight as well as men can. They challenged women to lift bigger bombs and so forth, and only after seeing the strength of women did male fighters respect them. There are still people saying women are not equal to men, because they grew up believing that all their lives. You can’t suddenly change that, it takes time.”

Cultural resistance

“Civilians don’t accept gender equality very easily. The Tiger leadership says to wear pants and act equally to men, but the culture is very strict. University boys may make comments. They have been brought up to think women are not equal, so people must change mentally. But since women have been fighting alongside men within the Tigers, people are beginning to realize they are equal.”

“Originally, the Tigers did not want to let women join because our cultural norms were so disempowering to women. They were accepted only for first aid work. But these women kept going to the Tiger leadership and demanding they too be allowed to fight. The Tiger leadership realized the passion and capabilities of Tamil women, and so the Birds of Freedom, the female fighters, were born.”

Theatre therapy

“There are such serious stresses upon women: so many have been sexually assaulted or raped. Some children have seen their mothers raped in front of them. Or women’s husbands have been killed by the Army. There are so many problems for women under occupied rule. So our theatre group did workshops where we would have meditations and sing songs. People would get very emotional, describing difficult feelings. This brought in their stresses from the outside, and people showed such strong feelings it would break even windows. We had a theatre temple and would discuss women’s problems and how they could improve their lives. This helped build self-confidence, and make women more active on issues they face.”

“Now looking at Tamil Resurgence Events such as Pongu Tamil, women are more active than men. After women were attempted to be raped in Jaffna, there were more women agitating at the next day’s demonstration, demanding justice. This shows Tamil women have become more empowered.”

Deteriorating security

“The Army and police do nothing to stop this violence or the crime. They don’t care about the well-being of Tamil people, so can be paid bribes to do nothing. There are problems with smaller gangs, stealing from people and houses. The Army supports this because they too profit. Before the Tigers had political officers in Jaffna, and everyone was safer then. The Tigers brought law and order to the area, and people knew there would be actual consequences if they did not obey the laws.”

The compulsion for Tamil self-rule

“We wanted to try as much as we could to resolve these issues peacefully. Our people understand this. But even after the tsunami, we tried for months to create a structure so aid could come to Tamil areas, but this utterly failed. It was needed for immediate rehabilitation, but it took seven months. Even the international community had to put great pressure on the government, otherwise former president Chandrika Kumaratunga would have dragged it out. But even after signing they didn’t implement it. Our people understand this well. This wasn’t political at all, this aid was needed solely for humanitarian work. But the Sinhala people did not want to give any help to the Tamils, and our people understand this.”

“So rehabilitation work is going much slower in Tamil areas than in Sinhala areas. Non-governmental organizations which came first promised to do great work and didn’t; even some other NGOs that wanted to help were limited by the government, who made NGOs register extensively. Some NGOs would only give boats or nets to a family, and this would be useless because fishermen need both boats and nets to work. Only the Tamils Rehabilitation Organization really helped people. NGOs said they must definitely give money to the Northeast, but nothing happened. They easily got money from the international community, but this was a waste. Nothing changed. Tamils are still suffering.”

Militarised peninsula

“Because of the demarcation of areas as High Security Zones, people can’t visit their own homes. It has been more than 20 years that people have had to leave their houses, and are now living in relatives’ homes, in small small huts. In one room the mother, father and children must live, and this has been very difficult for our people. This is where cultural deterioration happened, where the father may drink too much liquor and start quarrelling with the family. So students would not be able to study in peace. If the parents died, these children would not even be able to find their own houses or land. The government gives one or two houses back, but there are so many thousands still waiting. They just return a few homes for propaganda, but don’t really accomplish anything.”

Lagging behind

“There is now more development in Kilinochchi than Jaffna. In Jaffna we need permission from the government to build and conduct projects, but in Kilinochchi there are no such restrictions. There people can build as they want, and there is even a medical college being built. This is great because we have such a shortage of doctors, since ours go abroad to work and so people are desperate for medical help. But now there are Tiger doctors who do mobile work in Jaffna. We’d love to create a medical college like that in Vanni, but the government will not allow us to even open a college. The government truck used to come daily to take the trash in Jaffna, but now the government doesn’t send these trucks. So there is lots of rubbish in the streets. We tell people to keep this in the house, but many people don’t have room in their small small houses and so they have to dump this in the streets.”

“Our model is Kilinochchi, there is no trash there. There are no children who are abandoned with no one to take care of them. The movement teaches people even if they are poor and have nothing to offer in return. There are places for mothers and fathers who are elderly and alone. There will be these welfare supports all throughout Eelam. Our model will be Kilinochchi. But only after we get a country can we achieve these greater things.”

Anger, frustration and war

“People are ready to return to war. They want to fight against the Army and the years of oppression they’ve lived under. People know if the war begins, the Army will come and indiscriminately shoot civilians, so civilians are volunteering for short trainings to learn to defend themselves. At the Jaffna border, the Tigers give training and people go on large buses from Army-occupied areas and tell the Army when they return that they have just been trained. They are not afraid. Tsunami-affected people in Vadamarachy have gone for training, and when they fish and the Army asks them to show their Identification Cards, some refuse in anger, saying they’ve been trained by the Tigers and won’t show their IC. The people are very angry at the Army and their careless treatment of Tamils and their rights. People are ready for the war, with modernized equipment and stronger will. We believe victory will come to us quickly, it will not be a long war. If the situation continues like this, with this covert war on Tamils throughout the Northeast, our fighters may lose their spirits. So we cannot wait for long.”

“Everyone wants to liberate our lands, but many people are working for their families with little time to actively work for this. Other people don’t participate because they know the government will harass those who support the Tamil cause. But everyone comes for Pongu Tamil and demonstrations like this to show they too are enthusiastic for the liberation of Tamils.”

“It will be like our last victory at Elephant Pass, where the Army fled so fast to try to go to the Sinhala areas. They were so pitiable, they had no idea where they were and went it all different directions. Many fled from Vavuniya, so now buses are checked at the Army’s checkpoint to make sure no Army soldiers are deserting.”

Reaching out to the Diaspora

“We need the help of foreign Tamils. There is such a big scarcity of skills, to build homes and so forth, because for 20 years we couldn’t build anything because the cement wasn’t allowed to come to Tamil areas. So the younger generation does not know these technical skills. People from abroad can come and help train people so we can better develop and progress.”

“The desire of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka is very clear, from Pongu Tamil and all the resurgence events throughout the Northeast. But in the media this is lost: Reuters said only 40,000 people participated but in actuality 150,000 people attended. The media does not accurately reflect the aspirations of the Tamil people. So anti-propaganda work must be done. This too is like a war, just not by weapons.”

“Even after the election, when Tamil people decided not to participate, the media tells similar lies. People decided to boycott because they saw nothing could be gained by voting, but the media said it was simply because they were afraid of the Tigers that they didn’t vote. But this was an election for Sinhala people to select their leader; we already have our leader.”

“The diaspora must tell the world the truth of Tamils. They must explain what it is truly like there, and what people truly want. From now we will not be going through the Sri Lankan government to contact the international community. Now we will only take our state, and ask the international community to recognize us. We have everything already established for our state structure, the political, economic, legal, education, human rights organizations. The Tigers have established a strong welfare state. Even in Jaffna, when people have problems they don’t go to the police they’d rather go to the LTTE. So we are asking the international community to recognize us as a state. This is the work of foreign Tamils.”
Complicit silence and moral censure

Like that of many of his predecessors, the government of Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse has made fresh representations to the international community that his government seeks a negotiated solution to the island’s ethnic conflict whilst, simultaneously, branding its potential partners in peace, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), as ‘ruthless terrorists’ whose activities in should be banned in foreign countries. Despite the obvious contradiction in Colombo’s stances toward the LTTE, the publicly adopted positions of foreign actors suggest that they accept Sri Lanka’s case at face value.

The position adopted by Sri Lanka’s foreign minister this week echoes assertions by former holders of his post (during both times of peace and war) to their counterparts in the international community. Although not all leading states involved in Sri Lanka have readily adopted the anti-LTTE measures demanded by Sri Lanka, their policies have clearly been moulded within Colombo’s framework. The argument goes thus: Sri Lanka is a ‘vibrant’ democracy - perhaps with a few flaws, but those can be addressed in a more peaceful context - but the ‘fanatical’ LTTE is a violent group that places its own interests above those of the people it claims to represent and, as a result, has to be deterred, using any tools available, from plunging the island (back) into war.

Limiting the discussion to this simplistic dichotomy seems the only way for various foreign actors to understand the island’s conflict and draw up their policies with regards to Sri Lanka. The international tools deployed include providing substantial aid to the state’s civil and military structures, proscribing the LTTE and blunting the organization’s political project. The objective has been to deter the LTTE (the hardline protoganist), from challenging the state and, simultaneously, to bolster the latter against the former. Tamil criticism of such international attitudes has largely turned on the fact that such policies have failed to successfully encourage the Sri Lankan state to offer a reasonable political solution for the ethnic question and, more regrettably, to roll back the persecution and marginalisation the Tamils suffer under the Sinhala-dominated state.

The bona fides of the new Sri Lankan administration leave a lot to be desired. Having come to power on a Sinhala nationalist wave, the ruling coalition is led by a President whose strong Sinhala Buddhist credentials earned him the support of stridently hard line southern parties. The government’s contradictory signals - calling its future negotiating counterparts ruthless terrorists whilst simultaneously urging peace talks - could be attributed to political naivety or a need to balance different constituencies.

However, Colombo’s unleashing of military violence against Jaffna’s resients is less forgivable and more revealing of the state’s mindset. Within two months of Rajapakse’s election, the Sri Lankan military, lead by hard-line commanders he has newly installed, have revived a regime of extra-judicial killings, rape, and arbitrary arrests. The state of fear that Sri Lanka was notorious for prior to the ceasefire of 2002 has returned in just weeks.

Last week the military placed restrictions on the movement of journalists (and the week before that before that on NGO workers) in and out of the Northeast, an ominous step that revives memories of blackouts by past governments of the wholesale atrocities. Perhaps the most appalling signal of the new government’s mindset came, however, from comments by Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweewa to US Secreteray os State Condoleeza Rice. He told her that his government ‘would be unable to prevent’ communal violence against Tamils should the international community fail to intervene to force the LTTE to talks. The thinly veiled threat referred, as Tamils know full well, to the 1983 state-sponsored pogrom against them.

The justification for the increase in state violence and persecution is the need to confront increasing attacks on Sri Lankan military personnel by Tamil armed groups - which Colombo insists are fronts for the LTTE. The international community has duly commended the Sri Lankan state for its restraint in the face of attacks by these groups. Unfortunately, the international community has also refused to criticize Colombo’s escalating repression against the Tamil civilian population, seeming to endorse it. (Notably, when it comes to restraint, there was little encouragement for LTTE when the organization faced similar and in some cases far more serious provocations by the Sri Lankan military, including the sinking of two ships and the assassinations of prominent regional leaders.)

Even the assassination of elected Tamil politicians sympathetic to the LTTE by Army-backed paramilitaries – the most recent murder was of Joseph Pararajasingham shot dead whilst attending Christmas Mass – has not drawn a murmur of international protest. The failure by the international community – especially the European Union, which reacted so vehemently to the killing of Foreign Lakshman Kadirgamar - to condemn the murder of a Tamil MP has seriously undermined the moral basis on which international demands are routinely asserted. The international silence accompanying the Sri Lankan armed forces’ ongoing efforts to put down Tamil discontent with ruthless violence - including disappearances and summary executions - is a disturbing sign of things to come: the silence that accompanied Sri Lanka’s blockade on food and medicine into Tamil areas during the earlier round of conflict is by no means forgotten.

Crucially, for the peace process, and the credibility of its international underwriters, the failure of the Sri Lankan state to adhere to key agreements already reached have also been readily forgiven. Amongst these are the Ceasefire Agreement itself, which stipulates that the state must allow the 800,000 displaced Tamils (nearly a quarter of the Tamil population) to return to their occupied homes. The joint committees set up between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE during the four years with the aim of rehabilitating the Northeast failed due to government lethargy. Yet there was no international criticism. The final cooperative venture between the state and the LTTE was, of course, the failed Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structures (P-TOMS), designed to provide much needed humanitarian assistance to the region worst hit by the natural disaster last year. The declaration by Sri Lanka’s supreme court that the P-TOMS was unconstitutional put paid to that venture. Again, hardly an international protest.

It cannot have escaped the international community that the Sri Lankan state has absolved its responsibilities for those living outside the areas it controls, as evidenced by the sabotaging of the P-TOMS structure and its earlier efforts to appropriate and divert international aid. By contrast, the LTTE has demonstrated via its civil structures, redevelopment work and humanitarian efforts – especially in the face of the tsunami (and repeated floods) - that it has adopted the role of the state large parts of the Northeast.

The conventional state/non-state logic is thus not applicable in Sri Lanka, due to the reversal of role between the two primary domestic actors. Hence, concerns that were traditionally considered when contemplating the spectrum of action against the state has to apply to the non-state actor as well. Sri Lanka has asked the United States to shut down the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) for example. Acceding to the request will immediately impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of Tamils who rely on the organization.

The belligerent state, whose delusional assertion of sovereignty have included unilateral efforts to dislodge Norway, the facilitator in the peace process and whose government is too dependent on extreme right-wing elements to take any constructive steps toward a substantive peace. By contrast, the LTTE has made notable concessions and reached a number of agreements aimed at returning stability and normalcy to the war-torn regions - the latest of which was the ill-fated P-TOMS. The state has chosen to ignore the plight of an entire ethnic community, whilst the non-state actor has built an infrastructure to maintain law and order and provide social services and humanitarian assistance to those living within the areas it controls.

Over the past two decades the international community has no doubt had to re-evaluate its understanding of the ethnic problem on the island, assisted by academic institutions, which have sought to fit the complex conflict to a model which could explain its observable dynamics. Over a decade ago the conventional wisdom and the line promoted by Colombo, were largely that the LTTE was a fanatical, fringe organization that did not enjoy widespread support amongst the Tamil community and the solution to a peaceful Sri Lanka was the military elimination of the entity, and certain reforms of the state that would placate Tamil grievances. More recent policies suggest that though the international community accepts that the Tamil community have genuine grievances (for which some feel federalism is the necessary solution), it still feels that the LTTE - despite its popular support - is a hardline organization whose end objectives are not aligned to a peaceful solution.

But the fundamental aspect of the Tamil community’s relationship with the LTTE that the international community has failed to appreciate is that the movement is still the only entity on the island that is still pursuing Tamil interests, both humanitarian and political. Despite four years of peace, the Sri Lankan state has failed to deliver on a single signed agreement, and a quarter of the Tamil population remain displaced from their homes. Amid the impasse on aid, the Sinhala parts of Sri Lanka grow stronger whilst the Tamil parts remain destitute. A situation in which the Northeast remains trapped in an economic stalemate whilst the South prospers economically suits the hawkish Sinhala. Wittingly or otherwise the international community has played a crucial part in this dynamic over the past four years.

It is in this abject humanitarian environment that Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry is pressuring the members of the European Union to proscribe the LTTE as a terrorist organization. Should the EU buckle under the weight of Sri Lankan diplomatic pressure it would further undermine the bloc’s standing as an impartial actor in the island’s ethnic conflict.

Under these circumstances, an EU proscription – and its associated moral condemnation - will do little to improve the Europe’s strategic leverage on the island’s deteriorating situation. To date the LTTE has been banned in four major countries where there is a substantial Tamil Diaspora. The organization has continued to thrive despite the proscriptions. However, the states that banned the LTTE have been unable to fully engage in the peace process with both key protagonists. Should the EU follow suit it too will be restricted to working the hawkish new administration of President Rajapkase and third party dialogue via the Norwegian facilitators.

Most importantly, it will also reinforce Tamil perceptions that realpolitik and not moral imperatives drive policy decisions in foreign capitals and thus re-emphasize the need for self-help and self-reliance in all matters, including security.
Helgesen heads Swedish democracy IGO

Vidar Helegesen, the former Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister who led his government’s facilitation mission in talks between the Liberation Tigers and the Sri Lankan government is now heading a Swedish intergovernmental organisation.

Mr. Helgesen left the Foreign Ministry after the change in government in Oslo in September 2005. He has taken up a post as the new secretary-general of the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA).

Mr. Helgesen served as Norway’s deputy minister of foreign affairs from October 2001 until October 2005. His portfolio included human rights and democracy, refugee issues, peace and reconciliation processes, and UN policy matters, IDEA pointed out in a statement announcing his appointment.

“We are very pleased to appoint Mr. Helgesen as our new secretary-general,” said IDEA Board Chairperson Lena Hjelm-Wallén.

“He will provide the leadership and vision necessary to reach IDEA’s aims, which are to promote and advance sustainable democracy worldwide and contribute to an increased effectiveness of democracy building”.

Mr. Helgesen lead Norwegian facilitatory efforts in Sri Lanka, chairing six rounds of talks between the LTTE and Colombo from September 2002 to March 2003.

Helgesen is the third IDEA secretary-general to lead the Institute, currently comprised of some 50 employees representing 26 nationalities. He will assume his responsibilities at IDEA’s Strömsborg headquarters on 17 January 2006.

Founded in 1995 as an initiative of the Swedish Parliament, IDEA is an intergovernmental organization with a mandate to promote sustainable democracy worldwide. It has 23 member states from six continents, and four international NGOs as associate members.

IDEA’s field offices are located in Costa Rica, Peru, Mexico, Indonesia, Ghana, South Africa and Armenia.

The IGO says it “works with both new and long-established democracies to help develop and strengthen the institutions and culture of democracy,” focussing on three thematic areas: “democracy building and conflict management; electoral processes; and political parties, with gender as a cross-cutting topic.”

In all three areas, the Institute says it seeks “to contribute to improved design and effectiveness of key democratic institutions, and to contribute to strengthened democratic processes.”

In the past 10 years, IDEA has produced more than 100 publications in 10 languages for democracy practitioners.

Mr. Helgesen (c) pictured at a press conference in September 2002 with Sri Lanka's Chief Negotiator, Prof. G. L. Peiris (l) and LTTE Chief negotiator, Mr. Anton Balasingham.
Silver Lining

This week marks the first anniversary of the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami which killed 230,000 people, including over 30,000 Sri Lankans. The outpouring of international sympathy and assistance that followed the disaster was as impressive as the numerous individual and communal acts of courage and benevolence undertaken around the ocean’s rim. Hope sprang in the wake of the deadly waves. It came to fruition in Indonesia where a permanent peace deal is now being rolled out – though it remains to be seen whether the promise of a better future for the Acehnese will truly emerge. Not so in Sri Lanka which is instead on the road to war. The very real possibility of communal and ethnic harmony that only catastrophic tragedy can usher in was squandered by the Sinhala ruling elite which, barely had the waters receded, leapt to again marginalize the Tamils, Muslims and even border Sinhalese of the Northeast. International aid was blocked and diverted to the south. Aid from the Tamil Diaspora was also blocked and sometimes appropriated.

The Sri Lankan state was visibly overwhelmed by the disaster. But the shameless wrangling in Colombo about whether aid – and that’s international donations, not Sri Lanka’s own cash – should be shared with LTTE proved the durability of Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism once and for all. And the moralising about ‘one government’ that accompanied international vacillation ignored the state’s legacy in the Northeast– a decades long embargo, deliberate lack of investment and military administration. The crunch came, of course, with the P-TOMS, the stillborn, though internationally lauded, joint mechanism which was consigned to the dustbin last month after Sri Lanka’s new President took charge. Even the Sinhala people have been let down, as the Auditor General’s interim report outlined. Corruption, inefficiency and expansion of Sri Lanka’s patron-client networks has ensured little good, save that effected by NGOs and other non-state actors, has come about.

As far as the Tamils are concerned, the tsunami has rammed home a lesson we ought to have already learnt: we must manage our own affairs. Future threats stemming from nature’s compulsions or political exigencies cannot be adequately faced otherwise. In this regard, the tsunami built intangibles as it destroyed buildings and people. Tamils, local and Diaspora, came together as never before to alleviate suffering. The leadership of the LTTE proved invaluable in this endeavour. Our sense of being a nation has thus been strengthened, as have the administrative mechanisms to administer our homeland. Even as we remember the enormous loss of life in our homeland, we must resolve, to use that now clichéd expression, to build back better. We must, in short, prepare to take care of ourselves.
Stanford pathologist tries to improve care

Just a little at a time. That’s what Yasodha Natkunam keeps reminding herself one year after the massive Indian Ocean tsunami devastated her war-ravaged homeland.

Despite the renewed threat of civil war and the undelivered millions in aid, the Stanford University pathologist continues her crusade to bring 21st-century medical care to the isolated region of northern Sri Lanka, one person at a time.

She has brought a Sri Lankan student to Stanford - paying for his plane fare, putting him up at her Sunnyvale home - to teach him how to use the high-tech microscopes and other equipment that she delivered to the impoverished flatlands last spring during her first journey home in two decades.

With renewed political tension stalling Sri Lanka’s rebuilding efforts, Natkunam understands her project to upgrade the region’s rudimentary medical labs requires both urgency and patience.

“The effort will continue as planned, just a little at a time,” she said. “I am an eternal optimist.”

Her goal is to build the intellectual foundation for medical laboratories that can someday diagnose illnesses on the spot, saving lives.

The Mercury News accompanied Natkunam in March as she traveled combat-battered, one-lane roads to deliver five microscopes to primitive labs in the hot, insect-infested region of northern Sri Lanka. She negotiated past tense political checkpoints, assuring both sides in the country’s decades-long conflict that the sensitive equipment was intended for peaceful purposes.

Stanford and Scientific Instruments of Sunnyvale had donated the used microscopes, which cost about $25,000 apiece when new.

The microscopes have since been used to screen blood smears, identify malaria parasites and train students in Sri Lanka’s Tamil region.

But without pathologists and specially trained technicians, the microscopes are not being used to diagnose cancer, as Natkunam hoped. Instead, patients often don’t learn about their disease, are diagnosed too late or must travel hundreds of miles to the capital city of Colombo for treatment.

That’s becoming increasingly difficult. Escalating violence in recent months threatens a delicate cease-fire, and the government has declared a state of emergency that authorizes detentions and searches without warrants.

Promised aid money has been slow to trickle into the region, adding to Sri Lanka’s post-tsunami economic woes. Many still live in temporary shelters - single rooms with concrete floors, wooden walls and thatch roofs.

So Natkunam turned her attention to training Sri Lankan technicians here in the United States.

“Teaching a skill -- that’s something that can be passed onto others, and lead to good things,” said Natkunam, 40. “It is one way to make a difference.”

Her first student recently returned to Sri Lanka after spending months observing Stanford technicians prepare and diagnose diseased tissue specimens. The student, Suresh Kumar, a 35-year-old Tamil Sri Lankan, works at the government-run Jaffna General Hospital.

“Stanford made it possible to show him how a clinical lab works,” Natkunam said.

She hopes to bring another student to Stanford when she has enough money. Even that has been tough, though, because it is unsafe for potential students to travel and Sri Lanka’s political instability has complicated fundraising.

“I just do what I can do,” Natkunam said.

On the morning of Dec. 26, 2004, Natkunam was at home in Sunnyvale, watching television while making breakfast for her children, when she learned about the giant waves.

It had been 21 years since she last saw Sri Lanka. She left as a student, with an imminent civil war threatening her dream of practicing medicine. Her parents were successful government physicians, even though they are members of the Tamil ethnic minority.

In 1983 tensions with the Sinhalese majority were worsening. Eight classmates in Natkunam’s college class were missing or imprisoned. Many others had already fled.

The dream of returning to her homeland to rebuild a medical system had been playing in her mind for years. The tsunami, which killed about 35,000 Sri Lankans, was her push.

“When I saw the footage, I realized I was overdue to go back and start working to help,” she recalls.

Even before the tsunami, an economic embargo had blocked food, fuel and medicine in the northern Tamil region for years. Microscopes were basic, where they existed at all.

Natkunam knows Sri Lanka’s brightest hope lies in its 1 million exiles - like Natkunam and her parents - who had the wherewithal to escape years before. Now, she fears more fighting and more death could further complicate her plans.

Yet she yearns to bring more equipment to the region - and bring more students to Stanford, seeking donations for their plane tickets.

“There is a lot to do and there have been major setbacks,” she said, “but I’m very hopeful that we will make progress.”
Furuhovde passes away

The first chief of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Retired Norwegian Army Major-General Trond Furuhovde, passed away following a period of illness at his home in Norway. He was 67.

Maj. Gen. Furuhovde, who retired from his one year service (March 2002 - Feb. 2003) as SLMM Head of Mission in Sri Lanka, returned to the island again in February 2004, when the Norwegian government re-appointed him after a controversy in November 2004 involving his successor, who was declared persona non grata by Colombo.

Maj. Gen. Furuhovde, an experienced monitor in international conflicts, has earlier served as the Force Commander of United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) from 1993 - 1995.

Furuhovde who was under medical treatment in Norway, undertook a mission to Sri Lanka as a Special Representative of the Royal Norwegian Government in October 2005 to consult with the parties.

The leader of the Liberation Tigers, Mr. Vellupillai Pirapaharan, sent a letter of condolence to Mrs. Furuhovde in which he also expressed his movement’s gratitude for the General’s efforts to keep the peace in Sri Lanka.

“General Furuhovde twice undertook the most difficult task of the Head of Mission in Sri Lanka during turbulent times, and made an outstanding contribution to the establishment of peace and stability in the war torn Tamil homeland. With extra-ordinary skill and leadership he guided the monitoring mission in overseeing peace and helped to strengthen and consolidate the truce agreement,” Mr. Pirapaharan wrote.

“With passionate commitment to peace General Furuhovde performed his task with stunning efficiency, adhering to the noble principles of objective neutrality and social justice. His exemplary service will always be appreciated with gratitude. On behalf of the people of Tamil Eelam, I express my heartfelt condolences to you and your family.”
No exceptions to ban on torture

The absolute ban on torture, a cornerstone of the international human rights edifice, is under attack. The principle we once believed to be unassailable - the inherent right to physical integrity and dignity of the person - is becoming a casualty of the so-called war on terror.

No one disputes that governments have not only the right but also the duty to protect their citizens from attacks. The threat of international terrorism calls for increased coordination by law enforcement authorities within and across borders. And imminent or clear dangers at times permit limitations on certain rights. The right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is not one of these. This right may not be subject to any limitation, anywhere, under any condition.

Many UN member states disregard this prohibition and continue to subject their citizens and others to torture and ill-treatment. Although a broad range of safeguards is available now to prevent torture, many states have either not incorporated them in their legislation or, if they have, do not respect them in practice.

Particularly insidious are moves to water down or question the absolute ban on torture, as well as on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Governments in several countries are claiming that established rules do not apply anymore: that we live in a changed world. They argue that this justifies a lowering of the bar as to what constitutes permissible treatment of detainees. An illegal interrogation technique, however, remains illegal whatever new description a government might wish to give it.

Two phenomena have an acutely corrosive effect on the global ban on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The first is the practice of having recourse to so-called diplomatic assurances to justify the return and “rendering” of suspects to countries where they face a risk of torture; the second is the holding of prisoners in secret detention.

The trend of seeking “diplomatic assurances” allegedly to overcome the risk of torture is very troubling. The international legal ban on torture prohibits transferring persons - no matter what their crime or suspected activity - to a place where they would be at risk of torture and other ill-treatment (the non-refoulement obligation).

Faced with the option of deporting terrorism suspects and others to countries where the risk of torture is well documented, some governments, in particular in Europe and in North America, purport to overcome that risk by seeking diplomatic assurances that torture and cruel, degrading or inhuman treatment will not be inflicted.

There are many reasons to be skeptical about the value of those assurances. If there is no risk of torture in a particular case, they are unnecessary and redundant. If there is a risk, how effective are these assurances likely to be?

But the problem runs deeper. The fact that some governments conclude legally nonbinding agreements with other governments on a matter that is at the core of several legally binding UN instruments threatens to empty international human rights law of its content. Diplomatic assurances create a two-class system among detainees, attempting to provide for a special bilateral protection regime for a selected few and ignoring the systematic torture of other detainees, even though all are entitled to the equal protection of existing UN instruments.

Let me turn to my second concern. An unknown number of “war on terror” detainees are alleged to be held in secret custody in unknown locations. Holding people in secret detention, with the detainee’s fate or whereabouts, or the very fact of their detention, undisclosed, amounts to “disappearance,” which in and of itself has been found to amount to torture or ill-treatment of the disappeared person or of the families and communities deprived of any information about the missing person.

Furthermore, prolonged incommunicado detention or detention in secret places facilitates the perpetration of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Whatever the value of the information obtained in secret facilities - and there is reason to doubt the reliability of intelligence gained through prolonged incommunicado or secret detention - some standards on the treatment of prisoners cannot be set aside. Recourse to torture and degrading treatment exposes those who commit it to civil and criminal responsibility and, arguably, renders them vulnerable to retaliation.

(Edited)

Louise Arbour is the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Disarm the paramilitaries

To: the US Congress,

We would like to express our grave concerns regarding the stalled peace process in Sri Lanka. As Sri Lanka’s presidential elections approach this Thursday, both of the two main contenders are crudely marginalizing the interests of the Tamil minority.

Both candidates are playing to the forces of ethnic nationalism in their efforts to secure a political victory, with neither side pledging concrete support for the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) which the United States, as one of the Co-Chairs for Sri Lanka’s peace process, has backed and repeatedly called for implementation.The most crucial aspect of the CFA is Clause 1.8, which demands the disarmament of paramilitary groups currently engaged in a covert shadow war against the Tamil minority. The Norwegian-led peace monitors have documented over 190 deaths due to this subversive war, as local residents report paramilitaries being given arms from the Sri Lankan Army, and residing in camps well-fortified by the military.

We call upon you to ensure that whoever wins Friday’s election comes under immediate pressure from the United States government to fully disarm paramilitaries and stop those perpetuating violence against innocent civilians.

Both main presidential contenders, United National Party Opposition leader Ranil Wickremasinghe and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse are essentially ignoring the eighteen-percent Tamil minority beyond superficial claims to “consider all communities’ interests”. Indeed, Rajapakse has secured nominations from both the Eelam People’s Democratic Party, a notorious armed political group, and Colonel Karuna, head of the faction of the Tamil Tigers that split from the organization in 2004. Officials from Wickremasinghe’s government, which was in power during the signing of the 2002 CFA, recently admitted they helped facilitate this split within the Tigers, which has directly led to a cycle of violence in a ‘shadow war’ and the deaths of hundreds of people. Paramilitaries operating under the umbrella label of Karuna’s forces have since terrorized Tamils throughout the region. This has caused unbearable tension among a population already devastated by last December’s tsunami.

It is within this bleak context that many Tamils are simply refusing to participate in the upcoming elections, to show the world that “the land of the Tamils will no more trust Sinhala leaders,” as the Jaffna Student Organization of Higher Education Institutions states. This provides a dangerous opportunity for ballot-stuffing and election fraud, which may involve violence against Tamils who do decide to vote. Given the history of election violence against minorities in Sri Lanka, seen in December 2001 and April 2004 parliamentary elections in which hundreds were massacred in party conflicts and indiscriminate bombings, there is a high likelihood for indiscriminate killings. Indeed, foreign election observers have reported that “systematic intimidation” is being carried out by government ministers, using state vehicles and people in STF-style uniforms to warn Tamils against voting. Additionally, government documents have been found describing a plan to send army deserters to Tamil regions to dilute their vote.

We call upon you to ensure that the next president of Sri Lanka implements the Ceasefire Agreement, particularly the Clause stipulating the disarming of Army-backed paramilitaries, to halt the violence that has daily plagued the Tamil people.

Thank you for your concern in preserving peace and democracy in Sri Lanka.

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