This piece is written on the assumption that Sarath Fonseka (SF) will stand for the presidency and be supported by a Joint Opposition (JO) of the UNF, the JVP and possibly minority parties. However, Rajapakse keeps dithering about an election because he will have to quit promptly in the unlikely event that he loses; hanging on for the remainder of the first term, whatever the constitutional position, will see the streets ablaze. Will he take the chance? Also by putting back the election Rajappakse makes the JO and SF stew and squabble for a year or two. So read on with these several caveats in mind.

SF’s endorsement by the JO is also problematic. He has altered several points in the Addendum to the first version of the resignation letter agreed with the UNF and leaked to the press. The alterations are all retrogressive, reactionary and militaristic; unwelcome by democrats and unacceptable to Tamils. Therefore liberal-democrats, minorities and the left should confer on Fonseka the same suspicion they accord Rajapakse.

The Tamils cannot hold it against Sarath Fonseka that he fought a war against them and won. It is a soldier’s job to fight, and there will be casualties, and it is his job to win if he can; no one can shrink from facing that fact. The point is; did he fight clean? Is he responsible, or partly responsible for alleged war crimes and contravention of human rights? These are grave charges about which he will have to reassure the Tamils if he wants any of their votes. I don’t think he can build this confidence; surely MR and SF are liable in equal measure for the alleged crimes – not to mention GR. Nevertheless let us see what they have to say about each other as the campaign heats up. Don’t be surprised if you see one in the Presidential Palace and the other in The Hague; charges of treachery are already flung around like confetti.

As I wrote last week universal justice and humanitarian obligations in war are now vigorously enforced; the old days when governments could get away with war crimes are fading. Israel is in the UN dock literally, and the mighty USA is in the dock of global public opinion. Little wonder then that the world is breathing down on Sri Lanka and for sure the actors in the election will have a lot to say about each other’s conduct in those fateful days of 2009; chronicles of white vans and motorbikes will leak like a plumber’s nightmare.

Hobswamy’s choice

Initially, I will approach the choice between MR and SF from a Tamil perspective, not because I am one (let alone 24 carat or 18 carat, not even 14 carats worth), but because the swing vote of the minorities is important. I think the hardcore Sinhala chauvinists will stick with MR; ideologically and politically he is their man and SF can’t break that. Those who suggest that he can split the most racist-reactionary sections of the Sinhala-Buddhist electorate will be proved wrong. Rather, SF will have to play to the middle ground, the progressive Sinhala vote, ethnic and religious minorities, the JVP vote, and folks fed up with corruption and abuse of democracy. But, he does not seem to understand this as evidenced by the aforementioned changes to the Addendum.

Points 14 to 16 of the original Addendum are good. Fourteen chides the government for ill-treating the IDP’s but in the new version the demand that IDPs be allowed to go live with relatives has been removed and some security related clap-trap inserted; a despicable alteration. The original point-15 blamed MR for failing to reach out to the Tamils and achieve a credible solution to the national question; the emphasis is now adjusted to say more troops and security are needed, again militaristic jingoism instead of a political approach. Point 16, in its original form, was near verbatim from the Platform for Freedom agenda, it has been entirely deleted; obviously, democracy is not one of Fonseka’s strong points!

If SF had the inclination and character to move in a progressive direction he may have made himself persuasive to the Sinhala middle ground and minorities. If for example he dumped the anti-conversion bill it would have brought the Christian vote flooding into his ballot box. Won’t he lose the extremist S-B vote you may ask? Nope, he was never going to get it, as I said two paragraphs ago.

It is Hobson’s choice for the Tamils. Vote this way, that way, boycott, enlist a Tamil candidate, what to do? It’s a miserable choice, but a decision is obligatory. In the event of a strong Tamil candidate like Sampanthan appearing, then the second-preference is the key. If Sampanthan does not contest and proclaims neutrality, it is a tacit endorsement of MR, because to contest is to draw a large number of additional Tamils to the booth and their second-preference vote into the spotlight. Tamils who will puke rather than vote for SF may however be able to bring themselves to do a number two on him. The TNA’s decision will tell us what kind of horse dealing has been going on in the background.

The executive presidency

SF is on record that he will retain the executive presidency as he needs authority to root out corruption and abuse. A website quotes him as saying, ‘that’s the way I did it in the army and that’s the way I am going to do it nationally’; this is nearly verbatim. He is more than half wrong; firstly, an administration with an executive president or Westminster style prime minister can be corrupt or clean, depending on the people at the top. Secondly, countries are not armies, as SF will learn if he becomes president; and a corollary the general seems to have missed, presidents who try to run a country like an army are known by another epithet, Dictator! Thirdly, it will take a good two years to get a new constitution written and adopted and the transitional arrangements implemented. That’s executive-time enough to get the basics of corruption fighting done.

SF’s tone is too full of himself and too self-aggrandizing. He will have to climb down and learn flexibility and people skills, neither of which the kaki uniform is adept at inculcating. Forcing capitulation on the executive presidency issue to secure Joint Opposition endorsement would be a good start in teaching him to be pliable and political. The UNF and JVP should tell SF to go to hell if he does not climb down on this issue.

The West, China and India

The Rajapakse government has drifted away from the West and into Sino-Iranian waters not because of any ideological preference, this government is ideologically chintanaless, but rather because these friends are anodyne on human rights issues. Western governments, under pressure of domestic public opinion, the Tamil diaspora and the global human rights lobby, have made themselves pesky gadflies, now even beckoning from the corridors of The Hague.

The anti-Western tilt opens a window which SF can use if his foreign policy is sufficiently sophisticated.

A critique can be made of the Rajapakse government for unbalancing our traditional post-independence relationship with the West and its educational, cultural and intellectual openings. It can be argued that this has already cost us GSP+, and could damage direct private investment and harm our economy in many ways. Ever since 1956 Lanka has been adroitly non-aligned, developing economic and regional ties with new friends while protecting its strong historical links with the capitalist West. Now is first time this balance has gone way out of kilter, the United States even contemplating war crimes charges against some political leaders. The point is not the charges per se, but the breakdown of established relationships.

The Sri Lankan voter is no fool; he/she will take the benefits of a balance in foreign linkages into account when marking the ballot. Hence SF can play the ‘rebalance and restore our traditional non-aligned foreign policy’ card, if he knows how to.

The great unknown in this game is Delhi, which will of course be very pleased by a tilt back from a Beijing-Teheran-Islamabad love affair towards the West; towards America to be precise. The unknown is whether India will risk discarding the known devil for the unknown, or think it safer to stay the course with MR having invested so much political capital in propping up the regime in its deadly duel with the Tigers. My prophetic nose feels a twitch of premonition about which way India will tilt, but it’s too early to share it with you.

Why either MR or the UPFA must go

The choice between MR and SF is like Scylla and Charybdis; between the UPFA and the JO, like the devil and the deep blue sea. Are there good reasons for abandoning sea monsters and ghouls in exchange whirlpools and the ocean depths? The answer is that the merit lies not in the entities themselves but in the need to thwart a second term; to have MR as president and the UPFA in parliamentary majority, jointly, for another six years, will be a calamity. These people have had a monopoly of too much power for too long and this is one root cause of corruption, abuse of power and the peril to democratic rights. Recall that for 17 years the UNP misruled while holding both branches of state, and then the SLFP-PA has done so for another 15, except the short Chandrika-Ranil interlude.

The interlude, notwithstanding the shortcoming of internal squabbling in power sharing governments, was clearly the best for the public. It was also the best for the minorities. I have no doubt that the Oslo Accord during the interlude was the closest we came, since the Dudly-Chelva Pact, to settling the national question; and the 2003 ceasefire ushered in the most hassle-free period for the Tamil people for so long as it lasted. I have no patience with those who say the ceasefire was a sell out to the LTTE – plain war mongers and chauvinists!

Several American activists protested in front of the midtown Manhattan New York State armory building where Victoria's Secret catwalk event was being held Thursday, November 19.

While celebrities were arriving to attend the popular event, the protesters highlighted the Corporation's trade with Sri Lanka as aiding and abetting crimes against humanity, and war-crimes.

"The New York Police attempted to harass the protesters, but we carried on our protest much to the dismay of the catwalk organizers," said a protest organizer.

 The protesters distributed brochures that urged ethical American consumers to boycott Sri Lanka's products, and carried banners and placards that accused Victoria's Secret of continuing to trade with a Sri Lankan State that is widely believed to have committed war crimes on Tamil civilians during the State's offensives against Tigers early this year.

Ellyn Shander, the Connecticut physician, who was one of the attendees, said that "a wider boycott campaign" is being planned for the end of November as a part of mobilizing the Tamil diaspora to continue sustained boycott campaign to make significant dents in Sri Lanka's international trade.

A Tamil Canadian protester chokes back tears as she recalls a cellphone conversation she had several days ago with a cousin detained in a Sri Lankan camp holding Tamils displaced during the country's civil war.

"She doesn't know where her husband is. Her children have had no school for the past six months. There is no food or medication," said Uthayakumary Prapaharan, one of the roughly 600 people who gathered Saturday (November 21) to protest in front of the Sri Lankan consulate.

Prapaharan, a native of Sri Lanka who has lived in Canada for 23 years, said more than 60 of her relatives have spent time in the camps since the civil war ended in May.

"Some of my relatives have left the camps, so we know they are alive," said Prapaharan.

"Some are lost or have died already. But about 20 of my cousins and their kids are still inside the camps."

Tamil Canadians and their supporters, including Liberal MP Bob Rae and NDP Leader Jack Layton, expressed skepticism at Saturday's rally over the promises by Sri Lanka to not only allow the refugees to leave the camps but also to resettle the displaced Tamils.

"They are allowing some people to leave, but there's a question of where they are going," said Rae.

"There is a lot of talk of people being allowed to leave the big camp but there is a question of where they are being moved to and where they are being allowed to settle."

The rally included repeated calls for non-governmental organizations and independent news media to be allowed into the camps.

"International observers don't really have full access to the camps, so we can't know for sure what's going on. That has to change," said Layton.

"The Canadian government has to insist that international observers be permitted."

So far, information has been sketchy.

"We only know a little bit through people who have been allowed to visit their relatives," said Ranjan Sri Ranjan, president of the Canadian Tamil Congress, which represents roughly 300,000 Tamils living in Canada.

"Even then, the people cannot touch their relatives. They have to stand behind barbed-wire fences and talk from several feet away."

The turnout was smaller than the 2,000 protesters anticipated by organizers. It was also a fraction of the up to 4,000 who stopped traffic on University Ave. in March.

"A lot of people are disillusioned. They don't know what to do," said Raj Thavaratnasingham, a member of Canadians Concerned About Sri Lanka, one of the organizers of the event.

"I have talked to so many people who are upset that nothing is happening to change things."

(Edited)

General Sarath Fonseka resigned from the Sri Lankan Army on November 12, and in doing so, fuelled speculation that he intends to run for President at the next election.

Officially stepping down from his post on November 16, Fonseka said he would announce his decision on whether to enter politics soon.

“I gave my retirement papers,” Gen. Fonseka told the media at a Buddhist temple at Keliniya on the outskirts of Colombo in the evening after sending in his resignation letter.

“I have been serving my country in the past and I will serve the country in future as well.”

Asked whether he would join politics, the General said: “I can’t comment as I am still in uniform. I will decide my future once my retirement comes into effect.”

Soon after signing the official document to quit as Sri Lanka's top military officer, he repeated his statement.

"I expect to announce my future steps in two or three days. I will be serving the country in the future," he said.

“He is certainly entering politics. It is an irreversible process for him now," Sumanasiri Liyanage, a political science professor at the University of Peradeniya, told AFP.

“For the first time in 15 years, political developments have unfolded that threaten the dominance of Sri Lanka’s ruling party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party,” reported The National newspaper. 

“Mr Rajapakse has until now faced little serious resistance from an opposition that has struggled to find ways of countering him. But this political hegemony has shown unprecedented cracks with the emergence of a new leader for opposition forces to rally around,” the paper commented.

Fonseka is widely credited to be one of the three players in defeating the LTTE, along with Mahinda Rajapakse, and Gotabaya Rajapakse, Ashok Mehta, a political analyst who once led the Indian peacekeeping forces in Sri Lanka, told Al Jazeera.

If he decides to run for president, Fonseka could split Rajapakse’s voter base by giving voters another contender who also represents winning the war, said analysts.

The incumbent president had been expected to capitalise on the defeat of the LTTE and announce a quick poll.

At his Sri Lanka Freedom Party's annual convention, Rajapakse, said only that he would decide "in due course" after more than 100,000 party stalwarts urged him to call the presidential poll before the parliamentary elections due in April 2010.

Human rights activists have condemned the conduct of the last days of the war, alleging gross abuses of human rights and the commission of war crimes.

A US State Department report on possible war crimes in Sri Lanka criticised Fonseka in particular for having “overlooked the rules of war”.

Since the end of the war, the Sri Lankan government has been criticised by international community and human rights organisations for failing to resettle the hundreds of thousands of Tamils locked up in camps surrounded by barbed wire.

In Fonseka’s letter of resignation, which reads like an election manifesto, he adds his voice to the criticism.

“Your Excellency's government is yet to win the peace in spite of the fact that the Army under my leadership won the war,” he said. “There is no clear policy to ensure the security of the Tamil people thereby leaving room to ruin the victory attained, paving the way for yet another uprising in the future due to lack of security arrangements in the resettled areas.”

Rights activists reacted with disbelief.

"It is an irony of ironies that Fonseka is talking about human rights when he was our target of attack in the past," Nimalka Fernando, a human rights activist told the media.

Following the victory against the LTTE, Fonseka is rumoured to have clashed with the Rajapakse brother over who should take the credit for winning the war.

Since Fonseka’s resignation from of the office, many posters of Fonseka around Sri Lanka have allegedly been ordered to be removed.

“Fonseka says politicians are taking credit for a war won by the soldiers while Rajapakse [and his brothers] say it is the Rajapakses that won the war,” opposition politician Wijedasa Rajapaksa (not related to the President), told the National.

“People now have realised who the real hero is … and that’s Fonseka”, he said.

It is not clear yet which party Fonseka may join in the presidential election, with some speculation of a three-way contest between incumbent President Mahinda Rajapakse, main opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and Sarath Fonseka.

Wickremesinghe was considering contesting as the UNP candidate while Fonseka could be a candidate from the opposition People’s Liberation Front (JVP), the National cited local newspaper reports as saying. 

The experience of growing up and beginning her work as a human rights advocate in apartheid South Africa has never left Navi Pillay. It is an experience that deeply informs her work as the United Nations high commissioner for human rights.

“I can never separate myself from what somebody who is violated feels like, because that experience is real to me,” the former South African judge says during a visit to Dublin.

“I will always be very close to and identify with the plight of victims. I would not be attracted to what is expedient, strategic or politically correct – that is what my experience has taught me.”

Her predecessor, Louise Arbour, was vocal in her criticism of how measures taken by the Bush administration and other governments to combat terrorism since the September 11th, 2001, attacks had damaged the human rights agenda. Pillay notes that the Obama administration has proved more supportive.

“Both from the statements and actions from the current US administration, there is a clear demonstration of a commitment to protect human rights and to restore standards that are respected universally,” she says.

The decision by the Obama administration to reverse a Bush- era boycott of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), despite “propaganda which portrayed the council as biased and a venue for bashing Israel”, was, Pillay says, of great significance.

The HRC has, through the introduction of new review structures, done much to overcome the poor reputation of its forerunner, the Human Rights Commission.

“Member states take charge of each other’s human rights record and 80 states have already been reviewed on the same criteria applicable to all states,” Pillay says. “I’m not saying that it is going perfectly, I’m saying that this is a good mechanism.”

Pillay praises Ireland’s support for a recent UN resolution calling for investigations into allegations that war crimes were committed during the January conflict in Gaza. “I agree with Ireland’s reasoning that the call for investigation is a legitimate call.

“If someone robs you on the street, you want an investigation, an identification of the suspect and a prosecution. Where societies have taken that route – my country’s truth and reconciliation commission, for instance – you find that there has been a management of the passions that arise from victims’ calls about injustice.”

Pillay stresses the importance of the Goldstone report on the Gaza conflict – which prompted the UN resolution – because it is grounded in international law.

“Whatever the justification to go to war is, you cannot use disproportionate violence and you cannot target civilians,” she says.

Pillay has also called for an inquiry into alleged human rights violations committed during the conflict in Sri Lanka. “It is time for all states to remind themselves of the principle of accountability to which we all subscribe to . . . we want to end impunity for serious crimes. I have called for an international investigation because that is what I have been doing for all situations such as this – it is not just Sri Lanka. And the absence of such an inquiry means that I must continue making such calls.”

The human rights situation in Iran, generally and in relation to the crackdown on post-election protests in June, is also a matter of concern. “We have written to the government asking them to protect the right of protest and the right of free speech,” Pillay says. “We are watching those trials and we are appalled at the severity of the sentences.”

How has Tehran responded? “That it is subject to the judicial process, that it is in the hands of the judges. But of course it is a matter of concern that they are continuing to suppress protest.”

Pillay has highlighted the impact of economic, financial and climate change crises on human rights, and she has drawn attention to the issue of caste- based discrimination which, she notes, affects 250 million people.

Following General Sarath Fonseka’s resignation from the Sri Lankan Army on November 12, the government not only relieved him “with immediate effect.

Fonseka, the chief of defence staff, formerly Chief of the Sri Lanka Army, led country’s military forces in the last stages of the war against the Liberation Tigers. With accusations of war crimes being committed in the final stages of the combat, Fonseka could potentially face charges if the allegations are proven.

Fonseka had requested permission to retire from December 1, and also requested protection including trained combat soldiers and bullet proof vehicles.

He further requested that “a suitable protected government resident be made available for me to live in”, and went on to ask that “approval be granted for me to continue occupation of the present official residence of the Commander of the Army”.

Responding on November 15, Secretary to the President Lalith Weerathunge informed Fonseka that he was not only retired “with immediate effect” but that he was also required to vacate his official residence, and that suitable accommodation would be found for him.

The letter from Weeratunga stated that he had already overstayed his date of retirement by four years and that he should retire with immediate effect, in keeping with his request for resignation.

"This decision has been arrived at having giving anxious consideration to the fact that you yourself believe that the president and the government have lost the trust and faith bestowed upon you, as the senior most serving military officer in the country," the letter said.

Fonseka has been replaced by the Sri Lankan Air Force commander. Air Chief Marshal Roshan Goonetileke was made the new chief of defence staff in addition to his duties as head of the air force, according to an official from Rajapaksa's office.

Sri Lanka defence authorities are carrying out a ‘covert’ campaign targeting house owners to refrain from renting out their premises to the former commander as part of a wider campaign to mount pressure on him, reported TamilNet, citing sources close to Fonseka.

Activists who visited Jaffna, in northern Sri Lanka, after years away, expressed dismay at it being an open prison with a need for ‘special visas’.

A group of 27 media persons from the Sri Lankan south made these observations as part of a visit to the Jaffna Peninsula.

During their stay, they spoke to many residents, journalists and politicians, who all described the tragic situation.

Nearly 14 years after Jaffna was taken under Sri Lankan Army control, the peninsula is still an ‘open prison’ they said.

"It was like visiting another country," says Ananda Jayasekara, who works for Transparency International Sri Lanka, one of the journalists who travelled to the northern peninsula.

The media and its functionaries in Jaffna peninsula continue to face restrictions and harassment, the visitors noted.

They also noted that residents of the peninsula have to obtain travel ‘pass’ to travel, like visa, from the military authorities to leave Jaffna.

"You need a special permit, it is like getting a visa, to enter Jaffna and it is only valid for a month," said Jayasekara.

The media group also noted that people are not allowed by the Army to freely choose their mode of travel to and from Jaffna, particularly travel through A9 road.

They also added that at night Jaffna residents feel unsafe outside their homes, citing ‘unidentified elements’.

The continuing internment of Vanni residents in the Vavuniya camps is also a source of concern for Jaffna residents, the visitors reported.

With respect to the Tamil civilians transferred from the Vavuniya internment camps to Jaffna, the visitors found they had no arrangements made for them in Jaffna, resulting in their continuing hardship. Further, nothing has been done to enable them to continue their livelihoods like fishing and farming in their own places, the newly ‘resettled’ said, which added to their troubles.

Especially for Jaffna residents who have been separated from spouses, sons, daughters and parents, who were taken away from the Vavuniya camps by the Sri Lankan military, their anxiety is compounded by the lack of news about their safety.

On the whole the people of Jaffna peninsula no longer trust the government, its visiting politicians and their empty promises, the visitors said. But they are still strongly committed to a permanent solution to the Tamil problem, they said.

Jayasekara also commented that the unusually high cost of transport made many suspicious over the motives of the authorities.

The return air ticket costs 19,500 Sri Lankan rupees, a price most in Sri Lanka cannot afford.

It seems as if the Government are actively discouraging Jaffna residents from leaving the peninsula, he said, claiming it added to the notion that the peninsula is in fact an “open prison”.

This is echoed in the fact that despite government promises of an ease on travel restrictions in Jaffna, residents have reported that they still have to obtain passes from the Sri Lankan Army in order to use the A9 road, he said.

Lorries owned by Jaffna traders were also not allowed through by the SLA, despite the fact they were issued with roadworthy certificates by the army, the visitors noted.

Even anti-LTTE activists, Nirmala Rajasingham and her husband Rajesh Kumar, also known as Raghavan, have been highly critical of the Government’s control of Jaffna.

"People in Jaffna plan for the future - trying to send their children for higher education, getting their children married or trying to build a house. Jaffna people go about it with such vigour, but I couldn't see that happening anymore,” commented Rajasingham. 

"… many say their friends and relatives who were with them the previous day suddenly disappeared the next,” she noted.

"Many people behave like deaf and blind as they no longer have a voice... In fact, people look like they are living day by day, as if there is no future for them."

"While travelling to Jaffna, all I saw was huge destruction," Kumar said.

"You need to wait at least three hours to board the plane. And all the buses only leave once a day, so that security officials could check the buses at once and relax for the rest of the day," he told the BBC.

Even pro government EPDP minister Douglas Devananda was refused permission to simply show IDPs housed in camps, to where they would hopefully be resettled.

The displaced were from Thenmaradchi and were evicted once the SLA took control of the area.

The Sri Lankan government has said it will be launching a massive development program for Jaffna, entitled “Northern Springs”.

Jaffna residents however, have been highly critical, claiming that there is a lack of any genuine effort for reconciliation.

Expectations Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse will soon announce the holding of new elections for his office, and that Parliamentary elections will be held soon after, have in recent weeks sparked the customary speculation and armchair strategizing about likely outcomes. In particular, the possibility that former Army commander Sarath Fonseka, who oversaw the slaughter of twenty thousand Tamil civilians earlier this year, will run against his former boss have spawned all kinds of calculations.

But here’s a simple, unavoidable fact: whoever wins these elections, there will be no change in the structural persecution of the Tamils. To claim otherwise is to deliberately set aside a number of central – and self-evident – aspects of contemporary Sri Lanka, including how power is distributed – in effect – across ethnic communities (and hence state-society relations) and the logics informing different communities’ ideas of what these should be.

In short, elections will, at most, merely rearrange the faces of power, nothing more. No international effort to tinker with Sri Lanka’s political dynamics by encouraging the victory of one person instead of another, one coalition instead of another, will produce an outcome other than a new constellation of Sinhala nationalism. Perhaps it can be concealed better by some actors, but ultimately when policy needs to be enacted the mask will slip.

This is no hyperbole on our part, but a truism underpinned by the Tamils’ experience of sixty years of expanding, and now hegemonic, Sinhala rule. To begin with, both main parties, the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), are essentially Sinhala entities –the US State Department last year benignly categorised both as “encourage[ing] of Sinhalese culture”. What this means is that whilst in terms of the economy, the UNP is on the right and the SLFP is on the left, since independence, both have conducted politics in the manner that affords the Sinhala people a dominant role in the island’s politics, and the other communities – all of whom, notably, speak Tamil – a subservient role.

This is not a question of electoral demographics. In Britain, for example, the majority of people are white, indeed English, but that does not mean others have a subordinate role. More importantly, the Scots are explicitly recognized, along with others, as one of the constituent nations of the UK, with their homeland recognized within the country’s territory.

By direct contrast, the Sinhala-dominated (first Ceylonese, now) Sri Lankan state has striven to erase the Tamils’ identity and reduce them to a clutch of less-valuable citizens. As then Lt. Gen. Fonseka put it last year: “… this country belongs to the Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our people. We being the majority of the country, 75%, we will never give in and we have the right to protect this country. We are also a strong nation ... They can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things.”

In this view, one widely shared amongst the Sinhala (as is now starkly apparent to all non-Sinhala, not just the Tamils) the majority are a ‘nation’, but the other communities are something else. It is this hierarchical logic that has informed the historical changes wrought on the distribution of power across ethnicities, the extension of state benevolence and the use of state terror. Political science professor Neil De Votta, for example, details this in his study of the island’s politics even before the protracted armed conflict began: he shows how, even by the mid seventies, Sri Lanka had “regressed to an illiberal, ethnocentric regime bent on Sinhala superordination and Tamil subjugation.”

It is worth noting how the ascendancy of Sinhala majoritarianism – by which we mean its embedding in the character of the state bureaucracy, the composition, practices and war strategies of the military, the channeling of international aid and state investment, etc – has taken place while the country has been in the close embrace of the international community. What is now striking is how, after several decades of ‘engagement’ by the liberal West there still isn’t a hairsbreadth of liberal space.

In other words, the privileging of the Sinhala over the Tamils, can be traced, by those who care to look, in the policies adopted by each government since independence – whether it be of the left and right, before or after the end of the Cold War, aligned to one external power or another. Those who seek to link, in any way, the outcome of the forthcoming elections to substantive changes in the plight of the Tamils are either disingenuous or living in a fools paradise. For in six decades of independence, the one constant in the island’s politics has been Sinhala majoritarianism nationalism.

The International Monetary Fund has declared that Sri Lanka’s budget deficit targets for 2009 and 2010 are challenging, due to the slowdown in growth

But the international lender of last resort thinks they can still be achieved.

The analysis came as IMF mission Chief Brian Aitken flew into the country on a 10 day visit with the IMF team in order to head talks on the second review of the IMF loan.

"Achieving the government's target of reducing the underlying budget deficit ... to 7 percent of GDP in 2009, and further to 6 percent in 2010, will be challenging, but these fiscal targets remain within reach," the IMF said in a statement.

"We see a sign of turn around," Aitken told reporters in Colombo. "The budget reforms are the key goals in the next two years. Now that the crisis is basically not a threat, they can focus on tax reforms and expenditure reforms."

The IMF announced that it would loan Sri Lanka $2.6 billion in July, which has contributed greatly in increasing the confidence of foreign investors. Despite of this however, economic growth has not picked up as fast as expected.

"With economic activity well below Sri Lanka’s potential, inflation is expected to remain in single digits next year," said Aitken.

There is no risk of demand-driven inflation as the economic growth of 3.5 percent this year "is way below potential,” he said.

"So until we start seeing a more rapid pick up of credit growth there's no worry about inflation. We see plenty of room for growth before we see any signs of demand-driven inflationary pressures," Aitken said.

"The horse has started to take off but there's still slack in the reins so the cart has still not quite gotten under way."

The government has so far managed to abide by the policy conditions set out by the IMF, in order to receive the loan. Yet, they have been warned about borrowed foreign reserves and their budget deficit.

"We'd like to see more and more reserves generated by economic activity rather than borrowed funds," continued Aitken.

The third $330 million tranche of the loan will be decided in the first quarter of next year, based on Sri Lanka’s performance.

In Haiti on November 10, United Nations peacekeepers from Sri Lanka fired live ammunition resulting in injuries to civilians, reported Inner City Press.

Sri Lanka contributes a large number of peacekeepers to the Haiti mission. Previously they have been accused of raping local women and girls.

Inner City Press asked spokesperson Michele Montas about the incident, and about UN peacekeepers using live ammunition instead of rubber bullets. Inner City Press also asked about the credibility of previous UN investigations.

Ms. Montas replied that after an emergency landing, "some Haitians entered the helicopter," reported Inner City Press.

She said a person in the helicopter fired and a cartridge hit a civilian. She also said that "a person in the plane shot in the air."

Shooting in the air is the protocol, Ms. Montas answered, when questioned by Inner City Press about whether it is UN protocol to shoot live ammunition in the air.

This is reminiscent of the incident in 2008 during the Security Council's visit to Goma in the Congo, where a UN security official shot his weapon in the plane to try to show that it was empty, triggering an all night bus ride by Ambassador to Kigali, Rwanda, the press site reported.

Later on November 20, Inner City Press spoke with a senior UN peacekeeping official, who explained that UN Formed Police Units have rubber bullets, but that in this case is was "military people."

Reportedly, these were Sri Lankan soldiers, in all probability previously involved in the conflict in northern Sri Lanka in which the U.S. and others have found presumptive war crimes, reported Inner City Press.

UN officials in New York and Port au Prince have reportedly received a letter that in 2005 "a Jordanian soldier's brutal rape and sodomizing a Haitian mother of five in Haiti. The report was sent to the UN, the victim complained to the UN.”

The investigation process never led to a resolution that was ever revealed to the victim, Inner City Press reported.

In 2007, it was discovered and reported that girls as young as 13 were having sex with U.N. peacekeepers for as little as $1 in Haiti.

Sri Lankan soldiers were accused of systematically raping Haitian women and girls, some as young as 7 years old.

The UN still refuses to disclose the outcome of its repatriation from Haiti of over 100 Sri Lankan peacekeepers on allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation.

No action has been taken against those responsible for any of these actions, Inner City Press noted.

The scars in Kumar’s hands are zipped-up wounds. Though the flesh is repaired, the marks are alive. You could almost reach out and open them, see the blood trickle out softly to tell a story.

He moves in the kitchen like a predatory tiger: swift, hungry and unnoticeable. I worked with him years ago in a tiny-but-charming restaurant in Toronto, where his performance was formidable: quick-tempered and precise.

He used to address my co-workers in confident broken English, and if you didn’t understand his machine gun of words, you were asked, “Do you speak English?!” He came from Russia. From England. From Sri Lanka.

I later learned that he owned the place. He was 26 years old. Kumar* began his work in the kitchen before he knew what onion was in English. To him, cooking knows no language, anyway. It’s all movement and instinct.

One day, while I was waiting on a dish he was cooking, I asked him where his scars came from. I waited for small stories; wounds acquired in the kitchen.

“From the war. Oh, and refugee camp.” He brought a calendar to work one day. It had lovely, balletic Tamil lettering and a group picture of scowling army soldiers in full military

regalia.

There’s an eerie feeling about their collective expression, quite implacable.

He proceeded to show me a community newspaper. Casualties littered the pages, but none of the images were as concrete as the last page, that of a Tamil family lying scattered in a raided house. There was blood everywhere, but that was no longer unusual.

The story was in the mother’s skirt: blood below the waist, confined.

Kumar asked me to imagine the soldiers in the calendar, their lives after the camera flashed. He said he forgot most times, but the slightest ponderous gaze in the distance charged his face.

The calendar, he later told me, commemorated the lives of suicide bombers.

An August 2006 BBC headline, “Dispute over Sri Lanka air raids,” hinted at the two disagreeing sides of the story, but the verified facts painted the picture with frightening clarity:

planes roaring over the heads of teenage girls, about to explode inside an orphanage.

BBC admitted the difficulty in reporting the truth about the Sri Lankan civil war.

"Lots of the worst things that happen go on well away from the eyes of independent journalists,” BBC’s South Asian editor, Bernard Gabony, stated. “In other words, a lot of lying goes on, but unless you have the proof of who is lying, all you can do is report what the different sides say.”

Kumar’s friend, Siva*, 33, had one such story. When he was 16 or 17, Siva went to school at St. Patrick’s College in Jaffna, taking shelter under a tree when he heard the all-too-familiar roaring plane overhead, felt the tremor of the blast and saw the dust, rising. A few kilometers away, people ran to take cover inside St. Joseph church, thinking it a godly shield.

But this time, the air raid didn’t target a school. The pilot of the plane could see where the people were taking cover. The sacrilegious bomb found them there.

And the caved walls of St. Joseph church became flesh.

Instinct told survivors to run, lest they find themselves eclipsed by a creeping airborne shadow-bearing fire. A stronger instinct told them to dig.

“There was no time to be emotional. Your brain tells you to find people who are still alive,” Siva said.

Passing vehicles took those injured by flying debris to the nearby hospitals. Siva? He shoveled dead bodies into a truck.

When he was 17, Siva, would disappear for days, not out of teenage rebellion but out of the government’s fear that he was connected to the Tamil Tigers, a declared terrorist organization, according to the Stephen Harper government back in 2006. If Siva was connected to the Tamil Tigers, the Sri Lankan government wanted to know.

The military took him, blindfolded and hands tied, to a remote place two to three hours away. There, they fed him gruel. “Sometimes I’d find a rusty nail in it,” he said.

But that was the least of his worries.

The interrogations were the main event. They would involve a bowl of boiled chilli pepper and, later, a bucket of gasoline.

“They make you breathe it,” Siva recalled. “My eyes and throat burned from the chilli, and the gasoline made me pass out, but not for long. They hit me to wake me up, then they continued with the questions.”

Siva’s mother, who made only 3,000 rupees a month, was extorted 50,000 rupees in exchange for her son’s freedom. “My mother had to sell our land to pay them off,” said Siva.

After two incidences of these days-long questionings without a warrant, Siva ran away to Batticaloa to live with his uncle, then to Colombo, then to Canada.

Siva told me the worst stories. “I know someone who almost died,” he said, adding that these kinds of torture happened on a regular basis in Sri Lanka during the civil war.

“They hung my cousin Kamma* from his thumbs, with just his toes touching the floor. Then they hung him upside down from one ankle and beat him with PVC pipes filled with sand,” Siva continued.

 “They do that so that you don’t get scars. You just bleed inside.” Kamma was hospitalized for three months and, to this day, still gets chest and back pain from the beating.

When asked about the validity of these claims of torture by the Sri Lankan government to the Tamil people, Toronto consulate general of Sri Lanka Bandula Jayasekara defended

his country.

“I deny these claims,” Jayasekara told Excalibur. “People can say anything.

They can show scars, but that’s not a solid proof. They could’ve gotten that anywhere.” Jayasekara said that, with the civil war ending last May, there is now peace in Sri Lanka.       “We have defeated the rebels, and child soldiers are now being rehabilitated. It’s now safe there.”

Jayasekara further emphasized the optimism he has for achieving unity between the two ethnic groups, and ensured that Tamil-Canadians will be met with equality if they decide

to go back to Sri Lanka.

“I don’t like saying ‘Sinhalese’ and ‘Tamils,’” he added. “We’re all Sri Lankans. We have to move forward. We need to forgive and forget.”

Some Tamils in the York community are not as optimistic as their consulate general. Vithu Raman, president of the York University Tamil Students Association, told Excalibur about his hesitation to go back to Sri Lanka, even now that the civil war is over.

“When a Tamil activist goes back, anything can happen. I feel terrified,” said Raman.

Raman further stated that, though the violence between the government and the rebels is over, the cause of the conflict is far from resolved. “I would love to hope that there would be peace now, but displaced victims of the war will be resettled away from their original homes and still stripped of rights,” he said.

“I think it’s going to take decades because the problems are not solved. Until all the voices in the country are heard, true peace can’t be achieved.”

*Names have been changed to protect identity  

Six months after Sri Lanka's decades-old civil war ended with a final assault, about 200,000 people remain trapped in overcrowded government-run camps that were once safe havens for those fleeing the conflict.

Facing pressure from the Obama administration and the European Union, the Sri Lankan government last month launched a campaign to resettle tens of thousands of the minority Tamil detainees. But interviews in the country's war-ravaged north reveal that many civilians have merely been shuffled from the large camps to smaller transit ones and are being held against their will. Others have been released, only to be taken from their homes days later with no indication of where they have gone.

After the army defeated the Tamil Tigers in May, top government officials paraded their success on the streets of Colombo, the capital, and the country's leaders made noble promises about ensuring national harmony. Now analysts say the real test of Sri Lanka's success in building a stable, post-conflict society lies in the fate of these scores of thousands of detainees.

Human rights groups say the government is lying about its resettlement efforts; authorities concede they are using the camps as a tool to uncover any remaining Tamil militants but deny they are deliberately stalling civilians' return home.

"We thought this war was over. But for Tamils, it's like going from the frying pan and into the fire," said Devander Kumar, whose brother was released, only to be taken away by police without explanation, one of 30 men in the seaside city of Trincomalee who have disappeared soon after their homecoming. "Do we Tamils have to prove every second of the day that we are not terrorists?"

Tamil leaders worry that if civilians end up languishing in the camps indefinitely, the situation will only breed more resentments and risk spawning another generation of rebels. But the government says it needs more time to de-mine vast stretches of land in the north, as well as to repair infrastructure damaged by war. Authorities also say they continue to root out rebels who have blended into the civilian population.

"History will prove us right," said Basil Rajapaksa, who is leading the resettlement process. Rajapaksa is a U.S. citizen and an adviser to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, his brother.

"We need the transit camps to weed out any underground rebels. The Tamil people have had a lot of hardship," he said. "So the last thing we want is to sacrifice their security for the sake of risking even one more sleeper cell or one more attack."

After a fierce military offensive in May, the government declared victory over Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a well-funded militia that for 26 years fought for a separate homeland in northern Sri Lanka. The United States and other governments have labeled the Tamil Tigers a terrorist organization.

The U.S. State Department has called for an investigation into war crimes allegedly committed by both sides during the war's final days. After the fighting stopped, the president commissioned patriotic pop songs extolling the virtues of a prosperous Sri Lanka united under one flag. In the new Sri Lanka, he said, the Sinhalese Buddhist majority would embrace its Tamil compatriots, who are mostly Hindu and make up 15 percent of the nation's 20 million people.

But there is growing frustration among Tamils over the camps, ringed by razor-wire fencing and patrolled by armed guards. There is also anger over the unexplained arrests of military-age men.

On a recent day at a camp set up inside a school here, soldiers held back a group of weeping women who rushed to the gates to greet family members they had not seen in more than a year because they had gotten separated during the fighting.

"The most worrying part of the transit camps is that nobody is allowed to even meet them inside, not even religious leaders or desperate relatives," said V. Kalaichelvan, head of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies in Trincomalee. "It's like a wound on the psyche of the already damaged Tamil community."

Mano Ganesan, a Tamil member of Parliament, has filed a lawsuit against the government to allow him and other Tamil leaders to visit both the transit and the relief camps.

"Tamils feel like inmates in their own country. . . . The irony is that the root causes of this conflict are being ignored yet again. That can only mean more Tigers in the future," Ganesan said.

On a 10-hour trip by car from the capital to Trincomalee, one encounters frequent checkpoints, abandoned villages and fields of weeds where once rice and cashew were grown. The transit camps appear overcrowded, with families spread out under trees.

"In the last few weeks, there has been a sincere effort to release more people from the detention camps," said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect diplomatic efforts. "But we have so far been unable to track where exactly they are going. We are hoping to see evidence soon that they have actually been resettled."

Sri Lankan officials say the government has begun relocating nearly 42,000 people from the camps. The government also says it will dedicate a large amount of development money to the Tamil-dominated north.

But mistrust prevails. In one village, residents said police had taken away several of their neighbors, who they said were innocent. "One of the major problems with the camps is that the government is not telling people when or why they are arresting relatives," said Gordon Weiss, a spokesman for the United Nations in Sri Lanka. "In a country with a long history of disappearances, just snatching people creates an incredible atmosphere of fear. At the same time, the sinister nature of this war was that so many civilians were militarized, which legitimized them as targets by the other side. That is the tragedy of this conflict."

When the Second World War was ending in the Western Theatre in May 1945, the British public made one of its wisest decisions in history in sending Winston Churchill to political retirement and electing Clement Atlee who was able to evoke new hopes about freedom of peoples all over the world by announcing independence to colonies.

Postal votes cast by British soldiers experiencing the pulse of peoples in different parts of the world in fact made the edge of the decision.

The war that is declared ended in the island of Sri Lanka fails to evoke any hopes in the minds of the masses in the island as well as in the civilized world because no formula other than further repression is what forthcoming in addressing the underlying issue of national question in the island.

The Sri Lankan government and the military chief aspiring for political power are only competing in who could prove more repressive to the national question of Eelam Tamils.

The plain truth is that political justice cannot be expected from the guilty and the paranoid ones unless they are ‘Dharma Ashokas’ of the Buddhist fame. Even Ashoka who shed much tears in his inscriptions for the war he waged in Kalinga, never thought of giving independence to that country.

For reasons yet to be understood fully, the war in the island was collectively and determinedly fought by all the powers of the world. What is that sane point of global polity they wanted to achieve and if they have achieved it where is the political justice long due for Eelam Tamils, remain as puzzles.

Many diplomatic circles were long hinting at the bankruptcy of ideology in the powers of today. According to them, the island of Sri Lanka was a test case for ‘trial and error geopolitics’ of 21st century and except China the others fought the war with an ‘extraordinary vision’ of ‘what comes later will be addressed later.’ As a result, at the end of the war, the geopolitical configurations became more precarious than before.

Now comes the great idea of ‘reconciliation.’

A widely expressed opinion considering all what had gone before is that reconciliation has to first take place between the powers and Eelam Tamil psyche.

Probabilities for such a reconciliation taking place genuinely are remote unless the powers recognize the national question as national question and come forward to address it in ways fit enough for chronic cases.

In this respect the US state department’s paradigm of reconciliation is wanting in Hillary Clinton’s pre-election vision on recognition of national questions.

The war and its aftermath have indisputably proved that 'human rights' and 'development' are not sufficient enough to handle a crisis like that of Sri Lanka. Any approach to the diaspora about which the West is particularly interested in may not bear much fruit unless there is open commitment of them to the national cause of Eelam Tamils.

India has no excuses now in recognizing the national question as the ‘terrorism’ it was complaining about doesn’t exist and as Mr. Karunanidhi has proved that the Eelam Tamil nationalism is a separate entity of its own.

But the Indian Establishment is far behind in politically gearing itself to meet the requirement. Its traditional approach through bureaucrats and intelligence agencies to create and manipulate factions will not work anymore. Only an open political confession acknowledging the national cause will mobilise masses in its favour and that is its greatest security.

On boldly specifying the national question even certain friendly sections of Eelam Tamil cause in India seem to be slipping at a most wanted time. There is a view among sections of them that an independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam will not be acceptable to the peoples of India and the issue has to be addressed as a case of ‘self-determination.’

TamilNet has written at length how ‘self-determination’ is vague and ambiguous in contesting 'right to security of a state' and thus often meaningless in international vocabulary in addressing ethnic questions and ‘intra-state’ national conflicts.

What puzzles Eelam Tamils is how ‘ideology’ of some Indian political parties that once staunchly upheld the creation of Bangladesh could not now justify Tamil Eelam to the peoples of India. Is it because Tamils are inferior to Bengalis or is it because genocide is less in Sri Lanka or is it because ideology has to be adjusted to the whims and fancies of the Indian Establishment are questions asked in Tamil circles.

The most fundamental political freedom is the right of a people to tell what they politically want for them.

The Sri Lankan state has disenfranchised Eelam Tamils in this respect long back by the 6th Amendment to the constitution in 1983. Today, one finds some other states too engaged in either telling Tamils not to reveal what they wish in their heart or intimidating directly or indirectly expression of opinion in favour of their national cause.

Mr. Karunanidhi is not alone in deleting the word Eelam but there are also countries in the east of India that frown at their citizen’s solidarity with the cause. In the so-called globalized world, political fundamentalism of Establishments in the name of state has become the worst threat to transnational political opinion and people to people solidarity.

The free world will certainly appreciate the refreshing example set by Norway last May in allowing Eelam Tamils to democratically express their opinion and mandate independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam. Now similar exercises are pursued in several other countries of the West.

Eelam Tamil diaspora should pick up the cue and what they could demonstrate democratically will sure to be a novel contribution to global polity, besides benefiting their own cause.

Re-mandating independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam of the Vaddukkoaddai Resolution of nonviolent politics, forming democratically elected country councils and evolving a democratic transnational government are three major steps for Eelam Tamils in the diaspora. The steps in principle are not contradictory to one another but contributory as well as safety locks, and any affliction to the success of even one of them will affect all.

Eelam Tamils have to demonstrate that ‘self-determination of people’ is some thing that is exercised and not received from others.

Those in the international community who aspire for reconciliation and peace in the island may do well by encouraging the Eelam Tamil diaspora in evolving political structures culminating in transnational state so that a platform of dignity and identity could be there to smoothly facilitate reconciliation first with the international community.

Of course ultimate reconciliation has to take place between Sinhala and Tamil nations for peace in the island and in the region. But genuine reconciliation cannot come without parity and dignity.

The said political steps of the diaspora may immensely help to enlighten the Sinhala nation of the democratic realities of the national question in the island and could pave way for reconciliation. At present, the Sinhala nation has no avenues for learning the true democratic opinion of the Tamil nation that is in captivity in the island.

The current psychological and political reality in the island is that 'reconciliation' is an issue between two nation states, and it has to be approached acknowledging this reality, not only for political formulas and peace in the island, but also for achieving shared sovereignty of the EU model in the region, if that is what going to be the demand of time in future.

Present day International Community will register a point of progress in the polity of human civilization by collectively eradicating baneful states like Sri Lanka that habitually blackmails, using the card of geopolitics, to resist restructure.

A situation is not far away that the Sinhala nation too will be demanding this from the international community and reconciliation would perhaps come at that point, if at all not by other means.

“I viewed what happened on the beach below through the lens of a camera recorder from the seventh floor of a building located next to the Bambalapitya railway station”, Assistant News Editor of TNL News channel, Sisikelum Dahampriya Balage said, giving evidence to the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s inquest into the killing of Balavarnam Sivakumar, 26.

He said that he saw a man being chased by three persons towards the sea and saw them assaulting the man they were chasing, with sticks. But he could not clearly make out the three men chasing the lone man were police officers or not.

But the witness said that it was his impression that it took place “under the supervision of the police”.

The elder brother of the victim, Balavarnam Kadirgamanathan, informed the courts that Sivakumar had mental depression for a couple of years for which he received medical treatment from a mental hospital.

“I have five elder sisters and one younger sister. He is my only brother. He had been undergoing treatment for his mental illness. When I saw him for the last time, he was wearing a black T-shirt and brown trouser. On October 30, I went to the morgue and identified the body of my brother,” he told the Magistrate.

He urged the courts to carry out a proper investigation into the killing of his brother so that justice was served.