The peace process in Sri Lanka is one of the world’s most internationalized. The self-styled Co-Chairs of the donor community – namely Oslo, Japan, the United States and European Union (EU) – make up almost the major actors – save India – who are involved in Sri Lanka. But a constant refrain we hear is that it is up to the parties to the conflict, the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), to come up with a solution. The Co-Chairs, naturally, are prepared to help.

But this is a duplicitous claim. The Co-Chairs + India exert enormous influence on the conflict and its resolution. Indeed, some would argue, it is international actors’ pursuit of their own preferred outcomes that perpetuate the conflict. The point is brought into focus by examining the conduct of the EU in the recent past.

The EU is a major donor to Sri Lanka, as are the US and Japan (the largest). It is also a key trading partner, with a complex set of de-facto subsidies and tax exemptions which are crucial to Sri Lanka’s export driven economy. Some countries are key providers of military support, including Britain and the Czech Republic (the latter has, in the past few years, supplied 24 MBRLs, like those that destroyed Chavacachcheri, to the Sri Lanka Army).

Without international support and financing, Sri Lanka would have been bankrupt some years ago. A state propped up by international aid, at the very least Sri Lanka’s economic future depends largely on the goodwill of the EU and its allies.

Before going further, it is worth considering the strategic goals of the state and the Tamils. The entire purpose of the war, from Sri Lanka’s perspective, is to regain and ensure control over a unitary state. This is one route to political stability, albeit one which preserves the constitutional status quo and keeps the Tamils under central control.

The Tamils, on the other hand, want – in order of priority - physical security (now and for the future), equality and a guarantee of fundamental and community rights, and, like all other world communities, opportunities to pursue their economic prosperity. They believe this can be achieved in an independent state.

What is interesting when examining events this year is that the international community, particularly the EU, have done much to bolster Sri Lanka’s position this year. The EU has not only proscribed the LTTE – based, its officials say, on a small handful of violent incidents selected from the past two decades of violent conflict, in which most casualties have been Tamil civilians killed by Sri Lankan forces. It has also continued to support the Sri Lankan export economy.

Yet consider Sri Lanka’s conduct: It is well known that amongst key destabilising factors in the peace process are: the government’s continuing support for anti-LTTE paramilitary organisations (in contravention of the internationally monitored) cease fire agreement, the disappearances and extrajudcial killings of Tamil civilians by the Army, the wholesale punitive bombing of Tamil villages in retaliation for LTTE attacks – for which the organisation was banned by the EU.

Given that although the EU does have powerful leverage these de-stabilising activities have been increasing, one could reasonably conclude that the EU does not wish to exercise its power against the Sri Lankan state.

As for the Tamils and the LTTE, a number of forms of leverage were available. The Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in a report last week, that the international community has ‘far more’ leverage with the Sri Lankan government than with the LTTE. This is not entirely true.

The EU and its allies have two things the Tamils and the LTTE have desperately sought in the past few years: financial assistance and political recognition. It should be remembered that the ultimate guarantee of Sri Lanka’s unitary status is the international community’s ability to deny recognition of a Tamil state.

In theory, the EU could provide even limited humanitarian aid to the Tamils, particularly in the wake of the devastating December 2004 tsunami, the brunt of which was borne by the island’s eastern coast where it had a disproportionately huge impact.

But having characterised the LTTE as a terrorist group even before the formal ban, the EU does not give aid to the LTTE administration nor have other dealings with the organisation. There is no leverage now, because the EU has preferred to allow the sufferings of over 800,000 internally displaced people to continue, rather than breach this self-imposed rule on ‘terrorism’ – which has been observed during 4 years of a peace process.

The much-vaunted tsunami aid sharing package, the PTOMs was never implemented. Oddly enough, it was the EU, above all other actors that raised expectations amongst the desperate Tamils to such heights. The EU’s silence as it handed over aid to Sri Lanka even though PTOMs was tossed aside after being signed deepened Tamil despair even before the EU proscription.

The PTOMs was an opportunity to create leverage on both sides to stay jointly in the peace process, to engage in rehabilitation work in the war- and tsunami- ravaged areas of the island, to work together despite themselves. But the EU cast the agreement aside without the slightest effort at defence or revival. Perhaps it was not that important, after all.

The LTTE is clearly not dependent on the EU or its allies for military assistance. But it has not even been assisted in its basic administrative efforts, unlike the corrupt and racially motivated Sri Lankan state.

Now to the present crisis. The LTTE has plausibly argued that it is the sustained escalation of a violent campaign against its members and supporters by Army-backed paramilitaries, including a group led by one of its renegade commanders, that is to blame for the present ‘low-intensity’ war.

Given that the EU clearly had leverage over at least one of the parties involved in the cycle of escalation - namely the Colombo government – it is surprising that things have gotten so bad.

One can only conclude that the EU, along other international actors, have thought a divide and rule strategy was an appropriate way to deal with the Tamils. Some stability might be sacrificed in the short term due to Tamil infighting, but the long term benefits of denying the Tamils a unified negotiating position outweighed the costs – most of which would have been borne by the LTTE and the Tamils anyway.

Meanwhile, by tacitly accepting the recent military atrocities in the Army-occupied parts of the Northeast and by failing to use its substantial leverage to curb these abuses, the EU has revealed the hollowness of its principled defences of human rights. Despite the rhetoric, rights are not that big a deal.

The EU has repeatedly been advised that by banning the EU it would be seen by Tamils and Sinhalese – and the LTTE and the Sri Lanka government – as taking a moral stance and thus a side on the conflict. The EU was also aware its monitors could not continue as they would no longer be neutral. Yet it didn’t care, imposing the ban on the LTTE in May.

Now it is the LTTE that is being accused of disrupting the monitoring. Note, by way of comparison, how Sinhala protests over Norway heading the monitoring as well as the peace facilitation resulted in a Swedish officer, rather than a Norwegian, being put in charge in March. Tamil sensitivities to neutrality are clearly not as important as those of the Sinhalese.

Earlier it was argued that the primary concern for Tamils was physical security, followed by equality. The EU’s involvement in the monitoring, combined with its clout made it a credible underwriter of human rights in the Northeast. Yet it is was amid escalating atrocities by the military that the EU decided to assist the Sri Lankan state by criminalizing its primary adversary, the LTTE.

And this has had exactly the reverse impact in the attitudes of the Tamils and the Diaspora. The international community will make promises about rights, justice and equality and break them by endorsing and supporting the racist Sinhala-dominated state. The international NGOs will come and go, occasionally doing some limited work. But the LTTE, which emerged in the Northeast, will always be there as a military counter to the Sri Lankan military’s threat. The LTTE civil administration will remain, doing the best it can to alleviate the suffering of the Northeast Tamils.

Ironically, the EU ban was intended to thwart fundraising by the LTTE. Not only is aid being withheld, the Tamils of Europe are forbidden to assist the humanitarian work that the LTTE administration and Tamil charities are undertaking.

The latter raises an interesting point. Several European countries are home to large concentrations of Tamils. Rather than meeting with them and understanding why so many feel compelled to give money to the LTTE or to humanitarian projects in LTTE-controlled areas, the EU government’s have opted to simply forbid them from doing so.

I return again to that basic point; the Tamils’ desire for equality and fundamental rights. Amid much hand wringing about its ethnic minorities being unfathomable, the EU’s actions suggest something else: an unreflective contempt for the views of their Tamil citizens.

It is this sense, reinforced by the series of EU actions outlined above that is going to have the most profound impact in the coming period on Sri Lanka’s conflict and efforts to resolve it. It is the EU’s repeated failure over the last two years to take a firm stance on professed principles, including equality of communities, fundamental and community rights, the rule of law, etc has done most to leave the Tamils isolated, perplexed, resentful and angry. And apathy is not, as the past few decades have vividly demonstrated, a Tamil trait.

The oddest bit of news last week was the tale of the hunt for Nelson Mandela’s pistol, buried on a farm near Johannesburg 43 years ago.

It was a Soviet-made Makarov automatic pistol, given to Mandela when he was undergoing military training in Ethiopia.

A week after he buried the gun, he was arrested by the apartheid regime’s police as a terrorist and jailed for life.

It’s hard now to imagine Mandela as a terrorist. He is the most universally admired living human being, almost a secular saint, and the idea that he had a gun and was prepared to shoot people just doesn’t fit our image of him. But that just shows how naïve and conflicted our attitudes toward terrorism are.

Mandela never did kill anybody personally. He spent the next 27 years in jail and only emerged as an old man to negotiate South Africa’s transition to democracy with the very regime that had jailed him.

But he was a founder and commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the military wing of the African National Congress, and MK, as it was known, was a terrorist outfit. Well, a revolutionary movement willing to use terrorist tactics, to be precise, but that kind of fine distinction is not permissible in polite company today.

There’s nothing unusual about all this. Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya, Archbishop Makarios in Cyprus, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and a dozen other national leaders emerged from prison to negotiate independence after ‘terrorist’ organizations loyal to them had worn down the imperial forces that occupied their countries.

In the era of decolonization, terrorism was a widely accepted technique for driving the occupiers out. South Africa was lucky to see so little of it, but terrorism was part of the struggle there too.

Terrorism is a tool, not an ideology. Its great attraction is that it offers small or weak groups a means of imposing great changes on their societies. Some of those changes you might support, even if you don’t like the chosen means; others you would detest.

But the technique itself is just one more way of effecting political change by violence — a nasty but relatively cheap way to force a society to change course, and not intrinsically a more wicked technique than dropping bombs on civilians from planes to make them change their behaviour.

What determines most people’s views about the legitimacy of terrorist violence is how they feel about the specific political context in which force is being used.

Most Irish Catholics felt at least a sneaking sympathy for the IRA’s attacks in Northern Ireland. Most non-white South Africans approved of MK’s attacks, even if they ran some slight risk of being hurt in them themselves.

Most Tamils both in Sri Lanka and elsewhere support the cause of the Tamil Tigers, and many accept its methods as necessary.

Americans understandably see all terrorist attacks on the U.S. and its forces overseas as irredeemably wicked, but most Arabs and many other Muslims are ambivalent about them, or even approve of them.

We may deplore these brutal truths, but we would be foolish to deny them. Yet, in much of the world at the moment, it is regarded as heretical or even obscene to say these things out loud, mainly because the United States, having suffered a major attack by Arab terrorists in 2001, has declared a “global war on terror.”

Rational discussion of why so many Arabs are willing to die in order to hurt the U.S. is suppressed by treating it as support for terrorism, and so the whole phenomenon comes to be seen by most people as irrational and inexplicable.

And meanwhile, on a former farm near Johannesburg that was long ago subdivided for suburban housing, they have torn down all the new houses and are systematically digging up the ground with a backhoe in search of the pistol that Saint Nelson Mandela, would-be terrorist leader, buried there in 1963.

If they find it, it will be treated with as much reverence as the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. The passage of time changes many things.

Gwynne Dyer is a Canadian journalist based in London whose articles are published in 45 countries.

Former vegetable vendor Dharmaselan lost his leg and arm in an aerial bombing over strife-torn northern Sri Lanka several years ago.

But he says government soldiers did not believe him when they began harassing him again earlier this year as violence escalated in the region.

“The army kept stopping and asking me questions. They said I must be LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) because I had no leg,” said the 32 year-old father of five known only as Dharmaseelan, referring to the fighters now skirmishing daily with government troops.

“I feared for my family, so I left.”

The vegetable seller from Jaffna district joined tens of thousands fleeing their homes amid tit-for-tat killings, disappearances and military operations that have killed more than 830 people since December amid a crumbling ceasefire.

Like many of the 10,000 people seeking refuge in LTTE-held Vanni district, Dharmaselan has been shuffled from holding centres to this resettlement camp built along a desolate stretch of road an hour south of Kilinochchi town.

Dozens of thatch-roofed shacks have been put up in a clearing hacked out of the scrub brush and forest.

But even here, in LTTE-controlled Mallavi, the fear of violence lingers, said Laurence Christy, director of the planning division with the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), as both the government and the LTTE accuse each other of waging an increasingly brutal dirty war against civilians.

“Attacks on civilians are on the increase -- bombardments, artillery shelling, terrifying families or killing people ... because of the fighting, immediately there is a kind of fear psychosis,” he said.

Both the TRO and the United Nations estimate that at least 40,000 people have been displaced by the recent violence.

Thousands have fled to neighbouring India, but countless others have been forced to find shelter with relatives, or languish in settlements much like this one in Mallavi, unable to go home.

“Right now I feel it is a manageable situation, but we are readying for a big exodus, especially with the possibility of war breaking out,” Christy said.

Rights group Amnesty International urged Colombo last week to better protect civilians caught up in the bloodletting.

“The state’s failure to provide adequate security and to ensure that attacks against civilians are prosecuted has resulted in widespread fear and panic,” said Purna Sen, Amnesty’s Asia-Pacific director.

“Almost every major attack in recent months has had a devastating ripple effect as people flee from their homes and villages in search of sanctuary.”

Like many of those who have fled, Dharmaselan’s past traumas came crashing into the present as the violence worsened.

“I lost my leg during a bombardment, and because of the bombing now, I fear a return to war,” he said, standing on a battered prosthetic limb. Thick welts ringed his neck and the remains of his left arm were tucked into his shirt.

Four young relatives were killed in the beginning of the year, and Dharmaselan’s own troubles with security forces heightened the sense of panic.

“They took me to Colombo and tortured me - they held me under water, or tied a bag over my head and poured petrol over it. I could not breathe,” he said, adding he had twice been arrested and tortured in the past.

Dharaselan was freed after three months without being charged with any crime, he said.

Nearby, 55-year-old Pavalakaili, held up her left forearm, badly scarred by a bullet that shattered her wrist during fighting in 1987.

Waving yellowing disability cards that entitled her to assistance during earlier upheavals, she said she left her home in Jaffna district after a cousin and son-in-law were gunned down while returning to work.

“The army was coming around knocking on doors, harassing us,” she said.

Eight similar settlements have been established around the Vanni area, and refugees are also being kept with friends of family in another 50 villages, TRO’s Christy said.

But as the crisis lingers on, even the most meticulous planning has failed to completely provide essentials like water, access to schools or work.

“Education is a problem - there is no transport and it is very difficult to walk,” he said, adding “water is also a problem.”

Nearby, one man, a former concrete worker, has tried to cut his own well, digging a few meters into the hard dirt before giving up.

Work is also becoming scarce as restrictions on concrete and other building materials stalls the construction sector.

“There used to be a lot of construction work, but now people are starting to complain about their livelihoods” Christy said.

Programs have been put in place to try and encourage commerce in the settlements. Dharmaselan runs a tidy, but poorly-stocked stall selling candies and small household items.

But it is barely enough.

“What can I do?” he asks.

“When there is total peace, then I will go back. “I expected that peace would come, but the recent events don’t indicate that peace will come soon.”

ROADSIDE killings and night-time knocks on the door have replaced mortars and suicide bombs as the new terror in the northern Sri Lankan city of Jaffna.

And it is increasingly the residents who suffer, many say, as the government and Tamil groups carry out a vicious “undeclared war” that targets civilians more than it does guerrillas or soldiers.

“Anything can happen at any time,” M. V. Kanamylnathan, chief editor of the Tamil-language newspaper Uthayan said from his offices.

“It is like a volcano, people go about their daily lives and it is unseen but it can erupt at any time to do as much damage as possible,” he said.

Just two months ago gunmen stormed the Uthayan building, killing two and wounding several others in an attack that has yet to be accounted for.

With the national truce unravelling amid daily violence and peace monitors virtually crippled by Tamil Tiger demands to lessen their presence, Sri Lanka is again veering dangerously close to open warfare.

Since December 825 people have died in military operations or tit-for-tat killings across the island in a surge of violence.

But the killings and disappearances in Jaffna, a spit of government-controlled land in the country’s northern tip that is cut off from the rest of the island by a vast swathe of territory controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), already amount to war.

“There is an undeclared war. The (2002 ceasefire agreement) is there, but what happens all the time is this side or that side does something and the people are caught in the middle,” Mr Kanamylnathan said.

Life continues, the streets are crowded with traffic and the shops around the bus station do a brisk trade in everything from dried food to household goods.

But heavily-armed army bunkers commandeer almost every street corner. Even before night falls the streets empty in Jaffna, where scars of a turbulent past are evident in the bullet-pocked walls and bombed-out buildings that blight nearly every neighbourhood.

“Even with no recent incidents, people are still living with a lot of tension,” said 65-year-old shop worker Arumuganathan, who was buying a paper at a newsstand before hurrying home.

“Every time something happens, the LTTE blames the government and the government blames the LTTE. Because of this the civilians are the victims,” he said.

“We’ve been expecting peace for the last 20, 30 years, but it is not coming. The people are wondering what’s going to happen next,” he said.

That question has been left largely unanswered by Nordic peace monitors whose crisis talks last month failed to map out their future on the island.

The Tigers have demanded that monitors from European Union members Finland, Sweden and Denmark quit, in a further blow to the faltering ceasefire.

“Before, people had confidence in the ceasefire but right now they are very sceptical,” said a Catholic priest who did not want to be named.

“It may seem like things are normal, but the situation is not normal. Every day incidents are happening, someone is shot or kidnapped. The people are scared,” he said.

Uthayan editor Mr Kanamylnathan said the political uncertainty gripping the rest of the island has become a human rights crisis in Jaffna.

“People can’t lead a normal life. There is no peace of mind, no peace of body,” he said.

“There is always a sense of fear, who’s going to come in the night, call you out of your house and shoot.”

Given the worsening of the current impasse between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE, critical questions face progressive forces both in Sri Lanka and the wider diaspora communities, particularly amongst the Sinhalese. It is worth exploring here the circumstances that have led to the reinforcement of an impasse that has its origins in President Mahinda Rajapakse’s election victory in November 2005 and the subsequent entrenchment of the Sri Lankan state within a Sinhala hegemonic frame.

The Sri Lankan state’s crisis, which since independence in 1948 has been refracted through the lens of the Sinhala-Tamil rift, has now reached the final stage of a long drawn out end game. How much blood remains to be spilled before a just and equitable solution to the Tamil national question and the wider issue of minority representation is arrived at (ideally within a federal state structure)?

This end game is being played out against the background of high stakes brinkmanship by the LTTE and the Rajapakse administration which has reduced Colombo to an amateur hour spectacle in the eyes of the international community. The background to all this is captured in the Tokyo communiqué issued in May this year by the Co-Chairs (the US, EU, Tokyo and Norway) and the formal banning of the LTTE by the EU at the same time.

It should be noted that as yet the Sri Lankan Government has failed to adequately investigate and prosecute any Sinhala officers or Tamil paramilitary cadres for the many hundreds of extrajudicial deaths of Tamil civilians since Rajapakse’s election. Consequently the campaign to have Sri Lanka expelled from the UN Human Rights Council should be intensified. Indeed, given the human rights record of successive Sri Lankan governments since 1970 it beggars belief that Sri Lanka should be on the Human Rights Committee at all.

The Tokyo communiqué reiterated the necessity of returning to commitments made by the GoSL and the LTTE in the six rounds of peace talks between 2002-2003. It states that, in the short term, “the government must show that it will address the legitimate grievances of the Tamils. It must immediately prevent groups based in its territory from carrying out violence and acts of terrorism. It must protect the rights and security of Tamils throughout the country and ensure violators are prosecuted.”

In the longer term, Sri Lanka’s government “must show that it is ready to make the dramatic political changes to bring about a new system of governance, which will enhance the rights of all Sri Lankans, including Muslims. The international community will support such steps, failure to take such steps will diminish international support.”

On June 1, Richard Boucher, the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, while asking the LTTE to recommit itself to a purely political process, said that the Colombo government too had obligations – obligations, moreover, heightened by its election to the UN Human Rights Council. Boucher added that, as far as the Co-Chairs were concerned, the Government had failed to establish control over forces that were dissonant to the peace process on the Government side. In effect, the pledges made at Geneva in February by the Sri Lankan Government remain to be fulfilled.

Moreover, the Co-Chairs had expected Rajapakse to recommit his administration to a federal state structure particularly in the aftermath of the EU ban that Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera had been vociferously urging. It is accepted that the modalities of a future federal constitution remain to be worked out in negotiations between the GoSL and the LTTE. But as a minimum the external powers that guarantee Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity expected Colombo to pay more than lip service to its professed intent to solve the national question.

But what the Co-Chairs have not quite grasped yet is that this is a Sri Lankan Government like none before; it is arguably the most chauvinistic Sinhala administration since 1956, surpassing even the misguided Sinhala-Buddhist revolution that regime initiated. The Co-Chairs, if anything, have treated the Rajapakse administration with kid gloves. It is in part their failure to act in keeping with their own Tokyo communiqué that has led to a worsening of the impasse.

Their reference to “violence and acts of terrorism” emanating from government controlled territory was a pointed reference to both the EPDP and the Karuna Group. Palita Kohana, head of the Government Peace Secretariat begrudgingly conceded later that there might be ‘low-level’ links between the Army and cadres of the Karuna Group. The Sri Lankan state has long been dissembling on collusion between Military Intelligence and the EPDP/Karuna cadres – to the visible irritation of the Co-Chairs, as blunt phrasing in the Tokyo communiqué underlines.

The President, in his dialogue with the editor of the Tamil daily Uthayan, N. Vidyaharan, implicitly conceded much higher-level corporation between the military and paramilitaries, when he offered to shut down the Karuna Group’s operations “within two weeks” in exchange for de-escalation of violence by the LTTE. As far as the Co-Chairs were concerned, this confirmed both the extent and amateurish crudity of the duplicity of the Rajapakse Government. But, as yet, the Co-Chairs remain unwilling to take Colombo to task on its failure to bring the paramilitaries under control as pledged in Geneva in February.

The fact that amid the prevailing mistrust between both sides Rajapakse is seeking to bypass the Norwegian facilitators and approach the LTTE for direct talks and doing so, moreover, through the editor whose paper has repeatedly been targeted by paramilitaries must nonetheless fill the Co-Chairs with a sense of comic exasperation.

By trying to persuade the LTTE to bypass Oslo, Rajapakse has demonstrated how out of his depth he is. Boucher, in his comments on June 1, made it clear that Oslo had US backing. Furthermore, there was pointed criticism of the Sinhala-owned media (both Sinhala or English language) for its constant carping at the Norwegians.

My recent analysis was criticized for having underplayed American support for the Sri Lankan state. If anything, I didn’t underplay it enough. While Boucher encouraged the EU to ban the LTTE all he actually offered Colombo was the usual diplomatic niceties of moral support in the event of all out war. There is no evidence that in the absence of Indian support (which is not forthcoming) Colombo can count on any kind of significant military assistance from the Washington-New Delhi axis.

By running to the Pakistan-China axis, Colombo has only succeeded in further irritating New Delhi than it has is with the punishing air strikes on some of the most marginalised sections of Tamil society. In the event of a return to all out war (which admittedly is looking less likely than it did four weeks ago), Colombo will most probably be left to wither on the moribund vine of Sinhala chauvinism. In the event that Colombo ignores international concerns and causes heavy casualties amongst ordinary Tamils, Washington will simply back whatever interventionist approach New Delhi adopts to stop it.

President Rajapakse has shown himself to be utterly paralyzed since the shortsighted banning of the LTTE by the EU. In a piece that appeared in the Norwegian press some time ago, the first head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, the late Maj. Gen. Trond Furvohnde, noted that the LTTE were far more astute strategic players than was the Sri Lankan state.

While the LTTE has in the eyes of many commentators made strategic errors in their dealings with the international community, these pale into insignificance when compared to those made by the Rajapakse administration. The launching of air strikes against not only Killochchi but also Mannar and other areas of Tamil civilian habitation on repeated occasions since May has earned the ire of the Co-Chairs and New Delhi.

The latter in particular has made its displeasure felt in Colombo as more than three thousand Tamil refugees have fled to South India. R. K. Narayan, the Indian National Security, read Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Mangala Samareewera the riot act in New Delhi on the disproportionate response by Colombo to attacks by the LTTE. It seems that on this score Colombo has for now come to grips with the limits of its capacity to act independently of the international community.

Rajapakse must, if he has a scintilla of pragmatism, rue the day that he decided to don the attire of Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism. Some Sinhala commentators (who ironically happen to be pro-federal) have never tired of saying that Ranil Wickremesinghe, during the course of his premiership and the 2005 Presidential campaign put all his eggs into the LTTE basket. But into which basket did Rajapakse put all his eggs into?

While Rajapakse may have been a pure opportunist in articulating the rhetoric of Sinhala chauvinism as a vehicle for carrying him to victory he is now a hostage to the whim of the JVP and JHU. It is worthwhile reminding ourselves that it was Wimal Weeerawansa, the Propaganda Secretary of the JVP who said during the Presidential campaign that the election was a battle between patriotic forces and the traitors of the (Sinhala) nation. He declared that a “line has been drawn between these two forces and there is no place for moderates”. This is self-evident given the vitriolic campaign against the voices of Sinhala moderation such as Jehan Perera and Kumar Rupesinghe.

Given the reality of parliamentary arithmetic, Rajapakse remains beholden to the forces of Sinhala reaction in the JVP and JHU. However the screws are tightening on the hardliners in Colombo. Unfortunately, many of the more vocal Sinhala hawks have dual nationality with Western countries. They can always up sticks and leave if the brutal war they are creating the conditions for does erupt. It is the ordinary Sri Lankans of all ethnicites who will have to stay behind and endure its ravages.

With the threat to withdraw aid (aid that is critical for the functioning of the public sector) and with Japan (Colombo’s biggest bi-lateral donor) also reconsidering its position given the worsening ground situation in the Northeast, Rajapakse has truly boxed himself into a corner. A question mark remains as to whether he can wriggle out of this self made corner.

Ironically as the Sunday Leader noted, by killing Major General Parami Kulatunge, the de facto first in command of the Sri Lankan Army, the LTTE has in effect forestalled the possibility of the military launching a full scale offensive in the East. What Rajapakse and the coterie around him fail to understand is that the killing of Kulatunge was a direct response to the killing of Colonel Ramanan a senior LTTE commander in the East. Rajapakse needs to grasp that the logic of tit for tat strikes between the Armed forces and the LTTE is real and will not abate until deep penetration operations by the Army and collusion with the Tamil paramilitaries is ended. It is up to the Co-Chairs to impress this logic on Rajapakse.

If Rajapakse is serious about a two-week moratorium on hostilities between the opposing forces then the offer he made ‘quietly’ to the editor of Uthayan can be made again, formally, through Norwegian facilitation. Whether this will happen very much remains to be seen.

The appointment of a committee on constitutional reform headed by the prominent Sinhala hardline lawyer, H.L de Silva hardly inspires confidence. Many will rightly ask if Rajapakse takes the Co-Chairs communiqué that Sri Lanka needs a whole new framework for radically devolved governance seriously in light of H.L de Silva’s continued role as a spoiler of genuine powersharing.
More recently, interestingly, the Government indicated that it would be looking at federal options such as the one offered by the Indian Union. However at a wider level the current Government has completely failed to take any kind of progressive message to the Sinhala masses regarding the merits of a federal solution to Sri Lanka’s crisis of governance.

Given that under international pressure Rajapakse is having to give serious thought to an outline federal model the general existential hostility of the Sinhala Right to negotiate with the Tamil social formation has opened up a space for the Tamil polity and the wider Tamil community, both pro-LTTE and non-LTTE, to engage with the South. It is vital that progressives of all ethnicities hold firm against the latest onslaught of the Sinhala Right.

If Sri Lanka’s crisis is to end, the Tamil and Sinhala social formations need to engage with each other on the merits of a federal constitutional settlement as well as other mechanisms of mutual assurance which can be embedded in order to ensure a non-discriminatory future for all Sri Lankans. Alas that ideal, but much desired, possibility remains a long way off.

Dr. Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne teaches law at the Griffith Law School. He is currently working on a research project on Sri Lanka.

Major General Nanda Mallawaratchchi has been appointed as acting Commander of the Sri Lanka Army, taking over the responsibilities of Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, who was seriously wounded by suicide bomber on April 24, the Sunday Times reported.

“Maj. Gen. Mallawaratchchi will serve in this capacity until Lt. Gen. Fonseka, now undergoing treatment in a Singapore hospital, recovers and returns to his post,” the paper reported.

A female suicide bomber struck as Lt. Gen. Fonseka’s convoy was passing where she was standing deep within Sri Lanka Army headquarters in Colombo. Eleven soldiers were killed and the General seriously wounded.

The Sri Lankan government has repeatedly stated since the blast that Lt. Gen. Fonseka was fast recovering from his wounds, despite misgivings amongst some Sri Lankans.

This weekend’s reports are set to fuel speculation that the General’s condition is worse than the government is revealing to the public.

The Sunday Times quoted reports from Singapore as saying Lt. Gen. Fonseka had undergone further surgery. No details were available.

After the female suicide bomber infiltrated Army Headquarters and attacked Lt. Gen. Fonseka, Maj. Gen. Mallawaratchchi overlooked some of the Commander’s responsibilities, the Sunday Times added.

“However, he remained as chief of Staff of the Army. This was even after Lt. Gen. Fonseka was flown to Singapore for treatment. Hence, he had not been in a position to exercise some of the responsibilities vested by law in the Commander of the Army,” the paper said, without elaborating.

Maj. Gen. Mallawaratchchi’s appointment came on the orders of President Mahinda Rajapaksa who is also Minister of Defence and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.

Two months after the attack on Lt. Gen. Fonseka, a suicide bomber riding a motorcycle killed Major General Parami Kulatunga, the third most senior officer in the Army and tipped to take over when the former retires.

The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) high command in Palaly military base, Jaffna, has issued a directive to all SLA camps in Jaffna peninsula advising high level military officers to only use Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) helicopters for internal travel within the Peninsula.

The directive comes in the wake of increased claymore attacks targeted on SLA vehicles, and on soldiers deployed on sentry duty and street patrols.

Travel by SLA commanders above Major level between 51-2 Brigade head quarters in Jaffna Fort, 52-4 Brigade head quarters in Point Pedro, Thenmaradchy camps, Puthur, Varani, Thamputhottam, and in Forward Defense Lines stretching from Nagarkovil to Varany are specifically requested to follow the directive.

Commanders from smaller posts are asked to travel to a close-by main SLA camp before being air-lifted to or from Palaly base.

Recently road patrols and SLA soldier presence on security duty are strengthened mainly support movement of SLA convoys of vehicles along main arteries to and from Palaly base. Patrols and SLA deployment of security duty have seen a marked reduction during other times.

July 11

One Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldier was killed and two injured in a claymore mine blast on the Kodikamam - Pt.Pedro road in the Jaffna peninsula. The blast, 500 metres from the Kodikamam junction, targeted SLA troops on a road clearing operation.

The body of a young man was found with gunshot injuries at Gurunathar Shop Road in Alaiyadivembu, Ampara District. The victim was identified as Veluppillai Mohanarasa, 25, from Kolavil.

Two Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) crafts and a Sea Tiger boat exchanged fire in Kilali seas for more than 15 minutes Tuesday. The SLN said a Sea Tiger dinghy with 4 crew was destroyed and no SLN vessel was damaged. The LTTE has not commented.

The LTTE’s Amparai District political head complained to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) that Special Task Force (STF) troopers based at Kanchirankuda camp fired barrages of 81 mm mortar shells on residential areas of Kanchikudichaaru in LTTE controlled Amparai District.

July 10

A member of the paramilitary People’s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) was shot dead at a cycle park operated by the group in front of the Jaffna Hospital. Sources in Jaffna told TamilNet the man was a Sri Lankan army informant.

A group of SLA soldiers on patrol in Sooriyakaddaiakadu in Nanattan, Mannar, fired at an unidentified person placing a claymore mine on their route, but he escaped. Thereafter SLA soldiers had launched a cordon and search operation in the area. During the search operation the soldiers were attacked with a grenade and gunfire. Later the Police claimed they found the body in a paddy field two hundred yards away from the Nanattan PS office building. Police said they also recovered a T 56 rifle, a micro-pistol and a grenade near the body.

SLA troopers came under gunfire for the second time around 12:30 p.m. when they continued their search operation. They retaliated and later found a person with gunshot injuries on his head at Rasool Puthuveli located about one and half km off Nanattan. The troopers told police that they had recovered a micro-pistol and a grenade, also from this youth.

In the wake of international pressure over extra-judicial killings by the military, local residents say weapons are being planted on innocent Tamil youth murdered by Sri Lankan troops.

July 9

Jaffna Additional Magistrate Srinithi Nandasegaran’s official car, with her 10-year-old son and a police guard on board, was threatened by armed Sri Lankan troops on Palaly road, Jaffna. The SLA troopers followed the Magistrate’s familiar official vehicle in an auto-rickshaw, but gave up when they did not find Mrs Nandasegaran in the car, which was transporting her son to a tuition centre near Parameswara junction from her residence on Rakka Road. The driver of Ms Nandasegaran’s vehicle said that recently he has been harassed by SLA men who had sought details of Nandasegaran’s routines.

M. I. M. Nizar, 31, body guard of Digamadulla District Member of Parliament and Deputy Minister, Anver Ismail, of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Front (UPFA) was shot dead by two unidentified men riding a motor bike near the MP’s house in Amparai. Nizar was shot after an evening meeting at the MP’s home by gunmen who escaped.

Seenithamby Sellan, 32, involved in liquor business, was abducted near Mankerny SLA Camp, by Army-backed paramilitaries. Sellan, father of 3 children was travelling in a bus to his home in Vammyvedduvan, Vakarai, when he was abducted.

July 8

A former member of paramilitary PLOTE was shot and seriously injured by unknown gunmen in front of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital. Rasa Premkumar, 32, is the third ex-militant who has been attacked near the same area in the past two months – the other two died in the attacks. The latest shooting occurred inside an SLA High Security Zone (HSZ), with SLA sentry points located to the east and west, and a Sri Lanka Police station located 200 meters away. SLA’s 51-2 brigade head quarters is located behind the nearby Hospital.

The body of a mason working in a housing development for tsunami victims was found with severe assault injuries in Polikandy, Vadamaradchy. Rasiah Muraleeswaran, 42, from Meesalai East was a resident mason at the Nilavan Kudiyiruppu Housing scheme funded by FORUT. Another mason, Mr Rajani, 26, from Jaffna Islet of Punguduthivu, working on the same Housing Project, has mysteriously disappeared. The Housing project is located inside a HSZ under 24-hour surveillance by the SLA.

Two SLA troops were injured when unknown gunmen attacked soldiers on street patrol near Methaikadai Junction, south of Point Pedro town.

Another soldier was injured in a firefight lasting five minutes between gunmen and SLA troops in Kachchai, Thenmaradchy.

A decomposed body washed ashore near Allaipiddy Kovilady beach in the Jaffna islets, but it was not possible to immediately establish the identity and sex of the deceased due to its decayed state.

The LTTE arrested a cadre of the Army-backed paramilitary Karuna Group inside the LTTE held Eachchilampathu division in Trincomalee district. The man, identified as Jeya of Puthur, Kathiraveli in Batticaloa district, was in possession of a claymore mine, a roll of wire and detonator at that time of his arrest. Under interrogation, he said that he had been sent to penetrate into LTTE held Eachchilampathu in a clandestine mission to target LTTE senior leaders in the area. The cadre was later questioned by SLMM representatives.

July 7

Unidentified gunmen shot dead a Muslim civilian, Mohamed Wahid Ali, 41, at Ganesh Lane in Palaiyootu, a suburb off Trincomalee. The victim was taking his son to a pre-school located close to his residence when two persons on a motorbike shot him.

Dozens of underage youths were abducted Army-backed paramilitary cadres from the villages of Thivuchenai, Karuppalai, Sorivil and Sevanapitty in Batticaloa district (see story page 13).

A building worker was shot and wounded by unidentified gunmen with a 9mm pistol in Karuwakerny. Mr. Muththulingam Parameshwaran, 21, was shot while returning from work in bicycle.

July 6

A feared SLN Chief Petty Officer succumbed to his wounds after being shot in Jaffna. Unidentified men, waiting in ambush, fired at the officer and his bodyguard attached to the Thurayoor camp in the Jaffna islet of Velanai. Residents who allege the officer was one of the key personalities involved in extra-judicial killings in Jaffna islets. Tension prevailed in the area and the SLN conducted a search operation in and around the area where the official was attacked.

Kasdeen Amir, of Thoppur in Muttur, was shot dead by unidentified men when he was at Selvanagar. He was admitted to the Muttur district hospital immediately but he succumbed to injuries.

July 5

Four Sri Lanka Police constables deployed on security duty at the paramilitary Eelam Peoples Democratic Party (EPDP) office-cum-camp in Chunnakam, Jaffna, were seriously injured when unknown assailants hurled several hand grenades inside the building, which is located adjoining the Chunnakam Police Station and the Chunnakam SLA camp.

A SLA soldier was seriously injured by a grenade thrown at his road patrol on Jaffna-KKS Road near Chunnakam junction.

SLA troops and gunmen exchanged gunfire for more than five minutes near Udupiddy junction SLA sentry point in Vadamaradchy. There were no injuries among local residents who now don’t leave their homes after dark.

Also, unknown assailants hurled a hand grenade at the SLA troops on security duty near Jaffna Hindu College, but it did not explode.

A SLA soldier was killed in a claymore explosion in Pirappamadu area in Vavuniya. The soldier was engaged in a street patrol when the explosion occurred. The seriously injured soldier died on his way to hospital.

July 4

Ambalavanar Punithavathy, 43, from Uduvil, Jaffna, was shot dead reportedly after being raped. Assailants who forcibly entered the unmarried woman’s home told the occupants that they had come to search the house and attacked her elderly mother before raping the woman, residents said.

Local residents said that after dark only SLA soldiers patrol the streets surrounding the camp and the area where the victim’s house is located. No civilians venture out in the area, the residents added. The SLA camp that houses the Intelligence Wing is located close to the house. The Uduvil SLA camp has been accused of several previous human rights violations and harassment.

After being fired on, SLA troops on street patrol near Nelliyadi, the SLA cordoned off the area and arrested three youths. The youths were released later that afternoon with severe assault wounds, relatives said. The SLA troopers earlier had assaulted the three youths in front of local residents before taking them to the SLA camp in Nelliady for further interrogation. Nelliady residents said the youths were innocent school children and were not involved in any militant activities. No one was injured in the firefight that triggered the search operation.

More that 500 SLA troops cordoned off and searched central and southern Grama Sevaka areas of Ariyalai, Jaffna. Soldiers checked the identity cards of residents and took away photographs which were shown to a masked paramilitary spotter waiting inside a temporary SLA sentry point, local residents said. No one was arrested during the operations.

Mr. Ramiah Vinayagamoorthy, a fisherman, was shot and injured by masked men in the Salli Sea off Trincomalee. Vinayagamoorthy was fishing in a boat with two other fishermen when three masked men who came in another boat ordered him to stay in the boat and the other two to get out. They then fired at Vinayagamoorthy, hitting his waist and hands.

July 3

Policemen in Kaluwanchikudy, Batticaloa district, shot and killed a civilian at point blank range and placed a T-56 automatic rifle beside the dead body, according to residents in the village. An Education Official, Mrs. S. Baskaran, 40, was wounded in the gunfire. Police claimed that the man was a gunman who had fired on a police checkpost.

Two elite counter-insurgency Special Task Force (STF) troopers in a road clearing patrol were wounded in a claymore attack at Puthukudiyiruppu, Batticaloa. M. Sarath, 36, and W.P. Rajapakse, 28, wounded in the attack.

An unidentified man was killed by SLA soldiers inside Thandikulam High Security Zone near Vavuniya. The SLA said the dead man is a member of the LTTE and that they had recovered a AK-47 rifle and a new brand of bullet magazine from near the dead body. Civil society sources in Vavuniya, however, said that suspicious circumstances surround the killing, and that the dead body was a civilian arrested by the SLA.

SLA soldiers at the sentry point in Veppankulam, Vavuniya, arrested two Tamil women on suspicion of having links with the LTTE, Vanni parliamentarian Sivanathan Kishor said. The two women were arrested when returning from Chettikulam after attending to registration issues regarding their housing in Maharambaikulam. The SLA claimed that Parameswary Jeyashankar, 32, had the telephone number of the LTTE in her cell-phone, and therefore alleged that she has links with the LTTE. Indrani Selvam, 40, was arrested for having accompanied Ms Jeyashankar.

One SLA soldier was killed and two wounded in a claymore attack in Thikkam, Vadamaradchi North, Jaffna. The soldiers were on a road clearing foot patrol from Thikkam Junction towards Vathiri when the mine exploded 600 meters from Thikkam SLA camp.

Two SLA soldiers were seriously injured in a claymore mine explosion on Jaffna-Palaly road near Urelu junction. The claymore was targeted on a SLA truck, but hit the SLA troopers following behind the truck on bicycle patrol in the area. The explosion took place inside the Palay High Security Zone, 300 meters from the SLA camp that houses the SLA Intelligence wing. The notorious SLA motorbike brigade, whose members customarily wear black face masks and terrorize the Jaffna population, also operates from this SLA camp, Urelu residents said.

A former member of the paramilitary Eelam Peoples Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF-Varathar faction) was shot dead in Jaffna. Mr Thirumani Ariyaratnam Lingan, 34, was drinking liquor with his friends when two gunmen riding in a motorbike shot him dead at close range. Ariyaratnam Lingan had left the EPRLF-Varathar group in 2000.

June 2

One SLA soldier, a female home guard, two police constables, a police sergeant and a civilian were killed when a claymore mine exploded at Anuradhapura junction, Trincomalee. At least fourteen others were injured. Another female police constable, seriously injured in the explosion, died on her way to the hospital. The claymore mine, fixed in an abandoned three-wheeler near the army sentry, was detonated by remote control when a group of soldiers and police tried to search the three-wheeler.

An SLA soldier who was deployed for security duty near Kokuvil junction, north of Jaffna town, was seriously injured when unknown gunmen opened fire at the troops.

In another attack, assailants hurled hand grenades at SLA troopers stationed near Kondavil junction along Jaffna-Palaly road seriously injuring a soldier.

No one was injured during a firefight lasting nearly five minutes between SLA troops and gunmen at a location along the Jaffna- Point Pedro road.

SLA soldiers carried out cordon and search operations in many areas of Vadamaradchy Sunday. Residents of Alvai, Vathiri, Mali Santhi and other areas were searched and the SLA took away Identity Cards of many residents. The IDs were returned after the residents reported to the SLA camps for further interrogation.

A shooting incident is reported to have occurred in Nelliady town near the Luxmi Cinema along the Nelliady-Kodikamam road. The targeted civilian escaped with minor wounds and the gunmen escaped.

Members of Jaffna district transport workers union held a peninsula-wide work boycott protesting against the SLA attack on a bus driver, conductor and passengers along the KKS-Jaffna road. The assaults took place following a grenade attack on SLA soldiers by unknown gunmen at Kokuvil junction. The passenger bus from Tellipalai was detained for more than four hours near the Kokuvil junction, affected passengers said. The driver was admitted to the Jaffna Teaching Hospital with serious injuries. The Transport workers agreed to suspend the strike after the SLA officials agreed to respond within a short period. They also warned that the protest strike would resume if no satisfactory answers were received.

An unidentified person shot and killed Lakmal Sampath, a former defence correspondent at the Sinhala newspaper Sathdina, in Dehiwela, Colombo. Sampath was a popular columnist who revealed details about the Sri Lankan Military Intelligence, corruption at various levels of the Sri Lankan defence establishment, and underworld activities in Colombo. He had been earlier warned not to reveal details about the Sri Lanka intelligence community in his articles and had gone out with a person to discuss matters about a story, relatives said. He was found dead on Vijaya Road in Dehiwale, 10 km away from his residence, sometime after he left home.

Krishnapillai Kamalanathan, an official of the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), was abducted by members of the Karuna paramilitary group at Valaichchenai, Batticaloa. Krishnapillai has been working as a child protection officer of the TRO, Vakarai division. Krishnapillai was riding motorbike in Valaichchenai while he was abducted by the Karuna group paramilitaries, the TRO said.

A SLA sergeant, M. Asoka Sriwardene, 32, was wounded in his hand when a suspicious cylinder exploded at the bus stop in Karuvakerny, Batticaloa.

Gunmen hijacked a three-wheeler near Valaichenai Railway station. The driver of the vehicle, Krishnapillai Karunaharan, 28, was shot and wounded by the gunmen and rushed to hospital. A carpenter by profession, Karunaharan rides the auto-rickshaw as a part time job.

A textile seller, Sangaravel Meyyappan, 35, who had come from Tamil Nadu state, India to Batticaloa district, has been reported missing since 27th of June. Meyyappan has been moving around in the district, selling clothes, according to his brother Sangaravel Rajkumar who has filed a complaint with Batticaloa Police.

July 1

SLN troopers who set out in 3 Dvora Fast Attack Crafts from their Talaimannar base, captured two fishermen in the seas off Karisal, a Muslim coastal village in Mannar, and allegedly forcibly drowned one of the fishermen. The SLN threw both fishermen overboard, even though one pleaded that he could not swim, the fisherman who survived reported.

The fishermen who showed the Fishing Pass provided by the SLN, were beaten up by the troopers in the Dvora FACs. One of the fishermen, Ibrahim Azeeq, 34, a father of four, begged for his life saying he could not swim. However, the navy troopers threw him off board, according to the fisherman Mohammed Fahim, 27, who was set free by the troopers. Azeeq managed to reach his hand and was holding the stem of the boat. However, the troopers attacked the fisherman blocking his grip on the boat and Azeeq drowned, Faim said. Fahim, who could swim, said he jumped off board, unable to tolerate the beating. He was later forced to locate the body of Azeeq and was set free by the navy men.

A few minutes later, the navy men arrested two other Muslim fishermen and handed them over to the SLN officials at Vankalaipaadu. The fishermen were set free by the SLN officials in Vankalaipaadu.

Unidentified men attacked a group of SLA soldiers in Sirukandal village, Mannar district. Markandu Parathanathan from Thumpalai, Point-Pedro was killed when the SLA retaliated, security sources said. Parathanathan was identified by his National Identity Card found in his clothing, sources. SLA soldiers said they recovered a hand grenade and remote control equipment in the possession of the dead man.

SLA soldiers on street patrol duty in Panankatikotu in Mannar district arrested Anthony Jeuthadasan, 24, and handed him to Mannar Police. The youth was talking in his cell phone in front of his house at the time of arrest.

The SLA and SLN Saturday launched artillery fire on villages in the Liberation Tigers’ controlled Muttur east. Several civilian houses were damaged due to the indiscriminate shelling from land and sea surrounding the coastal areas of Muttur east, the LTTE in Muttur said. More than fifty artillery shells were fired in the morning for about an hour starting around 1:00 a.m. The shelling then continued in the evening from 5.30 p.m. for about two hours. The LTTE also said residents have been fleeing to safer areas.

A twenty five year old Tamil youth Mr. Raju was abducted by unidentified persons from Navalady in the heart of Muttur town when he was on his way to Muttur jetty. He is a resident of Ralkuli, an area controlled by the LTTE and had been working as a labourer on a ferry plying between Navalady and Ralkuli. When he was dragged into a vehicle by unidentified persons, his wife immediately complained to police personnel who were at the site, but they allegedly ignored her plea. He was later found dead with gunshot injuries in a playground in Muttur town

June 30

A sea fight was reported in the seas east of Kankesanthuari SLN base in Jaffna. The clash, which started in an area between Valalai and Thondamanaru, went on for 30 minutes, paused for a short period, and re-started again, residents along the coastal areas in Vadamaradchi said. At least two boats were seen burning. SLA soldiers were firing towards the sea from their sentry points located in the coastal stretch from Mayiliyathanai in Thondamanaru to Valvettithurai.

Two fishermen from Valvettithurai were reported missing in the northern waters off Thondamanaru, Jaffna. Their boat caught fire when SLN troopers shot at the boat. Millions of rupees worth of fishing nets and equipment were lost when fishermen in 400 boats were chased away by the SLN boats Friday night, Vadamaradchy North Fisheries Consortium has complained to Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission (SLHRC) in Jaffna. Thevamani Arul, 30, and Krishnapillai Chandramohan, 28, are the missing fishermen.

Fishermen in more than 400 boats had to leave their boats when SLN troopers began firing at the civilian boats Friday night. On Saturday, SLN and SLA troopers barred civilians from accessing the coastal belt starting from Thondamanaru to Valvetithurai, fishermen in the area said. Additional troops were deployed along the coastal areas.

Two SLA troopers were seriously injured when they came under fire from unknown gunmen in front of the Soosaiyappar Church in Alaveddy, Jaffna district. The troopers were carrying food parcels in bicycles for other soldiers engaged in security duty when they were attacked. The troopers returned fire and the firefight lasted for more than 10 minutes before the attackers escaped. SLA soldiers mounted a large-scale cordon and search operation around the location of the shooting.

SLA soldiers shot dead a Tamil civilian in Chenkalady, Batticaloa, near the Bank of Ceylon building area. Witnesses said the SLA soldiers first shot Gnanasekaram Santhiran, 30, in his head, and after he fell to the ground, shot him again at close range. SLA soldiers said the man attempted to throw a hand grenade, and after they fired at him, found one hand grenade in his possession. However, local witnesses allege that the soldiers placed the hand-grenade by the side of the dead man to fake an attempted attack on the soldiers.

A former member of the Liberation Tigers was shot and killed by gunmen belonging to a paramilitary group in Karaitheevu Kalmunai. Four gunmen came to the house in motorbikes, talked to Kanthasamy Jeyanthakumar, 28, before shooting him at close range with a 9mm pistol.

A Tamil civilian, Selvarajah Vasanthan, 30, was shot dead by SLA soldiers manning a checkpoint at Sambaltivu junction, north of Trincomalee town. According to police sources the civilian was shot by the SLA when he failed to stop his motorbike at checkpoint after soldiers signalled him to stop.

A SLN Intelligence officer was shot and killed when he was shopping at the bazaar in Mannar. Sri Lankan troopers who surrounded the area shot the gunman who gunned down the intelligence officer. Dissande de Gostha, 28, the SLN intelligence officer was gunned down by the “Pistol Unit” of LTTE Intelligence. A 9 mm pistol was found in possession of the gunman, who had identity papers in the name of Arulappu Rajeevkumar, 24.

Unidentified men lobbed a grenade at an army sentry located near the office of the Eelam Peoples Democratic Party (EPDP) in Mannar. A soldier, M. Surasena, 46, was injured in the attack.

June 29

Suspected SLA soldiers and EPDP paramilitaries shot and killed Jaffna resident Ms Sathasivam Mathuri, 32, and seriously injured her father Kasipillai Sathasivam, 75, at their home in Athiyadi, 2 km northeast of Jaffna Town. The victims are the father and sister of senior LTTE commander Archuna, who died in mid 80’s in Mannar. The assailants first opened fire at the victims’ relative house next door and shot Mathuri and Sathasivam as they emerged from their own house to enquire.

Kanesan Sivanesan, 36, the proprietor of a well-known jewellery store in Inuvil, Jaffna, disappeared following interrogation by the SLA on 28 May. Relatives say an anonymous caller informed the family that they were holding Sivanesan and demanded Rs.500,000 for his release, but paying the money did not result in his release. Sivanesan was last seen in the Inuvil area on Kankesanthurai Road, detained for questioning by the SLA. Local residents say Sivanesan has not returned home since that day.

Gunmen shot and seriously injured a civilian in Navaly North, Aanaikottai in Jaffna district. The gunmen requested Ilayathamby Vanniyasingam, 46, to come out of his house and fired at him at close range. The shooting incident took place close to the SLA camp in Aaniakottai, amidst increased SLA harassment of residents in the area.

Tharmalingam Vijayarajah, 53, from Araly North near Vaddukoddai, Jaffna, alleged to be an SLA informant, was shot dead by gunmen close to the Mawaththai playgrounds in Araly. Mr Vijayarajah lived at Iyanar Veethy in Araly, and was involved in several robberies, local residents said. He turned an army informant after SLA officers obtained his release from police arrest following those robberies. Mr Vijayarajah is a father of six children.

June 28

5 SLN sailors and 1 LTTE cadre were killed in a clash in the northwestern seas. Sea Tiger vessels counter-attacked and sank a SLN water-jet vessel and destroyed another SLN vessel, according to a news release issued by the media unit of the LTTE. Five SLN troopers were in the boat that was sunk by the Sea Tigers and one LTTE cadre was killed in the clash, the press statement said. Sri Lankan Police claimed that the clash had taken place between Kuthiraimalai and Kalpitty in the Puttalam district. Two LTTE cadres were wounded in the clash. The confrontation, according to the LTTE, was defensive and originated Wednesday around 11:25 a.m. in LTTE territorial waters, when SLN vessels interrupted a Sea Tiger convoy. The clash went on for 55 minutes in the sea till the SLN troopers withdrew, the news release said.

Three Tamil civilians were killed in a claymore explosion while transporting sand in a tractor from Kallaru located in the Liberation Tigers controlled Musali division in Mannar district. Saminathan Jacob, 58, Simion Regin, 22, and Simion Antony Gnanapragasam, 17 of Kokupadaiyan area in Musali DS division were returning with their loaded tractor to Kokupadaiyan when their tractor hit a claymore mine buried along the road by a SLA DPU. The tractor was destroyed in the explosion and all three occupants died on the spot.

Murunkan circuit court proceedings came to an abrupt end when gunmen fired at the building, from their hiding places behind densely grown shrub area at the rear of Murunkan post office building. Mannar Magistrate Mr.N.M.M.Abdullah who was hearing a case, four attorney-at-laws, and litigants fell to the ground for safety.

Several towns and villages arounf Point Pedro in Jaffna were cordoned off and searched between 5:00 a.m. and noon. Manthikai, Yaakaru, and Thunnalai up to Mulli were affected by the search operation. Vehicular traffic was blocked from these areas throughout the morning. Many residents were taken to the SLA camp in Vallipuram and were paraded before masked men, before all detained during the search were released.

SLA soldiers arrested three young women during a check of a passenger bus in Mulli. The women were taken by the SLA for further questioning.

Unidentified gunmen shot and injured a SLA soldier, Lance Corporal M. Karunarathna, 29, in Saththukondan, Batticaloa, near the Saththurukundan SLA camp. The gunmen came in a motor bike and opened fire with a pistol.

Gunman shot and killed Thayanithy Ketheeswaran, 29, a father of one, with a 9mm pistol at his home in Pandiruppu, Kalmunai, south of Batticaloa. He was with his young family in his house when the assailant who came in a vehicle, struck him and escaped.

June 27

Nine Tamil students from Jaffna, following undergraduate course in engineering at the Moratuwa campus, were arrested by Moratuwa Police, and are being detained at the Police station. Police officers did not disclose the reason for the arrests. The students were boarded together in a house owned by a Sinhalese family. Mortuwa Police officers refused to accept the University identity card and ignored pleas by the students. United National Party (UNP) parliamentarian, Mr Maheswaran, contacted senior police officials in Mt Lavania attesting to the bona fides of the students but did not succeed in obtaining their release. The MP said that he has sent an urgent message to the Inspector General of Police, Mr Chandra Fernando informing him of the arrests and urging him to take action to release the students.

Gunmen on motorbikes shot and killed 3 men using military-type 9mm pistols, as they were on their way home in Mylambaveli, Batticaloa. The killings took place 250 meters from the SLA camp at Mylambaveli on the Batticaloa-Trincomalee road. After killing the young men, the gunmen poured gasoline and set the bodies alight. The victims – Sinnaiyah Mahesh Vasanthakumar, 26, from Puvaththegawittiya, Kegalle, Navaratnam Arunasiri, 22, from Vipulananthapuram, Mylambaveli, and Muththukaruparan Krishnakumar, 21, also from Vipulananthapuram – were masons by profession.

Three businessmen who had gone to Vakarai, Batticaloa, in a lorry with a consignment of soft drinks were reported missing three days after they were last seen. Segu Lebbe Ibrahim, 32, from Otamavadi, Indika, 24, from Minneriya, Polannaruwa, and Prasanna, 27, from Polannaruwa did not return after travelling to Vaharai in a lorry with registration number 48-1272, relatives said in the complaint.

One of four missing civilians from Trincomalee who had been reported missing, was found dead Tuesday at Periyakulam in Kuchchaveli Police division. Mr. Anthony Joseph, reported missing on June 25, was found dead with gunshot and cut injuries. The whereabouts of three other Tamil civilians of Bharathipuram in Serunuwara police division are not still known. Nallathamby Gnaneswaran, Paththakutty Thiraviyaraja and Ampalavanapillai Sathasivam were reported missing after they went to Aathiamankerni in search of the cattle they left before being displaced from their village due to violence.

Mr. Selliah Varnakulasingham, 51, a watcher of the Muttur Pradesiya Sabha, was abducted by unidentified men in the heart of government controlled Muttur town as he was travelling in a three wheeler to his home in a LTTE held village in Muttur east.

Over 160 people in Jaffna alone have ‘disappeared’ after being taken into custody by Sri Lankan security forces.

Apart from the figures recorded by the Jaffna office of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission (SLHRC), there are many more unreported cases, civil society sources say.

The numbers have steadily increased after the stepping up of search operations by the Sri Lanka Army, HRC officials added.

Some victims were taken away in unmarked vans by uniformed Sri Lankan soldiers wearing black masks, relatives have told the HRC.

Disappearances of people taken into custody by the military have resumed this year. During the conflict time before the 2002 ceasefire, hundreds of people disappeared in Jaffna.

Amnesty International, investigating 600 odd disappearances in 1996 concluded the victims were “tortured to death or deliberately killed.”

On June 18 the Jaffna Commander of SLA, Major General Chandrasiri, had given the an undertaking that a special high ranking committee made up of all service arms of the militarywould work with the Rights Group to look at reports of human rights violations by SL soldiers.

He had also told the new head of the SLHRC for the Jaffna district, Mr. P. Surendiran, that SLA soldiers will not be permitted to wear black masks during their operations.

Many of the disappearances reported to the Jaffna SLHRC are those of persons travelling towards Jaffna Town on the Jaffna Point Pedro Road who have to pass SLA army checkpoints, SLHRC officials pointed out.

There have also been increasing number of persons going missing in the Kopay islets area. They have increased in the wake of the discovery of the bodies of people suspected to have been arrested and murdered by Sri Lankan troops.

The Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission (SLHRC) has approximately 10,000 complaints in the Commission’s head office awaiting investigations, said Mr. P Ramanathan the head of the Commission in a press statement released in Colombo late June.

The statement accused some government authorities, administrative heads and judicial establishments for refusing to implement some key recommendations of the Commission to improve human rights.

The Commission expressed concerns over delays encountered in both the commencement and completion of most inquiries, and intends to find ways and means of resolving cases more swiftly.

Army-backed paramilitaries abducted more than 35 underage youths from the villages of Thivuchenai, Karuppalai, Sorivil and Sevanapitty in Batticaloa district in a single day last week.

Parents of the abducted children, gripped by fear for their children’s safety, are reluctant to make complaints to the police or human rights watchdogs, a Grama Sevaka official told reproters.

Tension prevails in the interior villages of Batticaloa district.

Meanwhile, paramilitary cadres working with the SLA abducted 3 youths from Pethalai village in Valaichenai Police area, northern Batticaloa district. Their parents have not reported the incident to the Police or human rights organizations.

Last month the United Nations child agency, UNICEF, last week condemned abductions and forced recruitment of underage youth in the east by the Arm-backed paramilitary Karuna Group and called for an immediate halt to the practice.

The UNICEF statement came amid reports over a hundred youth had been seized from streets and homes last week in the Batticaloa district.

“Over the past week, the agency has verified reports of thirty cases in Batticaloa district. Reports of abduction and forced recruitment of boys under the age of 18 from the area have increased since March of this year,” UNICEF said.

Last month, press reports said more than 125 underage youths had been abducted by the paramilitary Karuna Group during Sri Lanka Army and paramilitry launched cordon and search operations in the Batticaloa district.

The reports said the SLA would arrest the youths and hand them over to paramilitary cadres. Paramilitary cadres were also allowed to enter houses, beat up the underage youths and abduct them for training.

More than 75 youths were abducted in Valaichenai area, 27 youths were abducted in a cordon and search operation in Kiran and another 23 youths were abducted at Santhiveli. The abducted youths were being taken to Thivuchenai in Batticaloa - Polonnaruwa border for forced recruitment in the Karuna Group, reports said.

The youths, studying at year 9 to year 12 at school, are also being abducted by paramilitary cadres riding around government-controlled areas in white vans without number plates.

With much ceremony, Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse this week inaugurated an elaborate political mechanism, which he says, will produce a viable proposal to end Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict. The Tamil community is absolutely certain it will not. Despite the elaborate unveiling - a spectacle staged for the benefit of the assembled diplomatic corps - the committee on constitutional reforms will go the same way as all such initiatives in the past. And, moreover, for the same reasons. Like other Tamil voices who are dismissing Mr. Rajapakse’s initiative at the outset, we will no doubt come under criticism as unfair cynics - or even recalcitrant spoilers. But our skepticism stems not from latent prejudice or rejection of a negotiated solution. It is based on the visible weaknesses and inherent failings in this initiative that should worry any seasoned observer.

To begin with, the main opposition United National Party (UNP) has already withdrawn its crucially necessary support for Mr. Rajapakse’s initiative. The UNP (which under Ranil Wickremesinghe’s vacillating leadership has secured the adoration of the international community whilst losing its organizational cohesion) is understandably infuriated by the President’s obsessive efforts to poach its MPs. Whilst Sri Lanka has slid to the brink of war in recent months, the President’s puerile focus has been on building up his government’s parliamentary majority.

While less than pleased with Mr. Rajapakse’s victory - assisted by an LTTE-inspired boycott by the Tamils - the international community has continued to work with the new President. Many international actors have taken Rajapakse’s self-projection as a simple ‘man of the people’ too literally, convincing themselves that he is simply not aware of the realities of international affairs or, for that matter, governance in the 21st century. Amongst the few exceptions is India. Delhi knows all too well the character of Sri Lanka’s internal politics and its leading players and, most importantly, the dynamics of the present imbroglio. Which is why India is now stepping up its diplomatic intervention.

Last week Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran traveled to Colombo with a specific mandate: to get the two main Sinhala parties to come together and forge a unified position on how Tamil aspirations could be met. The logic is obvious. Putting a serious political proposal on the table would meet a key demand of the LTTE, put forward by its leader Vellupillai Pirapaharan last November. India has, credible reports say, also urged the implemen-tation of ceasefire-related obligations undertaken by the Rajapakse administration at the talks in Geneva in February to help de-escalate the conflict.

But no sooner had Mr. Sharan returned to Delhi, the bipartisan arrangement he set up fell apart. Mr. Rajapakse turned the loyalties of a UNP MP and upon his crossing over, appointed him a junior minister. The UNP, protesting that the President was more focused on emasculating it than cooperating on the national question, has pulled out of the sham Rajapakse inaugurated this week. Meanwhile, paramilitary attacks against the LTTE haven’t stopped.

The UNP’s exit guarantees that the ‘outbidding’ which has torpedoed every peace proposal, no matter how weak, by previous Sri Lankan governments will happen again. But that is not the end of it. Mr. Rajapakse’s key political allies, the ultra-nationalist JVP and the Buddhist monks’ party, the JHU, have already voiced their strident opposition to powersharing with the Tamils - citing Mr. Rajapakse’s own ‘unitary state or bust’ election manifesto which earned him the majority of Sinhala votes. The JVP and JHU will clearly not allow a decent power-sharing proposal to emerge - they’d rather bring down the government first. Lastly, and most symbolically, the main Tamil party has not even been invited to the deliberations.

But even before all that, the experts Mr. Rajapakse has chosen to come up with a power-sharing proposal beggars belief. Yes, it is a multi-ethnic committee - as if simply belonging to an ethnic stock authorizes one to represent that community. But it is dominated by Sinhala hardliners, including the doyen of ultra-nationalist ideologues, H. L. De Silva.

President Rajapakse is simply going through the motions to appease the international community, particularly India. But his main objective, like his predecessor, is to consolidate his Presidency and prepare to secure another six years when the present term ends. Therefore his immediate priority is not to come up with a serious proposal to offer the Tamils, but, as the splintering UNP is vehemently protesting, to destroy his ruling party’s main rival and consolidate his grip on parliament.

Which is why we are certain nothing will come of the elaborate exercise which President Rajapakse began this week.

The father of a two-year-old girl killed along with two of her grandparents when a huge blaze swept through a flat above the family’s shop had seen sparks emitting from a fridge in the basement days earlier, it was claimed.

Newsagent Ravindran Rasiha - who lost his youngest daughter plus his mother-in-law and father-in-law in the horrific blaze opposite Wimbledon Park tube station afternoon of July 3 - told a pal he had complained to his landlord after spotting sparks coming from a fridge-freezer in the basement below the shop.

Eye-witnesses described how they first spotted flames coming from the basement below the store in a row of shops opposite the tube station, less than a mile from the All England Lawn Tennis Club where the Wimbledon Championships are taking place.

Neighbours named the grandparents who died as Vellupillai Sivagnanam, who was in his 70s, and his wife Thanalaksmi Sivagnanam. They were originally from Sri Lanka.

Their daughter Gowri Ravindran, who is in her 30s, was taken to hospital for treatment for smoke inhalation after a hero van driver helped rescue her from the blaze before firefighters arrived at the scene.

Her husband Ravindran Rasiha, also in his mid-thirties, was working in the shop below when the fire began. He was also taken to hospital for treatment.

The child who died in the fire is believed to be Ravindran and Gowri’s youngest daughter. Their other daughter, about six-years-old, was at school when flames engulfed the family’s home.

One close family friend, who asked not to be named, said: “It’s truly horrible they are a very close family. Ravindran, the father of the little girl, is devastated. He has lost half his family.”

Neighbour Vijaya Karunaratne, who works in nearby Wimbledon Park Post Office, said: “I came out and saw smoke billowing out of the building. The flames were coming from the basement and climbing the building.

“There were fumes everywhere. I ran out on to the street and I could feel the heat from the fire. It was burning hot.

“Then I saw the fire crew bring out three bodies. Two were in blue body bags, and the other was carried on a stretcher. I felt sick. It was horrible.

“A van driver who had tried to rescue the family was trying to get Ravindran’s wife out, but she wouldn’t budge. She wouldn’t leave without her family. She knew they were trapped inside, but they didn’t have a chance.”

He added: “I spoke to Ravindran only a few days ago. He told me he had just seen sparks coming from the fridge freezer in the basement of his shop. He said he had already told the landlord about it and was waiting to hear back from him.

“I don’t know if that was how the fire started but, if so, it is tragic and the landlord will be a very worried man.”

A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said post mortems and an inquest would be opened and adjourned in due course. Local police officers and London Fire Brigade investigators were probing the cause of the blaze.

June 12

A SLA soldier was killed Monday when a claymore mine hit a road clearing patrol at Barathipuram, Vavuniya. Another soldier and a civilian were wounded.

A SLA raiding party exploded a claymore mine in the LTTE controlled Mathiyamadu village, seriously wounding the driver of the vehicle in which Vavuniya North Divisional Secretary was riding. The driver, N. Balasingam, was rushed to Vavuniya hospital but succumbed to his wounds. The Divisional Secretary, Mr. Pathmanathan, was wounded.

Also within LTTE-held Vanni, a SLA claymore attack targeted devotees travelling to Vatrapalai temple festival on Nedunkerny Mulliavalai Road. No casualties were reported.

A senior member of the Jaffna branch of the White Pigeon, a non government organization, was shot and seriously injured by unidentified armed men at his house in Moolai in the Jaffna peninsula. Thangarasa Mukunthan, 41, a former member of the Jaffna Municipal Council, was rushed to Jaffna teaching hospital.

Over one hundred Tamil families fled from the village of Pariharakandal in Mannar when more five hundred SLA soldiers entered the village of Sirukandal, a mile away, Monday morning and established a camp in a cemetery. By noon the entire village of Sirukandal was deserted and all the shops closed.

Another group of SLA soldiers entered Arippu village through Nanattan-Achchankulam road along the banks of Aruvi Aru Monday morning. About two hundred families in the village fled and sought refuge in the St. Mary''s Church in the area. Later that morning the villagers returned to their houses. However heads of the fisher families are not going out to sea, afraid to leave their families alone.

Mr. Iruthayarajah, alias Kannan, 34, father of one, has been reported missing since June 7 after he left his village Pallimunai to Mannar town to buy provisions, according to a complaint lodged with the Mannar office of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka by his relatives on Monday.

June 11

Nine civilians were injured in a grenade explosion at Thirunelvely market, north of Jaffna town. The injured were admitted to Jaffna Hospital.

SLA authorities in Vavuniya said troops shot and killed a suspected Tamil Tiger at Pandarikkulam. They said the youth was riding pillion in a motorbike and attempted to fire at the soldiers with a pistol when the soldiers directed the riders to stop at a road check. The youth riding the motorbike escaped. A grenade was recovered from the youth, Armukam Jeganathan, 24, of Meesalai in Jaffna peninsula, the Army said.

A SLA DPU exploded a claymore mine, killing two civilians on a motorbike inside LTTE controlled territory, at Palaipani in Vavuniya west Sunday.

SLA Lance Corporal M Kumararatne, 34, was killed by sniper fire while on security duties at the Vavunativu, Batticaloa SLA camp.

June 10

Lieutenant Colonel Mahenthi, an LTTE Commander in the Mannar district, was killed along with three LTTE cadres in a claymore attack in an LTTE-controlled area carried out by SLA soldiers on Saturday. Lt. Col. Mahenthi, former head of a unit in Jaffna, was an area commander in Mannar district.

A SLA sniper shot and killed Batticaloa Kudumbimalai Political Coordinator Ramanitharan in Murakkoddanchenai Saturday. The incident took place at Thihiliveddai, a hamlet across the lagoon from Santhiveli, about 24 kilometres north of Batticaloa. The sniper had targeted the LTTE official from the SLA controlled area beyond the lagoon from Murakkoddanchenai.

A 67-year old Tamil businessman, riding in a car, was shot near Vihara Lane in Wellawate, Colombo, Saturday. Mr. Ramachandran received five gunshot wounds and succumbed on the way to hospital. The gunman escaped.

A farmer, Navaratnam Srinagathasan, 32, seriously wounded in a claymore attack Saturday succumbed to his wounds at Killinochchi hospital.

Two employees of the World Bank-funded North East Irrigated Agriculture Project (NEIAP) were wounded in a separate SLA claymore attack in Nedunkerni, in Vavuniya district.

Unidentified gunmen shot dead two Tamil passengers, including a 12-year old boy, travelling in a Trincomalee bound bus from Muttur town, Saturday afternoon. Another Tamil passenger was critically injured. The incident took place at Puliyadichchanthi in the Sri Lanka government controlled Muttur town located in the midst of several SLA camps and sentry points. Gunmen on a motorbike stopped the bus along Muttur-Batticaloa road, entered it and fired at the passengers. Vimalanathan Sajeevan, 12, of Koonitheivu in Muttur East and Krishnapillai Ravichandran, 43, Menkamam in Muttur division died in the attack. Nadarajah Paranthaman of Allesgarden was critically injured and admitted to hospital.

Two civilians, a Muslim and a Tamil, were killed and another person injured when SLA soldiers lying in ambush between Kurankupanchchan and Uharveddu in the Kinniya division opened fire. The victims were returning with firewood in two bullock carts when they were fired at. Kathirgamathamby Mathivanan (42) of Eachantivu and Mohamed Remis (20) of Faizal Nagar in Kinniya town were killed.

June 9

Paramilitary gunmen in a white van and riding motorbikes chased and abducted 6 students walking along the road in Batticaloa Thursday. The students were abducted 150 meters from the Police station on the Iruthayapuram Selva road. They were on their way to Valaichenai from Batticlaoa town after having attending private tuition classes. 30 students in the Batticaloa region have been abducted in the past few weeks, civil society sources told TamilNet.

A SLA road patrol arrested two Tamil youths at Murakoddanchenai in Batticaloa Thursday while they were riding their bicycles and handed them to Eravur Police after interrogating them. Arumugam Suchanand, 22, from Kiran and Nadarasa Arulanandarasa, 19, from Santhiveli are held at Earvur police station for further investigations.

Unidentified gunmen on a motorbike shot and seriously injured a village level administration officer at his house Friday. Joseph Ratnarajah, 58, was actively taking part in organizing the exhumation of bodies of suspected military and paramilitary victims at Kaithady, Jaffna.(See details June 7)

The body of Rasiah Muraleeswaran, 42, of Meesalai East, a mason employed in the FORUT housing scheme for the tsunami affected at Nilavan Settlement Scheme in Polikandy in Vadamaradchy north, was found at the building site Friday. He had been bludgeoned to death. Nilavan settlement, where the body was found, is located within a SLA High Security Zone (HSZ) in Jaffna. Rasiah Muraleeswaran, father of two children, had earlier worked for the LTTE tsunami rehabilitation scheme before joining the FORUT as a mason. Meanwhile, another mason, Rajani, 26, from Pungudutivu, working in the same housing scheme of FORUT, has been reported as missing from Thursday.

A blast was reported around in LTTE controlled Mannar area near Pallamadu, but casualty details were not available.

June 8

SLA soldiers armed with bayonets and knives entered the house of a family of four and murdered all of them in Vankalai, Mannar, Thursday night (see separate story, page 9).

A trainee caretaker and a Sinhalese driver of a water supply contractor, Thummara Enterprises, were killed in a claymore attack carried out by a SLA DPU in LTTE controlled part of Mannar district Thursday. The victims were identified as Alocious Rex Sasiharan, 24, and H.M.Amarasekara, 45. The Mannar district field commander of the LTTE was travelling in another vehicle on the same road 5 minutes behind the civilian vehicle that was ambushed.

Four health officials of the Tamil Eelam Health Service Mobile Medical Service were wounded when a SLA DPU exploded a claymore mine. A nurse and the driver of the vehicle were seriously wounded in the attack at Akkarayan, 20 km from Kilinochchi.

The SLA said two soldiers were injured in a mortar attack on the Kiran camp by the LTTE Thursday, to which they retaliated with mortar fire. However the LTTE in Batticaloa said that SLA had first attacked their positions forcing the LTTE gunners to retaliate. The SLA cordoned off and searched in the Kiran region, following the exchange of fire.

Unidentified men on a motorbike lobbed a hand grenade on the Valaichenai police sentry post and had escaped without being caught. No one was injured.

Twenty-one Tamil youths from Kaluvanachikudy and LTTE controlled territory in Batticaloa were arrested in a roundup search conducted by the SLA and the police in the Eravur public market and its surroundings Thursday. The youths arrested had come to the Eravur public market to buy provisions. 9 of the 21 were detained for further investigations while the rest were released after inquiries.

June 7

Ten civilians, including three children, were killed and ten others, including two infants aged 3 and 8 months, were wounded in a SLA pressure mine explosion inside a LTTE controlled border village at Nedunkal in Vadamunai, Batticaloa on Wednesday. Batticaloa District Political Head of the LTTE Daya Mohan said that SLA troopers who had moved beyond the LTTE FDL were behind the attack. Seven civilians were killed on the spot while three succumbed to their wounds on the way to hospital. Twenty civilians were riding in the tractor that was attacked, said S. Oliyan, LTTE''s Kudumbimalai area coordinator. The villagers were making their regular 28km grocery journey from Vadamunai village to Kiran as the route to the closer shops in Welikande has been blocked.

Unidentified persons fired at a sentry point of the Sri Lanka Police at Katkadanthakulam junction on Mannar-Madawachchi Road, about 30 km south of Mannar town Wednesday. Police returned fire, but no casualties were reported. Later the Police visited the village and took the residents to a nearby church, where they sought the assistance of the villagers in curbing the violence in the area and also asked them to provide information about strangers coming to the area.

A decomposed body was found buried in Kaithady, a sub-division of Jaffna district, near the site where the body of the Hindu priest was discovered earlier in the week. The area is under the control of the SLA’s 52nd division. The body was identified as belonging to Visuvalingam Paranitharan who was reported missing one month ago while he was riding on a motorbike on Kopay - Neerveli road. The body was discovered in shallow grave in wasteland 200 meters away from A9 highway and the possible presence of another 2 bodies suggested this could be a mass grave. The find confirms earlier suspicions of Kaithady residents who allege that disappeared men and women were tortured, and subsequently killed and buried in this particular SLA camp premises.

June 6

Military officials reported a claymore explosion near the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, at Mahapage, 50 meters from the Welisara Navy (SLN) camp in Ragama, on the Colombo-Negombo Road, Tuesday. A bus driver was wounded in the blast, which is the first claymore attack to be reported in Colombo. The attackers had targeted a Navy convoy, police said. A cordon and search operation was launched at the blast site.

Bodies of two unidentified youths were found Tuesday lying near a school in Thangapuram, a Tamil village in the Serunuwara police division in Trincomalee. They were identified as Thangathurai Kugan, 22, and Mylvaganam Kumarathurai, 21, of Killiveddy area in the Muttur division. Serunuwara Police reported to the Muttur Magistrate that both youths had been shot by 9 mm pistol. Residents of the area said they heard gunshots previous night around 7.30 p.m. and found the bodies next morning.

Unknown gunmen shot and killed two men alleged to be members of the paramilitary EPDP Tuesday morning while they were walking out of the SLA camp in Velanai in the Jaffna islets. The EPDP said that the men killed were supporters of their party and not members.

Two unidentified gunmen riding on motorbike lobbed hand grenades injuring a SLA trooper engaged in security duty in Amman Veethy region near Kantharmadam in Jaffna. The attackers escaped on their motor bike after the explosion. The SLA troopers indiscriminately fired after the attack, cordoned off and searched the area, but no one was arrested.

Two Sri Lanka Police officers were killed and two seriously injured in a claymore attack near the Pandarikulam road in Vairavapuliyankulam in Vavuniya Tuesday. The claymore hit the van the officers were travelling in. SLA soldiers opened fire after the explosion and conducted a cordon and search operation in the area.

A paramilitary gunman riding a bicycle shot and killed a security guard of the Batticaloa Teaching Hospital, at the main entrance of the hospital. The victim, Sivalingam Rajanikanth, 25, a resident of Arayampathi, was gunned down when he went to the shop in front of the hospital, located in high security zone.

Unidentified gunmen forced a Tamil teacher out of the bus he was travelling in from Valaichenai and shot him with a pistol. Yoganathan Satheeswaran 25, who was travelling with his sister, was rushed to hospital, but succumbed to his injuries the next day. Mr Satheeswaran, a teacher engaged in educating school dropouts project of UNICEF in the Oorikadu Government Tamil Mixed School in Vaharai, travels to his work from Valaichenai. Paramilitaries operating with the SLA are suspected of killing him, Vaharai residents said.

Unidentified attackers lobbed a grenade into the check post of the 21-2 SLA camp in Mannar Stadium, wounding three soldiers and a policeman. One soldier was being treated at Mannar hospital while the other three, two of them critically wounded, were rushed to Thallady army camp for airlifting to Anuradhapura hospital. SLA soldiers opened fire for 3 minutes in the area following the attack.

June 5

An unidentified male body, with gunshot wounds, was taken to Batticaloa hospital from Navatkadu Monday morning. Residents at the area said they heard gunfire around 8:00 p.m. Sunday.

Two men were killed in a claymore blast at Sinnavembu in Kumburumoolai, Batticaloa, Monday. Kalkuda police said the two men were killed while they were fixing the claymore mine. SLA soldiers, who rushed to the site upon hearing an explosion, also recovered weapons, including a handgun, from the attackers, police said.

A SLA soldier was killed in a clash that erupted between a group of armed men and soldiers near Eruvittan junction, south of Mannar, Monday. Civilians in the area were assaulted by the SLA troopers following the clash. A grenade explosion and continuous exchange of gunfire was reported for more than 10 minutes.

The SLN arrested 37 Tamil refugees and two boatmen fleeing to South India in two boats from Mannar shore Monday. These refugees include women and children were among the displaced from Trincomalee coastal villages and staying in Pesalai St. Mary''s School. SLN officials in Mannar handed the arrested refugees to the Mannar Divisional Secretary Ms Stanley de Mel for the safe custody in the Pesalai St Mary''s Tamil School.

Meanwhile the Mannar Divisional Secretary requested the naval authorities located in the Sunny Village Naval Camp to hand over the Mannar Youth Corp Centre for allowing more refugees to stay there. But the naval authorities have refused as soldiers of the SLN and Police are using the centre building as their camp.

June 4

Two SLA soldiers were injured when unidentified attackers riding a motorbike, lobbed a grenade at a check post at Perumal temple, close to 51-2 Brigade HQ, in Jaffna. SLA soldiers retaliated by firing at the attackers. The area was cordoned off and searched by the troopers.

June 3

One SLA soldier was wounded when gunmen opened fire at four SLA soldiers at Vantharumooolai, northwest of Batticaloa town. The wounded soldier, A.V. Seneviratne, 38, was rushed to Sittandy SLA camp. The soldiers were resting behind a temple when they were attacked. Later that afternoon SLA soldiers arrested three youths during a cordon and search operation. Manickavel Navaratnam, 28, from Kaluvankerni, Arumugam Varatharajah, 36, from Valaichenai in Puthukudiyiruppu, and Shanmugam Varathan, 23, from Sithandy Velayutham Road, were detained, interrogated and handed over to the Eravur Police.

All traffic on Batticaloa-Kalmunai road stopped as Kallady bridge, south of Batticaloa town, was shut down after a claymore attack Saturday. SLA troops and police launched a cordon and search operation in the area. No one was reported injured in the explosion, which targeted an SLA road clearing patrol.

Unknown gunmen riding in a motorbike shot and killed a Ceylon Transport Board worker and wounded another youth, who were standing outside Valaichenai bus stand, Saturday. The CTB worker, Vaithilingam Vijitharan, 26, from Karuvakerni, died on the spot. Peethambaram Mohulan, a 24-year old from Valaichenai, talking with Vijitharan, was wounded.

SLA soldiers and paramilitary gunmen opened fire and killed a local election candidate and his relative in Valaichenai, 500 meters from the Police station. Nalliah Vimalendran, father of two children and Tamil National Alliance (TNA) candidate for the local elections in Koralaipattu Pradeshiya Sabah (PS), and his relative Thambirajah Sithiravadivel, father of four, were killed. Vimalendran and Sithiravadivel were gunned down while on their way home after visiting the parents of Vijitharan, who was gunned down near the Batticaloa Assistant Police Commissioner''s office in front of CTB Bus stand.

One SLA soldier was killed and two seriously injured in a claymore attack on their vehicle inside a SLA controlled HSZ north of the Muhamalai checkpoint, in the Jaffna peninsula. The attack happened in a non-residential area interior to Kandy-Jaffna A9 highway in Eluthumadduval area between Mirusuvil and Muhamalai. The claymore targeted a pickup truck regularly used by high-level officers of the SLA.

SLA sentry points located near Kaakaithivu junction in Aanaikottai area, inside the Jaffna Municipal perimeter, were fired on from the nearby housing development Saturday. SLA soldiers returned fire but no one was injured in the firefight. The gunmen used a house vacated by a family who moved to Vanni to mount the attack and escaped. SLA soldiers cordoned off and searched Aanaikottai area, Kanagampuliyady and KKS road, but no arrests were made.

A Muslim civilian was killed when SLA troopers in Mannar town opened fire after an SLA soldier and two policemen were wounded in a grenade attack in front of the SLA camp in Mannar Stadium. Shops were closed and civilians remained indoors following the incident. The civilian was identified as Hussain from Uppukulam. An SLA soldier, Upali Jegath, 42, was seriously wounded in the grenade attack. He and the wounded police constables, Ratnayake, 32, and Silva, 36, were rushed to Thallady SLA 21-2 base and airlifted to Anuradhapura hospital.

SLA Corporal Karunaratne was killed and another trooper injured in a claymore mine attack while they were returning to camp after a road clearing mission at Kokkuthoduvai in Manalaru.

June 2

Unidentified persons exploded a claymore mine on the Kaluvankerny Road in Vantharumoolai, Batticaloa, Friday, targeting SLA troopers on duty near the Railway track, killing one, M. Tilakaratne, 34, on the spot and seriously injuring three. The claymore mine was fixed on a mango tree near the railway track, police said.

Sri Lankan Special Task Force (STF) troopers from Pulukunavai camp shelled Thanthamalai Murugan temple, located in LTTE controlled territory southwest of Batticaloa, where Saiva devotees gathered Friday evening for voluntary preparation work ahead of annual festivals. No one was wounded in the STF shelling.

Unidentified persons lobbed a hand grenade at a SLA unit patrolling along the Kaithady-Kopay road in Thenmaradchchy Jaffna, Friday causing minor injuries to two troopers. The troops arrested the Hindu priest at a nearby Temple during the cordon and search operation following the grenade attack and assaulted him severely before releasing him in the evening.

June 1

Two paramilitary EPDP cadres, Sebastian Thavarasa, 37, and Arumugan Lokanathan Arivu, 19, were shot and killed at Pandarikulam in Vavuniya Thursday by unidentified gunmen.

A member of the Tamil Eelam Auxilliary Force, Varothayan Sritharan, was killed, and another injured in a claymore attack by the SLA in the LTTE controlled Nedunkerny area in Vavuniya, Thursday morning.

On Thursday night an LTTE cadre was killed in an SLA attack on the LTTE FDL at Kaakaiyan Kulam, Vavuniya.

Unidentified attackers lobbed a grenade at the office of the EPDP in Batticaloa, wounding the media coordinator of the group in Batticaloa, Kandiah Arumailingam, 63. The EPDP office is located in a SLA high security area in Batticaloa.

Unidentified men lobbed a hand grenade inside a house in Puthur area in Batticaloa Thursday night killing Rasiah Kanesan, 56, on the spot.

Selvarajah Gajanathan, a Tamil Co-operative Development Officer (CDO) was abducted from the Kaddaiparichchan SLA camp Thursday. An unidentified person in civil clothes seized him in the presence of SLA soldiers when he went to facilitate the transfer of relief material to Muttur east.

Nearly a hundred families consisting of around 500 people fled from their villages near Vankalai in Mannar Thursday when SLA troopers based at the Vankalai SLA camp opened indiscriminate fire on the residents for 20 minutes after a claymore explosion killed a soldier in Naruvilikulam. The claymore, targeting a two-wheel tractor carrying dinner to the SLA check post, killed one soldier and injured two. Ms. A. Lorenzia, a 12 year old girl and her father A. Arulnesan, 42, were seriously injured in the SLA fire were taken to hospital Friday as they could not travel on the night of the attack due to fear of more violence.

May 31

Unidentified gunmen lobbed a hand grenade at a shop owner and, when it failed to explode, opened fire, injuring a 48 year old bystander at Thalavai in Eravur, Batticaloa. Kanesan Navaratnam the shop owner escaped injuries while Nahappan Parthipan, who happened to be nearby, was injured. Mr Kanesan had allegedly refused to meet several previous extortion demands, and local residents speculated that the attack was linked to the demands.

Unknown gunmen opened fire at the STF sentry post at the 25th mile post in Maha oya - Mangalagama border area of Batticaloa, Wednesday killing a home guard, Shantha Bandara, who was on sentry duties at the post. The STF opened fire for 45 minutes, before cordoning off the area and conducting a search.

Batticaloa Government Agent (GA), S. Punniyamoorthy, said Wednesday that more than 65 families fleeing from the border villages of Batticaloa district have been placed in the Kirimichchai school building in the LTTE controlled region. The families fled their village in fear following the killings of 13 Sinhalese settlers on Monday in Omadiayamadu near Welikanthai, the GA said.

A body was found along Keery sea beach in Mannar town in a fertilizer bag on Wednesday, and was identified the following day as belonging to Arulappu Jesuthasan Prince Croos, 38, who had been arrested by SLA soldiers from Mannar Bazaar area on 26 May. His brother identified Croos, a father of three children, who several witnesses reported as having been last seen being arrested by three SLA soldiers.

SLA and LTTE fighters exchanged mortar and artillery fire near the Nagarkovil FDL in Vadamaradchy east Wednesday. The LTTE advanced a significant distance towards the SLA''s FDL and the SLA was forced to move back from their FDLs, reports said. Defense officials in Jaffna however said that SLA soldiers had beaten back the limited advance by the Tigers. Although there were fears of several casualties, neither side revealed details.

SLA Lance Corporal Chandraratne, 41, was killed during a firefight between a SLA foot patrol and unknown gunmen along the Jaffna Point-Pedro road, between Nelliady junction and Malisanthai junction. The firefight, which lasted nearly 15 minutes, occurred in an area that has 24-hour SLA protection. Two SLA troopers were injured.

May 30

The body of a female 30 to 35 years of age, suspected as that of a Muslim woman, was found on Oluvil beach in Akkaraipattu, Batticaloa Tuesday by local residents.

Two SLA soldiers were seriously injured when a group of five unidentified gunmen fired at soldiers working in a compound near Chulipuram junction in Valligamam, Jaffna. The soldiers were cutting trees to reinforce the SLA camp near Chullipuram Victoria College when the attack took place. Security officials, however, said only one soldier was injured. Residents who witnessed the incident said that they saw at least two soldiers being transported in a vehicle to Palaly Military Hospital. SLA soldiers immediately cordoned off the area and conducted a house-to-house search, but no one was arrested according to local residents.

May 29

One SLA trooper was killed and three injured in a claymore attack at Jeyanthapuram, north of Batticaloa. The attack took place about 100 meters from Jeyanthipuram SLA camp.

Masked gunmen shot dead Thankaraja Rajanikanth, 26, a labourer who had left the LTTE several years ago in Peythalai-Karungkalicholai within Valaichchenai police division in Batticaloa. Unidentified armed men entered Mr Thankaraja''s house at midnight looking for him and were told by his mother that he was at a neighbour’s. The gunmen took Mr Thankarajah by force from the neighbour''s house some distance away for interrogation before shooting him dead at close range.

Unknown attackers entered the Sinhala settlement village of Rantharathenna in Omadiyamadu, in Polonnaruwa, Batticaloa border and shot and cut to death 13 Sinhala settlers. The attackers set fire to the victims'' belongings and equipment used in the irrigation project the settlers were working on. 2 persons were admitted to hospital and additional SLA soldiers were rushed to the village. LTTE Media Coordinator, Daya Master, charged that elements seeking to discredit the Tigers were behind the massacre of the Sinhalese workers. Gunmen seeking to stigmatise the Tigers after the EU ban, had"designed and executed" the killings in the border village of Omadiyamadu, which was once used by the paramilitary Karuna Group, Daya Master said. The timing of the massacre has been planned after the formal, politically motivated, proscription of the Tigers, he added.

Unidentified gunmen opened fire on SLA troopers of the Kalkuda camp on the Pethalai road in the Valaichenai police division in Batticaloa, injuring two SLA troopers. Wijeyasekara, 34, and Jakath, 38, the two injured troopers, were rushed to Valaichenai hospital where they are being treated. The gunmen, hiding themselves in the site, fired on the SLA troopers, wounding an Ottamvadi aluminium utensils trader as well in the shootout. SLA troopers deployed at several sites in the area immediately opened fire indiscriminately, assaulting several passers-by along the Pethalai road. The troopers also arrested many of the civilians and took them to the SLA Harbour Camp on the Kalkuda road.

Two fishermen who went to fish in Araly West seas in Valigamam were found murdered, and their bodies recovered from shrub jungles close to the Araly coast. Residents of Araly, Jaffna, blame SLN soldiers. Nagarajah Selvarajah and Nadarajah Nageswaran, both married and estimated to be between ages of 35-40, went fishing in shallow waters of Kottaikadu in Araly West Sunday evening. Relatives of the fishermen went in search of them when both failed to return Monday morning, discovered the bodies in Kottaikadu coastal shrub jungles and informed the Vaddukoddai police.

Unknown gunmen killed Subramaniam Thevaraj (alias Ranjan) in Erlalai North near the border of Palaly HSZ in Jaffna. Thevaraj, from Kupilan, was on his way to the Multi-purpose co-operative society to buy provisions when three unidentified youths shot him at close range and escaped. He was earlier employed in Tamil Eelam Employment and Income Section in Jaffna in the LTTE run civil administration.

In Navanthurai, Jaffna, Michael Johnson was shot dead by unknown gunmen in front of St. Nicholas Church. Mr Jesudasan, 40, was a member of the paramilitary EPDP and a candidate in the postponed local Jaffna Municipal Council elections.

SLA troopers who penetrated 4 kilometres into LTTE controlled Vilathikulam from the SLA camp in Iranai Iuppaikkulam, 20 km northwest of Vavuniya, exploded a claymore mine killing a civilian, Subramaniam Jeyarooban, 24, who was cycling.

A 24 year old Tamil youth arrested nearly a month earlier in Iruthayapuram in government controlled Muttur division by the SLA during a cordon and search operation has not been produced in court yet, relatives protested. Mr. K. Thurairatnasingham, Trincomalee district TNA parliamentarian Monday requested the Deputy Inspector General of Police for Eastern Region to urgently inquiry into the whereabouts of the youth. Suntharalingam Ravichandran of Manalsenai was arrested by army soldiers on April 28. His wife had made a complaint to the Muttur Police on April 29, a day after his arrest, but no action has been taken.

Vimalasuriar Thehilarajah, 26, who was seriously injured in a shooting incident in Vaddukoddai Sunday, succumbed to his injuries in Jaffna Teaching Hospital. He was a friend of the owner of a communications centre in Vaddukkodai, Jaffna and was injured in a shooting that claimed the life of the centre’s owner, Pooranam Sabesan, 26. Gunmen, allegedly belonging to paramilitaries working with SLA intelligence, bound the hands of the two, took them to an area behind the shop and sprayed the men with bullets from short range. Meanwhile, unknown gunmen who visited another video shop close to Sabesan''s business, threatened the employees by brandishing a hand grenade, took their photographs and then disappeared.

India last week politely but firmly made it clear to Sri Lanka that its security forces must stop killing innocent Tamils in the name of combating the Tamil Tigers.

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera was conveyed the message by India’s political leadership which while being firmly committed to the island’s unity is bothered by increasing reports of attacks on innocent Tamils.

Political parties in Tamil Nadu are up in arms against the killings of Tamils in Sri Lanka. A string of protests took place in the state on June 19, organised by mainstream parties as well as Tamil nationalist groups.

Last Tuesday, the Tamil Nadu chief minister’s office issued a statement saying Singh had phoned Karunanidhi and told him that “appropriate steps” would be taken to restore peace in Sri Lanka.

Samaraweera, who flew in on Wednesday night from London on a previously unscheduled trip, first met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan exclusively and then had an extended meeting along with officials. Before flying to Colombo he met Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed at the Indira Gandhi international airport.

India’s concern follows rapidly worsening situation in Sri Lanka where more than 800 people have been killed since December.

An informed source told Indo-Asian News Service: “[Smaraweera] was told that civilian casualties should be avoided... and we hope that Sri Lankan security forces will not respond to provocations and be restrained.”

The cycle of killings and counter-killings, for which blame has fallen on the security forces, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and anti-LTTE Tamil groups, has made a mockery of the 2002 Norway-brokered ceasefire between Colombo and the Tigers.
The violence has led to a panic run of distraught Tamil civilians to Tamil Nadu, the Indian state separated from Sri Lanka by a narrow strip of sea.

This in turn has generated a lot of heat in Tamil Nadu, where both the ruling DMK and opposition parties have pressed New Delhi to take steps to try to bring peace in the island nation.

A statement issued by the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and its allies had stated: “The Sri Lankan issue has already brought some unwanted disasters and the (central government) should ... take steps to bring peace in Sri Lanka.”

Former chief minister and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) leader Jayaram Jayalalitha has also expressed anguish over the “killing of innocent people in the fighting between the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE.”

She has demanded immediate action from the central government to bring peace to Sri Lanka.

Samaraweera, who was also in New Delhi last month, told Manmohan Singh that President Mahinda Rajapakse was committed to peace no matter what stand the LTTE took.

Samaraweera quoted Rajapakse as saying that “war is not an option” for Sri Lanka.

“We are committed to a political solution and want to go in for devolution of powers based on discussions at the all party conference (in Sri Lanka),” he told the Indian premier and Narayanan.

Colombo, the minister went on, wanted to talk to the LTTE to resolve the decades-long ethnic conflict. “For this government and for our president, war is not an option,” Samaraweera insisted.

Manmohan Singh heard out Samaraweera and expressed happiness over the minister’s assurances that Sri Lanka was not readying for war.

National Security Advisor Narayanan is expected to fly to Tamil Nadu shortly to appraise Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi about the discussions with Samaraweera.

Among other things Karunanidhi is seriously concerned over continuing attacks by Sri Lankan security forces on fishermen from Tamil Nadu.

Diplomats in Colombo fear that both Colombo and LTTE appear to be inching towards a full-fledged conflict although neither side wants to earn flak from the international community by provoking a war.

India follows the Sri Lanka situation closely and is in touch with Norway, which is engaged in desperate efforts to rescue the derailed peace process.