The biggest church in Sri Lanka “has been desecrated by innocent blood being shed [in it] by unjust aggressors, the Sri Lanka Navy,” Bishop of Mannar, Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph, protested this week in a letter to the Vatican, through the Apostolic Nuncio to the island.

“Today I buried the six civilians murdered by the Navy at Pesalai yesterday,” the outraged Bishop wrote Sunday. The local people are “mortally afraid of the Navy” and when they met the local Navy commander, 7,000 people of Pesalai begged to be allowed to flee to India or LTTE-controlled Vanni, he said.

In his lengthy letter to the Holy See setting out an eyewitness-based account of the navy’s rampage through the coastal village, Bishop Joseph described the cold-blooded summary execution of five fishermen unfortunate enough to be outside working on their boats as vengeful navy personnel stormed through the village.

He also described how the Church of Our Lady of Victory at Pesalai was surrounded by the navy personnel who then fired through holes in the main doors, wounding many people, and then forced open a window and tossed two grenades in, “resulting in one lady’s head being blown off in the church and several others sustaining injuries, some serious.”

Amongst the dead were three Catholics, including the 75-year old woman, two Hindus and a Muslim, he said.

The Bishop complained how the area commander of the Sri Lanka Army in Mannar had subsequently refused permission for him to go to Pesalai to attend to the casualties and how “after much efforts, the Divisional Secretary and myself were able to send the Mannar Police with Ambulances to bring the seriously wounded to the Mannar Hospital.”

He protested also that “military sources had tried to spread false news stating that there had been an attack by the LTTE on land at Pesalai on the Police and the Navy had to open fire.”

“All the people of Pesalai say that there was absolutely no [such] incident on that morning and the grenade story as stated by the military sources is adding insult to injury,” the Bishop said. Military officials had also “been stating that a grenade held by one of those inside the Church had exploded,” he protested.

The Bishop said he had invited the local commander of the Navy to an organized meeting with 7,000 people of Pesalai.

“They cried for their security against the Security Forces. They wanted him [Commander] not to prevent them from fleeing to India or to go to the LTTE controlled Wanni for their safety,” the Bishop said.

“If not they said he could bring all his men and shoot all of them once and for all. Even if a sacred place like a Church is unsafe for them, where else will the innocent find safety? was their question,” the Bishop added.

And when the commander assured them of their safety, “the people pointed out that several incidents of this type had taken place in the past and such assurances had been given by the leading commanders and they all had disappeared as words written on the waters.”

“The people told him of the threat meted out to all the people in Pesalai and in its sub-villages namely Kaataspathri and Siruthoppu by the Pesalai Navy saying that any LTTE attack on them will result in their wiping out the whole village sparing not even breast feeding infants,” the Bishop said.

The people’s “immediate expectation is that a neutral force should be brought in to take care of the security of the innocent people in a situation where nearly 95% of the Security Forces in Sri Lanka are Sinhala and, except a few very good officers, almost all of them are prejudiced against the Tamil people,” the Bishop said.

“This truth should be squarely faced by all concerned to prevent violence and escalation of it against civilians Tamil or Sinhala speaking.”

“The people are mortally afraid of the Navy and any amount of assurance given to them is not going to change their fear ridden psychosis due to past assurances not being kept up and the threats meted out to them by the Navy. When they sight the Navy moving in groups, the people at Pesalai run for their life to the church.”

Describing the Navy’s rampage on Friday, the Bishop said following sounds of a clash at sea between the SLN and the Sea Tigers, thousands of villagers who had been sheltering in the Church for two days, following an attack on Mannar police station, had huddled inside the building.

“As this [sea] battle was dying out around 8.00 AM, the people heard heavy firing coming from the side of the Siruthoppu Navy camp and they knew that the Navy was advancing towards the village of Pesalai and towards the Church.”

“On the way, the Navy had set fire to the cadjan houses of the fishermen at a costal location known as Vankalai Padu and gutted several of them together with fishing nets, outboard engines and other valuables. This location was deserted by the fishermen who had taken shelter in the Church at Karisal a kilometer away from this their habitation, a towards the interior.”

“The Navy personnel proceeded further towards Pesali it is related by eye witnesses and on the way they signalled to six fishermen who were returning to the shores at a costal location called Kaataspathri. The fishermen came down from their boats with their Identity Cards in hand. The Navy men asked them to go on their knees and fired at them through the mouths.”

“Four of them fell dead still holding in their hands their identity cards. The rest of the two had tried to run away and one of them was caught by the Navy and fired through his mouth and his body was found in one of the boats and the other sustained injuries on his stomach and holding his stomach, he ran and fell down at one of the houses at the village and he was immediately taken to the nearby church of Kaataspathri. He was removed by the SLRC to the Mannar hospital after an hour at 9.30 AM and had been sent from Mannar to Anuradahpura hospital for special treatment.”

“The Navy personnel proceeded to Pesalai blindly firing around and several houses at Pesalai are seen damaged. They came around the Church of Our Lady of Victory at Pesalai and took positions outside its walls.”

“At this point four men in shorts and t-shirts rushed into the church compound by the main entrance riding on two motor cycles it is said. They started firing at the church walls, doors and windows where over 6000 people, after having fastened all the doors and windows from within, were taking shelter.”

“Some Navy personnel had fired into the church through the little openings found on the large doors and a good number of innocent civilians there sustained injuries and even the frame on the main altar holding the statue of Our Lady of Victory is seen damaged.”

“One of the Navy personnel, then had opened one of the windows and hurled one after the other two hand grenades in to the church. One of these fell back striking the window grills and the other blasted in the church with a big noise and heavy smoke resulting in one lady’s head being blown off in the church and several others sustaining injuries, some of whom had received serious injuries.”

Sixty-eight people died on Thursday last week after a landmine, allegedly planted by the Liberation Tigers, ripped through a Ceylon Transport Board bus packed with passengers at Kongollewa, in Kebithigollewa.

The Sri Lankan government retaliated by launching air strikes on locations in the East and around Kilinochchi. The Liberation Tigers denied any involvement in the attack, calling it “senseless violence used for political ends”.

Fear of other attacks have prompted many residents from the Sinhala border villages of Kebithigollewa to flee their villages and take shelter in public buildings and in relatives’ and friends’ houses near Kebithigollewa town.

Two claymore mines were used in the attack on the bus carrying 150 passengers, police said. The powerful explosions reportedly flung the bus about 20 metres away from the spot where it was hit by the landmines, police and military officials said. The AP news agency quoted the Military Spokesman as saying the blast was believed to have been caused by a pair of land mines hanging from a tree, and detonated from a remote position.

Press reports said there were 15 children, two women and a Buddhist monk among the dead. A Sri Lanka Army soldier and a homeguard were also among the victims. Around 70 wounded were rushed to Anuradhapura hospital and 9 people, including 2 children and 3 women, were transferred to Colombo hospital.

The Sri Lankan government strongly condemned the Kebithigollewa attack as “barbaric and inhuman” and launched two days of airstrikes on LTTE-held areas in Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Vanni.

But President Mahinda Rajapakse who flew to Kebithigollewa received an unpleasant reception from enraged residents.

“Where is protection for us?” “Where is your peace with dignity?” “Why did you come to see the dead bodies?” “Don’t come this way again” and “We need security” were the words that welcomed him.

Rajapakse however continued to the Kebithigollewa Hospital and once inside, on his way to mortuary people in the corridors started to shout, demanding security.

On his way back from the mortuary, a few grieving relatives made their way to the President and said, “Mr. President, we voted for you and is this the gift you have to offer us? Why did you do this to us? We are respectable people, why have you done this to us?”

In response, President Mahinda Rajapaksa blamed the LTTE.

“The Tigers have done it again, this time it is children and innocent people. What would they expect from such attacks”, the President asked.

He said he instructed security forces in the area to take every action to provide security to the people. However he said the peace process would go ahead as usual, but urged the international community to pay more attention to such incidents as this.

“The LTTE has murdered small children and innocent people, I hope the international community will pay more attention to such barbaric incidents. At the same time the Government is still committed to a negotiated settlement”, he said.

Media Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa said the government strongly condemned the attack carried out by terrorists with the aim of instigating a backlash to fulfil their evil designs. “The Government urges the people to be calm and support its endeavour to eradicate the menace of terrorism,” he said.

However, the LTTE denied responsibility for the attack. The claymore attack on Sinhala civilians in Kebitigollawe was “senseless violence used for political ends,” the Liberation Tigers condemning the attack said in press release issued from Kilinochchi.

Armed acts targeting civilians “cannot be justified under any circumstances,” the LTTE press release said and charged Sri Lankan armed elements who have intensified their attacks on Tamil civilians for political ends, have also begun targeting Sinhala civilians with the aim of blaming the Tigers. The LTTE has urged the International media “not to fall prey for the reprehensible propaganda tactic.”

Peacebroker Norway vehemently condemned the attack. “This is the most horrific act that has been (carried out) in a long time in Sri Lanka and it must be utterly condemned,” top facilitator Erik Solheim, who is also Norway’s development aid minister, told AFP.

The United States also condemned the attack, noting: “This vicious attack bears all the hallmarks of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. It is a clear violation of the Ceasefire Agreement that the Tamil Tigers claim to uphold.”

The Swiss and Japanese governments also condemned the attack.

The Swiss said they “very strongly” condemn the attack and expressed Switzerland’s “condolences to the Sri Lankan population and authorities”.

On behalf of the government of Japan, Ambassador Akio Suda expressed his “strongest condemnation of the terrorist claymore attack,” adding: “Such dastardly terrorist attacks particularly targeting innocent common people are never accepted by any community in this country or the international community.”

From the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI has expressed his condolences to the families of those who died and were injured in the attack.

The Sri Lanka government retaliated with air strikes and artillery fire on LTTE-controlled areas. Kfir jets of the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) began bombing LTTE controlled Mullaithivu and its suburbs soon after the bus blast. A tsunami-resettlement village, Selvapuram, near Vattuvahal Bridge, was struck.

At least twelve bombs were also dropped on Kilinochchi suburbs from SLAF Kfir jets, which released the bombs from high altitudes. A further 10 bombs were dropped in the area surrounding Kilinochchi town on Friday, the day after the bus attack.

In Batticaloa SLAF Kfirs also bombed LTTE controlled Tharavai and Pulipaynthakal areas. Mortar shells were fired towards LTTE controlled territory in Batticaloa from Vavunathivu SLA camp, he added.

Sampoor and Muttur East areas in LTTE controlled Trincomalee were attacked with multi-barrel artillery fire. Several houses belong to Tamil civilians in Sampoor, Kaddaiparichchan, Koonitivu, Soodaikuda and Ilankanthai were destroyed in the artillery fire carried out from a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camp located at Monkey Bridge, south of Trincomalee. Three civilians were wounded and at least 10 civilian houses were damaged in the multi-barrel artillery attack.

Meanwhile, the LTTE claimed that the air strickes were a ceasefire violation and that the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) had agreed with this position.

Amnesty International expressed concern over the retaliatory government air strikes.

While condemning the Kebithigollewa incident, Amnesty said the air strikes on could cause disproportionate loss of civilian life and in the process violates international humanitarian laws.

“Increasing numbers of civilians are being caught up in escalating violence sweeping the island. AI fears that a long-simmering, low-intensity conflict now threatens to explode, further exacerbating the human rights crisis in Sri Lanka,” AI added.

June 27

A youth from Singainagar in Vallipuram, Vadamaradchy, Jaffna, alleged to be an Army informant, was shot dead when he was on his way towards Manthikai along Jaffna - Point Pedro road. Mr. Jeya, a driver by occupation, was followed by unidentified gunmen, after he came out of the SLA camp in Point Pedro town and was shot as he tried to run into Vallipura Pariyariayar lane.

A Sri Lanka police constable, Mr. Vithanavasa, was injured when a grenade was thrown at the police sentry point at the telecommunications station in the heart of Mannar town. In police retaliatory fire, two Tamil civilians were injured. S.Thiruchelvam, 52, and his wife Mariyanayagi, 46, have been running a grocery store in front of telecom station.

One LTTE cadre was killed when his unit confronted a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) deep penetration unit (DPU) in Vakarai, Batticaloa (see box story, p4).

June 26

A senior Sri Lanka Army officer, Major General Parami Kulatunga, the third most senior Army commander, was killed just outside Colombo by a suicide bomber on a motorcycle on Monday (see story p3).

The body of one of three Tamil youths arrested by the SLA during a cordon and search operation in Trincomalee on Sunday was recovered with cut and gunshot injuries Monday in Bharathipuram. The body has been identified as that of Baskaran, a mason by profession, from Kanniya Road, Anpuvallipuram. The whereabouts of the other two civilians arrested by the SLA are not known.

Three Tamil farmers of Bharathipuram, Trincomalee district, have been reported missing since Monday after they went to Aathiamankerni area in search of their cattle. Another Tamil civilian was reported missing in Periyakulam since June 25 after he went to the nearby jungle to bring firewood.

The owner of a welding plant in Vankalavadi, Velanai in Jaffna islets was shot dead by two gunmen who arrived on a motorbike. C. Yogeswaran, 55, who is alleged to be a supporter of the Army-backed paramilitary group, the Eelam Peoples Democratic Party (EPDP), is from Nayanmarkattu area in Nallur.

Another senior EPDP cadre, who served as Jaffna Municipal Council member of several years, was shot and seriously injured by unknown gunmen. Manickam Kanagaratnam, 70, was shot outside his house near Aariyakulam junction along the Jaffna-Point Pedro road.

June 25

A senior member of the paramilitary Peoples Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) was shot dead in front of Jaffna Teaching Hospital Sunday. Mohammed Bazeer, 42, with nom de guerre "Simon," was originally from White Sand area of Trincomalee joined PLOTE ten years ago and has been working in Jaffna district.

An expatriate Tamil from Switzerland, who was in Valaichenai, Batticaloa district, visiting his family on a 2-week holiday, was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen Sunday. The victim, Vadivel Puvendran, a father of five, was visiting a relative''s birthday function when three men came to the house and took him away.

An unidentified assailant, using a 9mm pistol, shot and killed Batticaloa resident Mr Thurairajah Jogaraja, 34, at his home in Onthachchimadam, Kalawanchchikudi.

One police constable was seriously injured when unidentified persons fired at the combined SLA and police sentry located in the Mannar public playground. One of two Tamil civilians in a three-wheeler were injured in the retaliatory fire by the security forces and the other was arrested by the Police.

June 24

Two Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers were shot and seriously injured by unidentified gunmen on a motorbike, at Vepankulam, Vavuniya. Both succumbed to their injuries at Vavuniya hospital. They were part of a road clearing patrol on the Vavuniya-Mannar main road when they were attacked.

Two gunmen wounded a Police officer in Mandur, Batticaloa, near the Vellavely SLA camp. Separately, Kalmunai police said an SLA road clearing patrol recovered a claymore mine in Pandiruppu, Naippattimunai.

SLA soldiers entered Jaffna University campus premises by scaling the perimeter walls and threatened the students inside at gunpoint. Jaffna Campus Student Union and the International Federation of Students in Jaffna issued memoranda condemning the forced entry of the SLA soldiers as violation of student rights. “None of the other campuses in Sri Lanka are subjected to such military thuggery, and the Jaffna High Command should provide the reason for its soldiers'' entering the Jaffna Campus premises,” the memoranda said.

June 23

Sri Lanka Police, Special Task Force (STF) and SLA troopers cordoned off and searched Batticaloa town market area, near Batticaloa Police station. Tamil paramilitary cadres accompanied the security forces. No arrests were made.

Gunmen hurled a hand grenade at the Sri Lanka Police sentry point in Iruthayapuram, along the Batticaloa-Trincomalee road. Four police officers at the checkpoint fired indiscriminately after the attack. No one was injured in the incident.

Mr. K Kumarathas, 35, a news editor at Jaffna based Tamil daily Uthayan, was arrested by Sri Lanka Police in Moratuwa and held at the Mt. Lavania police station in Colombo for more than 10 hours before being released. Mr Kumarathas''s wife, two children, and the driver of the van he was travelling in, were also held in custody. The family had travelled to Colombo to attend to some personal matters. The Police officers refused to accept the Press Identity card issued by the Sri Lanka Government Information Department, Mr Kumarathas said after his release. The Police had confiscated his cell phone and barred him from calling anyone including his lawyer while he was in custody, he said.

June 22

SLA soldiers on a road clearing patrol discovered a claymore mine concealed in the shrub jungle along the Chenkaladi main road near Sellam Theater in Batticaloa. An SLA convoy that was to depart Batticaloa towards Polannaruwa later on Thursday may have been the intended target. Earlier, SLA patrols found two claymore mines in Aarumuhathan Kudiyiruppu and Mayilambaveli areas.

Rice mill worker Kanthasamy Thavarajah, 20, a resident of Palaiyadithorna in Santhiveli, and a father of a 16 day-old-baby, was shot dead by gunmen a few hundred meters from the Jeevapuram railway station. He had been abducted at a bus stop, while waiting to catch a bus to take him to work in a rice mill in Akkaraipattu.

Shanmugam Jeyaratnam, 39, a cow-herder, was shot in the head and killed near the local Vinayakapuram school in Kalmadu Road, Vinayagapuram.

Unidentified persons lobbed a grenade at the house of Mr. Ilayathamby Indrakumar located in Ellai Veethi Kanapathipillai village at Chenkalady, Batticaloa. The house was severely damaged but the occupants escaped unhurt. Mr. Indrakumar, the owner of a jewellery store, his wife and his two children were staying in the house at that time.

STF soldiers cordoned off and searched Akkaraipattu, Aalaiyadi Vembu, Vaachikuda, Naavatkuda and Kolavil areas of Amparai district. Soldiers had a target list of names and registration numbers of motorbikes, local residents said. Ten civilians were taken to the Akkaraipattu STF camp for further interrogation. Tamil paramilitaries accompanied the STF during the search operation, according to residents.

Gunmen attacked an SLA sentry post located near the Sebamalaimatha Catholic church in Columbuththurai, a suburb of Jaffna, hurling grenades and firing. SLA soldiers counter attacked but the gunmen escaped.

In Manipay, Jaffna, Sri Lanka military forces recovered two claymore mines each weighing 5kg and a T-56 rifle.

June 21

Three Muslim fish traders lodged a complaint at Eravur police station that they were robbed of Rs.83,900 and cell phones by armed men at the Punnaikuda Thalavai Road in the Batticaloa. The traders, Ibrahim Rahim, Mohamad Haniffa and Mohamad Sharif, were on their way towards Punnaikuda coast to buy the early morning catch when they were robbed.

Increasing number of robberies have been reported in June in Batticaloa and Eravur, police say. On 8 June, a jewellery shop in Eravur owned by Ramanathan Shanmugalingam, was broken into and an undisclosed amount of jewellery was stolen. On 10 June, the “Sannitha” jewellery shop owned by Ulahasekaran Sasikaran was broken into and jewellery worth Rs.10,45,000 was stolen.

Armed men, carrying T56 assault rifles shot and killed, Milred Roy Weld, 39, and seriously wounded his father Milred Weld, 64, at their home on Semakkalai Road in Jeyanthipuram, Batticaloa. Local residents blamed SLA soldiers from Jeyanthipuram camp. Residents said that the two were attacked by SLA soldiers after they came out of their house to inquire into the sound of gunfire from the army camp.

Three SLA soldiers, including a corporal, were seriously injured when an SLA road patrol came under gun and grenade attack along the Point Pedro - Chavakachcheri Road between Manthikai junction and Kalikai junction in Vadamaradchy, Jaffna. Two of them later succumbed to their wounds.

Two SLA soldiers were injured when their road patrol and unknown gunmen clashed about 100 meters from Vaddukoddai Hindu College in Vaddukoddai, Jaffna. The gunmen escaped. Residents and children at Vaddukoddai Hindu college fled the area in panic.

Arsonists, alleged to be SLA soldiers and collaborating paramilitaries, set fire to the office in the Liberation Tigers'' Kopay Heroes Cemetery, in Jaffna. The attackers forced open the main entrance, ransacked the office building, heaped the furniture and other photographs in the building, and set them on fire. The roof of the building sustained serious fire damage. However, memorial stones were left undamaged, residents said.

Two unidentified gunmen riding motor bikes shot and killed Sivarathnam Sasikumar, a businessman, in Negombo, just north of Colombo. Sasikumar was going home with a friend when he was shot in the head and chest police said. The killers are believed to be paramilitary cadres. The businessman, a father of one, was born in Jaffna and had been resident in Negombo for many years.

June 20

The body of an SLA soldier who disappeared from the Thatchanthoppu SLA camp Tuesday was found with gunshot wounds in shrub jungles in a non-residential area of Kaithady in Thenmaradchy, Jaffna, close to the SLA camp. Soldiers from the Thatchanthoppu camp found the body after a searching the area.

SLA soldiers found two claymore mines fixed in Eravur, Batticaloa district, targeting an SLA convoy. One mine was recovered near the Murugan temple at Mailambaveli and another at Arumugathankudiyiruppu.

Two armed men who arrived on a motorbike entered a crowded liquor restaurant in Kommathurai, Batticaloa, and shot the owner, Iyathurai Nirmalakumaran, 55. The killers were Karuna Group paramilitary cadres, who had been demanding money from the businessman, according to civilians in Kommathurai. Mr. Nirmalakumaran, born in Kopay, Jaffna, had been a resident of Kalkudah Road for 30 years. The father of four had been running the liquor restaurant in Kommathurai, near the Eastern University in Vantharumoolai, for several years.

A group of men driving a white van abducted Thayaparan Subaraj, 18, of Thalankuda in Puthukudiyiruppu, Batticaloa. Local witnesses said the abductors were paramilitaries belonging to the Karuna Group. In a trend that has terrified parents, more than 150 youths have been abducted in the last two weeks in Valaichenai, Mangkerni, Santhivelli, Kiran, Murakkotanchenai, Vandarumulai, Batticaloa and Iruthayapuram in the Batticaloa district, (see ‘Abductions’ p3).

Unidentified gunmen riding a motorbike shot and killed Jeyaraj Suthaharan, 24, at Urani within the Batticaloa police division. Suthaharan was cycling from Batticaloa to his home in Thiraimadu when he was shot close to the Urani SLA camp eyewitnesses said.

June 19

Two gunmen fired at the joint SLA and Sri Lanka Police sentry point near the Somawathiya, a historic Buddhist temple in Polonnnaruwa. The troops returned fire but the gunmen escaped. No one was injured in the incident. In a statement on their Peace Secretariat website, the Liberation Tigers denied any involvement in the attack and added they believed the attack is by “government of Sri Lanka operated forces aimed at creating ethnic tensions.”

The website further said that the Somwathiya temple attack follows the same pattern as the attack in Omadiyamadu, on 29 May, claymore attack on a bus in Welisara, on 6 June, and the claymore attack on a bus on June 15 in Kebitigollawe that are aimed at discrediting the LTTE. “LTTE denies involvement in all four of these attacks,” the statement said.

Thirteen fishermen reported missing while fishing in Mannar Sea with their boats on Saturday during a firefight between the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) and LTTE returned to Vankalaipadu shore Monday evening. The fishermen, unable to return to the Vankalaipadu shore due to heavy fighting between the LTTE and SLN, had sought refuge in Vidathaltivu.

Two SLA soldiers were wounded in Nagarkovil, Jaffna, in a clash between the SLA and the LTTE. The Tigers said they counter-attacked after LTTE FDLs were targeted by SLA artillery fire. Civilian sources in Thenmaradchi, Jaffna, said artillery fire was initiated from SLA 52 Brigade headquarters camp located in Varani. SLA artillery fire initially targeted LTTE cadres doing maintenance work on their FDL positions in Nagarkovil. The clash lasted for 30 minutes.

Kathiravelu Subramaniam, from 7th division in Punguduthivu, an islet off the coast of Jaffna, was found with severe slashes in his home. The lower parts of his body, including his genitals were severely dismembered, according to local residents. Neighbours, who discovered the body of the 85-year-old man who lived alone, alerted Kayts Police.

A man, aged between 45-50, was shot dead by gunmen riding a motorbike between Lloyds Avenue and Arunagiri Road in Batticaloa. The killing took place 25 meters from a SLA sentry point. Reports said that the attire of the man indicated that he could be a beggar or a man with mental illness

Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Kfir jets flew over remote suburbs of Vanni at high altitude. Civilians reported hearing sounds of explosion and a Sri Lankan reconnaissance plane was also observed. The LTTE had earlier warned Colombo that they would be forced to retaliate if SLAF bombers continued to bomb Vanni. Sources in Vanni said the munitions dropped by SLAF are of the unguided variety and have fortunately not caused civilian casualties during the recent bombing campaign by Colombo.

STF troopers arrested three Tamil youths in Akkaraipattu town in the Amparai district and handed them over to the Police. The police said they apprehended another youth after interrogating the three youths. The youths were in possession of a T-56 automatic rifle, Akkaraipattu police claimed.

June 18

A volunteer of the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), engaged in providing assistance to injured civilians warded in the Mannar district base hospital, was arrested by Mannar Police on Sunday evening. S. Antony of Alankulam in Mannar district and a father of two children, was providing help to the civilians who were injured in the attack on Pesalai church.
The LTTE said two soldiers were killed and their bodies captured by the Tigers when a group of SLA troopers launched an attack on the Tigers’ FDL in the remote jungles of Manal Aru, south of Mullaithivu. Two T-56 automatic rifles, four grenades, ten magazines and three magazine holsters were captured by the Tigers.

An attack was launched on the LTTE political office in Pavatta, in the interior west of Thirukkovil in Amparai district by STF forces and paramilitary cadres, reports said. The Tigers repulsed the STF and paramilitary cadres, according to Amparai District LTTE Political Head, Mr. Jeya.

More than a hundred military and paramilitary personnel participated in the penetration attack which was repulsed by the Tigers. The STF troopers also fired shells during the attack towards LTTE positions from Kanjirankuda STF camp.

Paramilitary cadres brought in 2 Army lorries continued to move around in STF controlled area for over a day after the attack, according to the residents. Around 30 paramilitary cadres were moving around Sunday morning in Vinayagapuram, Kanjirankuda and Thirukkovil areas. The STF personnel were remaining inside their camp while the paramilitary cadres were moving around, reports said.

Three paramilitary operatives were identified as ‘Parani’ from Komari, Johnsen Jeyakanthan alias ‘Pradeepan’ from Periyakallar and ‘Seelan’ from Thirukkovil. EPDP and new Muslim members of Karuna group were also observed in Kanjirankuda.

The LTTE counter-attack lasted for 35 minutes till the STF troopers with their paramilitaries withdrew from Pavatta, 2 km from Kanjirankuda where a STF camp is located.

13 farmers who were in their paddy fields were held by the STF men during the attack. They were released later. All traffic on Akkaraipattu Pottuvil road remained blocked till 10.00 a.m. in the morning.

Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission officials were asked three times to come and inspect the Pavatta office, Mr. Jeya said.

June 17

The SLN and SLAF conducted a combined live fire exercise along the Karainagar-Kankesanthurai seas, off the coast of Jaffna, for nearly 20 minutes Saturday morning. SLN ships fired shells from the sea while the Kfir fast attack aircrafts provided air cover, residents witnessing the training said. Families from coastal areas stayed indoors.

Fishermen from Valvettiturai to the east of Kankesanthurai and from Mathakal, Senthankulam to the west of the Kankesanthurai stayed away from going out to sea, a fisheries union spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, the SLA conducted a cordon and search operation in several areas in Valigamam including Kokuvil, Kondavil and Inuvil areas. SLA soldiers arrived in a number of heavy vehicles, blocked key roads and conducted house-to-house search. More than three hundred residents were taken to the Thavady camp and were released after their photographs were taken by the SLA.

Three Sri Lanka Police officers including a sergeant was killed in a claymore attack in Thuttuwewa, a Sinhala settlement in Vavuniya. The mine was fitted to a tractor with a water bowser in tow.

SLA soldiers killed a mentally-ill man riding a bicycle when he reportedly ignored their warning to stop in Santhiveli area in Eravur Police division, Batticaloa. But witnesses said the SLA soldiers first shot Kathamuthu Rajanayagam, 43, a father of three, in his leg, and after he fell to the ground, shot him dead at close range. The soldiers placed a hand-grenade by the side of the dead man to fake an attempted attack on the soldiers by the body, residents further said. Local witnesses gave written statement at the Eravur Police that the SLA soldiers shot dead the unarmed man. Tension prevails in the area as residents fear reprisals from the soldiers.

The Karuna paramilitary group abducted 11 Muslim dairy farm workers out of a group of 18, going out to work from the Muslim village of Thambalai, on Pollonaruwa-Sunkavil road, east of Pollonaruwa. The abductees were being held in the nearby jungles of Sinnavil, with ransom demands of 1 million rupees, relatives of the farm workers said. Thambalai villagers have managed to collect 100,000 rupees, and paid the abductors who then released 5 workers, and demanded 500,000 rupees for the release of four others - the paramilitaries released two of the workers, a father and his son, to communicate the 1 million rupees ransom demand on Saturday.

The abductees are detained and guarded by six armed paramilitaries in SLA uniform and one in casual dress, Thambalai villagers said. Local police, though aware of the incident, are not taking any action saying no complaints were made, villagers told reporters.

Three SLN troopers drowned in Modera Sea in Colombo when their patrol craft capsized Saturday early morning. One of the sailors body was recovered Saturday. When boat capsized six sailors were on board and three of the sailors were rescued unhurt. The craft was engaged in harbour security when it capsized.

SLA officials in Colombo said a suspected LTTE boat exploded near the shore 17 km north of Colombo town. State armed forces and the police also tightened security measures along the coastline and the commercial hub of the Colombo city following the arrest of the three persons by the Wattala Police in Panagamuwa area that Saturday morning.

Three suspects were arrested by the Wattala Police on receipt of information from Panagamuwa residents about sighting of a boat along the shore of the village. Two of them had swallowed cyanide capsules soon after the arrest, reports said. Later the boat had exploded, but some of the occupants of boat had escaped in the meantime.

Meanwhile, a bomb disposing squad of the SLA rushed to the coastal area in Wennapuwa in the Negombo district Saturday morning on receipt of information that two unaccompanied bags were seen along the sea beach.

An old woman was injured and over 40 civilians wounded when SLN troopers fired into a church where the villagers of Pesalai, Mannar district, had sought refuge. Four fishermen were also killed on the shores of Pesalai when SLN troopers attacked civilians after a naval battle with the Sea Tigers near Pesalai. Around 25 huts belonging to fishermen were also burnt down by the SLN troopers. (see report p9)

LTTE officials in Mannar said Sea Tiger boats moving in LTTE-controlled seas was attacked by SLN boats, and the Sea Tigers drove them back. Meanwhile, shells were fired towards Iluppaikkadavai in LTTE-controlled territory in Mannar from the Thallaiady SLA camp.

Twelve SLN personnel were killed and three “Blue Star” boats of the SLN were sunk in LTTE controlled seas in Mannar districts when SLN boats interrupted a Sea Tiger movement, LTTE media unit said in a press note.

Two Sea Tiger cadres sustained minor injuries in the defensive act, the Tigers said. Three of the four SLN boats involved in the offensive act were sunk and the fourth boat was damaged, the LTTE said. However, SLN officials said they estimated thirty Tigers had been killed.

The Sea Tigers recovered two PKLMG guns, 3 AK 47 automatic rifles, one MP5, two communications equipments and ammunitions from the SLN boats in the clashes.

Three fishermen from Pallimunai returning late Saturday after fishing in Mannar seas were severely assaulted by SLN soldiers and were taken to Mannar Hospital in critical condition.

June 16

Three Tamil civilians were shot dead, allegedly by SLA soldiers, at Periyakulam, Trincomalee. The youths supply sand to construction sites in Trincomalee town. They had left home Friday morning, but at around 2.30 in the afternoon they were found dead with gunshot injuries. The driver of the tractor was found lying on the steering wheel head down with bleeding injuries. He was identified as Babu of Varothiayanagar. Other two youths are said to be from Anpuvallipuram and Uppuveli, suburbs of Trincomalee town. A large SLA camp is located in the Periyakulam area.

A young girl was seriously wounded in Stanley Road, at a location between the Eelam People Democratic Party (EPDP) office at Srithar theatre and SLA 512 Brigade camp at Wellington theatre junction, in Jaffna town when an explosive device fitted cell phone detonated as the girl tried to use the phone. Investigations have not determined if the girl was an innocent user of the device or the carrier of the device with the intention of causing bodily harm to a designated target, reports said.

Meanwhile, SLA soldiers completely blocked off Stanley road and armed soldiers took up position at both ends between Ariyakulam junction and Wellington theatre junction in Jaffna, to facilitate visit of Douglas Devananda, the EPDP General secretary and government minister, to his EPDP office at Srithar theatre, in Jaffna town.

Sri Lankan military authorities in Colombo asked the foreign nationals working in International Non Governmental Organisations (INGOs) and journalists residing in Vanni to remain inside UN and INGO offices, NGO officials in Kilinochchi said Friday. Accordingly, foreign journalists visiting Vanni sought refuge in UNICEF and ICRC offices in Kilinochchi, reports said.

June 15

A claymore explosion struck a packed passenger bus killed 64 and injured more than 90 passengers, mainly Sinhalese civilians, near Kebitigollawe, Vavuniya. The Sri Lankan government retaliated by launching airstrikes against pre-selected LTTE positions and civilian targets (see story p5).

Unknown gunmen attacked a group of three SLA soldiers on a road clearing patrol along Kankesanthurai (KKS) road in Inuvil, Jaffna, severely injuring one. He later succumbed to his wounds on the way to hospital.

Another SLA soldier was shot dead during a road patrol by a gunman waiting in ambush in Neerveli, Valigamam east.

A Police officer in civilian clothes was shot dead in Jaffna town along Kasturiar Road near Kannathiddi junction by an unidentified gunman. Businesses closed and streets were deserted after the shooting.

The Liberation Tigers shot one DPU soldier and captured another on Batticaloa Lagoon, after chasing another two into the Pankudaveli jungle (see story p4).

Three policemen were wounded when unidentified men lobbed a grenade at the police sentry located in Pesalai, Mannar district. The injured were identified as Bandara, 44, Wijewickrema, 41 and Abeyaratne, 32. Police thereafter fired at random for about fifteen minutes. Fearing reprisals from Sri Lanka security forces, Pesalai families fled from their houses and sought refuge in Pesalai Our Lady of Victory Church.

June 14

Two Police constables attached to Ilavalai Police were injured when the pickup vehicle they were travelling in came under claymore attack. A SLA trooper on security duty at the Jaffna-Palaly road near Urumpirai junction seriously injured in a grenade attack. An SLA soldier on guard duty was shot dead by gunmen near Sattanathar temple Kalviyankadu junction along Jaffna-Point Pedro road.

Gunmen shot dead Philip Mariyanayagam, 56, near Kottady junction in the center of Jaffna town. Mariyanayagam, alleged to be a supporter of the EPDP, was riding a bicycle towards Jaffna town when the gunmen struck from behind and escaped.

Two SLA troopers were injured when the SLA sentry point located at the Nallur Temple Road and Jaffna Hospital Road junction came under grenade attack.

The body of a youth was recovered from the no-mans zone in Muhamalai with gunshot wounds. His mother identified the body a few days later as belonging to a 16 year-old youth from Point-Pedro. Sri Ravindrarajah Thineswaran disappeared from his Point-Pedro home two weeks earlier and complaints about his disappearance had been filed with the SLMM and the Jaffna Human Rights Commission by his mother.

Troops from the Sri Lanka Police, STF and SLAF cordoned off and searched Puthur, Thimilaithivu and Sethukkuda, suburbs of Batticaloa town. Batticaloa Police said they cordoned this area following information of the presence of gunmen in the area. But no one was arrested and no weapons were found during the house-to-house search and prolonged questioning of the villagers.

Unidentified persons shot and killed a homeguard, Vasantha Chandana Seneviratne, 22, in Mamaduwa, Vavuniya, and stole his T56 assault rifle. Seneviratne had been with the home guard forces for only 4 days.

June 13

Unidentified persons lobbed a grenade at furniture shop at Emil Nagar located in Mannar Hospital Road junction, damaging the furniture shop, but injuring no one. SLA soldiers manning the checkpoint at Hospital Road Junction fired indiscriminately after the attack, but again, no one was injured.

The driver of a truck was taken into custody on the accusation that he was transporting 72,000 empty fertilizer bags for the LTTE. Mr. Marimuthu Nallamuthu, 63, was arrested with a consignment of empty bags at Manatkulam, Mannar. Mannar Seed Paddy Association sells seed paddy to farmers and normally these empty bags are used to carry the seed paddy.

Two SLA soldiers were injured in three gun and grenade attack by unknown gunmen in Jaffna. One trooper on security duty at the junction of Jaffna-Palaly road and Amman road near Kantharmadam, Jaffna was seriously injured when gunmen fired at him. Another SLA soldier was injured by gunmen 1 km from the first incident along the Kachcheri-Nallur road in front of the Holy St. Benedict''s church. Reports also said there were two incidents of grenade attack on the Kopay police station in Jaffna, though no one was injured.

Members of Tamil auxiliary brigade on a road clearing patrol on Nedunkerni road, between Nainamadu and Puliyankulam, inside the LTTE controlled area intercepted a SLA Deep Penetration Unit (DPU) as they were fixing 3 claymore mines. Two Tamil auxiliaries and an SLA soldier were killed when both exchanged gunfire (see story p4).

A civilian was shot and killed in front of his wife at Natrapaalathadi, Batticaloa, allegedly by SLA soldiers. The couple were cycling from the LTTE controlled area in Vahaneri to Oddamaavedi when the attack took place. A sentry post of Sri Lankan homeguards and the army is located in Natrapaalathadi, between Ottamaavedi and LTTE controlled area in Vahaneri.

SLA soldiers cordoned off and searched Kiran, Korakalmadu and Santhiveli, villages surrounding the Santhiveli-Kirimuddi Pannai SLA camp, northwest of Batticaloa. The army arrested 9 people and after investigation released 4, holding 5 for further inquires. The soldiers conducted a house-to-house search and searched surrounding scrub jungle. Roadblocks were set and all vehicles and pedestrians were thoroughly searched.

Unidentified armed men lobbed hand grenades at Arumuhaththan Kudiyiruppu police sentry post, north of Batticaloa, in the Tamil-Muslim border area of Eravur, seriously injuring two police officers. The injured officers, M Vilanthalava, 35, and R Ranjith, 40, were admitted to Eravur hospital, and later were rushed to Batticaloa hospital for treatment. Following the incident, the Sri Lanka police indiscriminately fired at residential homes.

LTTE officials from Batticaloa said that heavy mortar fire was directed towards their controlled area from the Vavunathivu SLA Camp. Public transport from the LTTE controlled area to the Batticaloa town through Vavunathivu came to a standstill.

Two SLA soldiers were injured when unidentified men lobbed a grenade at a sentry post at Bharathipuram, Trincomalee. SLA soldiers fired randomly after the grenade attack and conducted a cordon and search operation in the surrounding area. Soldiers assaulted Tamils residing near the site and those travelling through Bharathipuram. Bharathipuram is a Tamil settlement along the Trincomalee-Anuradhapuram road, bordering Mihindupura, a Sinhalese settlement.

Work at a branch of the National Savings Bank in Colpetty, Colombo was suspended following a bomb threat issued by an anonymous caller, who issued the threat to the receptionist at the bank. Police and a SLA bomb disposal squad rushed to the location but found no explosive devices inside the building. Traffic along Galle Road was blocked temporarily while the Police and the bomb squad inspected the building.

As Sri Lanka’s Army steps up raids into Tamil Tiger controlled territory, clashes between its Deep Penetration Unit (DPU) and LTTE forces are becoming more commonplace.

The LTTE captured a Sri Lankan Army soldier attached to the Deep Penetration Unit (DPU), formally knows as Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) unit near Batticaloa Lagoon Friday last week.

Mr. Daya Mohan, the LTTE political head for Batticaloa, told reporters the captured soldier had confessed his two man team had instructions to attack civilian targets in LTTE controlled areas to sow terror. Their team was behind a claymore attack in Pattipalai and another attack at Thandiyadi Maveerar cemetery in Batticaloa, the trooper had said, adding his team was behind a robbery at a TRO office in Batticaloa.

Two Sri Lankan DPU troopers, who fled Illuppadichenai, a Liberation Tigers controlled territory west of Batticaloa, after a claymore attack, went into hiding into the Pankudaveli jungle close to Batticaloa lagoon to evade LTTE cadres chasing them. The SLA dispatched another two-man DPU from Eravur, towards the Pankudaveli jungle across the Batticaloa lagoon, to rescue them, but the LTTE cadres shot one member and captured the other.

Meanwhile, on June 13, members of a Tamil auxiliary brigade on a road clearing patrol on Nedunkerni Road, between Nainamadu and Puliyankulam, inside the Liberation Tigers controlled area, intercepted a SLA DPU as they were fixing 3 claymore mines. Two Tamil auxiliaries and an SLA soldier were killed when gunfire was exchanged.

The SLA trooper, whose body was captured by the auxiliaries, was clad in an LTTE uniform, reports said. His body was handed to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Friday, to be given to the Sri Lanka government.

LTTE’s Vavuniya district Head of the Political Wing, Mr. Gnanam, handed over the body to the ICRC representative Simon Wolf in the presence of members of the SLMM.

At least one bag with a “SLA” mark was recovered from the attackers, according to the video footage released by the National Television of Tamileelam (NTT).

On Thursday night, a robbery at the TRO’s main Batticaloa storage facility located at Old Road, inside the heavy security military controlled zone of Batticaloa Town, resulted in nearly 1.5 million rupees worth of goods stolen.

Early Friday morning the thief was arrested with some of the stolen goods by the LTTE cadres in Pankudaveli in LTTE controlled Batticaloa. He confessed to stealing the goods and divulged that the Sri Lankan military in Batticaloa helped him to rob the TRO stores, said Mr Daya Mohan, the Batticaloa district political head of LTTE.

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.

“UNICEF in Sri Lanka is calling for immediate action to halt the abduction and forced recruitment of children by the Karuna group,” said the press release.

“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.”

“While calling on all armed groups in Sri Lanka to stop using child soldiers and to send all such victims of the conflict home, UNICEF is also appealing to the Government of Sri Lanka to investigate all abductions and ensure that children in affected areas are given the full protection of the law,” the press release said.

Reports said children had been abducted from the areas of Santhiveli, Kiran, Mankerni, Valaichchenai and Iruthayapuram in Manmunai North.

A week earlier, 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, the reports said.

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.

Eighteen youngsters between the ages of 14 and 19 years were also abducted during cordon and search operations conducted by unidentified armed men o Palm Colony, Mankerny in the Batticaloa district.

Complaints of their abduction and disappearance were filed with Vaalaichenai police, with parents telling the police that their children were taken captive against their will. Despite their resistance and attempts to escape, the children were abducted with the use of force and coercion the parents said.

Armed paramilitary cadres of the Karuna Group were operating in the vicinity of the Mankerny SLA camp. The paramilitary cadres were subjecting civilians travelling within Kirimichchai, Kayankerni and the adjoining areas to constant searches and interrogation, are now engaging in the abduction and forced enlistment of youth into their ranks with the help of Mankerny SLA soldiers, residents alleged.

Grow up, p7

Major General Parami Kulatunga, the third most senior officer in the Sri Lanka Army and tipped for its leadership, was assassinated Monday on his way to work. A suicide bomber riding a motorcycle blew up the car in which Maj. Gen. Kulatunga was being driven, killing the officer and two bodyguards on the spot.

The Sri Lankan government blamed on the Liberation Tigers for the attack a few miles from Colombo in which a civilian and the bomber also died and said it was bringing back all the tough security measures in place before the February 2002 ceasefire.

Government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said unspecified new measures were being taken to beef up the already tight security following the assassination, saying: “we are giving priority to combating terrorism.”

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan condemned the suicide attack, and neighbouring India called on both sides in Sri Lanka to restart dialogue.

The suicide bomber struck as Maj. Gen. Kulatunga, a veteran commander and hardline Sinhala nationalist, was leaving home for his office.

Overtaking the escorting Army pickup travelling behind the General’s car, the bomber slipped between the two vehicles and triggered explosives close to the officer’s side of the white Peugeot 406.

The attack on Maj. Gen. Kulatunga, number 3 in the SLA hierarchy, comes two months after a suicide bomber badly wounded Army commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka and killed eleven of his bodyguards.

That attack, carried out by a female bomber pretending to be pregnant, took place outside a military hospital deep inside SLA headquarters in Colombo. The general survived but has yet to resume duties – this week he has been taken to Singapore for treatment.

Maj. Gen. Kulatunga was expected to be appointed to Maj. Gen. Fonseka''s post as he qualifies as most combat experienced after the wounded Army chief, unlike the present number 2, Maj. Gen. Nanda Mallawaarachchi (currently Chief of Staff) who is due to retire in August.

Described as a very close associate of the Maj. Gen. Fonseka and an officer who had performed a number of special duties including overseeing some of the duties of the Army Commander, Maj. Gen. Kulatunga had been warned he was a target.

Maj. Gen. Kulatunge had received military training in defense academies of several countries including Singapore, U.S, and Britain. He specialized in Intelligence Operations and Special Operations.

In as early as 1978 Maj.Gen.Kulatunga had voiced for strong military action to crush Tamil militancy. He had advocated extra-judicial measures against the civilian population and the supporters of the Tamil struggle after the capture of Jaffna, according to ex-militant sources in Jaffna.

TamilNet quoted sources in the SLA garrison town of Vavuniya, a major site of activity by Army-backed paramilitaries as saying Maj. Gen. Kulatunga was a key SLA figure in intensifying the collaboration between the SLA and Tamil paramilitary groups EPDP, EPRLF(v) and PLOTE, in LTTE-controlled Vanni and Mannar areas.

Soon after the incident, President Mahinda Rajapaksa summoned the Security Council at the President’s Office and the three-hour long meeting was attended by Navy Commander Wasantha Karannagoda, Air Force Commander Roshan Goonetilake, Police Chief Chandra Fernando, Army’s Chief of Staff Nanda Mallawarachchi and the Chief of Defence Staff Donald Perera.

The festering ethnic conflict in the island nation of Sri Lanka receives little attention here, but recurrent bouts of violence there between the government and minority Tamils have taken 70,000 lives since 1983. And now, after a suicide bomber killed the deputy chief of the Sri Lankan army Monday, there is reason to fear that an already tattered cease-fire signed in February 2002, between the government and the rebel Tamil Tigers is about to be submerged in another round of bloodshed.

There have been helpful calls for restraint from the outside world. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has called on both sides to return to peace talks under Norway''s auspices. The Norwegian government''s special envoy has admirably pledged to persist in Norway''s mediation efforts, saying: ``Norway remains committed to Sri Lanka in good times and bad times." But international mediators and cease-fire monitors can do only so much if the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse of Sri Lanka and Tamil Tiger leaders do not act to prevent a renewal of civil war and forge a durable peace agreement.

At present, the two sides appear far apart. The memory of old atrocities seems to overwhelm a recognition of the need to accept compromises for the sake of peace. Tamils harbor deep and justified grievances over the discrimination they have suffered at the hands of the Sinhalese majority. The suicide bombings and assassinations carried out by the Tigers over the years have left government officials and many Sinhalese so fixated on their exposure to terrorist violence that they ignore the injustices Tamil civilians in the north and east of the island have suffered.

A political solution is needed. It will have to include a new constitutional arrangement that frees Tamils in the northeast from submission to the Sinhalese-dominated central government. The assistant US secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, Richard Boucher, offered a useful outline of such a solution this month in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, when he said: ``Though we reject the methods that the Tamil Tigers have used, there are legitimate issues raised by the Tamil community and they have a very legitimate desire, as anybody would, to control their own lives, to rule their own destinies, and to govern themselves in their homeland, in the areas they''ve traditionally inhabited."

This acknowledgment of a Tamil right to self-rule in their own homeland marks a welcome evolution in US policy. The international community should press the Sri Lankan government and the Tigers alike to come to the negotiating table in Oslo and work out a loose confederation that retains Sri Lanka''s unity, grants the Tamil northeast self-governing autonomy, and puts an end to the island''s long agony.

Editorial published June 29, 2006.

Extinguishing the heat and hatreds caused by a bitter civil war takes time and a commitment on all sides to make peace work. Both now seem to be in short supply in Sri Lanka, which is sliding towards levels of violence not seen in that country since a ceasefire brought conflict to an end in 2002. Yesterday’s landmine attack on a bus in a mainly Sinhalese part of the country, which killed 62 people, including 15 children, and wounded 78 others, was much the most serious incident so far in a conflict that is returning rapidly into all-out war. The government’s response, indiscriminate “deterrent” air strikes on the Tamil north-east of the country, was a bleak sign of what may be to come: a sterile, sustained battle between two heavily-armed sides, neither of which can ever hope to win outright.

Between 1983, when fighting began, and 2002, some 65,000 people were killed. Under international pressure, and a recognition on both sides that a compromise had to be reached, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sinhalese-dominated government reached a ceasefire that brought peace to the country but which did little to settle its constitutional future. That uncertainty, together with splits in the Tigers and an election last year that hardened the government’s nationalist stance, has eroded hopes that a stable settlement could be reached. Attempts at talks, led by the Norwegians, have been hampered by the EU’s recent decision to declare the Tigers a terrorist organisation (which has diminished trust) and by attacks on the ground.

Yesterday’s bombing - although denied by the Tigers- looks like their work, which will only make restarting talks harder. But both sides still say they want to find a workable agreement. This will have to involve concessions from both sides, although the Tamils have already made the biggest one of all by making a form of self-rule, rather than independence, their aim. The Sri Lankan government has done much less than it could have done to persuade Sinhalese voters, who make up 74% of the population, that will they have to give some ground, offering a much greater level of devolution than they have so far. Until the government engages properly, the talks will be empty ones, a route to a temporary deal rather than anything better. Yesterday’s airstrikes were a pointless response to a pointless terrorist attack. They were also a deeply alarming warning about the sad risk of civil war in an astonishing and beautiful country, of which it was once said that “only man is vile”.

Editorial published June 16, 2006.

Last week UNICEF finally “called for immediate action to halt the abduction and forced recruitment of children by the Karuuna group.” UNICEF’s gesture, although somewhat late in the day, is appreciated - as are all such moved by the plethora of international actors who take an interest in the Tamil situation. But the timing of UNICEF’s statement is noteworthy. For, like other Sri Lanka observers, UNICEF has known about the Army-backed Karuna Group’s forcible recruitment of teenagers for at least the fifteen months before its June 2006 statement.

In any case, in November 2005, the matter was directly raised by the Tamil Diaspora organisation, the International Federation of Tamils (IFT), which issued a press release unambiguously titled: “Sri Lankan Army accused of abduction and forced military training of children from army controlled Tamil areas.” It was based, moreover, on the personal accounts of three former child soldiers who had been kidnapped by Karuna Group paramilitaries and held in Sri Lanka Army camps in the east.

The IFT followed up its press release with a complaint to the UN’s Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children & Armed Conflict. The complaint was copied to UNICEF and the Coalition to Stop the use of child soldiers, among others. The youth, who had surrendered to the Liberation Tigers having deserted the paramilitaries when they were sent out on missions, are available for interview and cross examination.

But there was absolutely no interest whatsoever. Indeed, no response. The complaint wasn’t even acknowledged.

The lack of response was astonishing not least because the complaint was supported by examinable evidence. Moreover, the accusations were not new to Sri Lankans or the UN agencies. There had been reports and photographs in the Colombo press as far back as early 2005. On March 20, The Sunday Leader newspaper carried an article titled ‘Karuna camp in govt. controlled area.’ On the subject of child soldiers, the article said “(Sri Lankan) Military sources said that they believed that around 60 cadres operated out of Thivichchenei including under-aged cadres. While The Sunday Leader was at the village entrance, a youth who appeared to be around 12 years walked past carrying a firearm and ammunition.”

Amid reports that Tamil children in Sri Lanka Army controlled areas were being abducted or openly being seized by unidentified gunmen, the Liberation Tigers were repeatedly blamed. Not once did UNICEF acknowledge that anti-LTTE paramilitary groups operating in government controlled areas were responsible.

One would not normally expect a United Nations agency tasked with the protection of the interests of children to willingly turn a blind eye to the issue of child soldiers, particularly where the armed forces of a member government are allegedly involved.

But UNICEF said absolutely nothing on the subject of the Karuna Group’s use of child soliders until June 2006, over one year later. In the intervening period, as it had done in the past the agency continued to issue press releases blaming the LTTE, refusing to acknowledge the movement’s efforts to investigate and address complaints against it.

In fact, in the wake of Sri Lankan press reports of Karuna Group activities being stepped up in the east, UNICEF pointed a finger at the LTTE instead. “In June this year, there were 18 cases of child recruitment reported from the eastern Batticaloa region and in July so far we have received complaints of 28 cases in the same area,” Jeffrey Keele, UNICEF spokesperson, told the BBC in 2005. Batticaloa is, of course, where the Karuna Group is predominantly active.

The UNICEF statement was especially puzzling. To begin with, the LTTE, which had been negotiating on a tsunami aid-sharing mechanism, was said to be urgently seeking international legitimacy for their administration. It seemed contradictory that it would step up recruitment of under-18s at the same time.

From a pragmatic perspective, such moves defied logic. The Sri Lanka armed forces were recruiting heavily and acquiring weaponry from abroad. International actors were reiterating their support for the Colombo government. Could the forcible recruitment of a few dozen teenagers be the LTTE’s build up for a war?

And all this amidst persistent claims, both in the Sri Lankan media and by Tamil organisations, that Army-backed paramilitaries were responsible. This is not to deny that the LTTE has recruited fighters under the age of 18, but to ask why the movement was being singled out.

Some suggested that UNICEF was resorting to ‘bashing the Tiger’ in response to strong and understandable criticism from Sinhala rightwingers that its staffers, like those of other NGOs, were riding the gravy train in Sri Lanka. Indeed, Tamil aid workers had joined the chorus of protest at the enormous overheads that their international colleagues seemed to labour under. Amid reports of UN staffers living the high life in Colombo – even, it is alleged, barely days after the December 2004 tsunami, there were grumbles about the gleaming fleet of vehicles many INGOs race about the Northeast in.

Pique at the Tamil criticism and hope of ingratiating itself with strident Sinhala critics, some argue, were a key motivator in UNICEF’s Nelsonian approach to underage recruitment by the Karuna Group – which, as Sri Lanka watchers know, is a darling of the southern nationalist press.

The question here, is about UNICEF’s commitment to the principles enshrined in the ‘Rights of the Child.’ Many argue that the UN agencies – and many other NGOs – operate in a broad framework dedicated to preserving the status quo vis-à-vis states and non-state challengers. In short, that in Sri Lanka (and probably elsewhere), UNICEF is playing political football with the emotive and sensitive issue of children’s rights. Apart from its own local interests, UNICEF’s Tiger-bashing serves the wider geopolitical interests of key international actors.

UNICEF is not alone in this regard. Many ‘expert’ organisations involved in ‘promoting/defending child rights’ in Sri Lanka operate in a similar framework. Before going further, I am not denying the presence of under-18s in LTTE ranks – the movement itself regularly releases batches of under-age fighters and attempts to engage with UNICEF and other actors on the problem.

The point here is that all these efforts are ultimately futile, because none of the international actors are interested in the actual facts. An illustrative example is what happened when I recently met with a well known London-based international affairs think-tank. The Asia desk head – who is also a consultant to Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers – claimed expertise on Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers and on child soldiers in particular. But not only had she never been to the North or East, she had little hard data to back up her assertions against the LTTE. Simple questions as to how many under-18s were in LTTE ranks, of these how many were under-16s, how many were forcibly recruited, how many had joined out of poverty or after suffering violence by armed forces, how many were in combat units as opposed to civil administration, etc could not be answered. The point here is that these does not prevent this analyst from being an expert on ‘the LTTE and its use of child soldiers.’

There is also a key discrepancy that underscores the role UNICEF and the logic of child soldiers plays in reinforcing the international pro-state status quo. Not recruiting under-18s is supposed to be a universal standard of behaviour. But the UN applies different age standards to state and non-state armies. State armies can may not recruit persons under sixteen years, whereas non-state armies may not recruit below eighteen.

Of course, this has been criticised by some – and by no means all - those campaigning on child soldiers (indeed when asked for her views, the Asia Desk head tartly pointed out I should ask the UN that). But, by any standard, the criticism is mild compared to that levelled against organisations like the LTTE. Equally there is much readiness to accept government’s justification for breaching the ‘universal’ norm. One former UN staffer told me that when Britain was asked to explain its recruitment practices, her Ambassador simply declared that in British culture, there was nothing wrong with taking recruits in at the age of sixteen.

This ready acceptance of contextual peculiarities, however, does not extend to all actors. That there are a myriad reasons, both structurally underlying and immediately motivating, for which Tamil youth join the LTTE are irrelevant to those campaigning against the movement. There is a concomitant lack of interest in acquiring an understanding either. The experts are short on facts and numbers, but their views are emphatic. And in the international regime against child soldiers, that’s apparently not problematic.

To return to the silence over the Karuna Group’s forcible recruitment of children, international interests are at play here too. To begin, with Karuna is part of the ‘democratic’ alternatives that the international community insists the Tamils are backing. Given the repeatedly alleged link between the paramilitaries and the Sri Lankan armed forces, how could the United States stand emphatically behind an army complicit in the abduction and conscription of child soldiers? Just this week an Indian website ran a story that Tamil paramilitaries are recruiting children from refugee camps and orphanages in southern India – how are these recruits being moved into Sri Lanka without the knowledge of both governments?

The question, meanwhile, is what does all this mean for the ‘standard’ of not recruiting children?

The LTTE having agreed to comply with UN standards in the context of the peace process, finds itself frustrated by the deliberate refusal to recognise its efforts - it even gets blamed for the child recruitment by its enemy. Conversely, the paramilitaries, secure that their violations will be ignored as part of the wider objective of countering the LTTE, will continue their recruitment – last week, Tamil paramilitaries accompanied by Sri Lanka troops openly abducted over a hundred teenagers in a brazen breach of UN ‘standards.’

Against this backdrop one can speculate as to why UNICEF would link the Karuna Group and child soldiers now - as opposed to say November 2005 when Tamil activists were hammering on UN doors, and there was much more hope for the peace process. To begin with, the ultimate political sanction has been served on the LTTE – it has been proscribed by the European Union, leaving pretty much little by way of further political coercion. Yet the violence is not decreasing, but escalating.

Yet it is difficult to bring open pressure on the Sri Lankan state – in the wake of the EU ban, there is no longer much incentive for Colombo to reign in the paramilitaries or, for that matter, their armed forces. Frustration with Sri Lanka’s ability to play in step within a broader international framework to contain the LTTE, key international actors are starting to exert pressure. The sense – voiced by many sympathetic to the Sri Lankan government - that the Karuna Group and covert operations sections of the military are operating free of political authority may also be playing a role. Note the EU’s threat it is now considering proscribing the Karuna Group – apparently murdering a Tamil parliamentarian in Church at Christmas Mass was not quite reason enough.

On a concluding note, it must be remembered that UNICEF’s brief is not child soldiers alone, but the welfare of children. In this regard, UNICEF, whilst focusing on the thousand or so under-18s it says are in the LTTE’s ranks, has still not got around doing anything about the child rights issues faced by the many hundreds of thousand of Tamil children in the Northeast: a large population of children live in refugee camps, few schools function normally, many – particularly teenage girls - run a gauntlet of Sri Lankan troops every day.

But we shouldn’t expect this to change. It is simply not in the interests of UNICEF’s stakeholders right now. The ‘Rights of the Child’ is not a universal standard that is to be extended to the Tamils; it is merely a stick to beat them with when convenient.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Political parties in Tamil Nadu this week criticised India’s sale of radars to Sri Lanka, saying the Colombo government would use them in its crackdown against the country’s Tamil population, IANS reported.

“There are reports that the Indian government is providing radars to the Sri Lankan government, which is waging an undeclared war on Tamils in the island nation and carrying out attacks on civilians,” T. Thirumavalavan of the Dalit Panthers of India (DPI) said.

The DPI, which has called for a protest rally July 8, said several ‘like-minded organisations’ would take part in it.

The DPI and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), both allies of the an ally of the opposition All India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) are strident supporters of the LTTE and Sri Lankan Tamils.

Meanwhile, Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), an ally of the ruling Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK), also criticised the radar sale Tuesday. Its leader, S. Ramadoss, urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to stop the sale.

“This partisan action of the central government is against the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu,” Thirumavalavan said, adding that it amounted to “abetting the killing of Sri Lankan Tamils.”

He also alleged the Indian government was ‘toeing the US line’ on the Sri Lankan issue.

The Hindu newspaper reported over the weekend that India has resumed its defence ties with Sri Lanka with the commissioning of two military radars to secure the island-nation against low-level aerial attacks after a gap of six years.

The decision to gift the indigenously made Indra radars was made late last year following reports that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was scouting the global arms market for air assets, the paper said.

At present, the LTTE is believed to possess a couple of micro light aircraft. It had also developed two airstrips in the area under its control.

The last time India provided military capabilities to Sri Lanka was in 2000, when it gifted a fast attack craft, to help maintain sea dominance in general and check LTTE activities in particular.

Confirming the installation of the radars, non-military sources told The Hindu the gift fell under the category of “defensive and non-lethal equipment” and was in line with India’s policy to help the militaries of neighbouring countries to counter threats from non-state actors.

India had generally refrained from extending military assistance to Sri Lanka after stopping supplies in the mid-1980s, The Hindu said. But the paper’s sources “were unable to say” if the current transfer by the Indian Air Force would mark the beginning of the supply of more “non-lethal and defensive military” equipment to Sri Lanka.

The Hindu newspaper also quoted sources as saying India recently gifted a warship to the Maldives to patrol its island territories more effectively and that similar assistance was being provided or would be given to other neighbouring countries such as Seychelles, the Mauritius and Myanmar.

Radars that could locate artillery and mortar gun positions across the border were the first Government-to-Government sale by the United States to India after sanctions were lifted in 2000.

Internationally, even Japan was considering lifting its 60-year-old ban on military sales by gifting frigates stripped of their weaponry to some South-East Asian countries to help counter threats from pirates and poachers.

The decision to gift the radars was taken on the eve of Sri Lankan President Mahendra Rajapakse’s maiden visit to India in December last but was not disclosed by the defence establishment.

In response to a query, however, Defence Ministry sources confirmed to The Hindu the transfer of the radars.

India too is inducting Indra radars under the Air Defence Ground Environment System plan to improve low-level detection capability especially in peninsular India.

India hastened to provide the radars after Pakistan began showing interest in improving Sri Lanka’s aerial detection capabilities. The offer was first made during the former External Affairs Minister, Natwar Singh’s visit to Colombo over a year ago.

The Liberation Tigers’ call this week for India to put the past behind and to take a fresh approach to the Tamil question in Sri Lanka has understandably sparked a frenzy of media interest and not a little controversy in India and elsewhere. The LTTE’s extending of an olive branch to Delhi comes at a crucial time for Sri Lanka and an anxious one for the region; there is little doubt that Sri Lanka is edging towards a resumption of its bloody decades-long war. There were several key messages in the comments by LTTE’s theoretician and chief negotiator, Mr. Anton Balasingham aired on NDTV this week.

The first, which has drawn the most media focus, is his characterisation of the 1991 assassination of former Indian Premier Rajiv Gandhi as “a great tragedy, a monumental historical tragedy.” This has, perhaps understandably, dominated headlines and commentary, both in India and elsewhere. Although a reiteration and elaboration of comments made by the LTTE leader, Vellupillai Pirapaharan, in 2002 during his landmark press conference in Kilinochchi, it has been interpreted and misinterpreted by different observers. Some have characterised it as an admission of responsibility. Others have characterised it as an evasion of responsibility. Still others have said it is neither, but a clever ploy to deliberately confuse. A few astute observers have, however, seen it for what it plainly is: a considered and heartfelt expression of regret for a prominent and devastating moment in a long and traumatic period of Tamil-Indian relations, one characterised by thousands of deaths - including Indian soldiers, LTTE fighters and, especially, large numbers of Tamil civilians.

These observers have also grasped the significance of the other messages in Mr. Balasingham’s comments. One is the LTTE’s pledge that “under no circumstances will we act against the interests of the government of India.” The implications of this statement must be considered against a prominent assumption that remains problematically unquestioned: that the LTTE and Tamil political aspirations are inevitably at cross-purposes with India and her national or geopolitical interests. This is not to say that these are identical, but to point out that a just and lasting solution to the Tamil question also equates to regional stability. Another notable LTTE message is for India to get actively involved in resolving the Tamil question. This call for diplomatic and political intervention is a deliberate and radical departure from the uncompromising rejection of Indian involvement that prevailed in the wake of the IPKF fiasco.

Some, observing the developments through the distorting prism of political orthodoxy misunderstood the LTTE’s logic, characterising its olive branch as a desperate measure to curry favour in the wake of the European Union’s ban. This not only unjustifiably gives primacy to a desire for international legitimacy over all other considerations; more importantly, it ignores the LTTE’s own history, that the movement has almost always been internationally alienated. Even the limited contacts of the post-2002 era have more to do with realpolitik (the obvious unavoidability of the LTTE) than with any solidarity with it. The point here is, the LTTE has grown from a handful of fighters to the semi-state it is today despite not having a single international sponsor or ally.

Save one, briefly: India. But as Mr. Balasingham pointed out this week, India’s preparedness in the early 1980s to train LTTE fighters, stemmed primarily from a desire “to protect our people from [Sri Lankan] state oppression.” Now, twenty years later, India is again intervening (albeit diplomatically this time) to protect the Tamils from the Sri Lankan state. In the wake of the extra-judicial and indiscriminate killings of hundreds of civilians, especially in the past few months, a government in Delhi is again pressuring a government in Colombo to restrain its armed forces. Following the killing of a top Sri Lankan General by a suicide bomber this week, there can be no doubt that President Mahinda Rajapakse’s cotorie of Sinhala ultra-nationalists are straining to lash out again with airstrikes and artillery. But they dare not, for fear of antagonising India, which only last week delivered a blunt warning against such violence. It is in this context, where India again has to increasingly intervene in Sri Lanka to restrain a Sinhala government from savaging the island’s Tamils, that the LTTE, explicitly hailing Delhi’s efforts in this regard, has called for a new beginning, one that can lead to a just and lasting solution and stability in the region. In short, securing the island’s Tamils and ensuring their rights are restored and safeguarded is a goal behind which both the LTTE and India are separately, but simultaneously, once again aligned.

The Liberation Tigers this week called on the India government to put their mutual acrimonious past behind and to take a fresh approach to the Tamil question in Sri Lanka.

In an extensive interview with an Indian television channel, the LTTE’s theoretician and Chief Negotiator, Mr. Anton Balasingham, sought a ‘new relationship’ with India so that the south Asian giant could play an ‘active role’ to resolve the Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict.

In comments that sparked a frenzy of media interest in India and not a little controversy, Mr. Balasingham said that the assassination of former Premier Rajiv Gandhi, which India blamed on the LTTE, was “a great tragedy, a monumental historical tragedy.”

Saying “we call upon the Government of India and people of India to be magnanimous to put the past behind and to approach the ethnic question in a different perspective,” Mr. Balasingham said the event has to be seen in its political and historical context of the time, involving the military intervention of India and a war between the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) and the LTTE in the late eighties.

Mr. Balasingham’s comments came in extracts of a lengthy interview to NDTV, a privately owned Indian channel which interviewed the LTTE ideologue on Sunday. The full interview is to be broadcast in the coming days, but an extract broadcast Tuesday carried both the LTTE’s expression of regret over the Gandhi assassination and its call for Delhi to take a more evenhanded and active role in Sri Lanka.

Mr. Balasingham also welcomed the Manmohan Singh government’s tough stand against the killing of Tamil civilians by Sri Lanka’s armed forces and Delhi’s support for autonomy for the Tamils of Sri Lanka as a solution to the island’s conflict.

Saying India had “played a detached role” in Sri Lankan affairs since the assassination of Mr. Gandhi, Mr. Balasingham said “what we feel is India should actively involve in the peace process.”

“India has been silent for the last 15 years and adopted a detached role. Now (that) there is possibility of war emerging [in Sri Lanka], so she can’t keep quiet but she has to face challenges... and to adopt ... orientate a new foreign policy towards her neighbour for which the relationship between the LTTE and India is crucial.”

In response to a question by NDTV correspondent Noopur Tiwari on whether the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord led to Rajiv Gandhi’s death, Mr. Balasingham said: “No. It happened later on. What has happened is, since we rejected the Sri Lankan accord there were a lot of events that took place creating a gulf between the LTTE and the Govt of India and the Indians later sent an IPKF to disarm the LTTE and eventually broke out into an open confrontation. We fought a guerrilla war against the Indian army for 2 years and finally the Sri Lankans. We had a negotiation with Sri Lanka and secured the withdrawal of the Indian troops in the 90’s and of course finally it was followed by the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.”

“As far as that event is concerned, I would say it is a great tragedy, a monumental historical tragedy for which we deeply regret and we call upon the Govt of India and people of India to be magnanimous to put the past behind and to approach the ethnic question in a different perspective.”

Asked if the LTTE could promise that it would not commit such acts again, Mr. Balasingham went on: “We have made pledges to the government of India that under no circumstances we will act against the interest of the government of India.”

“I think we are prepared to build up a new understanding... a new relationship with the government of India provided she makes a positive gesture and it is up to the government of India because we have already pledged that we will never to do anything or act anything inimical to the geo-political interest of India.

“So if the past is put aside and if a new approach is made, then there is possibility of India playing a positive active role in bringing a resolution to this conflict.”

But Mr. Balasingham underlined that the LTTE did not want from India any “military intervention as has happened in the past” and made it clear nor India cannot play the mediator’s or facilitator’s role as long as it keeps the LTTE outlawed.

He said without “a relationship ... a working relationship between the government of India and the LTTE ... it would be difficult for India to have a mediator’s role.

“The only role which she can play is diplomatically and politically persuading Sri Lanka and LTTE to seek a negotiated settlement rather than involving in a military confrontation. That is what she is doing now.”

“So this kind of intervention ... diplomatic intervention is crucial. It would help to protect our people from (being) subjected to genocidal operations by the Sri Lankan armed forces and also help both the parties to go for a negotiated settlement.”

He agreed that a mass exodus of Tamils from Sri Lanka to India triggered by fresh fighting “will create far-reaching political consequences”. He also referred to appeals from Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi to New Delhi to intervene in Sri Lankan affairs.

“India is responding in that aspect. Therefore as you say India has genuine concerns, geopolitical and national interests in the resolution of this conflict.”

The LTTE ideologue described India as “the regional superpower in South Asia” and said she just cannot ignore “this conflict” in her backyard.

“India has genuine national and geopolitical interest in that region. She has to insure that there is peace and stability in the environment.”

Delhi has not formally responded to the LTTE’s overtures.

Analysts said a snap reaction by a junior minister was not reflective of Delhi’s considerations, particularly given that India’s Junior Foreign Minister Anand Sharma also denied a well known truism: that India had trained and armed the LTTE in the early 1980s.

“The people of India cannot forget the dastardly crime committed by the LTTE or at their behest,” Mr. Sharma told reporters.

“Seeking our forgiveness would be tantamount to endorsing their philosophy of terror, violence and assassination,” said Mr. Sharma, who was a close aide of Gandhi.


The LTTE’s expression of regret is not new - at the April 2002 press conference in Kilinochchi, LTTE leader Vellupillai Pirapaharan also described the Gandhi killing as a ‘thunbiyal’ (sorrowful event).

However, it is the first time that the LTTE has directly called on India to take a pro-active role in resolving the island’s conflict.

Avowed opponents of the LTTE in India reacted furiously to the LTTE’s olive branch, heaping vitriol on the movement and saying it’s expression of regret ‘was nothing new.’

One frequent and vocal critic of the LTTE, Dr. Subramaniam Swamy, took the opportunity, to attack Rajiv Gandhi’s widow and now Congress Party leader, Sonia Gandhi, describing her as “the prime beneficiary” of her husband’s death.

“The widow of Rajiv Gandhi and the prime beneficiary of his assassination, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, have legitimized pro-LTTE political parties in India by openly allying with them in elections and sharing power in government. It is time for the Congress Party to prove it’s bonafides in the assassination by dispatching a commando unit with GPS locator to hunt for Prabhkaran and his associates, and bring them to trial in India,” Dr. Swamy said.

Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a suicide bomber in 1991, a year after the withdrawal of Indian troops that he as Premier in 1987 had despatched to enforce the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord.

The LTTE refused to accept the Accord, but agreed not to oppose it. But after several of its leaders were arrested by the Sri Lanka Navy in defiance of the Accord and committed suicide in military custody, the LTTE halted its surrender of its weapons.

The Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was then ordered to disarm the LTTE by force. The IPKF failed to crush the LTTE and was ordered out by Sri Lankan President R. Premadasa in 1990. By then over one thousand Indian soldiers and 1500 LTTE fighters had died – along with a staggering five thousand Tamil civilians.

Elaborating on the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord itself, Mr. Balasingham told NDTV on Sunday: “We were not very happy with the political solution proposed by India because it did not satisfy the political aspirations of our people. If India has offered a federal solution as she has in her own country then we would have definitely responded positively but the provincial administration suggested by India was totally inadequate to meet the demands of the Tamil people so that’s why we did not support the accord.”

The low-intensity war gripping Sri Lanka’s Northeast continued unabated this week. Dozens of people have been killed in the past few weeks in hundreds of violent incidents. This week, in another escalation of the undeclared conflict underway on the island, the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) stepped up its deep penetration raids into LTTE controlled areas, targeting both civilians and LTTE personnel. The attacks provided the backdrop as the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) published its much-awaited report on both sides’ conduct since talks on the ceasefire concluded in Geneva in February.

The report has been critical of both sides, but has drawn vehement protests by the Sri Lankan government (GoSL) as the SLMM levels a number of key accusations against it, not least that Colombo has ordered troops to block monitors’ movements. In particular, the military, the SLMM says, was restricting their ability to enquire into the activities of paramilitaries - ‘armed groups’ in the SLMM’s noncommittal lexicon. Many voices, including this newspaper, have long protested that the root of the violence in Sri Lanka is the military’s continued support for paramilitaries and their murderous campaign against the LTTE and its supporters. Even now, the SLMM is shy of pointing this out explicitly, but has came impressively close: “There are a number of indications,” the SLMM said, “that the GoSL is actively supporting the Karuna group.” The SLMM also pointed out that although the GoSL pledged in Geneva to end the activities of armed groups, “since then Karuna Group became even more visible in GOSL controlled areas.”

The SLMM’s report is welcome, if nothing else, for confirming what every observer of any worth has always been aware of: “SLA and Army Intelligence are supporting the armed groups.” The SLMM’s credibility was seriously damaged a few weeks ago when it put forward a strong statement accusing the Sri Lanka military of extrajudical killings and then withdrew the statement when Sri Lanka’s government threw a tantrum. It remains to be seen how the SLMM reacts to the Colombo’s howls of protest this week. Press reports say the SLMM has already submitted to Sri Lanka’s pressure by delaying the publication of the report so it wouldn’t embarrass the government before the talks in Oslo last week. Now, much of the impact the report should have had has dissipated, whilst the controversy has further reinforced Tamil suspicions of the SLMM’s neutrality. Norway has asked both GoSL and LTTE to state their views on the future functioning of the SLMM and, indeed, the ceasefire. It remains to be seen what the formal responses will be.

But there can be no doubt the violence will continue. Therefore, the broader question, in terms of promoting peace, ought to be ‘what next?’ It is clear that Sri Lanka will not willingly disarm the paramilitaries. But already the paramilitaries’ killings are only a small part of the violence; direct clashes between both sides at the borders and raids on each other’s territory have become daily occurrences. However, the most serious aspect of the violence is what the SLMM calls ‘a campaign of targeted killings of civilians’ in government-controlled areas. Amongst the most horrific attacks was on a Tamil family of four - father, mother and two children - which was massacred last week. The gratuitous violence in which the children and the father were tortured and then hung while the mother was gangraped and stabbed is indicative of the kind of conflict likely to grip Sri Lanka in the coming period, if nothing is done.

The incident has fuelled Tamil rage, not only at the Sri Lankan state, but the erstwhile champions of human rights, who appear to have lost their voices. The international community is studiously silent on this and other atrocities. The last international intervention in the ‘peace process’ was the European Union’s banning of the LTTE two weeks ago. This newspaper argued (again) then that the EU’s proscription of the LTTE will not produce greater engagement by the both sides in the peace process but instead set in place a dynamic towards war, fuelled by triumph in the Sinhala south and, as is clear now, disillusionment in the north. The level of distrust between the parties is the same as during the bitter conflict years. The question now is whether the international community will act on the SLMM’s report and bring credible pressure to bear on the Sri Lankan state to comply with the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA). We doubt it. In the meantime, Sri Lanka’s military has placed orders worth $250m from Pakistan. There can be little doubt that key international actors are politically and financially supporting these moves. It is as if nothing has changed since Sri Lanka’s ‘War for Peace’ ground to a bloody halt.