Up to fifteen thousand Diaspora Tamils rallied at the European Union Secretariat in Brussels Monday to protest against EU bars on LTTE delegations visiting member states.

They called upon the EU to affirm Tamils' right to self determination, and asked for backing for a peace process based on the Interim Self Governing Agreement (ISGA) proposals submitted by the Tamil Tigers in 2003.

Despite the rain, thousands gathered on Monday with Tamil Eelam flags and posters of Vellupilai Pirabakaran, leader of the LTTE.

The demonstrators called attention to the hundreds of thousands of Tamils still displaced in Sri Lanka's Northeast as well as the stalled Post-Tsunami Operations Management Structure (PTOMS), an agreement signed by the Tigers and the government to facilitate the distribution of tsunami-related aid.

Tamils arrived in Brussels Monday from many of the EU countries with Diaspora concentrations, as well as from non-member states including Switzerland and Norway, packing out the city centre despite the cold rain.

Police reported at least 220 coaches pouring into the city ahead of the event. Coach parking bays quickly filled up, forcing some to park far from the rally point. Among them were at least ten coachloads from Britain, which is heading the EU at present.

Ten coaches from France parked five kms from the centre, their occupants taking taxis and public transport or simply walking to the rally site despite the heavy rain.

Police were quoted by radio stations as estimating that up to fifteen thousand Tamils attended the rally.

“Many people could not travel due to difficulties in getting visas in time,” officials from Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO), one of the leading community organisations involved in organising the rally, said.

Many Tamils in Switzerland, a hotbed of Tamil nationalism and which is not in the EU, were unable to get attend, they said by way of example.

Interestingly, although there are no major Tamil organisations in Belgium itself, the event was prepared by Tamil groups in other countries. Activists from the tiny Tamil community in Belgium helped youth organisations in Germany spearheading the efforts, they said.

Following the rally, Tamil representatives and legal experts met for two hours with EU officials regarding issues related to the peace process.

Mr. Francis Boyle, a leading practitioner of international law, and Mr. V. Rudrakumaran, legal advisor to the Tamil delegation at the peace negotiations, along with Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna MP, Mr. Gajendran Selvarajah met with EU officials.

Academics from prominent universities across Europe also participated in the rally.

The demonstrators’ declaration given to the European Commission stated the EU has threatened Sri Lanka’s peace with its recent ban on travel by members of the Tigers in member states and demanded the EU rescind its decision.

The EU ban “places Tamils at a distinct disadvantage … [by] undermining the LTTE’s status as an equal partner and thus constraining its capacity to negotiate,” read the demonstrators’ declaration given to the EU Secretariat.

“It was the gross, consistent, and continuing oppression on the Tamil people and the violence unleashed against them during the past several decades by successive Sri Lankan governments that led to the Tamil people getting involved in armed resistance,” the declaration stated.

The demonstrators also protested against the paramilitary groups whose attacks on Tamils in Army-controlled areas of the Northeast have escalated in recent months, in violation of the Ceasefire Agreement. The Tigers have stated the Sri Lankan Army is providing weapons and support to five armed groups to fight a covert, shadow war in the Eastern province.

Crime wave in Jaffna

Sri Lankan military and the police “have not taken any constructive efforts to curb the incidence of violence and killings in Jaffna” Mr. Rohitha Priyadarsana, Jaffna Co-ordinator for the National Human Rights Commission protested last week.

“Many civilians are forced to live in hiding because of imminent threats to their life and the failure of the security forces to take meaningful steps to curb this trend of violence.”

“Killings, threats to life of social activists and violence that threatens the collective social life of the community are unabatedly increasing in Jaffna in the recent past,” he said, adding twelve killings have occurred in the Jaffna district between 13 September to 14 October.

Four of these killings are reported in the Jaffna Police division, four in Chunnakam and one each in Kopay, Atchuvely, Point Pedro and Nelliyadi.

Armed robberries, gang warfare and sexual molestations are alarmingly on the increase and the Police and Military don’t seem to have taken any effective preventive measures to apprehend the culprits,” he said. “Normal civilian life is under serious threat”.

The Co-ordinator said that he had already submitted a dossier on the crimes to the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission and requested that the Inspector General of Police and the military hierarchy be advised to take necessary steps to combat this trend.

Sri Lanka ‘free of bird flu’

Sri Lanka is free of bird flu and the island managed to prevent an outbreak thanks to a strict ban on poultry imports from affected countries that has been enforced since 2003, the industry said on Wednesday.

The All Island Poultry Association said Sri Lanka maintained a ban on chicken products and animal feed from countries listed by the World Health Organisation as affected by avian flu, or the H5N1 strain of the virus.

“We did not lift the ban since 2003 and this helped us to keep away bird flu,” association chairman DD Wanasinghe said.

He said there had been another ban on the import of whole chicken for the past six years as a move to protect the local industry from cheaper imports, but even the import of chicken breast was tightly controlled after 2003.

Wanasinghe said the 35,000 local chicken farmers had already been alerted to look for any signs of bird flu despite the country being declared bird flu free.

Last week, Sri Lanka secured access to a World Health Organisation stockpile of bird flu vaccine in case the virus spread to the Indian Ocean island republic.

Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva said there were no reported cases of avian influenza among poultry on the island, but the government alerted veterinarians to look out for any signs of the disease.(AFP)

Kottegoda is Army Chief till 2007

Sri Lanka’s Army Commander, Lieutenant General Shantha Kottegoda, has been given a service extension for two years till June 2007 by President Chandrika Kumaratunga.

Lt.Gen. Kottegoda was appointed Army Commander in July 2004 and granted one year’s extension, already in November, 2004 when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 55.

President Kumaratunga also gave her approval for a proposal to fix the retirement age of Major Generals at 58 from the present 55. It will need Parliamentary approval before it becomes effective.

Kottegoda was part of the government delegation at peace talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2003.

Lt. Gen. Kottegoda, like his predecessor, is a senior intelligence officer. He was appointed to a special post as Overall Operations Commander (OOC) for the east after the LTTE crushed a renegade commander’s short-lived rebellion in the region.

LTTE officials say that Lt. Gen. Kottegoda had developed a singular rapport with their Batticaloa District commander Mr. Vinayagamoorthy Muraleetharan (Karuna), before the latter rebelled against the LTTE.

The British MI5 trained Lt. Gen. Kottegoda in intelligence gathering and analysis in 1991. Following that he was seconded by the military as the head of the ‘Northern Terrorism Desk’ of Sri Lanka’s National Intelligence Bureau (now renamed Directorate of Internal Intelligence).

New ministry for Petroleum exploration

Sri Lankan government has set up a new Ministry of Petroleum Resources Development for developing petroleum resources in the island country, Daily News reported Wednesday.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga will function as the Minister. Former Secretary to the Ministry of Power and Energy Jaliya Medagama has been appointed Secretary to this Ministry in addition to his duties as Chairman of the Petroleum Corporation, the paper quoted the Presidential Secretariat as saying.

This follows the discovery of potentially commercially viable oil reserves in the coastal belt from Puttalam to Hambantota through international surveys.

Kumaratunga announced recently that the off-shore petroleum deposits will be utilized for the development of all areas of the country.

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse too has pledged to make use of this resource to develop all parts of the country.

Locally available oil will enable Sri Lanka to drastically reduce its dependence on imported crude oil, for which the Government spends billions of dollars every year.

The Government also announced plans to build an oil refinery with the capacity to refine 100,000 barrels a day. The refinery, which will cost 795 million US dollars, will be one of the biggest foreign investments in Sri Lanka, according to the paper.(Xinhua)

Brain drain from Sri Lanka – World Bank

Sri Lanka is among countries that see a relatively large proportion of educated people migrating in search of greener pastures, the latest World Bank study on international migration says.

Although the intensity of brain drain changes depending on the measurement criteria, the World Bank report points out that smaller countries are more affected by brain drain when counting the numbers of educated people going abroad.

Over 200,000 Sri Lankans went abroad to work last year and according to the Migrant Services Centre – a local NGO – currently over 1.5 million Sri Lankans are working abroad.

A majority of these workers, are people going to the Middle East for unskilled or semi skilled jobs.

But the numbers of educated people going abroad is also relatively high compared to the size of the island’s educated labour force.

In 2000, out of the top 30, skilled labour providing countries with populations over 5 million, Sri Lanka had an emigration rate of 29.7 percent.

When measured in absolute terms – the total number of educated emigrants - larger countries see a higher number of educated people leaving to work abroad.

But in relative terms - the proportion of the educated labour force - small countries are the most affected by brain drain, says the International Migration, Remittances and the Brain Drain report.(LBO)

Amid efforts to promote peace in Sri Lanka, an oft repeated assertion is that the Northeast needs to be ‘democratised.’ This claim, put forward amid the Liberation Tigers’ dominance over the Tamil areas is leveled by those committed in principle to democracy, but also, more often than not, by self-interested opponents of the LTTE. The argument goes thus: the LTTE is a military organization that suppresses democracy in the Northeast primarily to safeguard its claim to be sole representative of the Tamil people. By extension, without an electoral mandate, the LTTE is not entitled to the claim as there are Tamils opposed to the movement and its political project and only by allowing these sentiments through can a genuine solution be arrived at.

The cause of democratizing the North-East which will doubtless have the support of the residents of the North-East when it is situated in the wider context of restructuring and reforming the Sri Lankan state in its entirety, say towards a strong federal model of power-sharing. But in the immediate future, Tamil focus is on establishing a secure and autonomous region within which they may manage their own affairs. The LTTE is the most viable vehicle for this. And despite the invectives of many of its critics, most Tamils – including many who are critical of the movement – accept that the LTTE grew out of a need to halt a multifaceted state-run campaign of discrimination and violence, sometimes characterized as a ‘slow genocide.’

The LTTE is thus primarily a military organization geared to defeat the state’s coercive apparatus. But as the territory under its control expanded, the LTTE recognized the need for governmental structures to provide security, law and order, contract enforcement, medical services and education. Criticism of the LTTE’s leadership structure as undemocratic therefore misses the point: the movement evolved out of a security need that has not been filled by the peace process. Moreover, its leadership progression is understood as meritocratic while the organization as a whole is renowned for its lack of corruption and the discipline of its cadres.

Democratisation of the Northeast, meanwhile, is deeply implicated in the Sri Lankan state’s efforts to promoting other, more acquiescent Tamil groups as ‘alternatives’ to the LTTE as leaders of the Tamils. Perhaps unsurprisingly the state and its allied Tamil groups have therefore been amongst the LTTE’s most vocal critics. The central charge has been that the LTTE is a fascist, uncompromising organization pursuing hardline policies to perpetuate the conflict for its own self-aggrandizing interests. Conversely, the other Tamil groups are projected as beleaguered ‘moderate’ actors braving a hostile rival.

As the conflict shifted from an insurgency to a fully fledged conventional war, these characterizations were dissonant with manifest ground realities. There is now a shift: the LTTE is suggested as dominant with a limited measure of political support in the Northeast and the other Tamil groups portrayed as political rivals braving its dangerous hegemony.

There are multiple objectives behind the campaign to reject the LTTE’s sole representative claim and the attendant call for democratization of the Northeast. The first is to introduce Tamil organizations loyal to the state into the negotiation process, thereby widening it from a bilateral to a multilateral one - and thus to dilute the autonomy challenge. A secondary goal is to shift the focus away from the substantial alterations of Sri Lanka’s own constitution that are necessary to address Tamil demands.

Whilst there is common acceptance that Sri Lanka’s constitution needs to be changed as part of a solution, the most obvious of amendments is not being discussed even now: the repeal of the 6th amendment. This clause rules any advocacy of separation or independence illegal in principle. Even an unarmed LTTE therefore cannot be a legitimate political entity in Sri Lanka. It is well-known that the 1977 Parliamentary elections were a de-facto referendum on independence with the Tamils endorsing the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and its call for Eelam. After the 6th amendment came into being, there has simply been no way of testing Tamil sentiment on independence.

It is in this context that the ‘lack of democracy’ claim fits into Colombo’s strategy of subverting a negotiated solution. An unusual mix of paramilitary groups and marginalised politicians who at various stages have supported the state, militarily or politically, are being put forward as the actors through which the project of democratizing the Northeast ought to proceed. These include the paramilitary Eelam People’s Democractic Party (EPDP), the ousted former leader of the TULF, V. Anandasangeree, and even the renegade LTTE commander Karuna.

Many of these actors enjoy visibly limited legitimacy in the Northeast. Apart from being perceived as having militarily and politically implicated with a Sinhala-dominated state and its repression, they have also been associated with paramilitary violence, corruption, racketeering and in some cases, rights abuses. However, Colombo has sought to bolster these actors through military force and state-funded patron-client networks. The latter has been most vividly illustrated by World Bank investigations of Sri Lanka’s rehabilitation ministry whilst the EPDP leader, Douglas Devananda, was in charge: despite having over 1300 employees, the World Bank team said they couldn’t find a single person who had been helped by the ministry.

Moreover, the paramilitary organizations, working closely with Sri Lanka’s military, are also engaged in a shadow war with the LTTE. Although Colombo has consistently denied it, their complicity in the murderous violence in the Northeast has, amid a rising bodycount, compelled even the Co-Chairs of Sri Lanka’s donors to demand they be disarmed to protect the peace process. The Tamil groups, for their part, seek to project their casualties in this covert conflict as further evidence of the LTTE’s anti-democratic nature. The killings are however integral to the cycle of violence between their Army-backed gunmen and the LTTE’s intelligence wing.

The LTTE, meanwhile, appears to be in tune with popular political sentiments amongst the Tamils, illustrated most vividly by the results of the April 2004 Parliamentary elections in which the LTTE-proxies, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), received a thumping endorsement. The TNA manifesto explicitly backed the LTTE’s sole representative claim and, moreover, the notion of a Tiger-controlled Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) for the Northeast. Indeed, the TNA explicitly urged voters to view the election as a referendum of their support for the LTTE’s contemporary political positions and won a record 22 seats.

These popular sentiments were also underlined by a survey conducted by the Colombo-based think-tank, the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA). The survey revealed that LTTE policies enjoy the overwhelming support of the Tamils. In excess of 90% of respondents expressed support for policies such as ISGA and the removal of the Sri Lankan military’s High Security Zones(HSZs) from Tamil areas (interestingly over 50% of the Northeast’s Muslim community also supported the ISGA). Significantly the survey was carried out anonymously and only in government controlled areas, discounting undue LTTE influence of the results.

The Sri Lankan state and its allied Tamil groups counter that the 2004 polls are an inaccurate reflection of support for the LTTE as its grip on the Northeast prevents residents from dissenting against its policies. However, these accusations are suspect given that Tamils crossed into government-controlled territory cast secret ballots and given the substantial effort the LTTE put into ensuring people in its controlled areas were transported to crossing points. Whilst there have been allegations of electoral malpractice in Jaffna in favour of the TNA, Sri Lanka’s electoral commission ruled that the outcome could not have been altered by tampering: the TNA was returned with landslides in almost all Tamil-dominated districts.

Meanwhile, an often ignored constituency in the ‘democratisation’ debate is the Tamil Diaspora. The substantial political, moral and financial support accruing to the LTTE from the Diaspora underlines the legitimacy the organization enjoys amongst Tamils clearly not subject to its direct control. Moreover, most of the Diaspora has family and community links to Tamils in the Northeast and the claim the former would contribute to the repression of the latter defies logic. Conversely, it is significant that none of the LTTE’s critics have been able to mobilize support of any standing amongst Diaspora Tamils in the West.

Sri Lanka has sought to redirect international support for better governance on the island toward the legitimization of paramilitary actors aligned with the state’s interests, hoping that the LTTE can be weakened as a Tamil representative and corralled into diluting its firm stance on self-rule. Introducing a multitude of anti-LTTE players to the negotiating process, the state hopes, would also blunt demands for the substantial constitutional reform that it might be compelled to effect. The unprincipled nature of these groups is exemplified by the EPDP this month campaigning vigorously for Mahinda Rajapakse, the only Presidential candidate who has explicitly rejected power-sharing with the Tamils or weakening the unitary state in any way.

There are, of course, aspects of the LTTE’s governance structure that fall short of liberal ideals. However, these criticisms must be evaluated in the context of the threats, including military incursion, faced by the embryonic administration that the organization has established. However, the LTTE has consistently demonstrated that its policies on the major issues affecting the residents of the North-East are in tune with popular opinion.

Moreover, a conviction the organization acts largely in the interests of the people it claims to represent has been substantially enhanced by its conduct since the February 2002 and especially in the wake of the December 2004 tsunami. The LTTE is recognized as running an efficient, uncorrupt administration which has successfully mobilised the Diaspora to deliver benefits to the residents of its controlled areas. Its pro-active engagement with foreign Non-Govermental Organizations (NGOs) has circumvented the state’s unmistakably racist obstructions to ensure the efficient delivery of international assistance. The LTTE is the single largest employer in its controlled areas, though private business ventures both from the Diaspora and local Tamils are being encouraged and supported.

The point is that, despite its non-participation in electoral politics, the LTTE is attempting to govern efficiently and humanely. Whilst articulating a clear cut political stance – self-rule and autonomy for the Tamil people – the movement is also facilitating and promoting development activities that can make a concrete difference to the lives of ordinary people. None of its so called rivals or self-styled ‘moderates’ can compare in achieved results.

This is not to say there isn’t expectation of greater democratic freedom in the longer term; self rule is inextricably linked on a people’s ability to influence their governors. But this democratic freedom is acknowledged as conditional on the establishment of a stable, unassailable Tamil entity, federal state or otherwise. However, ‘democratisation’ in which parties serving the interests of parties external to the Tamil polity, most notably the other protagonist in the ethnic conflict, the Sri Lankan state, is not the same thing. Neither is the foisting on them of ‘alternative’ leaders whose alignment with the repressive Sinhala-dominated state is unabashedly displayed. As the ‘democratisation’ advocates argue, a failure to heed the sentiments of the Tamil people will prove a major obstacle to finding a long term solution to the ethnic-conflict. But the Tamils, both the Diaspora and residents of the Northeast have been repeatedly asserting their loyalties and preferences for several years now.

EPDP: examining an alternative [Oct 19, 2005]

Whilst Sri Lanka’s largest Tamil party, reflecting popular discontent with Sinhala political leaders, is staying neutral in the country’s forthcoming Presidential elections, a paramilitary ally of the ruling party is throwing its weight behind Premier Mahinda Rajapakse – the arch-Sinhala nationalist of the two leading contenders.

The Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) announced this week they will back Rajapakse, and urged all Tamil speakers to vote for the Premier whose campaigning kicked off with electoral pacts with hardline Sinhala parties ruling out power-sharing to resolve the island’s ethnic conflict.

“Premier Mahinda is the best option available to the Tamil-speaking people to resolve their problems non-violently and build a secure future to achieve their cherished goals of a federal constitution,” EPDP Leader and Minister Douglas Devananda was quoted by ColomboPage as saying.

However, Tamil newspapers and parliamentarians have sharply criticized Rajapakse for rejecting the notion of self-determination as well as crucial steps in the peace process, including the Post-Tsunami Operations Management Structure (P-TOMS) – an agreement on sharing tsunami related aid which has been frozen by Sri Lanka’s supreme court.

Power-sharing, particularly federalism, emerged as a likely solution to the protracted conflict in peace talks between the previous Sri Lankan government and the LTTE, and have generally been backed by the international community as the groundwork for a lasting peace.

An editorial in Uthayan, the popular Jaffna daily, last week slammed Rajapakse for having “joined the extreme nationalists rejecting all agreed instruments of reconciliation.”

The LTTE-backed Tamil Nationalist Alliance (TNA), which polled over 600,000 votes from the Northeast in April 2004, winning it 22 members in parliament, has refused to back either Rajapakse or United National Party (UNP) candidate Ranil Wickramesinghe.

“None of the candidates are representing Tamil aspirations and we find it difficult to support any of the presidential candidates,” M. Raviraj, Jaffna District TNA MP was quoted by ColomboPage as saying.

He said both Rajapakse’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the UNP have used the Tamil question to their advantage while offering nothing to the Tamil minority in return.

TNA parliamentarians at last Saturday’s Tamil Resurgence rally in Trincomalee accused the Sinhalese candidates of trying to get Tamil votes without intending to address their concerns.

Rajapakse is backed by a coalition of Sinhala nationalist forces, raising questions about the rationale behind the paramilitary EPDP’s backing, though the Premier’s hostility to the LTTE is clearly a point in common.

Rajapakse, who secured the backing of the stridently Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) parties early in the campaign process, has vowed to defend Sri Lanka’s unitary status.

He pointedly signed his agreements with the hardline parties in front of the Buddhist Temple of the Tooth, a cultural icon symbolizing Sinhalese power.

The EPDP has, meanwhile, begun campaigning in the Northeast, starting with a barely-attended meeting for volunteers in Jaffna. The paramilitary group has also tried to entice Tamil teachers to help during elections by offering permanent appointments, but TamilNet reported only a handful attended.

The EPDP was reported as saying participating in elections were difficult in the political climate of Jaffna.

The EPDP has asked Election Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake to relax election laws in the Northeast so they can better campaign in these regions.

Citing ‘security concerns’, the Army-backed group claims it is unable to campaign at the ground level, and is thus asking for permission for more airtime and to put up posters.

Analysts say the peace process would probably progress further under Wickremesinghe’s leadership than his archrival, though Tamil commentators point to a string of unfulfilled promises which prompted the LTTE to suspend its participation it the Norwegian-brokered talks.

They also say that the minority vote will play a decisive role in the neck-and-neck race for the Presidency, to be decided on November 17.

EPDP: examining an alternative [Oct 19, 2005]

Tamils and Muslims from all over Trincomalee district gathered Saturday along the town’s Inner Harbor Road in the latest of a series of major demonstrations to demand Sri Lankan troops vacate the Northeast.

Tamil parliamentarians, human rights activists, students, and even a Buddhist monk rallied against the Army’s occupation of Tamil areas in the event which followed others held in the past few months in Mannar, Batticaloa, Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi, Vavuynia and Jaffna.

“After a half century since the independence of the Sinhala nation, Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism has shut all the doors to a democratic and peaceful settlement of the problems of the Tamil speaking people,” read the Declaration delivered at the event.

“We proclaim that an environment should be created to enable us to decide our destiny in our land on our own strength and for our people to continue to rise as a formidable force to procure the goal of a sacred and higher life of freedom.”

“Whilst making [this] Declaration, we seek the recognition by the international community of our basic rights and life of freedom with peace on the basis of our traditional homeland, our nationhood and self-rule and struggle for sovereignty.”

Tharmaratna Thero was the first Buddhist monk to ever take part in a Tamil uprising event, underlining the multi-ethnic character of the formerly Tamil-dominated district that has seen large scale state-sponsored colonization since independence from Britain.

“All Tamils living in Trincomalee are my relatives. For all those who live according to Lord Buddha’s teachings, everyone in the world is a relative,” the Thero said, speaking first in Sinhala and then in Tamil.

“Tragically today some Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka are not living according to Lord Buddha’s teachings,” he said, referring to the powerful clergy which sees non-Sinhalese as interlopers on the island.

“The past and present government of this country did not rule it according to Buddhist dharma. Instead they are acting like senseless mad people. The country is suffering for their misdeeds. The basic cause of the ethnic problem is the failure to act according to Buddhist dharma.”

Sakul Hameethu, a former principal and a Muslim representative, also addressed the rally.

“Tamil speaking people must come together. The mistakes of our political leaders have split us. We can achieve the rights of the Tamil speaking people only when our two ethnic groups join together,” he said.

Unlike previous Resurgence events, there were no Sri Lankan police or army personnel present. However, the Senior Superintendent of Police protested at the raising of the Tamil Tiger’s flag at a location he said was “state property.”

International truce monitors from the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission were on hand to observe the situation and handed the police complaint to Mr. R. Sampanthan, leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).

The headquarters of the TNA was declared open in Trincomalee town on the eve of the rally. Mr. Sampanthan hoisted the Tamil Eelam flag at the ceremony Friday evening at the office which is located along Avvaiyar Road in the heart of the town. The event was attended by 15 of the TNA’s 22 MPs, drawn from all the Northeastern districts.

Earlier last week, Mr. Jeffry Lunstead, the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, paid a one-day visit to Trincomalee town on Wednesday and held discussions with the heads of armed forces and Police and the SLMM.

The Liberation Tigers have warned that Premier Mahinda Rajapakse’s vow to alter the four-year-old ceasefire agreement if he is elected President next month could lead to the truce’s collapse.

“According to the ceasefire agreement (CFA) and the peace process, the government of Sri Lanka and LTTE are the only equal partners,” Mr. S Puleedevan, head of the LTTE’s Peace Secretariat told Reuters.

“Nobody can take unilateral decisions ... that means that that’s the end of the ceasefire agreement,” Mr. Puleedevan added. “So nobody can change it. Nobody can touch it.”

He was responding to undertakings in his manifesto by Mr. Rajapakse – the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party’s candidate for the November 17 polls – to alter the February 2002 truce soon after being elected.

Mr. Rajapakse, who has wide grass roots support among the Sinhalese majority, has vowed to take a different approach to the talks from his archrival Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose United National Party (UNP)-led government signed the truce and held several rounds of talks with the Tigers.

Attacking Wickremesinghe for “weakening” Sri Lanka’s security forces by signing the ceasefire with the LTTE, Rajapakse said in his manifesto he would “readjust (review) the CFA in a manner that terrorist activities have no place. I will take remedial action after reviewing the CFA monitoring process.”

He added, without elaborating: “I will get regional co-operation [for this]” – which has been widely interpreted as securing India’s support in changing the CFA.

“Mainly due to the UNP’s action to enter into a Ceasefire agreement without farsightedness there has been several problems created,” Rajapakse also said.

“The agreement had been reached without the consensus of the people of the country. Attempts were made to forcibly put this agreement on the public, but the LTTE themselves have broken away from this agreement.”

Elaborating on Rajapakse’s stance, his chief election campaigner Mangala Samaraweera told reporters: “the role of Norwegian facilitation and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) will be reviewed immediately. They are not actually doing what they should be doing and we will review it.”

The truce has been under strain for the past two years amid an escalating shadow war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan military.

Scores of LTTE members, Army intelligence officers, paramilitary cadres and civilians have died in a cycle of violence which escalated last year in the wake of the defection to the Army of a renegade LTTE commander, Karuna.

The violence, once predominantly occuring in Sri Lanka’s restive east and occasionally in the capitol, Colombo, has spread to almost other parts of the Northeast.

The LTTE accuses the SLFP-led government, headed by President Chandrika Kumaratunga, of backing a covert war of attrition against them, saying Sri Lankan military intelligence is deploying five paramilitary groups in a concerted campaign of violence against its members and supporters in the eastern province.

Although Rajapakse’s strident Sinhala nationalist policies have made Wickremesinghe the seeming de-facto choice for the island’s minorities, the LTTE is sceptical of his commitment to reigning in the paramilitaries.

Notably, neither of the leading contenders for the Presidential race have commented on the paramilitary campaign, despite demands by the Co-Chairs of Sri Lanka’s donor community that the irregulars be disarmed as stipulated by Clause 1.8 of the CFA.

“There’s less prospect (of progress after the election) frankly speaking, because we can’t find any difference between the candidates,” Mr. Puleedevan told Reuters, referring to stalled peace talks.

“No big changes will happen until the international community exerts pressure on the Sri Lankan government’s side,” he added, critical of the recently imposed EU travel ban on Tigers to its member-states. “They are exerting pressure on the wrong side.”

In an unexpected twist to Sri Lanka’s politics, outgoing President Chandrika Kumaratunga this week held sudden talks with the leader of the opposition, Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, on forging a common front between their two parties on the ethnic question.

“Both agreed on the importance of all major political parties working together in order to resolve the country’s most troubled issue, that of war and peace,” the President’s office said after the meeting Monday.

The move threatens to throw the Presidential election campaign of her ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party’s (SLFP) candidate, Premier Mahinda Rajapakse, into disarray, as he has already set out a platform sharply opposed to Mr. Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP).

Echoing widespread belief amongst Tamils and the ‘Ranil-Chandrika’ talks were more to do with southern political manoeuvres than resolving the ethnic conflict, the Liberation Tigers dismissed the move as inconsequential.

“This is not a discussion between the two candidates. We have an outgoing president talking to one of the candidates,” spokesman Daya Master told The Associated Press.

“She was in power for 10 years, but did nothing,” he added, in reference to President Kumaratunga’s two terms in office.

Mr. Wickremesinghe’s tenure as Premier from December 2001 to April 2004 was beset by bitter wrangling with Mrs. Kumaratunga, whose People’s Alliance (PA) coalition had been narrowly toppled by his UNP-led one in hard-fought elections.

Moreover Mr. Wickremesinghe’s administration and the Norwegian-brokered peace process with the LTTE were paralysed when Mrs. Kumaratunga, using her powerful Presidential powers, seized three ministries from his cabinet in late 2003, accusing him of jeopardising national security by making too many concessions to the LTTE.

But in almost two hours of talks Monday, the two former archrivals agreed on the “the importance of working together for peace,” a statement by President Kumaratunga’s office said.

“President Kumaratunga met Wickremesinghe in a cordial atmosphere to discuss several matters of national interest,” the statement said.

Mr. Wickremesinghe had written to President Kumaratunga last month, soon after publishing his election manifesto, seeking a meeting with the President to discuss his proposals for the resolution of the ethnic question, the statement said.

“The proposals [in the UNP manifesto] were discussed at length. They both agreed on the importance of all major political parties working together in order to resolve the country’s most troubled issue, that of war and peace,” the statement said.

The President also stressed on the need to ensure a free and fair poll at the upcoming Presidential Elections and suitable measures were discussed and agreed upon the statement also said.

President Kumaratunga’s meeting with the UNP leader is expected to thrown the SLFP party machinery into confusion as amid her amicable discussions and agreements with Wickremesinghe, the SLFP candidate has taken a stridently different stance on the ethnic question, ruling out power-sharing with the Tamils.

Political analysts said Mrs. Kumaratunga’s actions could thus pave the way to Wickremesinghe’s victory at the closely fought November 17 elections.

This, some feel, is part of a wider strategy by President Kumaratunga, who is constitutionally barred from contesting a third term, to ensure for herself a continuing role in politics which could lead to her return to Sri Lanka’s leadership, possibly as an empowered Westminsiter-style Prime Minister after the abolishing of the Presidency.

Indeed, whilst Wickremesinghe and Kumaratunga were apparently agreed on the ethnic question, they could not resolve differences over the SLFP-led government’s budget.

“The leader of the Opposition expressed his party’s objection with regard to the proposed presentation of the budget by the government one week before the Presidential Election. [But] President Kumaratunga informed Mr. Wickremesinghe that her cabinet has made a unanimous decision to present the budget on the 8th of November,” the Presidential statement said.

“However she said she would discuss the reasons given by Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe for his party’s objections to this decision.”

Premier Mahinda Rajapakse (r) enjoys a lighter moment with JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe (c) and Propaganda Secretary Wimal Weerawansa. Photo JVP

As campaigning for Sri Lanka’s Presidential elections steps up, the Liberation Tigers made it clear this week that they do not favour any particular candidate over another and would stand aside to let Sri Lanka’s Tamils make up their own mind.

The LTTE’s stance reflects dissatisfaction amongst Tamils with both leading presidential candidates – Premier Mahinda Rajapakse of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the Ranil Wickremesinghe of the main opposition United National Party (UNP).

“These 3-years’ experience (since the ceasefire) clearly shows that we have lost hope with both sides, both the UNP and SLFP,” Mr. S Puleedevan, head of the LTTE’s Peace Secretariat, told Reuters.

“Whatever they said in their manifestos is nothing to do with what they will implement,” he said.

“We have no choice at all with these two candidates (because neither) are going to deliver anything tangible to the Tamil people.”

Although Rajapakse has taken a stridently Sinhala nationalist line, sealing electoral agreements with hardline southern parties making Wickremesinghe the de-facto choice in what is essentially a two-horse race, there is wide disgruntlement with the UNP leader’s prevarication in establishing an interim administration for the Northeast and vague stances on the peace process.

Rajapakse’s pacts with the ultra-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) and the Buddhist monks’ party, the JHU, categorically rule out powersharing with the Tamils or devolution, but Wickremesinghe has embraced vague references to past proposals for powersharing.

The former Premier, whose government held six months of Norwegian-facilitated talks with the LTTE is seen as lacking commitment to resolving the conflict after a number of agreements reached at the talks failed to be implemented, including those regarding joint structures to disburse aid and reconstruct the war-torn Northeast.

The LTTE’s refusal to take a stand is likely to weaken Wickremesinghe, who is banking on the island’s minority votes to balance Rajapakse’s Sinhala nationalist pull.

However given the divergent positions adopted by the two front runners, the LTTE is thought to be keenly studying the Presidential contest to gauge popular sentiment in the Sinhala south to power sharing and peace-related matters.

Earlier LTTE spokesman Daya Master told the state-owned Sunday Observer newspaper “we have decided to be neutral... We will not support any party.”

Although the LTTE could not recommend to Tamil people to vote for any main contenders, given the “history of broken promises,” Master said “we will let people make their choice.”

The LTTE would also permit canvasing in LTTE held areas, Daya Master told the Sunday Observer, adding however that candidates would be required to obtain prior permission.

He said though the LTTE would not back any candidate, it was firm that the people’s right to exercise universal franchise should not be curtailed under any grounds.

“There were previous incidents where Tamil people were prevented from voting,” he said referring to the closure of entry-exit points to Vanni in the Parliamentary polls in 2001, disenfranching an estimated 80,000 voters.

However, in contrast to the April 2004 parliamentary elections, it is unlikely that the LTTE would swing its administrative machinery behind mobilising residents in its controlled areas to cast their votes at polling booths once again clustered in government-controlled areas.

In the 2004 parliamentary elections, the LTTE backed the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a coalition of Sri Lanka’s four main Tamil political parties that later won 22 seats, becoming a pro-LTTE presence in Sri Lanka’s 225-member Parliament.

Sri Lanka’s failure to account for tsunami-related expenditures has compelled the World Bank to withhold funding earmarked for the government’s Task Force for Rehabilitation of the Nation (TAFREN), weekend press reports said.

Although over 70%of monies disbursed by the World Bank under one TAFREN project have been spent, there is no paperwork to account for where it went The Sunday Leader newspaper said.

“A damning letter sent to the Treasury by the World Bank last week, accuses TAFREN of not properly accounting for Rs.125 million of the tsunami aid,” the paper said.

Despite spending a colossal sum of the tsunami money on an alleged media awareness campaign, the flagship government body for rebuilding, TAFREN was unable to furnish the World Bank with any documents in support of the expenditure, it said.

The World Bank’s Country Director, Peter Harrold, has written to Sri Lanka’s Treasury Secretary, P. B. Jayasundera, saying the Bank is compelled to withdraw its aid commitment and declare Rs. 100 million ineligible for financing due to non-compliance with agreed expenditure guidelines, the paper said.

The letter to the Treasury comes in the wake of a supervision exercise undertaken by a World Bank Mission during September and October 2005 and follows an earlier letter, the paper said.

The mission, operating under the Sri Lanka Economic Reform Technical Assistance Project, had as two of its objectives the review of recent transactions related to the tsunami relief and the review of progress in achieving the project objectives.

Although it had not insisted on stringent accounting procedures for the first Rs. 25 million disbursed after last year’s tsunami, the World Bank was adamant that the next Rs.100 million be accounted for as per proper ERTA procedure.

“It is reliably learnt that when the World Bank team had asked for clarification TAFREN staff had stated the money was used for newspaper advertisements. The World Bank then requested that copies of these advertisements be made available to them. TAFREN was unable to do so,” the Sunday Leader said.

The World Bank had noted in its challenge to the Treasury that TAFREN has “spent almost three-quarter of a million dollars in communications and are not able to furnish the mission with any contracts, TORs (terms of reference), or indicative budgets. It is clear that TAFREN has not followed the agreed procedures in awarding these contracts on single source basis.”

“The letters are a serious indictment on the credibility of the Sri Lankan government with regard to the proper disbursement of the tsunami aid which poured in to the country following the disaster,” the pro-opposition Sunday Leader said.

The World Bank letter to the Treasury comes in the wake of a shocking Auditor General’s (AG) report on Sri Lanka’s post-tsunami recovery process released in late September and tabled in parliament. The AG’s report highlighted corruption and waste on a massive scale.

Canadian police say they are continuing to ‘actively investigate’ the deaths of two Tamil youths mown down by a speeding car a month ago and an arrest has been made in the United States in connection with the killings.

Two brothers, Soumiyan Nagulasisgamany, 19, and Chandrasegar Nagulasisgamany, 21, both of Scarborough, Ontario were killed on September 23 by a speeding car following a dispute outside a Waterloo night club. The motorist fled.

On Monday this week, Canadian police in partnership with the FBI’s Fugitive Squad arrested 21-year old Paul Jeyarajah Alexander, originally from Toronto at a residence in Ridgefield, Connecticut, USA, police said.

“As part of the large scale investigation, police obtained a Canada wide arrest warrant for Alexander charged with two counts of 2nd Degree Murder and two counts of Attempted Murder in relation to alleged offences in the Dearborn Place incident,” a police statement said.

Homicide investigators liaised with the FBI to obtain a Provisional Warrant for execution in the US and Alexander is facing extradition to Canada, it said.

Police have seized a vehicle and it is undergoing expert examination at the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto, it added.

“Members of the investigative team continue to work to bring a sense of closure to the Nagulasigamany family and our community,” said Larry Gravill, Chief of Police.

“The efforts and sharing of information between Toronto and Greater Toronto Area police services and the FBI are a tremendous example of integrated law enforcement, and I am proud of their investigative work,” he added.

On Friday, September 23 three Tamil men were struck by a vehicle. The brothers were pronounced dead in hospital. The third man, whom police have identified as the target of the attack, was released the same day from hospital.

People with information in relation to the incident have been requested to contact the Homicide Branch at (519) 653-7700 extension 8669 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.

Mothers took to the streets last week in Jaffna, demanding justice for sons, daughters and other relatives who disappeared after being arrested by the Sri Lankan security forces in the northern peninsula in 1996-97.

Parents and guardians of those who went missing in military custody demanded that Sri Lanka’s government either reveal the fate of their loved ones or compensate the bereaved families for their deaths. They marched through the town’s streets to hand a letter to Mr. K. Ganesh, the top government official in Jaffna district, calling for attention to their ongoing suffering.

“We have been waiting for our sons to return for all these years. We demand that the government reveal what happened to them,” said Kamalanayagi Thuraisingham of the Missing Persons’ Guardian Association (MPGA).

Thuraisingham’s 19-year old son, Senthilnathan, disappeared after being arrested in 1996 when he was in high school. She condemned the government’s lack of response with hundreds of others in the MPGA.

At least 540 Tamils disappeared after the military wrested control of Jaffna from the Tamil Tigers in 1995, according to human rights group Amnesty International estimates.

The Sri Lankan government’s own Human Rights Commission confirmed in 2003 that 248 persons were killed or disappeared after they were arrested by the military on suspicion of being involved with the Tamil Tigers.

After the HRC report was released, MPGA members criticized the group for its inaction regarding this issue, distributing pamphlets at the Universal Human Rights Day events in Jaffna.

MPGA members also protested in Colombo that year outside Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Justice. Mothers carried signs with photographs and information about their missing loved ones, urging the government to offer some closure for their suffering.

The protesters submitted a memorandum which stated the disappearances were part of a “well planned plot” by the Sri Lankan Army “in conjunction” with a paramilitary group.

The peak of disappearances reported in Jaffna was in 1995-96, though Amnesty International reported Tamils missing even in 2003. Arrests were primarily on mere suspicion of involvement with the Tigers.

“Evidence gathered during an Amnesty International visit to Sri Lanka in March 1996 clearly indicates that the security forces have arbitrarily detained thousands of Tamil people and have been responsible for torture as well as dozens of disappearances and extrajudicial executions,” Amnesty said in a 1997 report titled ‘Sri Lanka: Wavering commitment to human rights.’

“It is now feared that nearly all of those who remain ‘disappeared’ after their arrest by the security forces about a year ago died under torture or were deliberately killed in detention,” the report stated.

“Many of the thousands of cases of ‘disappearances’ reported in Sri Lanka since the early 1980s concern detainees alleged to have died under torture in police or army custody whose bodies were subsequently disposed of in secret,” another Amnesty report in 1999 stated.

In 2000, reporting cases of young Tamil boys being detained by the army, Amnesty again urged President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s government to investigate these cases. Kumaratunga ordered an internal inquiry to the disappearances, but little was done and certainly no arrests were made.

The United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has repeatedly stated that impunity is likely the most significant factor in the continuing practice of “disappearances” by the security forces.

With the Sri Lankan government unmoved by their protests, relatives of the missing have pinned their hopes on international human rights groups.

“Amnesty International, please ask the President of Sri Lanka for our children” read a sign held by relatives of those missing at a meeting in Jaffna with the human rights group in August 1996.

Amnesty has repeatedly called upon Sri Lanka to hold accountable those responsible for these missing Tamils, pointing out in a 1997 report “the government has to take responsibility for failing to protect the lives of civilians under its jurisdiction.”

But no action has been taken, underscoring the limited influence even international organizations have on security related matters in Sri Lanka.

The organization protested that “by the time government authorities in Colombo acknowledged the reality of what was happening in Jaffna, approximately 600 people had been reported ‘disappeared.’”

Amnesty’s findings that many of the missing were murdered in military custody were supported by the confessions of soldiers being tried in 1998 for the rape and murder in 1996 of Krishanthi Kumaraswamy, a Jaffna schoolgirl.

An accused Corporal revealed that the Army had buried murdered detainees amongst the graves at Chemmani, Jaffna. Sri Lankan newspapers claimed that the killings and burials occurred on the instructions of senior commanding officers in Jaffna.

Corporal Somaratne Rajapakse, who was found guilty of abducting, raping and killing Krishanthi, her mother, young brother and neighbor, said there were at least 300 to 400 other bodies buried in Chemmani.

“Almost every evening, dead bodies were brought there [to the Ariyalai SLA camp] and the soldiers were asked to bury them,” Rajapakse told courts – he denied taking part in the killings and claimed he only helped bury the victims.

He later pointed out the sites of ten mass graves in the region, whose excavations and body identification have since been stalled, with little enthusiasm by Sri Lanka’s government to follow through.

And ahead of investigations into the Chemmani graves, residents in areas nearby reported heavy military activity in the area and seeing columns of smoke rising from the location, leading to suspicions the bodies were being destroyed.

DNA evidence collected from the Chemmani graves has been ordered by an investigating court, but Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department has still not done so. The CID attributed its inaction to the Ministry of Defense’s failure to allocate funds to conduct the investigations properly.

Sri Lanka had the second highest number of disappearances in the world in 1999, according to a study by the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

In 1999, the Sri Lanka government itself estimated that 17,000 citizens had disappeared due to military forces, though these figures refer mainly to thousands of Sinhala youths slaughtered in a crackdown against a Marxist insurgency in the south led by the Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) in the late 80’s.

More than 680 cases of disappearances were reported in Jaffna between 1983 and 1987, according to a 1997 Amnesty report.

After 1990, Amnesty said “the number of those reported to have ‘disappeared’ or deliberately killed at the hands of the Sri Lankan security forces, particularly in the east, reached thousands within months.”

Responding to a rationale occasionally fielded by the government, Amnesty’s 1999 report also “stresses that abuses by opposition groups or rising crime can never provide a justification for governments to disregard their obligations to respect human rights.”

As set out in Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) - to which Sri Lanka acceded in 1980 - torture is not justified even ‘in time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation’ Amnesty said.

Moreover Sri Lanka’s notorious Emergency Regulations (ER) and Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) “contributed to the prevalence of human rights violations, including ‘disappearances’ and torture in Sri Lanka,” Amnesty said.

The State of Emergency, lifted after the ceasefire between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan armed forces, was reimposed in August following the assassination of Foreign Minister Laksman Kadirgamar. Parliament voted to extend it again last week.

For almost two decades now, the Sri Lankan state has sought to construct and promote alternatives to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as the Tamil political leadership. Efforts to promote and militarily support a number of groups as countervails to the LTTE’s independence project have failed repeatedly. While the project has not been abandoned, Sri Lanka’s objective has now been scaled back somewhat – to that of undermining the LTTE’s claim to sole representative in negotiations with the state, as opposed to replacing it as the Tamil leadership.

The main actor in this regard today is the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP). The group’s leader, Douglas Devanada, claims that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a coalition of Sri Lanka’s four largest Tamil political parties, is too closely aligned to the LTTE. This, he suggests, positions the EPDP as a political alternative to the LTTE’s hegemonic position in the Tamil polity. The EPDP is a moderate party because it is opposed to separatism, he argues. In an interview published on the group’s website, Mr. Devananda says the party supports a solution within the framework of the of the Indo- Sri Lanka accord. He also denounces the LTTE as a corrupt, fascist organisation which is simply interested in propagating the conflict for its own purposes.

Amid demands for the democratisation of Northeastern politics, the EPDP’s claim that it provides an alternative political representation for the Tamils deserves closer inspection. To begin with, while registered a political party and fielding candidates in elections, the EPDP is essentially an armed actor. It fields hundreds of paramilitary fighters alongside the Sri Lankan armed forces in operations against the LTTE and has done so for almost two decades. At present it is the largest of five paramilitary groups locked in an escalating shadow with the Tigers.

The EPDP was formed in 1987, according to its web site. It states that after Mr. Devananda was ‘betrayed’ by his erstwhile comrades in the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), he split with cadres loyal to him and joined a splinter group from the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) to form the Eelam National Democratic Liberation Front (ENDLF). However, infighting within the ENDLF resulted in Mr. Devananda ending this arrangement and forming the EPDP, the group says.

Following the signing of the Indo-Lanka accord, the EPDP abandoned the armed struggle against the Sri Lankan state and instead opted to side with armed forces against the Tigers - as did the EPRLF, PLOTE, ENDLF and the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), all of whom were dependent, albeit to varying degrees on India’s patronage. The signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka accord thus sparked an intra-Tamil conflict which the EPDP website characterises as an effort by the LTTE to gain dominance. That the Tigers emerged dominant is not in question, though the LTTE points out that these groups had joined the enemy to exterminate it.

Indeed, observers at the time interpreted these divisions amongst the Tamil groups as a strategic outcome engineered by the Sri Lankan state. “The parallels with South Lebanon are inescapable,” wrote Simon Freeman in the Sunday Times, on 25 October 1987. “There the Israelis hoped that by arming Christians they would, somehow, help defeat the Shi’ites. Here the Sinhalese majority seem to think that fringe Tamil groups can be manipulated in the fight against the Tigers.”

From 1987 to 1994, through the Indian military intervention and the second phase of the conflict with the Sri Lankan state, the EPDP and other Tamil paramilitary groups served alongside the armed forces in an atrocity-riddled war against the only remaining independence movement, the LTTE. In 1994, Mr. Devananda registered the EPDP as a political party and joined President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s first government after winning a handful of seats in elections criticised by European monitors.

Whilst its paramilitaries fought alongside the Sri Lankan military, the EPDP party was an integral part of the People’s Alliance (PA) coalition government during President Kumaratunga’s subsequent – and now infamous - ‘war for peace’ strategy. The war had horrific consequences for the Tamil populace. Apart from enormous casualties during the military assaults on LTTE-held population centres, including Jaffna and Kilinochchi, a near-absolute embargo was slapped on large swathes of the Northeast under LTTE control.

Following one offensive, the Asian Human Rights Commission observed in December 1999, “Refugees are on brink of starvation following the government’s denial of food relief for almost a month to this areas.” It added: “Tamil political parties and the Catholic church have called on the government to take urgent steps to rush food and medical supplies to the area where some 350,000 civilians are undergoing severe hardships.” The EPDP, however, was not one of these parties clamouring for relief.

In fact the group was being accused of abductions and torture of Tamil civilians as part of the counter-insurgency, even in the early nineties. A US State Department report observed on January 31, 1994: “in the latter part of 1993, Government security forces and alleged Tamil militias began operating what many human rights monitors called ‘a parallel system of secret detention’ in Colombo. … A fundamental rights application was filed in the Supreme Court against the leader of one such militia, the EPDP, alleging illegal abduction and torture.”

The impunity enjoyed by EPDP paramilitary cadres extended to immunity from prosecution for abuses beyond the conflict itself. EPDP cadres were, for example, accused of sexual abuse of Tamil women and girls – as indeed were members of the regular security forces also. In one notable case in Jaffna, the father of a twelve-year old girl complained to the Kayts Police that his daughter had been sexually assaulted by an EPDP cadre. There has been no prosecution of these or other crimes to date.

Mr. Devananda won a seat in Jaffna during the elections in 1999 and was subsequently appointed Minister for the Development of the North by President Kumaratunga. His democratic mandate was however less than indisputable, with a European Union monitoring mission led by John Cushnahan refusing to declare the polls ‘free and fair’. Accusations of wide spread vote-rigging continued to dog the EPDP and, more widely, the PA through subsequent elections.

Amid disquiet over the increasing hardships being inflicted on the Tamils by the conflict, meanwhile, the EPDP was compelled to take strict and sometimes lethal measures against dissenting members. The U.S. Department of State in its Sri Lanka report in 2000 observed that “The EPDP also detained [some] members for short periods in Jaffna as punishment for breaking party discipline.”

Some members who began to articulate support for the Tigers were murdered, with some reportedly fleeing the country. One notable killing was that of Atputharajah Nadarajah, who edited the EPDP’s newspaper, the Thinamurusu. Despite his party position, Nadarajah took an increasingly pro-LTTE line, to such an the extent that as the conflict escalated, the Thinamurusu emerged as one of the most vocal critics of the PA, Kumaratunga and the ‘war for peace.’ Nadarajah was of course careful not to attack the EPDP itself, though he laid into the other Tamil groups in Parliament supporting the PA’s represessive legislations and emergency measures.

Nadarajah was shot dead in November 1999. The British Refugee Council said in January 2000: “the killing of EPDP MP Atputharajah Nadarajah in November and [separately] All Ceylon Tamil Congress leader Kumar Ponnambalam in January have heightened fears. The police have stated that they would not investigate the murder of Mr Nadarajah whose writings in the Tamil journal Thinamurasu led to accusations that he supported the LTTE despite being a member of government ally, the EPDP. … Two other EPDP MPs who voted in Parliament against the extension of Emergency have fled the country and sought asylum in Britain.”

Suppressive violence was not confined to the group’s own members. There were frequent complaints of murder and intimidation of media people opposed to the group or the PA. Another prominent killing was that of BBC journalist Mylvaganam Nimalarajan who was shot dead in his Jaffna residence on October 19, 2000. Nimalrajan had been writting critically about the EPDP’s illegal trading activities and electoral malpractices, despite being warned off. The president of the North Sri Lanka Journalists Association told RSF: “a week before his death, Nimalarajan came to see me and told me he had received a death threat. He had just revealed that a ballot box in a polling station in the town of Palay had been stuffed with EPDP ballots. This report was carried by the BBC and many newspapers.”

The EPDP has also been accused of being engaged in other election violence including the murder of supporters and sympathisers of the pro-LTTE TNA. During campaigning for the bitterly fought 2001 election which toppled the PA and brought a pro-peace coalition to power, the EPDP’s killing or wounding of several TNA candidates and supporters in Jaffna triggered widespread protests and, on occasion, total shutdowns of the northern peninsula.

The question though is, rigging aside, how does the EPDP secure Tamil votes and retain its cadre base? A closer examination of Mr. Devananda’s ministerial performance reveals a possible answer.

In late 2001 the World Bank conducted a study of the impact of donor funding via Mr. Devananda’s Ministry of Northern Development. The Bank’s Country Representative, Dr. Mariana Todorova visited Jaffna and subsequently observed: “...About 1,500 youths have been recruited as development assistants by the Ministry of Northern Development at a monthly allowance of Rs 3,000 per person. They are said to have been given skills training, but their roles and responsibilities were not clear… It is not clear what they are doing. Really no focused development work.”

Speaking to reporters a month after the World Bank’s first visit to the northern town since 1990, Dr. Todorova, a Bulgarian economist, expressed concern about the state of the hospitals and schools in the peninsula. In fact, there had been almost no developmental activity at all: “It is really sad. No people, no houses, only big potholes.”

The point, already apparent to many in Jaffna, was inescapable: Mr. Devananda was using the ministry to recruit and pay for his political cadres by putting them on the ministry’s payroll, and going on to recruit fresh cadres for his party by offering well-paid jobs in his ministry.

In a pattern many analysts of economic incentives in conflict will recognise, Mr. Devananda’s organisation had also expanded into commercial activities in the war zones, including prohibited ones. For example, with the assistance of the military, the EPDP was at one stage illegally removing sand from the Vadamaradchi east coast for use in construction. At a time of a ban on taking sand off beaches, the EPDP was said to be profiteering with the collusion of the military as there was a shortage of sand for construction in Jaffna. The EPDP was even involved in the lobster business in Neduntheevu, one of the island’s off Jaffna, but that reportedly proved unprofitable. Some social activists in Jaffna have also linked EPDP members to prostitution rings close to Army bases and to narcotics and pornography.

Between its trading activities and government funding, the EPDP has been able to establish an extensive patron client network and retain a sizeable paramilitary cadre base. It has also been able to ensure sufficient leverage, particularly with the support of the armed forces, to ensure an elected presence, albeit a small one, in Parliament - which in turn has ensured Mr. Devananda a ministerial post.

Whilst the EPDP does publish policy documents, its primary role in Sri Lankan politics is that of one the military’s most effective paramilitary groups. Mr. Devananda insists that the armed cadres are solely for his protection. Having survived numerous assassination attempts, he undoubtedly needs the security. But EPDP cadres have been deployed across the Northeast in a bloody shadow war with the LTTE. The spiralling violence has alarmed Sri Lanka’s donors who have demanded Colombo disarm the Army-backed paramilitaries as stipulated in the February 2002 truce.

From a counter-insurgency perspective, the EPDP provides multiple benefits for the Sri Lankan state. Apart from its paramilitary cadres which provide a Tamil-speaking pathfinder and informant network, the group is being promoted internationally as a ‘moderate’ and ‘democratic’ challenge to the LTTE’s claim of sole representatives of the Tamils.

That the group has secured some votes cannot be disputed, though the extent of its claimed support must be questioned in the light of election monitors’ manifest misgivings. Moreover, it must also be questioned whether the ‘genuine’ votes it garners stem from its political position or, as many argue, its patron-client networks in the Jaffna peninsula. While there have been numerous public protests over the EPDP’s activities, abuses and cooperation with the Sri Lankan military, the group dismisses these as orchestrated by the LTTE or its sympathisers.

With the Sri Lankan Presidential elections less than a month away, the two main candidates have both released their manifestos. While on the peace front both appear (nominally at least) to be on opposite ends of the spectrum, a key position they have in common is the promise to achieve a consensus on the resolution of the ethnic question.

In his much-anticipated Presidential election manifesto, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse said that in forging a solution to the ‘crisis in the north and east’ he hoped to follow “consensus of the majority” - which, moreover, he proposes to seek out by talking to “all democratic parties, … parties which are not represented in Parliament, … the Buddhist clergy, other religious dignitaries and sectors [and] members of the civil society.”

Meanwhile, Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe wants a “consensus reached between [the two main Sinhala political parties] on the ethnic problem.” Promising to “ensure that at all times, the views of the Muslim community are taken into consideration,” he has also guaranteed “Muslim representation in the peace talks.” While not spelling out an all-inclusive approach like Mr Rajapakse, Mr. Wickremesinghe promises - as does his rival - “a solution acceptable to all communities of the country.”

On the face of it, this call for greater participation in the final solution to Sri Lanka’s conflict nods to liberal ambitions of including as many voices as possible in decision making. The call also addresses one of the main criticisms of the ill-fated 2002/3 peace talks, that decision making has been an elite affair. In short, the LTTE and Sri Lankan government – and Norwegian facilitators – decided on key matters in ‘secret’ discussions.

The two candidates’ declarations might thus be interpreted as a response to calls for allowing ‘civil society’ to have a role in deciding what is perhaps the most important question for most of the island’s residents inhabitants. It also resonates with democratic principles.

But a closer examination of the dynamics of this approach reveals not only the impossibility of achieving consensus, but a strategic logic that portends exactly the reverse of a successful peace process: an impasse.

To begin with, it is extremely unlikely that either Mr Rajapakse or Mr Wickremesinghe will be able to achieve the consensus they seek. The Buddhist clergy, the Sinhala nationalists and political rivalries between the main Sinhala parties will in all likelihood ensure that a full consensus is elusive.

Sinhala Buddhist nationalist doctrine deems the island of Sri Lanka a sacred endowment entrusted to them by the Buddha for the fostering of his religion. Any threat to the unitary nature of the island is therefore an attack directly on their self-view as the chosen protectors of the island. As such, any power-sharing with the Tamils cannot be countenanced as it is tantamount to neglecting, even betraying their duty. In short, a ‘true’ Buddhist could never agree to any weakening of the unitary state. Conversely, the Tamils, seeing themselves as a national formation, will not settle for anything less than a form of power sharing which recognises them as equals on the island.

There are practical issues also. A consensual solution, or indeed any solution short of Sinhala dominance - secured moreover by their spearhead - is also not in the interest of the ultra-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). The JVP is a party which emerged from, and relies almost exclusively on, the dissatisfaction of the Sinhalese populace with the major Sinhala parties – and, to a great extent, dismay with their handling of the Tamil issue. A permanent solution that could end the conflict and invigorate the economy is not in the JVP’s interests.

Nor will a consensus on a solution be in the interest of either main political party. Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP) and Rajapakse’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) have historically won elections by being the more vigorous champions of Sinhala interests than the other. This process of ‘ethnic outbidding’ started as long ago as 1956. Having signed a ceasefire agreement with the Liberation Tigers and ushered in two years of peace, Mr. Wickremesinghe ought to have retained his admittedly slim grip on parliament in 2004. That it was his signing the truce which fuelled the SLFP-JVP campaign that brought his government down is an indication that anti-Tamil one-upmanship is still a vote winner in the south.

Therefore, even if Sri Lanka’s two main political parties were to reach agreement on a resolution to the Tamil question, all that will achieve is to open the field for other Sinhala nationalist forces to sweep the polls – unless of course the agreement was on a united tough stand against the Tamils. Indeed, the risks of being ‘ethnically outbid’ will ensure that any agreement will be on the basis of the lowest common denominator. It will certainly not recognise the Tamils as a people, let alone their self-determination.

At a more fundamental level, consensus seeking is almost superfluous in a country practicing representative politics – in the south at least. The basis of representative politics is that leaders are endorsed to make decisions on behalf of their people. The selection of leaders ought to therefore automatically mandate them to make hard decisions that reflect either group values, or are in the best interests of the group. And the endorsing of one set of leaders is to reject their rivals’ policies. Thus it can be argued that by seeking a consensus, purely because the issue is contentious, the candidates simply do not want to make these hard choices.

Tamil suspicions about the Sinhala leaders’ calls for consensus stem from historic experiences which suggest this is a strategy for eliciting an excuse to not follow through on the peace process. In short, the point is not to pursue a manifestly impossible consensus but, rather, to use the search for one to allow extremists to either indefinitely delay or reject an unpalatable decision. This dynamic was exemplified in the early 80’s when President J R Jayawardane was being pressured by the Indian government of Prime Minister Indira Ghandi to consider a set of proposals on devolution of power to provisional units. The outcome of that saga is outlined in Anton Balasingham’s 2004 book ‘War and Peace’.

“Jayawardane and his senior Ministers opposed the proposals, yet the government, under Indian pressure, agreed to convene an All Party Conference (APC) to discuss the framework. … The conference convened on 10 January 1984 and lasted for one year with 37 sessions being held. During the rounds of discussions Jayawardane allowed all political parties and groups, including hard-line Buddhist monks, to deliberately complicate the negotiating exercise. At one stage the opposition Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) walked out of the APC, opposing the devolution package. This gave an initiative for Jayawardane to back track from the peace initiative, complaining of lack of consensus. Eventually the mediatory effort initiated by Mrs Ghandi to resolve the Tamil question through negotiations collapsed when Jayawardane’s Cabinet, on 26 December 1984, decided to drop the proposals.”

As pointed out earlier, anti-Tamil outbidding in 2005 is no different to that in 1984 or 1956. Nothing today suggests that either the UNP or the SLFP will be more cooperative than in the past. Indeed, if anything, from their point of view, the stakes are even higher now, with the JVP and JHU rising as credible nationalist alternatives should the two parties unite on a workable solution that makes ‘concessions’ to the Tamils.

Furthermore, a call for a consensus ensures the vocally nationalist parties can be blamed for a solution failing to emerge. The proposal of seeking endorsement at a referendum is an insurance policy: the spoiler parties along with the Buddhist clergy can be relied on to turn the Sinhala majority against any solution that proposes power sharing. The tyranny of the majority can thus be invoked without incurring the odium of international peace advocates.

Indeed, while Sinhala voters may not want another war (as the pro-peace votes for the UNP in 2001 and the SLFP in 1996 suggest), they do not want to make concessions to the Tamils either (though of course what constitutes a ‘concession’ depends on the say so of the Sinhala political parties and the clergy). Hitherto the bar has been impossibly low. Even support for devolution needs closer consideration: devolving limited power to several regions (say the island’s districts) is one thing, but any power sharing that recognises the Tamil identity (for example through a Northeastern entity) is another.

Both Mr Rajapakse and Mr Wickremesinghe have declared they are seeking a solution that would satisfy everyone. But there is an irreconcilable tension – the Tamils seeking recognition as a community equal to the Sinhalese and the Sinhala nationalists denying this very position. Moreover, the seeking of a consensual decision downgrades the ethnic question from that of an oppressive state facing a rebellious people protesting discrimination to that of a national malaise that needs the involvement of all actors to resolve.

While a stable Sinhalese leadership is essential to forging a lasting solution, the candidates’ seeking of involvement by all actors will open the door for extremists to exploit the principles of liberal society to derail the peace process. Tamils suspect this is the point. Mr Rajapakse and Mr Wickremesinghe’s promises to seek a consensus are, from their perspective, rhetoric designed to achieve the best of all worlds: to assuage the liberal aspirations of the international community while at the same time reassuring the Sinhala extremists that they retain a veto on any solution.

With Sri Lanka’s Presidential election turning on two issues – resolving the ethnic question and the economy – the ruling party’s candidate, Mahinda Rajapakse set out a hardline on peace talks and pledged a range of susbsidies in his manifesto released this week.

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP)’s candidate, ruled out the Tamil demand for self-determination and vowed to protect the island’s unitary status as well as its territorial integrity.

“I strongly believe upholding …. the nation’s sovereignty, security and the unitary character of the state,” Rajapakse said, addressing representatives of the Sinhala right win coalition he has forged.

“I will not be held prisoner by concepts such as traditional homelands, the right to self-determination,” he told the gathering in Colombo which included leaders of the ultra-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Buddhist monks’ party Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU).

“I love my country above all and do not wish to jeopardize its territorial integrity,” Rajapakse said in a statement after releasing his manifesto titled “Mahinda Chinthana” (Mahinda’s thoughts).

“I dedicate myself to achieve a national consensus to achieve peace with dignity through a negotiated political solution and ensure an undivided, sovereign country where all communities-Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, Malay and Burgher-will accept Sri Lanka as their homeland and the motherland,” he said.

He also spoke of his plans for Sri Lanka’s economy: “I dedicate myself to … protecting social justice, passing economic benefits to everyone, building a strong viable economic system to uplift people’s lives and increase production where both the public and private sectors will play important role, incorporating the positive aspects of the market economy.”

Rajapakse – like his archrival in the November 17 elections, Ranil Wickremsinghe of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) has already done – pledged a raft of subsidies to draw the southern rural poor.

Rajapakse’s pledges include doubling an allowance paid for the poorest, keeping down the price of fertiliser, a free daily rice meal for school children and a basket of nourishing food for pregnant mothers.

Wickremesinghe is meanwhile reaping the alarm that has spread amongst Sri Lanka’s minorities in the wake of Rajapakse’s stridently nationalist coalition formed within days of polls being announced this year. The UNP leader has won the explicit backing of the island’s Muslim and Estate Tamil communities – and expects tacit support from the indigenous Tamils.

Rajapakse, who has wide grass roots support among the Sinhalese majority, has vowed to take a different approach to the talks from Wickremesinghe, whose government signed a landmark truce with the Tigers in 2002 and held several rounds of talks with them.

“The role of Norwegian facilitation and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) will be reviewed immediately. They are not actually doing what they should be doing and we will review it,” Rajapakse’s chief election campaigner Mangala Samaraweera told reporters.

“Mr Rajapakse will have closer ties with our great neighbour India including in achieving a lasting peace in Sri Lanka and the region as a whole,” he told UNI.

Wickremesinghe this week condemned Rajapakse’s stand on the peace process, saying the Premier had virtually rejected an opportunity for peace under pressure from extremist elements like the JVP.

“If Premier Mahinda Rajapakse deviates from this process, the LTTE will also deviate from it. The international community will withdraw their support from it,” the Daily Mirror quoted the UNP leader as saying.

Analysts say the stand the two leading candidates are taking on peace talks is the axis of the election.

“This is fundamental difference between the two camps,” Prof. Emeritus Gerald Peiris of University of Peradeniya told Reuters. “(Rajapakse’s) is a harder line on the peace question.”

With its clear cut position on the ethnic question, Rajapakse’s manifesto also appears to have the final say in a spat with outgoing President Chandrika Kumaratunga - his ruling party’s leader - over the issue of devolution.

Kumaratunga, who has served two terms and is constitutionally barred from running again, wants her party to devolve power and has overshadowed Rajapakse’s campaign by openly criticising his alliances with the JVP and JHU.

But Reuters quoted analysts saying this week that Kumaratunga appears to have lost her hold over the SLFP, which her father founded in the early 50’s and her mother subsequently led before she tool the helm.