Tamil Diaspora organisations Friday condemned the killing of Tamil parliamentarian K. Sivanesan Thursday in a fragmentation mine attack blamed on Sri Lankan commandos and called for international action against the Colombo government.

Pointing out that Mr. Sivanesan is the latest Tamil MP to be murdered by suspected Army-backed paramilitaries or members of the security forces in recent years, expatriate organisations from Australia, Canada and Britain called for the Sri Lankan government to be held accountable and for international sanctions to be imposed.

Mr. Sivanesan, killed when four mines were detonated against his vehicle on Thursday, is the latest MP from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to be assassinated. MP Joseph Pararajasingham was killed in December 2005 and Mr. Raviraj was killed in November 2006. Army-backed paramilitaries or security forces were blamed in both cases.

Several TNA candidates, party workers and former Parliamentarians, as well as relatives of TNA members have been murdered or abducted and ‘disappeared’ by Army-backed paramilitaries or security forces in recent years.

Tamil Parliamentarians from other parties who have been critical of the Sri Lankan governments have also been murdered by suspected security forces’ members.

“Mr. Sivanesan has become one among the many Tamil MPs assassinated for voicing the plight of Tamil people to the world,” the Tamil Canadian Congress (CTC) said Friday.

“The Sri Lankan government must be held accountable for these killings, disappearances and other serious human rights abuses occurring under its nose and in many cases with its complicity,” CTC said.

“We look to the Canadian government to provide leadership in the international community to pressure Sri Lanka to conform to international human rights standards,” the CTC said.

“We have heard countless stories of abductions, disappearances, and killings by agents of the Sri Lankan government,” said David Poopalapillai, national spokesperson for CTC.

“Sri Lanka has turned into a lawless state and the situation will only get worse now that the ceasefire agreement has been broken by the Sri Lankan government and peace monitors have left,” he said.

“The Canadian government should consider the recommendation from the HRW report and impose trade and aid restrictions on the Sri Lankan government if its human rights record does not improve,” CTC said.

The British Tamil Forum meanwhile said “along with rest of the Tamil community members we denounce the assassination of MP Sivanesan by Sri Lankan government forces.”

“The [security forces] are terrorising the Tamil community by targeting those people who are at the front seeking a peaceful settlement for the ethnic strife,” the BTF, which represents a coalition of 88 Tamil community organisations in the UK, said.

“In condemning this atrocious action, we yearn for the well-meaning Governments of other countries and the United Nations to take note of this Government’s terrorism which continues unabated,” BTF said.

The BTF pointed out that the much vaunted International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) which was to oversee Sri Lanka’s investigations into human rights abuses, “are leaving the country without achieving anything after more than two years because of non co-operation by the Government officials.”

Last week the BTF met Britain’s Foreign minister to stress the need for the international community to make support for Sri Lank’a sovereignty conditional on its coming to lasting solution that would satisfy Tamil political aspirations.

Saying, “We, the Tamil Diaspora, mourn the death of another son of our soil,” another London-based organisation, the North East Tamil Association (NETA), urged the international community “to act decisively to stop the Sri Lankan state terrorism.”

“The Sri Lankan government is not going to respond to the kind of toothless statements, empty utterances of concerns or hollow condemnations, from individual countries and multilateral organisations.”

“We therefore urge the British and the international community to intervene urgently, by imposing trade sanctions against Sri Lanka and by suspending all foreign aids to Sri Lanka with immediate effect,” NETA said.

“Mr Sivanesan is the latest victim in a long list of Tamil intellectuals who had chosen to counter Sinhala state aggression through democratic means, at the behest of the international community, and have paid the ultimate sacrifice for it,” the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) said in a statement in UK.

“Tamil MPs who have been democratically elected by the Tamils to voice their concerns in parliament have been brutally silenced, so what chance do ordinary Tamils have against the Sri Lankan state?”

“We would like to ask the International Community what hope the Tamils can place on the democratic process in Sri Lanka?” the TYO, a Diaspora-wide network of youth groups, asked.

The Australian Federation of Tamil Associations (AFTA) also condemned the assassination in a press statement titled “Sri Lanka kills another Tamil parliamentarian with impunity.”

“The Australian Tamils ask the Rudd Labor Government what diplomatic action it intends taking to pressure the Sri Lankan State to comply with international norms and negotiate with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a just political solution to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka,” AFTA said.

Apart from Norway, which condemned the assassination of Mr. Sivanesan, there has been no reaction by the international community to the slaying, which came as the 7th UN Human Rights Council began deliberations in Geneva.

The euphoria in the Sri Lankan government and military over the prospects of a quick victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is beginning to fade.

While the security forces regularly report the killing of LTTE members, little progress appears to have been made in seizing the LTTE’s major northern strongholds in the Kilinochchi and Mullaithivu districts.

Open warfare erupted in July 2006 when President Mahinda Rajapakse ordered the army to capture the LTTE-held area of Mavilaru in open breach of the 2002 ceasefire agreement.

In the space of a year, the military quickly overran the remaining LTTE bases in the East and turned its attention to the LTTE’s northern territory. Last July, the Rajapakse government celebrated the victory in the East with jingoistic speeches and a parade through the capital of Colombo.

In January, Rajapakse finally dropped the pretence of adhering to the ceasefire. The decision to pull out of the truce was accompanied by a series of statements declaring that the LTTE would be defeated militarily by the end of the year.

On December 30, Army Commander, Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka, bragged to the Sunday Observer that “the LTTE could not prevent losing their remaining 3,000 cadres and there is no assurance that the LTTE Leader V. Prabhakaran would survive for the next six months”.

Fonseka, who is expected to retire in December, told foreign journalists on January 11 that he would not hand the war to next army chief. Government leaders enthusiastically repeated the statement, even declaring that Prabhakaran would be captured and sent to India for trial over the murder of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a LTTE suicide bomber.

A month later, however, the military high command is not so confident. On February 10, Fonseka explained in Irida Lakbima that he was not committed to a deadline for winning the war.

“They [the LTTE] are an organised force with a lot of experience... I don’t conduct the war looking at deadlines and timeframes.” Expressing a degree of frustration, he added: “Can a war that has been going on for more than 25 years be completed by March? But, what I say is—give us a chance.”

On February 23, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara echoed the army commander’s comments. As reported by Agence France Presse, he declared that the military was “winning the war...but we have never said that we will finish them off. We have never set deadlines.”

Military operations in the North were always going to be more difficult than in the East, where the LTTE had been seriously weakened by a devastating split in its ranks in 2004.

The course of the war is difficult to follow in detail. The only sources of information are the security forces and the LTTE, which both distort reports to suit their own propaganda.

The army allows no correspondents into the war zones. The Colombo media functions under the threat of censorship and physical violence. Anyone publishing negative reports on the military is quickly branded a traitor.

The military’s basic strategy appears to be one of attrition—the use of superior firepower, including air strikes and artillery bombardments, to sow panic among the population, wear down the LTTE’s defences and kill its fighters. The high command is only too well aware of the failure of previous broad scale offensives.

In 2000, the LTTE inflicted a devastating series of defeats on the army, capturing its key strategic base at Elephant Pass, in a sharp counteroffensive against an overextended military operation.

In the North, the military is seeking to slowly advance on the LTTE strongholds from all sides—from Mannar in the west, Vavuniya in the south, Welioya in the east and Muhamalai in the north. While there have been numerous reports of small victories and LTTE casualties—all undoubtedly exaggerated—the military has failed to gain a great deal of ground.

The Mannar operations started last July. The army captured the fishing village of Silavathurai last year and has since seized several other areas but the gains remain small. The main aim in present operations is to secure the Madhu area then Viduthalaithivu. The area is crucial to the LTTE’s main supply routes from the neighbouring southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Recent fighting has taken place around the Madhu church area, including Admapan and Pandivirichchan, in preparation for a push on Viduthalaithivu. The Sunday Times reported last weekend that the military had announced the capture of the Pandivirichchaan area. The pro-LTTE Tamilnet reported the recapture of the area on the evening of the same day.

On Sunday, the LTTE claimed to have repelled the military’s advance from Palaikushi. This week, the defence ministry claimed the army had penetrated deeper into LTTE-held area in Mannar. Whatever the true figures and territory gained or lost, the fighting is obviously heavy.

On the Welioya front, the results are similarly inconclusive. The military reported that it gained control of some areas previously in “no-man’s land” under the ceasefire arrangements.

The aerial bombardment of LTTE-held areas continues unabated.

Another sign of the military’s difficulties is its turn to India for assistance. General Fonseka undertook a six-day tour to India last week “to further strengthen the military ties”.

He met India’s defence minister, A.K. Anthony, as well as top military and civilian officials in a bid to obtain weapons and light aircraft. However, Fonseka is unlikely to get all that he wants from India, which to date has provided limited assistance and training. While wanting to prevent an LTTE victory, New Delhi is concerned that the ongoing war will inflame opposition in Tamil Nadu.

The Sri Lankan military is under pressure from Rajapakse to deliver a quick victory. His government, an unstable coalition of 13 parties, confronts growing popular discontent over the economic impact of the war, which is helping to fuel inflation and undermine living standards.

Rajapakse needs success stories to boost his chauvinist appeals and to dispel fears in ruling circles of an inconclusive and protracted war that will inevitably fuel an economic and political crisis.

Speaking on Sunday at a rally in Ratnapura organised by his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), Rajapakse declared that the government would carry out “liberation operations” against the LTTE until “every inch of land is captured and the last terrorist is completely destroyed”. He insisted it was the “bounden duty” of people to support the war.

The government is not conducting a war for “liberation” or against “terrorism” but to maintain the economic and political dominance of the country’s Sinhala Buddhist elite

For six decades, Colombo governments have whipped up communal politics to divide working people and prop up their rule. Rajapakse’s decision to plunge the country back to war was bound up with his government’s inability to deal with growing unrest over declining living standards.

The return to war has only compounded the economic burdens on working people. The military has purchased new weapons and boosted its strength to 150,000, recruiting 34,000 last year. Another 15,000 are to be recruited this year.

Along with rising oil prices, military expenditure is a major factor fuelling inflation. The annualised inflation rate hit 24 percent in February. Rajapakse has responded to any opposition, including strikes and protests, by demonising critics as “pro-LTTE”.

These social and political tensions will inevitably sharpen if the military operations against the LTTE slow, or if the army suffers reverses. That accounts for the shrill tone of Rajapakse’s speech at Ratnapura—it is a sign of growing desperation.

“They started beating Thiyagarajah. They took his T-shirt off and stuffed it into his mouth. The neighbors came out to help, but they pushed them away. His wife was crying and shouting, and they hit her with a gun butt. She was nine months pregnant. They were accusing Thiyagarajah of having bombs in the house, and forced him to dig the ground around the house. They searched the house, turning everything upside down, but didn’t find anything. They beat him so badly that he couldn’t walk – they had to carry him away. They took him away on a motorcycle.”
– A relative of 25-year-old Thiyagarajah Saran, “disappeared” on the night of February 20, 2007, from East Puttur, Jaffna

“The villagers told me they saw Pathinather and Anton being interrogated by the military. The military held them at gunpoint. Then the military put them into the Powell [vehicle], and also loaded their bicycles into their vehicle. The villagers could not see much because the army ordered them to disperse, and now they are too afraid to talk to anybody about what they saw.”
– A relative of 21-year-old Anton Prabananth, “disappeared” on February 17, 2007 together with 24-year-old Pathinather Prasanna, from Jaffna

“When we got to the [Kodikamam] army camp, I saw my nephew’s bicycle parked there. It was parked near the camp, in the military-controlled area. When we asked the soldiers, they denied arresting them, and when I said we had seen the bike, they got very angry, and started yelling, ‘Who told you to go and look there?! We’ll shoot you if you ever approach this place again!’ We asked the GS [local civilian official] and the police to get the bike back, but they couldn’t. Eventually, the commander in the camp returned the bike to us. He said that the people who had arrested our men were no longer there, so we should just take the bike and go.”
– A relative of 26-year-old Thavaruban Kanapathipillai, “disappeared” on August 16, 2006, together with 30-year-old Shangar Santhivarseharam from Kachai, Jaffna

“Two people came to our door, in uniforms. They were armed. Another man was dressed in an army T-shirt and jeans. I asked where they were taking my husband. The person in civilian clothes showed me a pistol. I asked where they were taking him again and he showed the pistol again, and then they took him out. I ran after them, and they had two vans, white and blue.”
– Wife of 21-year-old Ramakrishnan Rajkumar, “disappeared” on August 23, 2006, from Colombo

The Sri Lankan government is responsible for widespread abductions and “disappearances” that are a national crisis, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Human Rights Watch urged the government to reveal the whereabouts of the “disappeared,” immediately end the practice, and hold the perpetrators accountable.

Since major fighting between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) resumed in 2006, Sri Lankan security forces and pro-government armed groups have “disappeared” or abducted hundreds of individuals, many of whom are feared dead.

The 241-page report, “Recurring Nightmare: State Responsibility for ‘Disappearances’ and Abductions in Sri Lanka,” documents 99 of the several hundred cases reported, and examines the Sri Lankan government’s response, which to date has been grossly inadequate. According to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, in 2006 and 2007 Sri Lanka recorded the highest number of new cases of “disappearances” in the world.

“President Mahinda Rajapaksa, once a rights advocate, has now led his government to become one of the world’s worst perpetrators of enforced disappearances,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The end of the ceasefire means this crisis will continue until the government starts taking serious measures.”

Under international law, a state commits an enforced disappearance when it takes a person into custody and denies holding them or disclosing their whereabouts. “Disappeared” persons are commonly subjected to torture or extrajudicial execution, and cause family members continued suffering. An enforced disappearance is a continuing rights violation – it is ongoing until the fate or whereabouts of the person becomes known.

The vast majority of cases documented by Human Rights Watch indicate the involvement of government security forces – army, navy, or police. In some cases, relatives of the “disappeared” identified specific military units that had detained their relatives and army camps where they had been taken. In other cases, they described uniformed policemen, especially members of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), taking their relatives into custody before they “disappeared.”

Vairamuththu Varatharasan, a 40-year-old truck driver and father of five, was abducted from his home in Colombo on January 7, 2007, and has not been seen since. His wife told Human Rights Watch:

“A group of about 20 men – some in police uniforms, some in civilian clothes surrounded the house. One policeman came inside and asked for our identity card. I went into one of the rooms to get the identity card. By the time I came out of the room, my husband was not there; neither was the policeman. I ran out and spotted a van parked in a dark place on the road. I ran to the road, but by the time I got there, the van started and left.”

Most of the victims are ethnic Tamils, although Muslims and Sinhalese have also been targeted. In many cases, the security forces “disappeared” individuals because of their alleged affiliation with the LTTE. Clergy, educators, humanitarian aid workers, and journalists also were targeted – not only to remove them from the civil sphere, but also to warn others to avoid such activities.

Pro-government Tamil armed groups are also implicated in the abductions and “disappearances” – specifically the Karuna group and the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) – acting either independently or in conjunction with the security forces.

The number of abductions perpetrated by the LTTE is comparatively low since targeted killings, rather than abductions, appear to be the LTTE’s primary tactic. The LTTE has also been responsible for numerous other egregious abuses, including bombings against civilians, political assassinations, forced child recruitment, and the systematic repression of basic civil and political rights in areas under their control.

In the face of the crisis, the government of Sri Lanka has demonstrated an utter lack of resolve to investigate and prosecute those responsible. Not a single member of the security forces has been brought to justice for involvement in “disappearances” or abductions. Human Rights Watch said that Sri Lanka’s emergency laws, which grant the security forces sweeping powers to arbitrarily arrest and detain people without being held to account, have facilitated enforced disappearances.

“So long as soldiers and police can commit ‘disappearances’ with impunity, this horrific crime will continue,” said Pearson.

The Rajapaksa government has set up an array of special bodies tasked with monitoring and investigating “disappearances” and other human rights violations. None have yielded concrete results.

Human Rights Watch said this failure is unsurprising given that, at the highest levels, the Sri Lankan government continues to downplay the problem, denying the scale of the crisis and that its own security forces are involved.

“The government’s mechanisms to address ‘disappearances’ will remain impotent so long as the president and top officials fail to send a clear signal to the security forces that these abuses will not be tolerated,” said Pearson.

Sri Lanka’s key international partners and the UN bodies, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, have raised serious concerns about the alarming number of “disappearances” and prevailing impunity. They have expressed growing support for the establishment of a UN human rights monitoring mission to investigate and report on abuses by government forces and the LTTE throughout the country.

Human Rights Watch deplored the Sri Lankan government’s opposition to an international monitoring mission, given that such initiatives have proven effective elsewhere in dealing with “disappearances.”

With sufficient mandate and resources, the monitoring mission could achieve what the government and various national mechanisms have failed to do: establish the location of detainees through unimpeded visits to the detention facilities; request information regarding specific cases from all sides to the conflict; assist national law enforcement agencies and human rights mechanisms in investigating the cases and communicating with the families; and maintain credible records of reported cases.

“The Sri Lankan government’s rejection of a UN monitoring mission reflects badly on its commitment to human rights,” said Pearson. “While the government dawdles, many Sri Lankans will continue to pay the price.”

Human Rights Watch called on the government of Sri Lanka to:

- Take immediate measures to end the practice of enforced disappearances, vigorously investigate all cases reported, and bring the perpetrators to account; and
- Cooperate with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to establish and deploy an international monitoring team to report on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict;

Human Rights Watch also called on Sri Lanka’s international partners, in particular India and Japan, to make further military and other non-humanitarian assistance to Sri Lanka contingent on government efforts to halt the practice of “disappearances,” and to end impunity, including its acceptance of an international monitoring mission.

FOR 25 years, the dirty little war on this island in the Indian Ocean has stretched its octopus arms across the world. The ethnic Tamil diaspora has provided vital funding for separatist rebels; remittances from Sri Lankan workers abroad have propped up the economy; the government has relied on foreign assistance to battle the insurgency.

Today, a shifting world order is bearing new fruits for Sri Lanka. Most notably, China’s quiet assertion in India’s backyard has put Sri Lanka’s government in a position not only to play China off against India, but also to ignore complaints from outside Asia about human rights violations in the war.

The timing is propitious. The government jettisoned a five-year cease-fire this year, and is now banking on a military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. In so doing, it has faced a barrage of criticism over human rights abuses and has lost defense aid from the United States and some other sources. And, in recent months, government officials have increasingly cozied up to countries that tend to say little to nothing on things like abductions and assaults on press freedom.

Sri Lanka’s foreign secretary, Palitha Kohona, put it plainly when he said that Sri Lanka’s “traditional donors,” namely, the United States, Canada and the European Union, had “receded into a very distant corner,” to be replaced by countries in the East. He gave three reasons:

The new donors are neighbors; they are rich; and they conduct themselves differently. “Asians don’t go around teaching each other how to behave,” he said. “There are ways we deal with each other — perhaps a quiet chat, but not wagging the finger.”

At the same time, according to Mr. Kohona, Chinese assistance has grown fivefold in the last year to nearly $1 billion, eclipsing Sri Lanka’s longtime biggest donor, Japan. The Chinese are building a highway, developing two power plants and putting up a new port in the hometown of the president of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Sri Lanka also buys a lot of weapons from China and China’s ally Pakistan.

Chinese diplomacy in South Asia, grounded as it is in a policy of “harmony” and deep pockets, is of obvious concern to India.

So are the sentiments of Tamils at home. Overt support from India for the Sri Lankan counterinsurgency program can be explosive among India’s Tamils. But coming down hard on the government here could push Sri Lanka deeper into China’s embrace.

“There is little choice,” said Ashok Kumar Mehta, a retired general who was a leader of an Indian peacekeeping force in Sri Lanka nearly 20 years ago. “India’s policy is virtually hands off.”

Mr. Kohona, the Sri Lankan foreign secretary, noted that India’s contributions had also grown, to nearly $500 million this year. India is building a coal-fired power plant and Indian companies have been invited to build technology parks and invest in telecommunications.

New Delhi, like Washington, has shut the tap on direct military support, but it can still help with crucial intelligence, particularly in intercepting weapons smuggled by sea.

The picture in Sri Lanka is emblematic of a major shift from 20 years ago, when India was the only power center in the region. Now come China’s artful moves in India’s backyard.

As C. Raja Mohan, an international relations professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, points out, China has started building a circle of road-and-port connections in India’s neighboring countries, and it has begun to eye a role in the Indian Ocean, as its thirst for natural resources makes it more important to secure the sea lanes.

That offers countries like Sri Lanka ample opportunities. “Now the smaller countries have increasingly turned to China to influence India’s strategic interests, and thus silence it on human rights issues,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch.

She cited Burma, where, in the 1990s, India pressed for democracy and watched the military junta sidle up to Beijing. “Now India is concerned about China’s role in Sri Lanka because of control over the Indian Ocean,” she said.

Iran is the latest entrant. Late last year came the promise of a whopping $1.6 billion line of credit, primarily to help Sri Lanka buy Iranian oil.

Washington still counts. Sri Lanka is sore at losing American military aid and development assistance. The United States has also irritated the government by pressing for United Nations human rights monitors after the visit last October of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour. She said at the end of her visit that “the weakness of the rule of law and prevalence of impunity is alarming.”

That infuriated the government. Sri Lanka’s mission in Geneva sent out acerbic opinion pieces published in Sri Lankan newspapers. One, an editorial in the pro-government newspaper, The Island, declared that “those U.N. knights in shining armor tilting at windmills in small countries should be told that the protection of human rights is next to impossible during a fiercely fought war.”

Still, criticism over human rights continues to dog Sri Lanka.

Last Thursday, a report by Human Rights Watch blamed the government for a pattern of disappearances. The same day, an international Group of Eminent Persons that the government had invited to monitor Sri Lankan investigations into human rights violations said it was leaving; it cited “a lack of political and institutional will.”

The attorney general’s office responded by saying that the government would reconstitute the panel with “an alternate group of eminent persons.”

But however free Sri Lanka feels to dismiss Western concerns about human rights these days, there are still long-range costs it may find itself confronting one day.

The real Achilles’ heel for the government is looming economic trouble, as its war chest expands and inflation reaches double digits.

And in that, the world matters. For its failure to ratify certain international conventions, Sri Lanka already risks losing trade preferences with the European Union at the end of this year. And, however much China has risen in importance, Europe remains this country’s largest trading partner.

In the past few weeks Sri Lanka has come in for considerable criticism for the widespread human rights abuses by its security forces. Human Rights Watch published a detailed attack on the campaign of 'disappearances' being conducted against the Tamils (mainly). The United States’ State Department published its 2007 Country report slamming the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse for a range of ongoing abuses. The international panel observing Sri Lanka's 'investigations' into a select handful of extra-judicial killings stormed off, protesting obstruction by the government.

However, as always, this cacophony isn't going to amount to much because there will almost certainly be precious little by way of action. Yes, some countries have 'cut' aid to Sri Lanka - meaning they've stopped aid for now. Firstly, these states do intend to resume their aid at some less embarrassing moment in future. Secondly, they know that the shortfall will be more than made up by Japan and the new donors such as China.

When the Serbian military attacked Kosovo in the late nineties and drove 230,000 Albanians from their homes, the international community howled 'ethnic cleansing' and launched military action to force it out of the province. Yet when the Sri Lankan military launched a similar onslaught in 2006 against the Tamils of the Eastern Province, displacing almost 300,000, there was only silence - save the denunciations of the Liberation Tigers. Indeed, as soon as the Sinhala military announced the 'liberation' of the East in mid-2007, the democracies of the West announced their readiness to support Rajapakse's 'War of Development'.

We raise these points for two reasons; firstly to put the present international criticism in perspective and, secondly, to point out the futility of expecting the international community to respond to our suffering. To begin with, the present pressure on Sri Lanka to abandon the military option and pursue a political solution has more to do with the fierce Tamil Tiger resistance the US-trained military is struggling to overcome in the northern battlefronts. Whilst there is precious little 'independent' information from the warzones, one point is becoming increasingly clear: the military is unable to take and keep much ground. The offensives in Jaffna, Mannar and Manal Aru are bogged down. This is why various international actors are now fretting.

The strident criticism of late therefore has more to do with Sri Lanka's defiance of international advice than any genuine concern for Tamil suffering. After all, how is the present different to the past two decades? Remember the 'Chemmani mass graves'? In 1996 alone the Kumaratunga regime presided over the 'disappearance' of at least 600 Tamils in Jaffna. Yet, has the international community, which now makes much of 'responsibility to protect', ever taken this up, even during the halcyon days of the peace process? When the Sri Lankan military displaced hundreds of thousands of Tamils during Kumaratunga's 'War for Peace', did the international community pressure the state to stop? When the Tamil towns of Kilinochchi, Paranthan, Mankulam and Chavacachch-eri were blasted into the ground, did any international actor protest, let alone act?

The Sri Lankan conflict is an 'international issue' when it comes to containing and destroying the LTTE but an 'internal matter' (i.e. for the Sinhala state) when it comes to establishing a just solution. For six decades, the international community has dealt with a fiction: Sri Lanka the liberal democracy under attack from a violent Tamil insurgency. Under this logic, the problem is the Tamils, not the state. It is the demand for independence that is the problem, not the structural (discrimination, exclusion, persecution) and physical violence (military offensives, embargos on food and medicine) that the Tamils are being subjected to by the state.

The point here is the futility of Tamils appealing to the international order on the basis of their 'reasonableness'. In short, the international community is not interested in our problems; there's money to be made and geopolitical interests to be pursued. Over the past two years, numerous Tamil actors have taken up the plight of their people with the international community, especially the Western states. Yet there has been no substantive effort to crack down on the Sri Lankan state. This is not to say such efforts should be abandoned.; indeed, in the spirit of hope with which these are taken up, they must be followed through to their end. Rather, it is to ask why is that in response to all this lobbying, instead of taking up the Tamils' demands with the Sri Lankan state, the international community instead continues to insist, as it always has done, that it is up to the state to offer us a solution?

Jaffna District Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian, K. Sivanesan, was killed in a Claymore attack on his vehicle carried out by a Deep Penetration Unit of the Sri Lanka Army lying in ambush along the A9 highway in Tamil Tiger controlled Vanni.

His driver was also killed in the attack in which the DPU soldiers exploded four Claymore mines in a row, Tamileelam Police officials said.

Mr. Sivanesan's driver, Periyannan Maheswararajah, 27, a father of one, from Cheddiku'lam, Vavuniyaa, was killed on the spot.

The MP succumbed to his injuries while being rushed to Maangkulam hospital. He leaves behind his wife and four children, 2 sons and 2 daughters.

An 11-year-old boy from Kugnchukku'lam, Arulnaathan Lujithnathan, cycling on the road was also injured.

Mr. Sivanesan, born on 21 January, 1957, was General Manager of Northern Region Palm Development CO-OP society's Uni-Cluster, between 1996 and 2004, before being elected to Sri Lanka Parliament.

The only country to condemn the assassination was peace facilitator Norway.

Mr. Sivanesan had been part of a TNA delegation that visited Oslo last December to protest the Sri Lankan government’s persecution of the Tamil people.

In London a group of Parliamentarians from all of Britain’s main political parties Tuesday condemned the assassination and urged their government to rein in Sri Lanka’s hardline regime.

The Liberation Tigers conferred their highest civilian award on Mr. Sivanesan, the title of Maamanithar.

The leader of the Liberation Tigers, Velupillai Pirapaharan, paid his respects to the slain on Saturday. Senior LTTE leaders, including Intelligence Chief Poddu Ammaan, Political Head B. Nadesan and the Head of Financial Division Thamizheanthi accompanied Mr. Pirapaharan and also garlanded the casket.

Remembering Mr. Sivanesan's longstanding contribution to eradicating poverty in the Tamil areas through co-operative efforts, the Head of the LTTE Political Wing, Mr. B Nadesan, said the MP had always lived alongside the people.

“When people are displaced, he was also displaced; when civilians were getting bombed by the Sri Lankan military, he was there to help them.”

“He believed in empowering people through the cooperative structures at the grassroots. He believed wholeheartedly in the liberation of the Tamil homeland.”

“Although he never trusted that the parliamentary politics in the South would lead to the liberation of the Tamils, but worked to expose the failings of the system itself. When Tamils were deprived of political voice, he visited foreign countries to convey the plight of his people and served as the people's voice," Nadesan said.

Mr. Sivanesan is the latest of several outspoken Tamil parliamentarians murdered by Sri Lankan commandos or Army-backed paramilitaries.

Speaking in Oslo last December, he told reporters: “we are being looked upon in the Sri Lankan parliament as if we were representing a people of another country.”

Extracts of the official TNA statement follow:

"Mr. Sivanesan was elected to parliament from Jaffna district in 2004 general elections. He had shifted his family from Karaveddi, Jaffna to Mallaavi due to the closure of the A9 highway. He also faced threat to his life and him while residing in Karaveddi.

"Sivanesan participated in the debate in parliament on March 5 and voted against the motion extending the state of emergency for another month. Later, he left for Mallaavi where his family has been residing in his vehicle. He met his death on his way to Mallaavi. He had miraculously escaped a claymore explosion during the middle of last year in the same site targeting his vehicle.

"It is believed that the claymore attack targeting Mr. Sivanesan had been carried out by the Deep Penetration Unit of the Sri Lanka Army. Such attacks had been carried earlier in Vanni by the Deep Penetration Unit of the SLA.

"The TNA points out at this juncture that its parliamentarians Joseph Pararajasingham in Batticaloa, N.Raviraj in Colombo, former parliamentarians Chandra Nehru (Ampaa'rai), Sivamaharasa (Jaffna) and a candidate, Vigneswaran (Trincomalee) and several heads of local authorities in the North and East had also been killed in a planned way.

"The TNA stresses at this juncture that no force could stop Tamils voicing and fighting for the freedom of their community by killing its democratically elected representatives and subjecting them to intimidation and death threats.

"Mr. Sivanesan worked hard for the emancipation of the Tamil people, against social injustice and for the development of co-operative movement. He won the hearts of Tamils by his unwavering stand on the freedom struggle by his deed and speech. He dedicated himself from the young age for the liberation of his people.

"The death of Mr.Sivanesan is an irreparable loss to the Tamil community. His sacrifice would not go unrewarded. It would contribute to the liberation of the Tamil nation.

"We expresses our deepest condolences to his wife and children and the supporters."

Britain will be pressing Sri Lanka’s hardline government for greater access for senior UN officials and would join European allies in taking a stronger position against Colombo over human rights abuses.

In a meeting with Tamil Diaspora representatives at the British Foreign Office on February 25, Foreign Minister Lord Malloch-Brown said he would personally be attending the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva to press the point.

At the UN a few days later Lord Malloch-Brown strongly criticized the Colombo regime, saying “international concern had not made an impact [on it]”.

Saying Britain accepted Sri Lanka “facing considerable terrorist threat”, the minister told the UNHRC: “The international community condemned terrorism, but countering terrorism required respect for human rights.”

In response, Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe slammed Britain’s criticism, saying “it was difficult for some countries to let go of their colonial possessions.”

“Sri Lanka was proud of its records for combating terrorism, while minimizing harm to civilians,” Mr. Samarasinghe said, adding his country did not need to be told that countering terrorism required full respect for human rights.

“Sri Lanka was strengthening democracy and pluralism in a manner that had proved difficult in the past,” he asserted.

Speaking at a meeting with expatriate Tamils at the British Foreign Office on Feb 25, Lord Malloch-Brown said the government of President Rajapakse had “made political process secondary to military process.”

The British Tamil Forum (BTF), a Diaspora advocacy group which attended the meeting, quoted Lord Malloch-Brown as saying that there are two key issues with regards to Sri Lanka’s conduct: prosecution of war and failure to enter into serious negotiation, and human rights issues.

“I have told the [Sri Lankan] President, Foreign Minister and visiting delegation that we do not find the political process credible or serious. We feel that we really sought to push for a political negotiation as a way forward. There is no military solution to this problem,” Lord Malloch-Brown said.

“We are going to go on pushing hard to put the political negotiation back on track,” he said adding this will not be done from a bilateral position but by working closely with Europe, UN and the Commonwealth.

The UK will be demanding and pressing hard for wider access by Sir John Holmes, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, he said.

The UK will also demand that all recommendations made by Louise Arbour, Head of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Ms. Coomarasamy be implemented in full.

The purpose of the meeting called on Monday by the FCO was to engage with the Tamil Diaspora and understand their perspective to the conflict in Sri Lanka, the BTF statement said.

It was attended by Parliamentarians from Britain’s three major parties and members from the House of Lords heard views were made by different Diaspora representatives.

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian Gajan Ponnambalam was also present and spoke as part of the Tamil community.

Britain will support political solution with major devolution of power to the Tamil areas, Lord Malloch-Brown said, adding that Britain could not support independence for Tamils.

The BTF argued that UK and the rest of the international community “must explicitly make their support for Sri Lanka unity and territorial integrity conditional on the Tamil people collectively being satisfied with the state’s sharing of power and its governance.”

“Tamils safety and political future can only be guaranteed if the Sri Lankan state is restrained by international law,” the BTF told the meeting, adding that the international community must, on this basis, support the Tamils’ claim for independence, just as it had supported the Kosovars’.

“At independence in 1948 Sri Lankan State was entrusted with all minorities’ rights,” BTF spoksman Suren Surendiran told the meeting. “They have abused the trust against Tamils, human rights, free speech, pluralism and denounce the demand for statehood.”

He pointed out that in the 1977 elections, long before the armed conflict began, the overwhelming majority of Tamils voted for an Independent State as the only way to escape state repression.

TNA MP Ponnambalam noted that “even though I am an elected member of parliament I cannot espouse the wishes of the vast majority [of the Tamil] due to the 6th amendment of the Sri Lankan constitution [which outlaws advocacy of independence].”

Mr. Ponnambalam reiterated the position adopted by the TNA when it met Lord Malloch-Brown last summer, arguing that UK should make its development assistance conditional on human rights, progress in the political negotiations and implementation of the ceasefire agreement.

The UK should seriously consider trade and travel bans on Sri Lanka and the international community must take up the position that if the right to internal self determination of the Tamil people is denied any further, the right to external self determination of the Tamil people will have to be inevitably recognised, he said.

Whilst Lord Naseby, an advocate of the Sri Lankan government’s stance had denounced the BTF and its views, sources at the meeting said. However the organisation had been praised by Parliamentarians and the Foreign Minister had also welcomed their engagement with the British government.

“It is extremely important and absolutely correct for you as British citizens to organise and demand sympathy and support for your objectives from your local MPs. This is how the British democracy works,” Lord Malloch-Brown was quoted as telling the meeting.

“I wish the Sri Lankan democracy also worked that way. I want to register that point.”

Noting that “the British Tamils Forum has been labeled ‘terrorists’ and there had been some smear campaigns,” he observed: “I can draw parallel to my own experience. I have lived in the US for 21years. My wife is Irish American. We have been in the same position as you are. How do we support the change that we want in Northern Ireland while making sure that one doesn’t actually support violent acts against the British or the British Army?”

“There is always a case for freedom struggle and self determination,” the British Foreign Minister said.

The Indian central government last Saturday gave a clean chit to the Dravida Munnetta Kazhakam (DMK) regime in Tamil Nadu, saying it had done “better than others” in curbing security threats to the nation and there was no LTTE infiltration in the state.

On a visit to Ramanathapuram district, about 650 km south of Chennai, central Minister of State for Home Sri Prakash Jaiswal said, “The state government has done better than other states in dealing with national security and terrorism.”

He added Tamil Nadu's performance was “satisfactory” on the law and order front.

When compared to the “previous regime” of opposition leader J. Jayalalitha of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetta Kazhakam (AIADMK), “the situation under the DMK rule is very good”, he said adding there was no major terror activities in the state.

Jayalalitha, had earlier urged the centre to take action against Karunanidhi for his "support" to the LTTE.

A resolution adopted at the party's General Council said that Karunanidhi, after coming back to power, not only remained silent over LTTE supporters, but also went a step ahead and eulogized the death of S P Thamilchelvan, LTTE's former political head. It labelled Karunanidhi's elegy "an act of treason" and alleged that it would pave way for secessionism.

The resolution condemned the Indian Government for not initiating any action against Karunanidhi.

The General Council of the AIADMK also alleged that Tamil Nadu had become a haven for "extremists" and "terrorist forces".

Quizzed on the rise in activities of the Liberation Tigers in the state - as alleged by both the AIADMK and the state Congress - Jaiswal said the AIADMK leader was indulging in ”false propaganda” against the DMK regime.

Questioned about the Congress walkout from the assembly over the DMK's alleged support to the LTTE, even though the party is a DMK ally, Jaiswal said the Congress legislators were protesting the lack of opportunity to speak in the assembly.

Asked about central Finance Minister P. Chidambaram's appeal to the M. Karunanidhi government “not to allow LTTE activities in the state”, Jaiswal said he was “not aware of any LTTE infiltration” into Tamil Nadu.

Tamil leaders of Sri Lanka have rejected the island nation government’s devolution package aimed at ending the 25-year-old ethnic conflict saying the move was ‘a joke played on Tamils’.

The All Party Representation Committee (APRC), formed by the Mahinda Rajapakse government to counter LTTE’s struggle for separate homeland for Tamils in Sri Lanka, had submitted its report to the government last month.

The committee, consisting of 14 political parties, in its report had recommended implementation of the proposals for devolution contained in the 1987 India-Sri Lanka agreement, which were incorporated in the 13th amendment of the 1978 Sri Lankan constitution.

“Such recommendations were the ones that were rejected by the Tamils during early stages. The subsequent attempts were centered on the feasibility of enhancing the powers further,” Sri Lankan Community Development Minister P Chandrasekaran told PTI.

“Talking about the 13th amendment at the present stage will mean a hasty retreat from the point of resolution of the ethnic conflict,” he said.

Echoing his views, Lankan MP M K Sivajilingam of the pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance (TNA), said the Sri Lankan government’s move to devolve powers to region is a “joke played by them (Lankan government) on minority Tamils” who have “not been able to lead a peaceful life in their own nation”.

“Tamil Eelam is the only solution for the conflict,” he said.

Sivajilingam said these were the proposals, which had been rejected by Tamil leaders way back in 1956 and “Tamils can in no way accept this move” by a government, which “does not solve even the basic problems of its own citizens”.

Chandrasekaran said India should facilitate the peace process between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE.

“Norway, which has been in the process of facilitating peace, has been marginalised or sidelined. Our position in this regard is that India has all the qualifications to supersede Norway in facilitating the process,” he said.

The APRC in its report had recommended immediate conduct of elections in the Eastern province and urged the government to establish an interim council in the northern province to enable the people to enjoy the fruits of devolution as ‘free and fair polls’ was not possible there in the near future.

“The proposals cannot be accepted. It is an injustice rendered to the Tamils by the government. Why should there be different kind of arrangements for North and East,” asked Sivajilingam.

He wanted India to recognise the “Eelam liberation struggle” and help Lankan Tamils achieve their “long-cherished dream of Tamil as a nation and Tamil home land”.

“If a separate Tamil nation is formed, it will be in the best interests of India. So, we urge the Indian government to recognise our demands. We can’t ask help from anyone other than India,” he said.

The TNA leader also urged India to help in improving the social, economic and educational conditions of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

On claims that eliminating LTTE chief V Prabhakaran will solve the ethnic crisis, Sivajilingam said “No one can ever touch Prabhakaran. It is a dream of the Sri Lankan government, which will always remain as a dream. It exactly shows their childish behaviour”.

However, Chandrasekaran said such a move would be detrimental to the future well being of the Tamils.

Asked if Tamils would benefit from the devolution package, the minister said “without the concurrence of Tamil political parties, particularly the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, no such endeavours will succeed. It is the reality”.

On Rajapakse’s recent statement that a solution to the conflict through military means was not possible, Sivajilingam said “this shows the double standards of the Sri Lankan government. When they feel that a military solution is not possible why did they call off the ceasefire agreement signed in 2002?”

“The Rajapakse government is least interested in taking care of Tamils and the only choice for us is to fight against them,” he said.

Sivajilingam said the LTTE alone had the power to fight for the cause of Tamils and there is no alternative.

However, Chandrasekaran said the “universal remedy” for all evils is negotiations and the only alternative to LTTE’s endeavours is dialogue.

Sporting red T-shirts, with an Eelam map Australian Tamil youth from Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne gathered on February 12 in the Australian capital, Canberra, to voice support for the Tamil struggle and to highlight the worsening humanitarian situation in the northeast of Sri Lanka.

The 200 fans arrived wearing red "Voice of Tamils" T-shirts bearing the slogan "Where is the Humanity", and set up a party outside the gates with drummers, dancers and whistles before play.

They were attending a cricket match at Manuka Oval between Sri Lanka and India as part of the tri0nations tournament being played during the Australian cricketing season.

The youth were mainly Tamils of Sri Lankan origin and settled in Australia. Yahoo.com quoted Adrian Francis from this group as saying "It's more of a campaign than a protest.”

"We are doing this because we believe that Tamils in Sri Lanka are discriminated against and poorly treated. They are subjected to injustice in every possible walk of life and this has to change.”

Ground officials, claiming to be acting on behalf of Cricket Australia, would not let in two members of the group. The group was also advised not to fly Tamil flags.

Student Vekram Sambasivam said the Tamil sympathisers had come from Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, although they weren't necessarily supporting their home country.

"How can I when they do what they do to my people?" Sambasivam said.

"We came here to get some attention for our cause, but the guards explained that it was Cricket Australia's policy not to politicise the game with banners."

Francis, who said his parents were victims of this injustice, claimed this was the first public exhibition of their disgruntlement.

"We don't want to resort to hostilities. This is a peaceful way to draw attention. We chose to turn up for this cricket match because we felt this will help us draw attention."

According to Francis and a few of his fellow red shirts, this campaign will be seen in other places of Australia on course of this tri-series in future.

"Definitely in Sydney and Melbourne, where we have a sizeable presence. You can see how serious we are about this, we came all the way from Sydney," said someone identifying himself as Jayan. It's difficult to speculate how far reaching their effort will be or whether they have chosen the right platform to voice their displeasure.

But if drawing attention was their main objective, they did succeed in that endeavour. Not clear how enjoyable it was for the Sri Lankan team, they enjoyed the support nonetheless, as did many others.

Separately, the Canadian Tamil students from York University used Tamileelam flag as the rallying symbol as they exhibited prize winning entries in the cultural shows during the "multicultural week" event in York.

During the week-long event in York University, the Tamil Students’ Organization was selected as the best group.

"The goals of our group is to bring together the Tamil student community not only in York, but across all higher institutions in Canada, and to expose the student community to the cultural aspects that define our roots," key spokesperson for the group said.

More than 10,000 students and 60 different Student Organizations participated in the week-long event.

India has not only announced its continuing economic support for Sri Lanka this month, it has also put numbers, and signatures on the table.

During a business focussed visit to Colombo, an Indian Minister announced that over 2 billion dollars of investment was being lined up from businesses in his country who wished to invest in the island nation.

India’s Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh called on Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse in Colombo on February 14 and reiterated India’s commitment to provide economic foundation to the 13th Amendment to the island nation’s Constitution for devolution of powers.

He also presided over a timetable for a 5MW power plant in Sri Lanka’s east (see separate story).

In the course of the courtesy call on Mr. Rajapakse, Minister Ramesh said India would strengthen the economic muscle through investments in key areas.

Mr. Ramesh revealed during his visit to the island that investments of 2 billion dollars from business houses in his country into Sri Lanka are at a discussion stage.

"While 220 million dollars worth of Indian investment is already there in Sri Lanka and as much as 2 billion dollars of investments by Indian business houses into the Island country are under discussions," he told reporters after attending an Indo-Sri Lankan Investment Seminar.

Another 360 million dollars of Indian investments in value terms to Sri Lanka are also in the pipeline, the Indian central government Minister said.

The focus of the discussion is on education sector and textiles, the Indian Minister said. The bilateral trade and investments are expected to get a boost after the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), which is likely to be signed by both countries by April this year, he added.

He said, both countries are slated to enter into the CEPA ahead of the SAARC summit, scheduled for July in Sri Lanka.

Mr. Ramesh told the President and Prime Minister Ratnisiri Wickremenayake, whom he met separately, that economic development and integration was a major antidote to terrorism and it would help resolve the ethnic conflict to the satisfaction of all communities.

Mr. Wickremenayake told the Minister that his government was going ahead with the implementation of the Amendment in the east and provincial elections were likely to be completed by May.

He also said the government would soon appoint an interim provincial council as a preliminary step towards holding of elections.

Mr. Ramesh was heading a business delegation, comprising officials from Indian Oil, Oswal, Reliance textile group, Indo-Rama, Vardhaman and Mahindra and Mahindra.

Western countries this month called for a political process as the only means to end the bloodshed in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka's former colonial ruler Britain has called for a "political process" to end Sri Lanka's spiralling violence and condemned the latest wave of bombings against civilians.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in a statement released to mark the country’s 60th anniversary of independence said that the Sri Lankan government's unilateral withdrawal from a ceasefire with the Liberation Tigers did not mean both parties should stop protecting civilians, reported AFP.

“Violence can never provide an answer to Sri Lanka's problems,” Miliband said. “A sustainable solution to Sri Lanka's conflict can only emerge through a just political process involving all communities.”

“I call for an immediate end to practices which target civilians or put them in peril,” Miliband said.

“I urge all in Sri Lanka to take steps to safeguard the civilian population and find ways to reduce the violence.”

“People in Sri Lanka need to find space to realize their many similarities, rather than becoming further polarized by their differences,” Miliband said.

Separately, the US also echoed the call.

“Only a political solution to the country’s conflict that responds to the aspirations of Sri Lanka’s Tamil and other communities offers a way out of the current cycle of escalating violence,” the US embassy in Colombo said in a statement on February 3.

“We appeal urgently to all parties to the conflict to take every possible measure to avoid killing or injuring civilians,” the statement said.

Last month, during a visit to India, Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown had called for the shaping of a “new world order” in which the international community intervenes where populations are being threatened by "genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes or crimes against humanity, and the state is unwilling or unable to halt or prevent it."

The world has "a responsibility to protect" Mr. Brown said.

Earlier, in a British Parliamentary debate on Sri Lanka, junior Foreign Minister Kim Howell called for a new ceasefire and for UN monitoring of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.

MPs from all three main British parties agreed a UN human rights monitoring mission was needed and criticised the Sri Lankan government’s decision to abrogate the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement with the Liberation Tigers, a move which resulted in the withdrawal of international ceasefire monitors.

Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells said the end of the ceasefire meant "we have entered a dangerous new phase in Sri Lanka."

Britain, he said, has "to continue to work with international partners to make it clear that there cannot be a military solution, and to work for a cessation of hostilities."

"We must press the Government of Sri Lanka to address the grievances of Tamils through a credible and sustainable political solution. We must urge the LTTE to change," he said.

"We must work quietly and patiently behind the scenes with all the communities and with civil society in Sri Lanka to sow the seeds of a future resolution of the conflict."

"We must encourage the diaspora to play a bigger role in the search for peace," he also said.

Mr. Howells admitted "there is little substance around which to base negotiations," but said "the international community must clearly continue to stay engaged, stop the violence and help Sri Lanka build a credible environment for a sustainable peace process."

"Having chosen to end the ceasefire arrangement, the Sri Lankan Government have a clear responsibility to live up to their commitment to address the grievances of the Tamil people," he said.

"The international community will be watching carefully, and we do not want to see another false dawn," he warned.

He said the LTTE "must renounce terrorism and demonstrate a real commitment to democratic principles if it is to be regarded internationally as a legitimate political movement."

"Some Tamils argue that the military pursuit of self-determination is generated by a sense of despair that their grievances will never be addressed in a united Sri Lanka," he said.

"It is vital that the Government of Sri Lanka allay those fears and give them hope."

"For Sri Lanka to find a way forward, we need to see signs of genuine good will from the Government to any proposals for devolution that might emerge and a readiness on the part of disillusioned Tamils to contemplate alternatives to self-determination."

Unless Sri Lanka’s hardline government abandons its militarist path, the EU should impose sanctions, Germany said this week, adding that an EU-Troika will travel to Sri Lanka in early March to assess the situation.

In an interview with the Tages Speigel newspaper published on February 9, German Economic Cooperation and Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul also said Germany had frozen new development cooperation projects with Sri Lanka and, because of the deteriorating security situation, was withdrawing half their development personnel from the island as well as closing the German Development Bank there.

The English translation of extracts of the Tages Speigel interview with Minister Wieczorek-Zeul published in The Morning Leader newspaper on February 13 follow:

Q: In January the Government of Sri Lanka has withdrawn from the Ceasefire Agreement. What can Europe and the world do?

A: The international community must influence both parties to the conflict to seek a political solution and withdraw from the war which brings only suffering to the people. In the beginning of March an EU-Troika will travel to Sri Lanka. If the Sri Lankan government continues to insist on a military option, I will demand that the EU should withdraw the General System of Preference (GSP) offered to Sri Lanka. This concession enables Sri Lanka to export its goods and products to the EU at reduced or exempted tax and duty levies. This step will really bring economic pressure on the GoSL. For Sri Lanka a preference system plus is in place until the end of 2008 which, however, requires good governance.

If the EU continues to accept the present situation the plus is meaningless. The biggest portion of Sri Lanka's exports consists of textile exports. Only garment product exports to the EU markets are valued at US$ 1-2 billion annually. The other part is exported to the United States. It is also important to consult with the US which has also taken up a very critical position towards Sri Lanka in the past weeks.

Q: And development cooperation?

A: For the past two years we have not concluded any new agreements on cooperation as projects cannot be implemented due to the security situation. We are only engaged in completing what we have started earlier. We could make new agreements over _38 million, but we shall not do so at this point.

Q: How should the United Nations act?

A: It would be encouraging if the UN Security Council takes up this issue. However, it seems that it is difficult at the moment for the UN Security Council to act. However, what the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon can do without a formal decision of the Security Council is to send a special envoy to Sri Lanka.

After the departure of the Norwegian monitors who were in place since the Ceasefire Agreement of 2002 there is nobody to document human rights violations. The war is now again in full swing.

Q: Why has Sri Lanka failed to achieve peace after the tsunami of 2004 as it has happened in the Aceh Province of Indonesia?

A: After the tsunami I had greater hopes of Sri Lanka achieving peace than in Indonesia. There were so many initiatives from people from around the world. But it turned out to be different. The reconstruction in Aceh is successful and there is a responsible government set up even in the province of Aceh.

In the north and the east of Sri Lanka where many Tamils live we practically cannot further undertake development projects. I presume both parties to the conflict believe they can solve the conflict which continues from 1983 by military means. However, this is unrealistic. It will result only in more deaths numbering thousands.

Since 1983 more than 75,000 lives have been lost in the fighting between the government and the LTTE. The LTTE considers itself as a freedom movement but the EU banned the LTTE as a terrorist organisation almost two years ago. It is such a beautiful country and its people are very motivated. I feel a genuine responsibility for the people of this country. If the violence increases the international community has a responsibility to act.

Q: Should tourists travel to Sri Lanka?

A: It is up to the Federal Foreign Office of Germany to issue travel recommendations. However, we are withdrawing half of the personnel working in development cooperation and we will close the office of the German Development Bank (Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau), because the security situation is very critical.