The current exchange of charges and counter-charges between retired Gen. Sarath Fonseka and President Mahinda Rajapaksa must be particularly confusing to those Sri Lankans who consider both to be war heroes rather than war criminals. Many from the ethnic Sinhalese majority feel that, regardless of the human costs in the last months of the long-running civil war that ended last year, both leaders deserve credit for finally finishing off the terrorist Tamil Tiger rebels.

With the Sinhalese nationalist vote thus split, the two candidates are focusing their energies on winning the votes of the country’s minority ethnic Tamils — which is surely one of the stranger political ironies of early 2010. After all, both General Fonseka and Mr. Rajapaksa executed the 30-year conflict to its bloody conclusion at the expense of huge numbers of Tamil civilian casualties.

By early May, when the war was ending, the United Nations estimated that some 7,000 civilians had died and more than 10,000 had been wounded in 2009 as the army’s noose was being drawn tight around the remaining rebels and hundreds of thousands of noncombatants, who could not escape government shelling. The final two weeks likely saw thousands more civilians killed, at the hands of both the army and the rebels.

After the war, the Tamils’ plight continued. The government interned more than a quarter million displaced Tamils, some for more than six months, in violation of both Sri Lankan and international humanitarian law. Conditions in the camps were appalling, access by international agencies was severely restricted, and independent journalists could not even visit. Barbed wire and military guards insured people could not leave or tell their stories to anyone.

By the end of 2009, most of the displaced had been moved, and the nearly 100,000 remaining in military-run camps were enjoying some freedom of movement — important steps brought about mostly as a result of international pressure and the authorities’ desire to win Tamil votes. However, a large portion of the more than 150,000 people recently sent out of the camps have not actually returned to their homes nor been resettled. They’ve been sent to and remain in “transit centers” in their home districts.

Now, put yourself in a Tamil’s shoes, and decide whom to vote for in the presidential election: Choose either the head of the government that ordered the attacks against you and your family, or the head of the army that carried it all out.

On Jan. 4, the Tamil National Alliance, the most important Tamil political party, made its choice and endorsed General Fonseka after he pledged a 10-point program of reconciliation, demilitarization and “normalization” of the largely Tamil north. There is some hope his plan might be a sign that top leaders realize that, after decades of brutal ethnic conflict, peace will only be consolidated when Sinhalese-dominated political parties make strong moves toward a more inclusive and democratic state.

What counts more than campaign promises, though, is what the winner actually does in office, and based on past performance, it is hard to imagine either candidate making the necessary constitutional reforms to end the marginalization of Tamils and other minorities — the roots of the decades-long conflict. Left unaddressed, Tamil humiliation and frustration could well lead to militancy again.

While Sri Lankan voters face a difficult decision, for the international community, the choice is clear. Whoever wins, the outside world should use all its tools to convince the government to deal properly with those underlying issues to avoid a resurgence of mass violence. In the interest of lasting peace and stability, donor governments and international institutions — India, Japan, Western donors, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank — should use their assistance to support reforms designed to protect democratic rights, tie aid to proper resettlement of the displaced, and a consultative planning process for the reconstruction of the war-ravaged, overly militarized north. U.N. agencies and nongovernment organizations should have full access to monitor the programs to ensure international money is spent properly and people receiving aid are not denied their fundamental freedoms.

In short, this means not giving Colombo any money for reconstruction and development until we know how it will be spent. And if we see funds not being used as promised, it means not being afraid to cut them off until.

While there may not be much to choose between the candidates, the rift between General Fonseka and Mr. Rajapaksa — and the consequent divisions among Sinhalese nationalist parties and the renewed vigor of opposition parties — has at least put the possibility of reforms on the agenda. International leverage, correctly applied, could help expand this small window for change, leading to the democratization and demilitarization the country desperately needs to move finally beyond its horrific war and its bitter peace.

Chris Patten is co-chairman of the International Crisis Group.

The United Nations has turned down a request from Sri Lanka to send observers to monitor the country's presidential election later this month because of lack of time, a UN spokesman said.

Incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa is standing against 21 challengers in the January 26 vote, the first since the government crushed a 25-year rebellion by Tamil Tigers in May.

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said Sri Lanka's election commissioner and government had asked the world body to consider observing the election.

"In light of the limited lead time available" and because U.N. election observation requires a mandate from the General Assembly or Security Council, "the U.N. informed the commissioner and the government of Sri Lanka that it could not provide observers," Nesirky said.

The United Nations has not sent observers to monitor an election in any country for at least 10 years, Nesirky said, although it has provided technical assistance for votes in several nations, most recently Afghanistan.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Sri Lanka days after the end of the war against the Tigers. Some critics said his visit could be seen as endorsing the government's military victory.

Over two hundred internally displaced people (IDPs) had been relocated to a camp in Killinochchi instead of resettling in their homes, says one of the refugees who spoke to the BBC.

He told the BBC Sinhala Service, that they were taken from Vavunia to Killinochchi to be put in another camp.

"We were brought here from the Arunachalam camp in Vavunia. They told us that we would be permanently resettled in our own homes," he told the BBC.

Tamil inmates from Vavunia say that they are frustrated about the situation.

"We had been here in this camp for over a month now. We were promised that we would be going home within days. Latest we heard is that it will happen in a month".

The refugee who spoke to the BBC from Killinochchi, said there are fifty two families in this camp situated at Killinochchi Central School.

"Once we arrived, we were given dry rations, now we get cooked food like any other camp. The perimeter of the school is guarded by the Army,"he said.

"My house is only 800 metres away from this camp. We are kept in the school while there is an army camp where my house was. This is a new camp established since the end of the war".

The refugees are not allowed out by the authorities, he says.

"After days of protest, they took us in a bus for a hair cut. The barber was only one hundred metres down the road. We were taken back to the camp immediately after the haircut".

The IDPs in Kilinochchi are waiting to go back to their homes says the refugee who spoke to BBC Sandeshaya. 

Two weeks before Sri Lanka's Presidential elections, the gap between the two main contenders has, to the surprise of many, narrowed. While it is now no longer certain who the winner will be, the intensifying struggle between the incumbent, Mahinda Rajapakse, and his challenger, former Army chief Sarath Fonseka, typifies all that is wrong with Sri Lanka. In short, who wins - and how the subsequent Parliamentary polls unfold - is less important to Sri Lanka's future than how the international community engages with the Sinhala ethnocracy.

To begin with, amid the excitement of Fonseka's increasingly powerful challenge, what is largely forgotten is why he is a credible candidate in the first place: it is because both Rajapakse and Fonseka are self-confessed Sinhala chauvinists who share a vision of the island as a Sinhala-Buddhist bastion in which the Tamil-speaking minorities may exist provided they know their subordinate place. This is a view so widely shared as to be commonsensical amongst the Sinhalese and has been consistently reflected since independence in southern voting patterns and changes in state policy.

This is also why Fonseka has, with no difficulty, become the common candidate of the main Sinhala opposition. The market-friendly UNP (United National Party) and JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Perumana), the second and third largest Sinhala parties after Rajapakse's ruling SLFP (Sri Lanka Freedom Party), are bitterly opposed, both in terms of policy and history: it was a UNP regime which slaughtered sixty thousand Sinhala youth as it crushed the JVP's armed insurrection in the late eighties. What unites them now is a recognition that only an ultra-nationalist can win Sinhala votes in numbers sufficient to worry, let alone defeat, Rajapakse.

It has ever been thus. There are other Sinhala candidates with long political histories. Wickremabahu Karunaratne of the New Left Front (NLF) is one. But his platform of accommodation and equity between Sinhalese and Tamils has strikingly little standing amongst the former. No genuine liberal voice has any hope. That much has been clear since 1956.

Nonetheless, as Rajapakse's government and supporters are protesting ever more loudly, the West-led international community would rather there was a regime change in Colombo. Fonseka's challenge advances this cause. But were he and/or the UNP to assume power this year, an equitable and lasting ethnic peace on the island will, in the absence of close, robust and sustained international engagement, be no closer.

The main Tamil coalition, the TNA (Tamil National Alliance), last week hesitantly expressed its preference for Fonseka. This has undoubtedly been a difficult decision for the party. Rajapske and Fonseka jointly oversaw the cold-blooded slaughter by artillery, airstrikes and starvation, of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians. They conducted a murderous campaign of assassination, 'disappearance', torture and rape against Tamil civil society - journalists, aid workers, political activists and several TNA parliamentarians and activists. Inevitably, the TNA's decision to back one chauvinist and war criminal over another has discomfited, if not outraged, many Tamils and others.

But the TNA leadership's decision is not devoid of reason when situated in the deepening internationalization of Sri Lanka's ethnic crisis. They have rightly set out what they first expect from any new regime in Colombo: the urgent alleviation of the acute and multi-faceted humanitarian crisis that is gripping the Tamils and their homeland. They have also reiterated their commitment to the fundamentals of Tamil political aspirations.

Moreover, they have also made it clear that they expect nothing from Fonseka or the Sinhala polity more generally. As we and other Tamil voices argued when they were announced, the outcome of this year's polls will, in and of themselves, change nothing: the structural persecution and suffering of the Tamils will simply continue unabated. Rather, it is in the international community's commitment to an equitable solution that the TNA has placed its trust. Amid the long-standing international support for the Sinhala-dominated state, this has been dismissed by skeptics as naïve and is undoubtedly a conscious gamble.

For those who saw Sri Lanka's problems as the Liberation Tigers and the Tamil demand for Eelam, the present is a radical change from the past. For those who see it as one of deeply entrenched Sinhala majoritarianism - by which we mean not only the prevailing attitudes amongst the Sinhalese, but a principle embedded in state machinery and policy decisions - the present is a continuation of the past. The course of Sinhala majoritarianism - and Tamil resistance to it - will not change from within. Hence Sri Lanka's future will turn almost entirely on what happens from without.

Those in the traditional homeland are still recovering from the woes of the war; there has been no time for proper healing, rehabilitation or reconstruction. Most do not know where their loved ones are and whether they are still living or dead. They live in fear under a heavy military presence, with restricted freedom of movement.

Out in eastern Sri Lanka, Tamils suffer a continued armed paramilitary presence, and daily human rights violations that are perpetrated with impunity and with no independent investigation of these crimes. In the rest of the country, Tamils are forced to carry identity documents and are the only community compelled to register themselves with the local police.

If you were forced to choose between General Sarath Fonseka and President Mahinda Rajapaksa, then the former military chief is definitely the lesser of the two evils. But should the Tamils be backing him as their candidate in the upcoming election? I don't think so. General Fonseka, like the President, is implicated in war crimes and crimes against humanity. These two men were largely responsible for the deaths of our Tamil kith and kin and for the destruction of our homeland in the island of Sri Lanka.

They should be brought to court to answer for their crimes and, given that, I believe it is morally and ethically impossible to throw one's support behind either of these candidates.

During the past 62 years since independence, successive governments of Sri Lanka have signed many pacts and agreements with Tamils with and without international sponsorship. All of them, without exception, have been abrogated unilaterally on the government side.

We Tamils want a candidate who accepts that the Tamils have legitimate grievances and political aspirations, stands for justice, and works for the resolution for the political problem through genuine negotiations. If someone meets these criteria, then we Tamils will support him or her, regardless of ethnicity.

Previous ballots have always been rigged by government sponsors, bringing injustices to the people of the island, particularly the Tamils. The international community should monitor this election closely.

SQUATTING under an umbrella bearing an EU logo, a woman in a faded sari dips into her blue UNICEF bag and pulls out two towels, some toothbrushes and toothpaste, sanitary napkins and a small bottle of disinfectant.

She is soon ringed by hagglers wanting her paltry wares for even less than the pittance she asks.

Another woman clambers from a bus lugging a sack of flour donated by the World Food Programme. She jostles for space among the throngs of internally displaced Tamils peddling their rations near the hospital in Vavuniya in the north of Sri Lanka.

Just months ago, many of them were treated here for injuries sustained as the Sri Lankan army defeated Tamil Tiger rebels.

After the rout of the Tigers in May, nearly 300,000 Tamils who fled the fighting were fenced inside sprawling camps near Vavuniya. After concerted foreign pressure the government opened the camps on December 1st. It was also swayed by the need for Tamil votes in the hotly contested presidential election to be held on January 26th.

Almost at once dozens of displaced civilians started taking their staple dry rations to town. They sell lentils, wheat-flour, parboiled rice, curry powders, chickpeas and toiletries. There are mosquito nets and cloth nappies, tea, slippers and even a vegetable grater. Traders are arriving from other parts of the country.

Prices are at wholesale levels or below, and one says she had heard she could get things cheap for her grocery shop. Some of the poorer camp inmates make money from occasional odd jobs and manual labour. But there is too little work to go around.

So selling the rations seems the natural thing to do—not, one adds earnestly, that they are given too much. Rather, it is the only way to earn money to pay for other needs.

Vavuniya may soon lose its pavement hawkers, however. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has promised to resettle all displaced civilians in their home villages by January 31st. His main electoral challenger is his former army commander, Sarath Fonseka. They will split the vote of the Sinhalese majority. So both need to court minorities, notably the Tamils.

U.L.M. Haldeen, of the Ministry of Resettlement, says hundreds of families have already been taken back to their villages and given tin roofing sheets, a cash grant and cooking utensils to help them rebuild their lives. He says only 101,113 of the 300,000 remain in camps, and denies allegations that the displaced are being quietly moved into other temporary housing, as the government flounders around in search of a coherent resettlement plan.

Many of the displaced show no interest in the election. One says he will vote, but only because it means he can visit his village. Another stares back blankly when asked if she knows the candidates. No idea, she says, distracted by a uniformed policeman who wants to buy a mosquito net. His small change matters more than the would-be presidents’ promises.

The Sinhala Buddhist extreme nationalist organisation, Patriotic National Centre (PNC) led by Buddhist Monk Venerable Dhambara Amila Thero, on Thursday December 24, announced that it has decided to support General (retd) Sarath Fonseka, contesting in the forthcoming Sri Lankan presidential elections.

Dhambara Amila Thero has been opposed to outside influence, both the Western and the Indian, since the Norwegian brokered Ceasefire Agreement in 2002 and his movement has been a key opinion maker of the Sinhala nationalism, exercising the pressure on the Sri Lankan state to nullify the Norwegian brokered P-TOMS in 2005 and to unilaterally withdrew from the Ceasefire Agreement in 2008. Ven. Dhambara Amila Thero was formerly the leader of the National Bhikku Front (NBF), an ultra Sinhala nationalist organisation of Buddhist monks.

The PNC leader Dhambara Amila Thero at a media briefing held Thursday at Colombo National Library Auditorium said that his organization supported General Sarath Fonseka who achieved the country’s 'main goal', by 'defeating terrorism.'

The extremist monk who preferred Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2005 has commented that Fonseka, whom he met recently, knew more about politics than the individuals who had succeeded in politics in recent times.

Rajapaksa's dependency on certain powers and his family-centered politics has caused certain sections of extreme Sinhala Buddhists to prefer Sarath Fonseka, said a newspaper editor in Colombo commenting that the move by the Sinhala nationalist monk also demonstrated that the Sinhala nationalists were confident in taking forward their agenda facing any eventuality at the elections.

With the Presidential elections less than a month away, campaigning by the two leading candidates, President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gen. Sarath Fonseka (retd.) has gone into top gear with both making numerous promises to entice voters.

When Rajapakse announced his plan to hold the presidential election two years before his current term expires, he was hoping to capitalise on defeating the LTTE for his re-election. With the opposition not being able to counter Rajapaksa’s claiming of credit for the war victory, a landslide win for him was a forgone conclusion.

Unfortunately for Rajapaksa, the emergence of the Fonseka, his former military chief, as the rallying point for most of the opposition parties has made the election a tough fight for Rajapaksa.

Rajapaksa and his Fonseka, who as the army commander also claims credit for defeating the LTTE, have been at loggerheads since the end of the conflict.

Late last year, accusing the government of sidelining him and falsely suspecting him of trying to stage a coup, Fonseka quit his military post and threw his lot into the presidential election.

As hard-line Sinhala nationalists both Fonseka and Rajapaksa claim credit for defeating the LTTE in May and appeal largely to their own ethnic group.

True to their Sinhala nationalist leanings Fonseka and Rajapaksa chose cities holy to the Sinhalese majority to kick off their campaigns with religious blessings and rallies. Whilst Fonseka kicked off his campaign in the hill city of Kandy, home to a sacred relic of Buddha, Rajapaksa kicked off his campaign in Anuradhapura, a seat of ancient Sinhala kings.

Whilst Rajapksa is standing on an openly Sinhala nationalist platform,  focusing on the Sinhala votes, Fonseka has cobbled together an anti-Mahinda coalition comprising of opposition parties who have come together despite having little commonality in their policies.

Rajapaksa, as commander-in-chief of security forces and Fonseka as overall commander of security forces are accused of crimes against humanity for the brutal way in which they conducted the war in which tens of thousands Tamils were massacred.

Chris Patten chairman of International Crisis Group and former Governor of Hong Kong writing in the International Herald Tribune wrote: “[P]ut yourself in a Tamil's shoes, and decide whom to vote for in the presidential election: Choose either the head of the government that ordered the attacks against you and your family, or the head of the army that carried it all out.”

For Tamils, this presidential election is no different to the previous ones - an exercise for the Sinhala nation to choose their leader. Tamils do not expect either candidate to take any meaningful steps to address their legitimate political aspirations.

Interestingly neither does the international community, based on Patten’s comments.

“What counts more than campaign promises, though, is what the winner actually does in office, and based on past performance, it is hard to imagine either candidate making the necessary constitutional reforms to end the marginalization of Tamils and other minorities - the roots of the decades-long conflict. Left unaddressed, Tamil humiliation and frustration could well lead to militancy again.” wrote Patten.

“While Sri Lankan voters face a difficult decision, for the international community, the choice is clear. Whoever wins, the outside world should use all its tools to convince the government to deal properly with those underlying issues to avoid a resurgence of mass violence. In the interest of lasting peace and stability, donor governments and international institutions - India, Japan, Western donors, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank - should use their assistance to support reforms designed to protect democratic rights, tie aid to proper resettlement of the displaced, and a consultative planning process for the reconstruction of the war-ravaged, overly militarized north. U.N. agencies and nongovernment organizations should have full access to monitor the programs to ensure international money is spent properly and people receiving aid are not denied their fundamental freedoms.”. Patten added

“In short, this means not giving Colombo any money for reconstruction and development until we know how it will be spent. And if we see funds not being used as promised, it means not being afraid to cut them off.” Patten concluded.

Unfortunately, Rajapaksa’s manifesto had no evidence of a real effort by the Sri Lankan President to address the Tamil national question.

In his 14-point programme manifesto titled `A brighter future’ Rajapaksa promises “a unitary state, not to be divided” indicating no meaningful power devolution and no changes to the existing constitution.

According to the manifesto, Rajapakse will put Sri Lanka in a prominent position in Asia and the world and focus on developing the country in the next decade which he declared as the "Development Decade" of Sri Lanka.

Speaking at the launch of the manifesto, President Rajapaksa conceded that having to spend most of the four years of his first in term in fighting terrorism, and also the many international forces that sought to obstruct the efforts to defeat the most ruthless organisation in the world, he had barely six months left to address other important issues, according to Hindu newspaper published in India.

He promised that his next term would be wholly devoted to addressing these issues that would take the country to development and progress, giving priority to the battle against corruption with the same determination with which he had fought the underworld and terrorism, the newspaper further reported.

Rajapaksa is trying to portray himself the leader who stood against international pressure to protect the nation whilst portraying the opposition parties as trying to give into terrorism by forming alliance with the Tamil National Alliance.

"These groups are trying to make way for another Eelam struggle in this country", Rajapaksa told the gathering on the occasion.

Copies of the manifesto were first presented to the Maha Sangha and all religious dignitaries present on the occasion.

A few days earlier, Fonseka launched his common minimum programme, titled "Vishvasaneeya Venasak" (Believable Change), setting out 10 points he will accomplish if he is elected.

Presenting his plan Fonseka told reporters he is not a politician but a government servant by profession and does not belong to any party but is a Sri Lankan who is acceptable to all.

In his programme, Fonseka pledged to maintain cordial and friendly ties with all countries world over and requested for an opportunity to be granted to establish democracy, wipe out corruption, and ease the burden the people are faced with.

"Life is harder under the Rajapaksas. Corruption, bribery, nepotism and ego-boosting extravagance are holding back the development of our country and hurting families," Fonseka told reporters at the launch of his manifesto.

In keeping with a Sri Lankan election tradition of populist subsidies, he promised higher public sector salaries and welfare payments, both of which are supported by one of his backers, the Marxist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party, but contradictory to the open market policies including privatisation and reduction in government expenses of another one his backers, the main opposition, United National Party.

Similarly, JVP and the Tamil National Alliance which announced its decision to back Fonseka have opposing views on the Tamil national question.

Political Analysts say whilst Fonseka may have not taken openly Sinhala nationalistic position, by trying to be everything to everyone, he may turn out to be nothing to anyone.

Tamil activists in America have been rapidly stepping up a boycott campaign, urging consumers to make an ethical choice and refuse to purchase goods made in Sri Lanka.

The latest in this movement was a viral video released by “Boycott Sri Lanka” as part of their “No Blood for Panties” video series.  

Less than 10 days since the release of the video it has attracted the attention of many people in the textile industry of Sri Lanka and even US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Patricia Butenis.

“We have seen reports of the boycott. Private citizens have organized the action,” said the ambassador.

“In the United States, citizens have the right to organise such campaigns and to decide what they buy.”

The light-hearted video has already had nearly 10,000 views and is aimed at persuading consumers to boycott Sri Lankan made lingerie, a major industry for the country which supplies major brands such as Victoria’s Secret.

Sri Lanka’s textile industry netted a record $3.47 billion from EU markets last year, making it the country’s top source of foreign exchange, followed by remittances of $3 billion and tea exports of $1.2 billion.

The USA was Sri Lanka’s single most important trading partner, receiving 23% of Sri Lankan exports, and 40% of Sri Lanka’s garment exports, amounting to $1.9 billion in 2008.

"Sri Lanka uses tax revenue from the textile industry to oppress Tamil civilians and detain them in IDP internment camps," explained Anjali Manivannan from Boycott Sri Lanka.

"No Blood For Panties sends the powerful message that buying 'Made in Sri Lanka' items and supporting state-sponsored human rights violations is unsexy. It sends the message that being a conscious consumer is where true sexiness is."

Michael O’Rourke of Dimension7, directed the series of videos.

"The story narrative of No Blood For Panties takes on the idea of how events in the far corners of the world impact our very personal lives," said O'Rourke.

"This video series turns the popular axiom of 'sex sells' on its head by using the same approach to actually promote activism."

The release of the video coincides with a series of protests being held across the USA.

Four protests have been held in Atlanta since September at North Point Mall, a super-regional shopping mall serving the affluent part of the metropolitan Atlanta.

Protestors held placards and distributed leaflets as protestors across the country united. Similar rallies were held in Florida and San Francisco with brands such as Gap and Victoria’s Secret.

"The response from the public was very encouraging. There were about ten thousand cars cross that junction in those four hours, and we had a big "BOYCOTT SRILANKA" sign in the centre, which drew attention of the drivers; we were able to see most of the passengers in all lanes looking at the signs. Some of the drivers crossed lanes to get the information about the Boycott and picked the flyers," a Florida protest organizer said.

Activists in Washington DC and Delaware targeted Banana Republic stores, while in New York a large mobile billboard was used. A truck with a large billboard showing images of Tamil refugee suffering drove along popular shopping clusters in New York city, including 34th Street and Broadway. Lighting arrangements in the truck enabled the campaign to extend until early evening 7:00 p.m.

Organizers for the campaign said that the campaign will continue on a regular basis. "If sufficient donors show interest we are prepared to activate this campaign frequently to have maximum impact," an organizing member said.

The campaign places even more pressure on the Sri Lankan garment industry, with the recent suspension of the GSP Plus program. Campaigners have urged consumers across the globe to boycott Sri Lankan goods and encourage others to do follow.

It was cold, misty, and miserably wet the day we visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, but no one wished for better weather. My companions -- mostly midlevel diplomats from more than a dozen countries around the world -- all seemed to agree that sunshine would have been almost offensive. We had come to this corner of Poland as part of a weeklong seminar on preventing genocide, which included such outings so that the participants could learn more about the details of the Holocaust. And yet, I wondered if this field trip was having its desired effect.

There is probably no more appropriate single location than Auschwitz-Birkenau for grasping the scope of the Nazi horror. But the unprecedented and unequaled nature of that horror makes it somewhat inappropriate as a useful lesson for preventing genocide today. When you're waiting for something that looks like Birkenau, it's almost too easy to say, "never again."

From March 1942 to late 1944, Birkenau was the largest factory of mass murder in wartime Europe. Every day, trains arrived carrying thousands of people -- mostly Jews, but also Poles, Roma, and others -- and apart from a limited number deemed fit for slave labor, they were sent immediately to their deaths in massive, purpose-built gas chambers. At its peak, Birkenau could kill as many as 20,000 people a day, and in the end, this place was the worst of the extermination camps: The Nazis are estimated to have murdered over a million people here.

It was the mechanization of murder on a scale never before seen, and it stretched far beyond the grounds of this camp. With victims shipped in from all across Europe, this was an integrated system of collection, transport, and execution that covered a continent. It was precisely that sort of industrialization that I feared might inhibit an understanding of mass atrocity among the participants. Walking around Birkenau with these diplomats, some of whom represent states on the edge -- a few perhaps even over the edge -- of mass atrocities right now, I got the feeling some might have missed the point.

The Holocaust was a minutely organized and completely structured -- not to mention disturbingly well-documented -- genocide, miles away from the messy realities of their countries. They could look at the camp and the gas chambers and recognize nothing familiar. In fact, the visit may have only confirmed their belief that their countries were incapable of mass atrocities, when all they are really incapable of is the industrialized method.

The passage of time and the different cultural context of mid-20th-century Central Europe only added to the distance, making the events of that era seem even less familiar to African, Latin American, and Asian participants living in 2009. It is harder to identify parallels with one's own culture, harder to see the signs and harder to admit any similarities. It allows a psychological distance from anything that might occur in their countries.

Of course, this is not the intention of the seminar organizers, the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation's Raphael Lemkin Center for Genocide Prevention and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. The goals of this unique and admirable project were, first, to train government policymakers in the latest genocide and conflict prevention and intervention strategies. Second, the organizers are seeking to help these participants build an international network of diplomats and others who understand the warning signs and can act to help halt disaster before it strikes.

Seminar instructors, like me, deliberately pointed out the universal potentials, stressing the similarities between the Holocaust and later genocides and other mass atrocities. Still, I sensed both organizers and speakers had a bit of a tough time reaching some participants. Perhaps it is simply too hard to compete with the place-specific impressions one gets upon visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau. I did naturally talk to some participants about this -- about how what they saw resonated with them and their own countries' situations and potentials -- but it was rather unsatisfying.

This issue goes far beyond a couple dozen participants in a seminar in Poland. I suspect too many people in the wider international community still only recognize genocide in this one most specific sense. They are always looking for Birkenau -- expecting industrialized killing rather than seeing genocide the way it unfolds today. They ignore the evidence that in the right environment, simple machetes can be just as effective as rail networks and gas chambers.

"Genocide" is too limiting a term in any case. In recent years, governments have not necessarily been exterminating entire subgroups en masse with crystal-clear intent. Yet some governments show no qualms about shelling huge numbers of ethnic minority civilians trapped in confined war zones, as we saw in Sri Lanka earlier this year. More common still are governments that kick one ethnic group off its land and force the people into displacement camps where they become permanent wards of international humanitarian agencies -- think Darfur, for example, to mention just one place commonly labeled a "slow-motion genocide."

To get hung up on definitions of "genocide" -- or "war crimes," "crimes against humanity," or "ethnic cleansing" for that matter -- is to miss the point entirely, and the possibility of prevention, almost certainly. Arguing over the fulfillment of categories wastes valuable time better spent saving lives.

Some have suggested separating the legal definitions of these atrocities, which are needed by lawyers arguing the case long after the fact, from the political definitions, which would require a simpler burden of proof to encourage swift, preventive action by the international community. But even if you could get beyond fears of a "hair-trigger" approach, you are still more or less where you started: Definition is held to be paramount, when the real issue is political will.

Washington's stance toward Rwanda and Darfur illustrate this perfectly. In the former, the Clinton administration went through various contortions to avoid calling it a genocide, while in the latter, the Bush administration took a long look and declared it a genocide. But whether or not the G-word was used, the result was the same: The White House did exactly what it wanted to do or thought it could do to stop the killing -- conscience-salving quick fixes and half-measures with little or no effect.

Expanding the focus from strictly genocide to "atrocity crimes" may seem an improvement, but it still sets up definitions that have to be evaluated and can anyway be ignored whether the definitions are fulfilled or not. In other words, it all comes down to politics anyway, so fooling around with definitions seems pointless at best, and deliberate and deadly delay at worst.

If generating political will is the only issue, then the organizers of this seminar have the right idea to establish a network of career diplomats who have some knowledge of genocide and the techniques employed to try to prevent it. And they do see the importance of cultural context in expanding sympathy for the victims and the need to stress that atrocity crimes can emerge anywhere: The next seminar will be in Latin America.

Theirs is long-term work, to be sure, but if they can get enough diplomats and government officials through a program that stresses the universal potential of atrocity crimes and the possible steps for their prevention, then it might just have some positive effect on establishing political will in future cases of mass murder, when nothing will look remotely like Birkenau.

Sri Lanka’s former Army Commander has claimed that his forces were responsible for

the killing of surrendering senior members of the Liberation Tigers in May this year.

Presidential candidate Major General Sarath Fonseka (retd) initially accused Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Shavendra Silva, commander of army’s 58th division as directly responsible for the assassination of LTTE’s political leaders Balasingham Nadesan, Seevaratnam Puleedevan and police chief Ramesh.

Fonseka claimed that the army was ordered to execute the surrendering LTTE leaders.

He also named presidential advisor Basil Rajapaksa, Norwegian minister Erik Solheim and various foreign parties as people involved in the episode, according to a story in the latest The Sunday Leader newspaper.

But the following day, he qualified the statement, taking responsibility, as the army chief, of what happened on the nights of May 16 and 17 on a patch of marshy land near the north-eastern coast.

Fonseka said he had been personally unaware of the Tamils' attempts to give themselves up, which included frantic last-minute appeals for help to a Norwegian minister, diplomats, journalists and UN and Red Cross officials.

"Later I learned that Basil [Rajapaska, a senior presidential adviser] had conveyed this information to the defence secretary, Gothabaya Rajapaksa, who in turn spoke with Brigadier Shavendra Silva, commander of the army's 58th division, giving orders not to accommodate any [Tiger] leaders attempting surrender and that they must all be killed," Fonseka told The Sunday Leader newspaper in Colombo.

Fonseka said Nadesan, head of the Liberation Tigers’ political wing, Puleedevan, head of the group's peace secretariat, and Ramesh had been assured through intermediaries by Basil Rajapaksa and Gothabaya Rajapaksa, brothers of the president, that they would be given safe conduct.

According to subsequent accounts, the men were advised: "Get a piece of white cloth, put up your hands and walk towards the other side in a non-threatening manner."

"It [the surrender method] was their idea," Fonseka told the newspaper, referring to Basil and Gothabaya Rajapaksa.

When the three men approached government lines some time after midnight on 17 May they walked into a trap, Fonseka suggested. Troops opened fire with machine guns, killing all three and a number of family members.

A Tamil eyewitness account said Nadesan's wife, a Sinhalese, called in Sinhala to the soldiers: "He is trying to surrender and you are shooting him." She also died in the hail of bullets.

The chief intermediary was Norway’s Erik Solheim, The Sunday Leader said, while including the ICRC too in the process.

Fonseka said that he came to know what exactly had happened after the event through journalists who had been with Shavendra Silva’s Brigade Command at that time.

These journalists were privy to the telephone message from Gotabhaya to the Brigade Commander, ordering the latter not to accommodate surrenders but to simply go ahead and kill them, Fonseka said.

The Sri Lankan government reacted angrily, denying the allegation.

Responding to Fonseka, Mahinda Samarasinghe, the human rights minister, said: "The government totally denies this allegation … We reject this malicious allegation against our heroic soldiers."

Offering yet another version of events, he said the senior LTTE cadres were carrying white flags in an attempt to fool the army and were not trying to surrender.

Basil Rajapaksa told the Sunday Leader he had not been contacted by a Norwegian intermediary over the surrender offer.

Gothabaya Rajapaksa and Brigadier Silva have not commented in public on Fonseka's claims.

The next day Fonseka appeared to qualify his statements.

At no point of the war any member of the Army violated internationally accepted rules of war, he said.

"They (army soldiers) never committed any criminal act. There was no attempt at surrender on May 17, 18 and 19," he said.

He would take full responsibility for any human rights violations during the final stages of the war, Fonseka further added.

Fonseka said he never said that defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa had ordered Silva to eliminate surrendered LTTE leaders.

Despite disavowing his earlier remarks, Fonseka's claims about the circumstances surrounding the three men's deaths resemble contemporaneous reports in regional and western media that were denied by the Sri Lankan government, reported Britain’s The Guardian newspaper.

There is little doubt that the three LTTE leaders were negotiating to surrender. Diplomatic sources had confirmed that S Pathmanathan – then LTTE’s international relations chief – called up top UN officials on the intervening night between May 15 and 16, telling them the LTTE was ready to lay down arms, reported the Hindustan Times.

Tamil news reports two days later said that Nadesan and Pulidevan were shot by the army dead while surrendering. “We were instructed to make contact with the 58th Division of the Sri Lankan forces in the war zone, un-armed and carrying white flags…They…were called on by the officers of the 58th Division to come forward for discussions. When they complied they were shot and killed,” KP said in a statement.

At the time, the Sri Lankan government vehemently denied this, saying they were killed by their own angry cadres.

Former foreign secretary, Palitha Kohona told AFP: “I told them to…take a white flag and walk slowly towards the army lines in an unthreatening manner. What I learnt subsequently is that the two of them were shot from behind as they tried to come out. They had been killed by the LTTE.”

Meanwhile, Tamil circles commenting on Fonseka's 'revelations', said both the SLA Commander Fonseka and Commander-in-Chief Mahinda Rajapaksa cannot explain away their involvement in war crimes and the crimes against humanity, reported TamilNet.

"The International Community has a responsibility to at least conduct an investigation on the last-minute facilitation to which it should have necessary evidences," the Tamil sources further told the news site. 

The United States Congress imposed military assistance to Sri Lanka and called for the Secretary of State to submit a report on the alleged crime against humanity during the last phase of the 30-year-old civil war there.

The Senate and House Conference report of the 2010 Appropriations Bill published on Friday December 11 directed the Secretary of State to submit a report supplementing her report on October 21 on crimes against humanity in Sri Lanka detailing whether any measures have been taken by Colombo and international bodies to investigate such incidents, and evaluating the effectiveness of such efforts, according to Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency.

A section in the Bill, which deals with US financial assistance to Sri Lanka, restricts any military assistance to Colombo until the Secretary of State certifies to the Committee on Appropriations that Sri Lanka is suspending and bringing to justice members of the military who have been credibly alleged to have violated internationally recognized human rights or international humanitarian law. The Senate is expected to pass the 2010 Appropriations Bill this weekend, PTI added.

While the report welcomed the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, PTI said the report  expressed concerned over the displaced Tamils who are still detained in closed camps, as well as other persons who have been imprisoned or are being prosecuted for publicly reporting attacks on civilians.

According to PTI, the Congressional report expressed further concern at the lack of credible steps taken by the Sri Lankan state to promote reconciliation among Tamils and other minority ethnic groups.

The conference agreement includes a provision directing the Secretary of the Treasury to instruct the United States executive directors of the international financial institutions to vote against financial support for Sri Lanka, except to meet basic human needs, unless certain requirements are met, reported PTI.

"...If all conditions are met by Sri Lanka, then the Secretary of State should ensure that any military assistance to Sri Lanka be used to support the recruitment and training of Tamils into the Sri Lankan military, Tamil language training for Sinhalese military personnel, and human rights training for all military personnel," the 2010 Appropriations Bill said.

Video footage that appears to show Sri Lankan troops committing war crimes by summarily executing captured Tamil Tiger fighters on the battlefield was not fabricated, as claimed by the Sri Lankan Government, an investigation by The Times found.

The video of the alleged battlefield executions, which was aired on Channel 4 in August, shows a naked man, bound and blindfolded, being made to kneel.

Another man, dressed in what appears to be Sri Lankan army uniform, approaches from behind and shoots him in the head at point-blank range.

“It’s like he jumped,” the executor laughs. The camera then pans to show eight similarly bound corpses.

A 10th man was also shot in the same way towards the end of the video with men in the background gloating over the killings.

It is impossible to confirm when and where the filming occurred or the identities of the men shown, noted the Times.

Channel 4 stressed in its original report that it could not verify the authenticity of the video which it received from a group called Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka.

The group claims the video footage was taken in January by a soldier using a mobile phone.

The United Nations said at the time that it was viewing the footage "with the utmost concern" but could also not verify the video.

The Sri Lankan government has claimed that it has “established beyond doubt” that the footage was fake. It denies that the video shows soldiers shooting unarmed, naked men.

An analysis for The Times by Grant Fredericks, an independent forensic video specialist who is also an instructor at the FBI National Academy, suggests otherwise, the Times report said.

He found no evidence of digital manipulation, editing or any other special effects. However, subtle details consistent with a real shooting, such as a discharge of gas from the barrel of the weapon used, were visible, the report said.

“This level of subtle detail cannot be virtually reproduced. This is clearly an original recording,” said Mr Fredericks, who was previously the head of the Vancouver police forensic video unit in Canada.

There was also strong evidence to rule out the use of actors. “Even if the weapons fired blanks, the barrel is so close to the head of the ‘actors’ that the gas discharge alone leaves the weapon with such force it would likely cause serious injury or death,” Mr Fredericks told The Times.

The reactions of those executed was consistent with reality, he added. “The victims do not lunge forward . . . [they] fall backward in a very realistic reaction, unlike what is normally depicted in the movies.”

In Mr Fredericks’s opinion “the injury to the head of the second victim and the oozing liquid from that injury cannot be reproduced realistically without editing cuts, camera angle changes and special effects. No [errors] exist anywhere in any of the images that support a technical fabrication of the events depicted,” he said.

The Sri Lankan Government conducted its own investigations into the video in September and concluded that the footage was “done with a sophisticated video camera, dubbed to give the gunshot effect and transferred to a mobile phone.”

Mr Fredericks’s research showed that code embedded in the footage appeared to match with software used in Nokia mobile phones. He said: “The recording is completely consistent with a cell phone video recording and there are no signs of editing or alterations.”

The strong evidence that the footage does show real executions could reinforce international calls for an independent war crimes investigation, reported The Times — something that the Sri Lanka Government has resisted.

The Times UK report closely matches the key findings by the US Colorado-based Image and Sound Forensics (ISF) experts who performed the analysis on behalf of US pressure group Tamils Against Genocide (TAG).

Colorado ISF's report, parts of which appeared in the Sunday Leader, had previously confirmed, "[t]he video and audio of the events depicted in the Video, were continuous without any evidence of start/stops, insertions, deletions, over recordings, editing or tampering of any kind."

Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions had earlier declared the video investigations by the local 'experts' appointed by the Sri Lanka Government as "not impartial."

However, Philip Alston's assertion that UN will conduct its own investigations on the authenticity of the video has not materialized.

Meanwhile, TAG spokesperson when contacted by TamilNet said, "While we have published the summary of the findings, ISF is due to provide TAG a detailed technical report detailing the analysis carried out." 

Thousands gathered on Saturday, November 28, to commemorate Heroes Day 2009 in an outpouring of grief in Sydney.

A series of artistic and visual tributes, including a spectacular centre piece display carrying the symbols of Tamil Eelam set behind commemorative tombstones, illuminated Parramatta Park amid an atmosphere of reflection and resolve as over 2000 members of the Diaspora paid tribute to the fallen soldiers of the liberation movement and reaffirmed their commitment to the establishment of Tamil Eelam.

The sister of LTTE Political head B. Nadesan, along with family of Colonel Amuthap lit the flame of sacrifice to mark the event, which featured songs, poetry and a series of provocative dramas portraying the horrors of Mullivaiykal and the sacrifices made by the fallen soldiers throughout the struggle.

Organized by the Tamil Coordinating Committee (TCC), the event began at 6:30 with a minutes silence before an hour long anjali commenced as members of the public offered flowers and prayer to the fighters who have laid down their lives for the pursuit of freedom.

Tamil author and academic Murugar Gunasingham called upon global powers to recognize their complicity in the carnage and immense civilian casualties that took place during the final phases of the military onslaught, citing Pakistan, China, India and Iran as collaborators who "hastened the mechanisms of genocide upon the entire Tamil nation".

Bringing the Tamil liberation struggle into historical context, Gunasingham cited the redemption of Nelson Mandela in the eyes of the world from political antagonist to national hero, suggesting a similar reprieve awaited LTTE leader as the continued suffering of thousands of Tamil civilians detained by Sri Lankan armed forces becomes apparent.

Citing the formation of Israel and the role of the global Jewish Diaspora as the “building blocks of the nation’s success”, he reaffirmed the need for continued vigilance and commitment by the global Tamil community in the face of immense adversity.

An emotional 4 part drama portraying the level of sacrifice and bravery displayed by the liberation fighters amid the suffering and carnage was punctuated by large scale choreography and outdoor lighting that transformed the park into a living prop used to depict the Vanni landscape during the latter stages of the conflict.

Notable Tamil Nadu politician and president of the Tamil Nationalist Movement Nedumaran was scheduled to address the audience, however was denied a visa by the Australian Government at the last moment.