Sri Lanka

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  • Violence round up – week ending 20 May

    May 22
    19 May

    ● The LTTE and SLA exchanged intense artillery fire across their Thenmaradchy FDLs, with the fire fight focussing on Kovilakandy, Maravanpulo, and Thanankilappu in Jaffna. The SLA was firing from artillery bases in these areas towards LTTE controlled Pooneryn, across Jaffna lagoon, and LTTE gunners responded from the bases spread across Pooneryn. Several artillery shells allegedly exploded in SLA FDL positions, artillery bases and medical facilities. The LTTE FDL in Muhamalai also came under severe artillery attack.

    ● Two SLAF Kfir jets dropped four bombs on Kanchikudichanaru, Amparai. As residents had already been displaced by SLA offensives, no one was hurt.

    ● The STF had vacated a camp at Thangavelayuthapuram, Amparai on May 8. The camp had been set up in homes people had abandoned during an SLA offensive into LTTE territory in January. The STF troopers had removed tiles and other valuables from the houses and converted them into SLA sentry posts, those who had been back to the area said. The troopers also converted a local temple into a liquor bar and took property from the office of an NGO.

    ● The SLN took into custody two siblings who arrived in Pesalai in a fibre glass boat from Ilupaikadavai, in LTTE held territory in Mannar. Guruparan Kirushanthy, 18, and her
    brother Guruparan Sajeevan, 16, of Mullaitheevu said they went to Pesalai to see relatives. The boatman who transported them was also taken into custody.

    ● Pakkianathan Vijeyasanthan, 32, a married man from Trincomalee who was abducted in Borella, Colombo on Friday, reported his presence to the Badulla police station. He was allegedly abducted by unidentified men in a white van and was later released in Badulla.

    18 May

    ● Two fishermen from Thampadi in Kayts were shot dead by the SLN. The SLN claimed to have shot two LTTE cadres during a fire fight on the Kayts shores. But relatives identified the bodies as belonging to Gnanaruban Rutson, 18, and Robert Thevathas, 32, who had gone fishing the previous morning and failed to return.

    ● Gunmen sprayed gunfire towards Udupiddi SLA camp in Jaffna after creating road blocks to prevent the movement of pedestrians and vehicular traffic near the camp. Soldiers returned fire, but the gunmen escaped.

    ● Residents along the Vadamaradchy north coast in Jaffna reported sporadic skirmishes between SLN boats and the Sea Tigers. Residents of Munai, and civilians west of Kankesanthurai reported hearing sounds of artillery fire.

    ● A former employee of the Centre for Policy Alternatives and the deputy editor of the Tamil language version of the ‘Peace Monitor,’ magazine, Pakyanadan Wijai Shanthan, 32, disappeared near his wife’s office in Borella, Colombo. Shanthan had fled to India last November after the killing of Ketheeshwaran Loganathan, but had returned to Colombo in April.

    17 May

    ● The Sri Lankan Military command in Palali announced new reduced curfew hours in Jaffna, from 8:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m., a reduction of one hour.

    ● Artillery attacks by the SLA from their FDL in Iranaillupangulam, Nochikulam and Kalmadu towards civilian targets in LTTE controlled Vavuniya inflicted heavy damages on property and livestock in Kovilkunchukulam. More than twenty shells from SLA occupied areas exploded within the premises and the play ground of a mixed school. Since the students and teachers used bunkers effectively as trained, no one was hurt. A total of 334 students and 9 teachers attend the school

    ● The SLA said they handed over six bodies of LTTE cadres killed during a fire fight at the Vavuniya FDL, and were skking the assistance of the ICRC to hand the bodies over to the LTTE.

    ● Jaffna University undergraduates from outside the district are considering leaving the Peninsula due to the deteriorating security conditions for students. Escalating student abductions and the recent posters bearing a hit list of students have shaken the student community, and the frequent disruptions to lectures have affected academic progress, student leaders said.

    ● Armed men abducted three labourers from their house at Kathar Chinakulam in Vavuniya and shot them dead. Subramaniam Chandrasegaran, 28, a father of two, Sinnathurai Vigneswaran, 24, a father of two and Manamohan Mohanathas, 24, were killed. Their wives said the armed men who took away their husbands spoke fluent Tamil.

    16 May

    ● K. G. Wijayasinghe, 43, a police constable attached to Eravur Police station, committed suicide by shooting himself. He was allegedly in a disturbed state due to family related problems. Wijayasinghe, a father of three, was from Malkoduwawe, a small hamlet in Kurunagala. He had assumed duties at Eravur Police station three days earlier.

    ● Eravur Police questioned some Muslim youths regarding the burning of three shops in the town on 6 May. Pamphlets issued in the area named the youths as responsible for arson, but not arrests were made.

    ● Two LTTE commandos were killed in a clash on the Mullikulam FDL in Vavuniya. Vavuniya police contacted the ICRC to hand the body over to the LTTE.

    ● SLN Kayts Coast Guards arrested a fisherman who, after his boat had capsized in Mannar Sea, fought for his life for two days, and swam back to the shore at Velanai, Mandathivu. F. Denistus Miranda, 33, a father of five of Pesalai, Mannar, has gone fishing when he was thrown overboard. After being handed over to Kayts police and then the courts, suspicion was raised regarding his identity. Miranda told the magistrate that SLN at Pesalai allow fishermen to fish only after they surrender their National Identity Cards to the SLN and hence he was not in possession of his NIC.

    ● The SLA at Avarangkal in Valikamam East, Jaffna, observed the movements of a lorry during curfew hours and fired at the vehicle.

    ● Alwinas Piriyatharsan, 27, from Naranthanai north, Kayts, Jaffna, went missing after he went to obtain permission to travel to Colombo at the Assistant Government Agent's office in Kayts.

    15 May

    ● Kanakaratnam Mohanraj, 17, was killed on the spot and his father was wounded when SLA fired artillery shells hit their house in Pooneryn. The scattered body of the student, killed when he had gone home for his lunch break, was recovered at his home.

    ● A Sri Lanka Transport Board bus plying the Navvaly-Chavakachcheri route in Thenmaradchy, Jaffna, was burnt. The attackers forced the passengers to alight from the bus before setting fire to the vehicle near the Vaddukkoddai Agricultural Institute on Urumpirai road in Maruthanaamadam. Chunnakam Police and SLA soldiers rushed to the scene but were unable to contain the fire.

    ● A civilian was killed in crossfire when Sri Lanka Police attempted to arrest a robbery suspect in Vavuniya. Robbers attempting to rob a house in Pandarikulam the previous week were caught by civilians and handed over to the police. On information provided by the robbers, the police surrounded a house in Vavuniya. K. Mahendran, 52, a family man and a mason by profession was caught in crossfire when police attempted to arrest a suspect in the house.

    ● A Tamil youth was shot and injured in Uppuveli, Trincomalee. The SLN said that troops stationed at a local detachment had fired at an unidentified person when he attempted to enter the camp through the rear entrance. The SLN claimed it recovered some weapons from the man.

    ● Two Tamil boys were injured when a hand grenade concealed under garbage, exploded near a Hindu Temple at Chelvanayakapuram, Trincomalee. The explosion occurred when people living in the vicinity of the temple were engaged in clearing garbage along the roadside. Sri Lankan armed forces rushed to the scene and conducted investigations following the explosion.

    ● The SLA has instructed filling stations in Mannar town to obtain the names of persons who purchase fuel and the registration numbers of their vehicles and driving licence. Employees of filling station are also obtaining names and signatures of residents who purchase kerosene for domestic use as instructed by the SLA. People in large number were seen from morning till evening in front of the fuel filling station owned by Maanthai West Co-operative Society, at the entrance to Mannaar town, following the introduction of fuel restriction.

    ● Fourteen Tamil civilians arrested in a cordon and search operation in Wellawatte, Colombo, when they failed to prove their identity and the reason for their presence in the location. The police took about 25 Tamil civilians into custody but eleven were released after they proved their identity and the purpose of staying in the location.

    ● Two youths, one a Tamil and another a Sinhalese, were discharged by the Colombo Magistrate when the prosecuting police officer told the court there was no evidence to implicate them with any crime. They had been charged with taking photographs of Borella police station with their cell-phone camera. Borella Police arrested Balasubramaniam Ram Kumar of Point Pedro and his Sinhala friend Sunil of Warakapola while they were allegedly taking photographs of Borella Police Station from the first floor of the Borella public market two months ago. Since then both had been detained under the PTA.

    14 May

    ● A Muslim youth was shot dead at Aaththimoaddai, Saambaltheevu, along Trincomalee-Nilaveli road. Mohamed Azaath, 25, a native of Irrakakandy, Nilaveli, had been employed as a driver in a private sector van transporting passengers to and from Nilaveli. He had stopped his vehicle at Aaththimoaddai junction to take passengers when an unidentified person waiting at the bus halt got into the vehicle and fired at him.

    ● A young woman with 2 children from Naaranthanai in Kayts has disappeared in Trincomalee where she had gone to get a ticket on a ship bound for Jaffna, her parents said in a complaint to Jaffna office of the SLHRC. Anjani Robert Lessia, 36, has not been heard from since April 13. She had left Jaffna for Colombo on March 11 to receive her husband from abroad. As he could not return as planned due to the volatile situation in Sri Lanka, Lessia had phoned her parents on April 13 said she was proceeding to Trincomalee to travel back to Jaffna on the passenger ship. She has not been heard from since.

    ● Sivasami Raku, 24, a mentally retarded youth from Velanai in the islets of Jaffna has been missing since April 19, when he was last seen on his way to Jaffna town, his parents said in a complaint to the Jaffna office of the SLHRC.

    ● Arudpragasam Ravikumar, 25, of Nallur, Jaffna, went missing while going to work.
  • Aid workers fear for Batticaloa refugees
    The United Nations’ food agency is worried by the deteriorating situation of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Tamil people in Sri Lanka’s volatile east.

    The World Food Programme (WPF) has urgently appealed for more funds from donors and better access from the Sri Lankan government to provide for over 100,000 refugees languishing in makeshift camps in the Eastern Batticaloa district.

    Thousands of displaced people are living in makeshifts camps.
    Meanwhile the Sri Lankan government has begun forcibly resettling the frightened refugees, forcing people on to buses taking them back to their homes in the war zones.

    On May 18, the WPF said 400,000 people displaced by fighting are in need of food aid and 18,677 tons of food costing US$ 10.7 million is required during the next six months to ensure basic food supplies reach these people.

    According to WFP Asia Regional Director Anthony Banbury, current food stocks will only last up to mid-June.

    This is the second time in the past two months the agency has called for additional donor funds. In March the agency made a similar urgent call as it only had enough provisions to last up to end of April.

    "I am very concerned by the deterioration of the humanitarian situation as a result of the resurgence in the conflict. I am especially concerned about the impact of the conflict on civilians, many of whom have now been displaced multiple times by the fighting," said Banbury.

    According to WPF donors are also concerned that the intended beneficiaries are not receiving the aid and suspect some of the food supplies are being diverted to the Sri Lankan military.

    "Donors we were just meeting with were asking questions: How do you know your food aid is going to the intended beneficiaries? How do you know it's not being stolen by some of the parties, diverted to the military. These are very legitimate concerns for donors." Banbury said.

    According to Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) a UN news agency, in early May the WFP provided food rations to approximately 70% of 140,000 IDPs (internally displace people) are living in recognised welfare camps and other sites in Batticaloa district.

    The remaining 30% of the IDPs are supported by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with the Sri Lankan state providing no or minimal assistance. The WFP rations consist of rice, flour, dahl, sugar, spices and cooking oil.

    As IDPs are spread across the district living in nearly 100 refugee camps ensuring food supplies gets to all those in need has become a logistical and bureaucratic nightmare.

    For example, WFP reported on 9 May that a 12 percent gap in food assistance in the district, with some 13,000 IDPs not receiving food rations.

    In addition to fresh funds the WFP urged for better access to the needy and security for aid workers.

    "We have big problems in Sri Lanka. We have an access problem to the most vulnerable people in the north and in the east of the country," said WFP Spokeswoman, Christiane Bertiaume.

    "We have got security problems for our local and international staff. Some of them have even been threatened."

    Offensives in the first three months of 2007 by the Sri Lankan army aimed at capturing LTTE administered areas in the eastern districts triggered a massive exodus of people creating a humanitarian crisis.

    Over 230,000 people who fled their homes in LTTE administered areas to escape the incessant shelling and bombing by the Sri Lankan forces sought refuge in hundreds of refugee camps dotted around Batticaloa town.

    Aid agencies say they have struggled to support the large number of refugees and the displaced have continued to suffer due to lack of living space, unhygienic sanitary facilities and scarcity of clean water and food.

    In addition the refugees were also subjected to paramilitary intimidations and abductions and some were forced to return to their homes in Vaharai against their will.

    Meanwhile the Sri Lankan government last week announced that it will begin resettling about 90,000 of these people to the homes they fled in West Batticaloa.

    According to the Assistant Government Agent (a senior civil servant) in Batticaloa, K Mahesan, the government wants all the displaced to have returned to their homes by a deadline of July 31.

    This is irrespective of concerns amongst refugees and aid workers that the conflict zones, now dominated by troops and Army-backed paramilitaries, are not safe.

    And aid workers fear some of these people may be returning home against their will.

    A month ago the Sri Lankan government came under severe criticism from international human rights organisations for forcibly resettling thousands of people in Vaharai which was considered to be unsafe and lacking of basic infrastructure.

    The Tamil Relief Organisation (TRO) has appealed to the international community to remind the Sri Lankan state that forcing displaced people to return home is against international humanitarian law.

    "The WFP is in principle prepared to provide that assistance as requested by the government. However, our provision of assistance will be conditional on the voluntary nature of the returns," Banbury said.

    "We will not provide assistance to anyone who is forced to return against their will, nor will we provide assistance to people who are not part of a formal UNHCR approved return process."

    Following forcible resettlement of refugees in March the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) pulled out of all refugee resettlement operations in Sri Lanka’s East.

    At the time Amin Awad, head of UN refugee agency UNHCR in Sri Lanka announcing their decision to pull out of resettlement work in the East said "we are saying that we are not involved with this situation, we don't want to give the IDPs the impression that we are assisting or facilitating or promoting return."

    "The conditions in Vakarai are not right for resettlement and there is work to be done on services and minimum conditions for return," Awad said.

    It is not just the refugees who are not safe. Aid workers, both local and internal, have been harassed, threatened and even killed by security forces and paramilitary groups operating along with them.

    In August 2006 17 local aid workers from Action Against Hunger, a French aid organisation, were found shot dead at close range. The ceasefire monitors from the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission, after investigating the incident held government forces responsible for the killing.

    Last month, Army-backed paramilitary Karuna Group demanded all local and international NGOs to register with them and made a veiled threat that if the NGOs did not comply it “would not be responsible for their safety.”
  • Schools in east reopen, but fear persists
    L. Arupragasam is a happy man. The head teacher has finally returned to his school which is located in Kalavanchchikudi division, Batticaloa district, eastern Sri Lanka. Last December, Arupragasam, along with 230 of his students had to abandon the school so it could be used as a shelter for about 2,000 displaced people.

    Now, some six-months later, Arupragasam is back at work and the school is back in action. The principal is not simply pleased to be back in his office, but happy, too, that he has an additional 45 students.

    Many schools lacks proper facilities and operate in makeshift classrooms.
    "My school is my home and teaching these children again is more than a wish come true." Arupragasam said.

    "My school now also provides education to 120 internally displaced children in the evenings, and more parents are now enrolling their children, realizing the importance of education," the principal adds.

    "The war cannot stop the children from getting a decent education."

    At the height of the violence between government forces and Tamil Tigers in the east over the past year, the education of at least 135,000 students in Batticaloa district alone was disrupted, according to the Batticaloa Divisional Secretary, S. Amalanathan.

    "We had to close 324 schools in Batticaloa district to house people who were fleeing the fighting during the worst days," Amalanathan told IRIN. He said 86 schools still remain closed as they continue to shelter IDPs or because the security situation is poor.

    Today, some 130,000 IDPs still remain in Batticaloa district, despite a reduction in violence, and according to Amalanathan, at least 30,000 of these are students.

    In an urgent bid to get these children back to school again, UN agencies such as UNICEF have devised a two-shift school day at temporary buildings where local children attend school in the morning and IDPs in the afternoon.

    "There has been a fantastic attempt in Batticaloa district to accommodate all children, although with shortage of space and materials, they were incorporated into host schools or displaced schools at different times," UNICEF Spokesperson, Gordon Weiss says.

    Due to a shortage of teachers, UNICEF has also begun training 1,150 teachers in a consolidated syllabus and psychosocial support.

    The consolidated syllabus will help children who have missed classes to reach expected levels of academic achievement by the end of 2007, UNICEF says.

    "The greatest problem we face is identifying schools that have adequate space or could accommodate additional afternoon shifts. The children from parts of Batticaloa West who were displaced in March were accommodated with their families in both Batticaloa and Paddiruppu education zones. These children have been identified in recent surveys and will be targeted in the 'back to school' campaigns," Weiss said.

    UNICEF has identified immediate needs which include material support such as temporary learning structures, additional training for teachers, the strengthening of the capacities of local education authorities to plan and respond to emergency needs, and the strengthening of support for children who are missing classes.

    The Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC), in its latest report, says the schools that have been vacated by IDPs were in need of cleaning and repairs.

    "A total number of 86 schools in Batticaloa district are still temporarily closed and the local education authorities have requested a quick assessment on this. A lot needs to be done to clean up the mess in the vacated school buildings," the IASC said.

    The principal of the Ramakrishna School, Arupragasam, told IRIN that when he returned to his school it was in need of immediate repairs and of desks and other furnishings.

    "We have to locate tables, chairs and other material. The people had used some of them as firewood, and we had to clean a lot."

    Agencies such as UNICEF have also begun providing supplementary feeding to children in Early Childhood Development Centers (ECDC) for IDPs in three zones in the Batticaloa district. They are also monitoring to check the quality and standard of Emergency Early Childhood Education (EECE) project work and to assess changes in the lives of children who are in such programmes.

    The majority of the schools in Batticaloa district may have reopened and students are back in class, but many parents still fear for the safety of their children and wait outside the school gates till classes end, says Arupragasam.

    "There is still a lot of fear," he says.

    "The situation was very bad last year, with bombs flying over schools and hundred of people running. Many parents still feel the situation can get out of control any day again."

  • Why Tamils face international ‘shock and awe’
    Classic counter-insurgency urges states adopt a twin-track strategy: violence against the guerillas and incentives for civilians not to support them. When serious political dissatisfaction is fueling support for the militants, the incentives must necessarily include a ‘political solution.’

    This is the strategy the international community has encouraged successive Sri Lankan governments fighting the Tamil Tigers to take.

    Former President Chandrika Kumaratunga attempted it in her disastrous ‘war for peace’; offering a devolution package whilst fighting a high intensity war against the LTTE.

    The strategy failed because, firstly, the package was not credible, having been emasculated by Sinhala nationalists, and secondly, the unbridled brutality of her military campaign sent support for the LTTE soaring.

    But President Mahinda Rajapakse is following a different track these days.

    As his recently unveiled ‘power-sharing’ proposals show, Rajapakse is not interested in wooing the Tamils. Rather he intends (in the style of President J. R. Jayawardene)– to teach the Tamils a punishing lesson for defying the state.

    In short, he is not going to persuade the Tamils to abandon the Tigers, he’s going to cow them into submission.

    This is why, despite publicly toying with the notion, he has not put serious effort into forging a southern consensus on what to put before the LTTE at the table.

    It is also why he is unabashedly following a single-minded and ruthless war strategy, marked by mass displacements of Tamils and widespread human rights abuses against them.

    The international community has in recent times come to the realization Rajapakse is simply not interested in their advised approach.

    So, whilst they are still committed to backing Sri Lanka against the LTTE, there is considerable nervousness that Rajapakse is unnecessarily stoking Tamil resentment with his tactics.

    Which is why you sometimes get murmurs of disapproval, along with token measures, from the US, UK and others.

    But in principle the international community is committed to supporting the Sri Lankan state against the LTTE.

    And they know full well that the Tamil Diaspora, located primarily in North America, Europe and Australia, is a crucial well of support for the Tigers.

    The array of bans on the LTTE in US, (first UK, then) EU and Canada, as well as the finance restrictions in Australia are intended to block the financial and material support that Diaspora Tamils are providing the Tigers with.

    Just as Rajapakse has given up trying to win over the Tamils, so has the international community.

    And just as Rajapakse is using a campaign of terror to browbeat the Tamils in Sri Lanka, several Western governments have launched an aggressive campaign against the Diaspora Tamils.

    In the past two months Tamils have been arrested in France, US, and Australia on charges of providing support to the Tigers, of extorting money for the LTTE, and so on. The media is taken along for all the arrests, with massive coverage following.

    A Tamil television station, TTN, which has viewers across Europe, was shut down last month by French authorities. The charge was of not registering the channel properly (though employees allege the authorities simply ignore their applications).

    In Britain, the state-owned BBC and establishment newspapers are conducting a smear campaign alleging that Tamils funding the Tigers are the prime suspects credit card fraud.

    Many of those arrested are openly sympathetic to the LTTE. But most are not simply canvassing for the LTTE. They were exposing the atrocities being inflicted on the Tamils by the Sri Lankan state. This violence and deprivation is not not reported by the main media organizations, which are barred from parts of the Northeast or are not equipped and staffed to report continuously from the other areas.

    The ongoing international campaign of ‘shock and awe’ against the Diaspora has two objectives; firstly to pressure the LTTE and, secondly, to demoralize and frighten the Tamil expatriate public.

    The international community appears to have calculated that through such arrests and other harassments of Tamils in foreign countries, it will able to exert sufficient pressure on the LTTE to give up its armed struggle and go to the negotiation table.

    Thus the international campaign against the Diaspora Tamils is an extension of the Sri Lankan state’s campaign of terror against the Tamils there.

    For many states waging the self-styled ‘war on terror,’ Diaspora communities appear threatening and problematic. The logic of ‘legitimate state versus illegitimate terrorists’ is applied without nuance to all states which are prepared to sign up to the ‘global’ war.

    Of course, international politics remains state-centric and states will generally support each other (indeed, with the state as the most powerful political organization around today, that is why the Tamils are seeking their own state).

    The international norms that gained such force at the end of the Cold War, such as those around human rights and protection of civilians, have proved remarkably fragile this century.

    The missed opportunities for positive international action in Sri Lanka have been numerous. In the past couple of year, these include the failure to force the Sri Lankan government to implement PTOMS (the mechanism to share tsunami aid with the LTTE), to re-open the A9 and other humanitarian corridors, to observe international humanitarian law (laws of war), to desist from using food embargoes against Tamil population centers, and so on.

    Even the recent campaign for human rights protection by Amnesty International has not led to reduction in international military and economic support for the Rajapakse government.

    This unwavering support stems from a belief that whatever its flaws, the Sri Lankan state will ultimately reform, drop its Sinhala chauvunism and become a ‘liberal democracy’ in the model of the Western donors backing it.

    This belief underpinned the attachment of conditionality to aid disbursed by donors during the Norwegian peace process. The conditions were meant to ensure aid flowed to reward ‘good’ behavour and was blocked by ‘bad’ behaviour.

    Indeed, more often than not, the state was given the benefit of the doubt and conditionality was often dropped.

    Most of the $4.5bn pledged in Tokyo in June 2003 was made conditional on ‘progress in the peace process.’ Despite the country sliding steadily into the present all out war, most of that aid had been disbursed by 2006.

    The international community approach is mainly carrot for the Sri Lankan state and stick for the Tamils. The ‘shock and awe’ strategy unleashed against expatriate Tamils in the past few weeks has at least four objectives.

    First, to terrorize Tamil expatriates into not extending their financial, material and political support to the LTTE for fear of arrest or harassment.

    Secondly, to frighten Tamil activists into not engaging in political activity in their host countries against the Sri Lankan government.

    Thirdly, to force expatriate Tamils to pressure the Tigers into giving up the armed struggle and negotiating instead with the Sri Lankan government.

    And lastly, perhaps most desirably, for the Tamil Diaspora to pursue their political aspirations, not by backing the LTTE, but other actors. These could be other Tamil actors – so called ‘moderates’ – such as the paramilitary groups that are allied with Colombo against the LTTE.

    But, ideally, the international community would like expatriate Tamils to go running after the host states themselves. Rather than the LTTE being the representatives of the Tamils, the host states, citing its ‘own citizens,’ could instead take up this mantle instead.

    International calculations figure expatriates’ money and expertise could be channeled through ‘official channels’ to the Tamils of the Northeast. Then not only would the LTTE be denied the Diaspora’s support, the oppressive Sri Lankan state could perversely harness the expatriates’ efforts to better their brethren’s plight towards defeating the Tamil struggle.

    This is why Western states are knowingly assisting Sri Lanka’s efforts to terrify and intimidate the Tamils by targeting Tamil media, community organizations and political activists in their own territories.

    Whilst the international community makes much of the lack of press freedom in Sri Lanka, France shuts down the TTN television on a registration technicality.

    While media promoting the LTTE or Tamil perspective are thus blocked, Sri Lankan government’s claims against the Tigers – such as the credit card allegations – are propagated through mainstream Western media.

    While the Sri Lankan government is chided for not allowing NGOs to operate, Tamil expatriate organizations seeking to highlight Colombo’s human rights abuses are harassed and investigated on charges of ‘supporting LTTE terrorism.’

    Whilst Sri Lanka is gently urged to allow humanitarian access and provision of shelter for hundreds of thousands of displaced Tamils, Tamil expatriates are aggressively prevented from supporting Diaspora charities and trusts that are known to be working effectively in the Northeast.

    The Tamil Diaspora must not be shocked and awed by the ongoing international hostility. Rather than retreat from participating in politics, we should do exactly the reverse and participate more actively.

    The international community’s actions are based on perceptions of self-interest. We should engage with key states and INGOs as part of our efforts to promote the Tamil cause.

    Ultimately, what is crucial is that the Diaspora continues to support the Tamils’ sixty year struggle for political rights.

    This month sees the 31st anniversary of the passing of the Vaddokoddai Resolution, unanimously adopted by the first convention of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), the year before the party won a sweeping mandate in the 1977 elections.

    The Resolution, concludes with a plea to us, the Tamil people.

    It calls “upon the Tamil Nation in general and the Tamil youth in particular to come forward to throw themselves fully in the sacred fight for freedom and to flinch not till the goal of a sovereign state of Tamil Eelam is reached.”
  • Archbishop of Canterbury accepts Sri Lanka’s ‘military action against terrorism’
    Amid continuing controversy following comments by the head of the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, which appeared to justify Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse’s military action against the Tamil Tigers, two Sinhala Bishops Wednesday defended Archbishop Rowan Williams, saying his comments had been taken out of context.

    Rajapakse meeting the Archbishop
    Archbishop Williams concluded a 3-day visit to Sri Lanka earlier this month at the end of which he made his controversial statements.

    "It is undoubtedly inevitable that what you might call surgical military action against terrorism should take place", Archbishop Williams said in reports filed by TamilNet and the BBC Sinhala service on May 11, 2007.

    The Archbishop said that he hoped and prayed that military action would lead to an opening of communication between the government and the Tamil Tigers.

    "But we all hope and pray that that will lead not to ...victory for one, defeat for another, but to an opening of communication, a re-establishment of the possibilities for civil society to develop", he said.

    The Archbishop told journalists in Colombo, the government’s military solution to the problems of the country "increasingly appears to be no solution".

    But this week, in a letter to TamilNet, Rt Revd Kumara Illangasinghe, Bishop of Kurunagala, and Rt Revd Duleep de Chickera, Bishop of Colombo, said Archbishop Williams had meant that military action was not justified “unless it had the clear aim of enhancing the possibility of dialogue.”

    On Tuesday, Bishops Illangasinghe and de Chickera wrote to TamilNet saying Archbishop Williams had been misquoted and that he had, in fact, said the following:

    “The military solution to the problems of the country increasingly appear to be no solution. It is undoubtedly inevitable that what you might call ‘surgical’ military action against terrorism should take place but we all hope and pray that it will lead not to desolation, victory for one and defeat for another, but to an opening of communication, a reestablishment of the possibility for civil societies to develop.”

    By saying this, according to Bishops Illangasinghe and de Chickera, “whilst acknowledging that government forces will react to attacks, the Archbishop is questioning whether such a military response was justified unless it had the clear aim of enhancing the possibility of dialogue amongst both sides.”

    “The Archbishop’s comments about military action were certain not an endorsement of but rather an observation on the present reality in Sri Lanka,” they asserted.

    “The Archbishop’s position at the media conference, taken as a whole, made it clear that he was opposed to any military solution to the island’s ethnic conflict and that he was very concerned about human rights violations, child conscription and the problems faced by internally displaced persons,” they also said.

    The bishops insisted that “the Archbishop consistently maintained this position at meetings he had with a cross-section of political, religious and civil society leaders and groups that he met while in Sri Lanka, including the meetings with the President and the Leader of the Opposition.”

    TamilNet’s editorial board Tuesday said they stood by the original story which had, in its lead paragraph, clearly pointed out the Archbishop’s linkage between “surgical military strikes against terrorism” and “an opening of communication between the government and the Liberation Tigers.”

    Ironically, a senior Buddhist priest who met with Archbishop Williams during the latter’s visit told him that religious leaders should keep away from interfering into state affairs in war situations

    The Mahanayaka of the Asgiriya Chapter of Sri Lanka’s Buddhist clergy, the Most Ven.Udugama Sri Buddharakkhita Thero told the Archbishop it is a section of the people in north and east that had launched a rebellion against the government demanding a part of the country.

    “The Sri Lankan government is engaged in a war to control this situation. We are neutral in that respect and our hopes are for peace”, the Mahanayaka Thero said in comments reported on BBC Sinhala service.
  • US military sales up from $1.4m to $60.8m
    The Center for Defense Information (CDI), an independent Washington-based think-tank which provides expert analysis on various components of US national security, international security and defense policy, said in a report that arms sales to Sri Lanka from US had increased 40 fold, from $1.4m in 2006 to $60.8m in 2007.
     
    The report points out that Foreign Military Sales (FMS) to Sri Lanka had jumped despite "new reports of children serving in government armed forces or government-linked paramilitary groups."
     
    Excerpts from the report follow:
     
    In 13 of the 25 countries, children under age 18 have been forcibly recruited into both government and non-state armed groups, have taken a direct part in hostilities as members of armed groups, or have been forced into support roles for armed groups. Since 2001, the U.S. government has supplied 11 of these 13 countries with military assistance.
     
    In nine of these 13 countries, children were recruited or used as soldiers by government security forces or governmentsponsored armed groups.3 Unlike last year, the State Department reported no evidence that children were recruited into government armed forces in Paraguay or Rwanda, and included new reports of children serving in government armed forces or government-linked paramilitary groups in Sri Lanka.
     
    Of the nine countries in which children were recruited or used as soldiers by government security forces or governmentsponsored armed groups, the U.S. government has supplied eight with military assistance since 2001.
  • US: ‘no change’ in policy towards Sri Lanka
    US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Rober O'Blake and US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher shortly after landing in Palali military base in Jaffna.
    Concluding his visit to Sri Lanka, top US envoy Richard A. Boucher Thursday expressed concern about human rights abuses in the country but backed President Rajapakse’s military campaign against the Liberation Tigers.
     
    Promising international assistance would help Sri Lanka “to face the threat of terrorism,” he called on Sinhala parties to forge a consensus and “show the Tamils they have a role in [Sri Lankan] society.”
     
    Saying “in all this we continue to view the situation with hope,” Mr. Boucher made clear: “I don’t see any immediate changes [in US policy toward Sri Lanka].”
     
    In his opening address to a final press conference Thursday, Mr. Boucher, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, said Washington has been “closely following” events in Sri Lanka.
     
    In wide-ranging comments, Mr Boucher backed the Sri Lankan government’s efforts to defeat the Tigers whom he denounced as terrorists.
     
    He urged southern political parties to come up with a consensus on the role Tamils would be accorded in Sri Lankan society.
     
    Acknowledging the human rights situation in Sri Lanka had “deteriorated” recently, Mr. Boucher was non-committal on international human rights monitoring, saying instead that this was the responsibility of the government and local institutions.
     
    The transcript of the press conference was released to media by the US embassy in Colombo.
     
    “I am concerned about the way things have been heading [here],” Mr. Boucher said at the outset.
     
    But the prevailing situation “is a consequence of people making difficult decisions because of the security situation, the breakdown of the ceasefire, and the human rights situation on the island,” he said.
     
    “We recognize that the people of Sri Lanka continue to face the threat of terrorism,” Mr Boucher said.
     
    “They face the threat from the Tamil Tigers, an organization that continues to be a terrorist group, continues to be a group that recruits child soldiers, extorts money, kills people, blows up buses, and attacks government facilities.”
     
    “We also know the international community can help in this regard. We are helping, and we will help. We do have defense cooperation with the Sri Lankan military. The international community has been taking action to try to slow the ability of the Tamil Tigers to get supplies, to get money, and to get weapons.”
     
    “There has been a lot of action by the international community to try to constrict the flow of money and arms to the Tamil Tigers because we are opposed to terrorism and stand with the people of Sri Lanka against terrorism.”
     
    Later, when asked about comments from White House that his mission to Colombo was meant to explore new initiatives for peace, Mr. Boucher replied: “You are ahead of me on the White House briefing. I didn’t see exactly what they said or how it is worded.”
     
    However, he said, “we come here knowing that people here are basically committed to the same goals and the same values as we have. and our goal is to work with them to find a way forward, to find the avenues for peace and the basis for negotiations and peace.”
     
    In his opening address, Mr. Boucher said: “we need action to try to move the situation forward -- forward toward peace, forward toward respect for justice for all the people of Sri Lanka.”
     
    He said he’d been speaking with southern leaders about “the prospects of having a set of proposals from this side of the island that can give a perspective to the Tamil community to show them that they have a place of respect, that they have a place on the island, that they have a role in society where they can control much of their own affairs.”
     
    Mr. Boucher welcomed the ruling Sri Lankan Freedom Party’s (SLFP) putting forward a proposal to this end and said “all the parties need to cooperate [to achieve a consensus].”
     
    Going further, he said “it’s important that people put all the parties to work toward a consensus through the All Parties Representative Committee.”
     
    “The other thing that we have talked about quite a bit has been the human rights situation,” Mr. Boucher said, referring to interactions with President Mahinda Rajapakse’s administration.
     
    “And there are two aspects that concern us most. One is abductions and killings, and the second is freedom of the press.”
     
    “We remain very concerned about some of the killings, the killings of aid workers, killings of people at various places on the island that have occurred in the last year or so,” he said.
     
    He hailed the government’s reiteration of the guidelines for arrest and transparency of arrest by the police or the military, saying “It is important that they have asked all people in government employment to respect those guidelines.”
     
    Commenting on US concerns about press freedom, Mr. Boucher said:” We’ve seen a lot of different reports. We’ve seen reports of intimidation, reports of government power being used on newspapers and journalists; and then, of course, we’ve seen killings and violent acts committed against newspapers and journalists.”
     
    Mr. Boucher did not refer to abductions and killings of civilians by Sri Lankan security forces, but urged the restraining of Army-backed paramilitaries.
     
    “It is also important that the government ensures security for everybody. And in the current circumstance that means stopping and controlling the paramilitary groups that have operated in various parts of the island and who are suspected, believed, known to be involved in many of the abductions and killings that have occurred in recent months.”
     
    However asked if the US would outlaw the Karuna Group, a leading paramilitary group blamed for widespread human rights abuses and conscription of child soldiers, as a terrorist group, Mr. Boucher said no decision had been taken.
     
    “As far as whether Karuna could get itself listed for engaging in terrorism, at this point I don’t know what to predict.,”
     
    “Certainly we will look at any group that consistently engages in terrorist activities and we will develop information and determine whether or not they meet our specific legal standards.”
     
    Mr. Boucher said there had been “some reduction of abductions in the Colombo area” but noted two people had been abducted the night before.
     
    “But I don’t think that is true at all in Jaffna,” he said.
     
    “I found a lot of people who are very afraid, a lot of people who are afraid because of the killings and abductions in Jaffna.”
     
    “You have seen journalists killed, we have seen people killed up there, and these are really serious threats to the people in that area, and they feel them very deeply,” he said.
     
    Mr. Boucher was asked by a Thinakkural reporter if “rather than issuing statements, are there any active measures to prevent these abuses, especially abductions, extra judicial killings, and threats to media personalities?”
     
    Mr. Boucher replied: “I’m not quite sure what you are asking for. The United States, I think, has been active. We have been active in looking at these things, looking for solutions. We have appointed and sent experts and representatives for the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons. We have raised these issues in very precise and specific terms with a variety of people on this island who can do something about them.  And that is where things have to be done.”
     
    When the Thinakkural reporter pressed the human rights issue, Mr. Boucher cut him off.
     
    Mr. Boucher also avoided endorsing growing calls for international human rights monitoring in Sri Lanka, saying it was the responsibility of the government.
     
    “As far as calls for international human rights monitoring, we will see where that goes and how the discussion develops. I think the first responsibility for human rights monitoring falls with the government, falls with the country, falls with the people.”
     
    “Free press is a vital part of that, but also organizations like the Human Rights Commission and other organizations on the island need to be active in monitoring the human rights situation. The police and the other groups need to actively investigate, and it should be the government that takes responsibility for monitoring and improving the human rights situation.”
     
    In his opening comments, Mr. Boucher said: “There are a number of committees and proposals operating now, inquiries to try to ensure accountability for things that have occurred in the past. … These committees and groups have an important role to play, and now that they are formed, now that they are working, they need to come up with answers.”
     
    Mr. Boucher refused to be drawn into commenting on Sri Lankan government claims that the LTTE’s newly unveiled aircraft posed a threat to India’s nuclear plants.
     
    Later when he was pressed on US views on the LTTE air strikes which had compelled the closure at night of Sri Lanka’s sole international airport at Katunayake, Mr. Boucher said:
     
    “We think they are very bad. They should not happen. They ought to stop. And the government has every right to stop those airplanes from hurting people and killing people and damaging the interests of the island.”
  • ‘International efforts to weaken Tigers fuels war’
    LTTE’s Political Wing, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan
    Full text of the interview Sunday with the head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan follows:
     
    TamilNet: Talks in the past were held in an environment of military balance of power between the LTTE and the Government of Sri Lanka. However, the South’s current military aggression appears to be exploiting the West’s assumption that only a weakened-LTTE will be prepared to compromise on its political stand. Can you comment?
     
    Thamilchelvan: This is total fallacy. Since the time of independence in 1948, Tamil people took part in many negotiations to reach at agreements with the Sri Lankan Government. The armed struggle was born as a result of successive Sri Lankan Governments abrogating several such agreements, and continued ethnically motivated killing. Armed struggle born as self defense shattered the confidence of the Sinhala leaders that Tamils cannot be beaten militarily, and brought them to the talks. Therefore, only when Tamils are strong, there is a chance that the Sinhala leadership will come forward for a negotiated solution. The latest peace talks too occurred under such circumstances.
     
    This latest tactic by the Government of Sri Lanka is also to persuade the international community to help subdue the Tamil people and commit ethnic genocide against them. LTTE and the Tamil people under no circumstances will come to the table in a position of political and military weakness.
     
    TamilNet: South has rejected one key principle of Thimpu talks, the concept of Tamil homeland. The world powers also seem to experiment if the Government of Sri Lanka is capable of creating conditions for peace talks under such environment. What is your view of this approach?
     
    Thamilchelvan: Sinhala leadership ought to develop a profound understanding of the aspirations and the demands of the Tamil people. Tamil people have put forward their rights for the last several decades. They took up the armed struggle for a separate state only when their demands were consistently rejected. This is the reality. Therefore, it is only when the Sinhala leadership respects the Tamil people's rights and proposes a just solution, there is a chance for moving towards an agreement. But, the ruling Sinhala elite continues to put forward unacceptable solutions that aim to exercise power over the Tamil people and maintain subservience. These acts are frustrating the Tamil people and are destroying their confidence in a negotiated solution. The latest proposal, which is the same as the one rejected and defeated by the Tamil people thirty years ago, makes it abundantly clear that the Sinhala leadership still balking at proposing a just solution. Through these actions Sinhala leadership is destroying any remnants of hopes the Tamil people have in a peaceful solution.
     
    TamilNet: Colombo is attempting to impress upon the international community that its war is a "war on terrorism" to justify its military "needs". International community "appears" to be supporting this. This approach can also be viewed as an attempt to apply pressure on the LTTE. What do you like to tell those who think this approach will succeed in bringing about a solution?
     
    Thamilchelvan: While the International community relies on the Sinhala leadership to take forward the peace process, Sinhala leaders have repeatedly failed to make use of the many opportunities to resolve the ethnic conflict, and has instead adopted tactics to carry out genocide against the Tamils. Sri Lankan Government is attempting to exploit the changed environment in the international scene and tarnish the Tamil people's struggle as a phenomenon of international terrorism to undermine the struggle’s moral validity. It is distressing to the Tamil people that the international community is indirectly giving support to the Sri Lankan Government that is committing ethnic genocide. International community through the involvement in the peace process during the last five years clearly knows that the Sri Lankan Government has never been ready to provide a reasonable solution to the Tamil people. Sri Lankan Government has through many attempts destroyed the foundations of the peace talks and eliminated all efforts towards peace. This good foundation for peace was laid after a long time with the facilitation of the Norwegian Government. It resulted in the signing of a ceasefire agreement. The Sri Lankan Government has destroyed this ceasefire agreement and poisoned the climate of peace. While this remains the reality, it is futile for the international community to apply pressure on the Tamils. This has encouraged the Sinhala Government to intensify its ethnic genocide. The recent banning of the LTTE in Canada and the European Union has only encouraged the Sri Lankan Government to pursue a military solution. The expectations of the Tamil people are that the international community will pressure the Sri Lankan Government to pursue peace, and will act to bring justice to the Tamil people.
     
    TamilNet: What should the Sri Lankan Government do to convince you of its bona fides in pursuing peace?
     
    Thamilchelvan: If there is to be a solution to the ethnic conflict then the genocidal war on the Tamil people by the Sri Lankan Government must first end. Extrajudicial killing and disappearances of the Tamil people by the Sri Lankan Government forces must come to an end. The restrictions on travel by Tamils and economic blockade must be removed. The human misery caused by the militarization must end.
     
    The war must be halted and a peaceful environment must be created. In my view, the full and comprehensive implementation of the ceasefire agreement (CFA) reached by both sides with the assistance of the international community is the most suitable path to achieve this.
     
    TamilNet: Do you think the International powers, by not applying pressure to abandon Sri Lanka Government’s war efforts, are indirectly supporting the war?
     
    Thamilchelvan: Definitely. Some of the decisions taken by the international community, trusting that the Sri Lankan Government will act in a certain way have indeed encouraged the Sri Lankan Government to act in exact opposition to what was expected. These decisions have resulted in Colombo intensifying the war. The decisions to ban in various countries, and some of the actions to restrict the political work of the LTTE, are interpreted by the Sri Lankan Government as endorsing its military approach. The international community has created the view that it is supporting Colombo’s war. I think the international community, by realizing this and by recognizing the Tamil people's struggle for their rights and by coming forward to support that struggle, can create a situation conducive for negotiations.
     
    TamilNet: Will gentle pressures and democratic methods useful, when past successive governments have only tried to search for a solution within its constitution?
     
    Thamilchelvan: The truth is that successive Sri Lankan Governments have conducted in various ways a genocidal war on the Tamil people. It implemented many oppressive laws and laws to deny their basic rights. It is these actions that lead the Tamil people to lose confidence and forced them to conclude that they can no longer live with the Sinhala nation. As long as the members of the majority Sinhala community hold views that are ethnically biased they will continue to vote against Tamil demands. They are continuing to adopt a stance that is also oppressive to the Muslim people. Therefore, only a solution that respects all the nations and ethnicities will make peace possible. Further, no acceptable solution can be found under the parameters of the current constitution. In recent times, in many countries, many ethnicities have been respected for their uniqueness and their rights; solutions have been put forward resulting in peaceful solutions to ethnic conflicts. The genocidal war of the Sri Lankan Government that has failed to recognize these developments cannot be the path to find a solution. In my view a solution can be found with the efforts of the international community only if it accepts the balance of power of the two sides.
     
    TamilNet: When will the violence end?
     
    Thamilchelvan: When the ideals of peace, self-respect, rights, and freedom respected in the civilized world as essentials for the betterment of the human race are accepted. When, on this basis a just and honorable solution is reached for the Tamil people who have been subjected to oppression and Tamils gain the confidence that they too can live in freedom and with self respect. That day will mark the emergence of two peaceful, individually strong and economically powerful nations in this island.
     
    International community must understand this reality and take constructive steps to bring the Sri Lankan Government back to the path of peace.
     
  • Sri Lanka sinks into lawlessness
    Sri Lankan police searching bus passengers.

    Cases of murder, abduction, disappearance and intimidation surface almost daily in Sri Lanka as the South Asian nation appears to be sliding into lawlessness and war.
     
    With a truce between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in tatters and peace talks long since abandoned, rights workers and the media fear the situation is spiralling out of control.
     
    The government is pressing for a military victory over the Tigers, and a series of tit-for-tat clashes have left heavy casualties on both sides -- as well as discrepancies over the true body count.
     
    But away from the front lines, bloodshed is just as frequent and usually involves civilians, although it is seldom clear who is behind the day-to-day violence.
     
    "The situation is out of control," said Sunander Deshapriya of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a private think tank.
     
    "What we are seeing today is uncertainty. We do not know who is doing what. It is very difficult to find out who is responsible, violence is so widespread," Deshapriya said.
     
    "It is also very difficult to see the situation improving."
     
    Almost 5,000 people have been killed since December 2005, according to the defence ministry.
     
    And more than 700 people are reported to have "disappeared" in the past year in Sri Lanka, where at least 60,000 people have been killed in the Tamil separatist conflict since 1972.
     
    Such a climate of fear has not been seen on the island since 1987-1990, when the army crushed a Marxist Sinhalese uprising at the official cost of 16,750 dead and thousands more missing.
     
    Britain halted debt relief this month in anger at the government's human rights records, and major donor Japan is reviewing its position. Germany stopped aid last December.
     
    The United States has also dropped the usual diplomatic niceties, publicly accusing Sri Lanka of reneging on promises to protect human rights.
     
    "People are more fearful and face more difficulties. Overall, there has been a deterioration in Sri Lanka's human rights record," said US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher on a visit to Sri Lanka this month.
     
    He travelled to the northern Jaffna peninsula, where 350,000 civilians and 40,000 government troops have lived under virtual siege conditions since the army closed the only land access in August after Tiger attacks.
     
    Laxman Gunasekera, president of the South Asian Free Media Alliance (SAFMA) in Sri Lanka, said abductions were rampant - "but not a single government authority is prepared to acknowledge abductions and give us a figure."
     
    "We have an impression of a lack of control by the state itself," he said.
     
    Sri Lanka's Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told AFP the lack of official figures was a "lacuna" and said the government was battling to ensure a human rights commission functioned independently.
     
    This involved setting up a witness protection scheme and safe houses, and arranging for political asylum in the West when necessary.
     
    "It's a serious situation we have to grapple with," he said. "I know it's hard for people to understand that we are making progress."
     
    The minister pointed to the ongoing return of thousands of refugees to eastern areas where troops have captured territory from the LTTE.
     
    But journalist groups accuse authorities of trying to silence anyone who dissents from the official line.
     
    "Journalists face public abuse, violent physical assault, threats, deaths, abduction and murder ... in all parts of the country," including LTTE-held areas, said SAFMA's Gunasekera.
     
    "The picture is not one of improvement, but worsening conditions," he said. "The reality is bleak."
     
    The independent Sri Lanka Press Institute is creating a safety fund to help journalists facing death threats. It is looking at providing mobile phones to local reporters and running a safe house in the capital.
     
    Tamil journalists have borne the brunt of the onslaught.
     
    Several told AFP they live in fear for their lives and can no longer work normally or risk using their names on air or in print.
     
    In eastern Batticaloa district, only one Tamil journalist remains at work today, several months after the army ousted the LTTE from the Tamil-majority area. Others have fled, among them the president of a Tamil journalists union.
     
    Nadesapillai Vithyatharan, chief editor of the Tamil-language Uthayan newspaper -- the only paper to publish in Jaffna for the last 20 years without interruption -- refuses to back down.
     
    He says he will not close despite a squeeze from the authorities which has resulted in the daily cutting its pages from 20 to four, and printing on any paper it can find. Circulation has dropped from 24,000 to 4,000.
     
    "We have lost five staff in the last 18 months," he said. "I have had grenades tossed into my room, but I am ready for anything."
  • Tigers vow to stand firm
    The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) this week urged the international community to abandon its support for the Sri Lankan government’s new war and to play a constructive role towards peace.
     
    In an interview Sunday, the head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan, said the decision to ban the Tigers in various countries and actions which restricted the political work of the Tigers, were being interpreted by Colombo as endorsing its militarist approach.
     
    Mr. Thamilchelvan warned it was a fallacy to think that by weakening the LTTE, the movement could be coerced into compromising on Tamil political goals.
     
    The Sinhala polity was today working on unacceptable solutions that were rejected by the Tamils 30 years ago, he said, implying that the Sinhala leadership had to want a just peace also.
     
    "The Sinhala leadership ought to develop a profound understanding of the aspirations and the demands of the Tamil people," Mr. Thamilchelvan said and questioned whether a conducive environment for a such change is promoted when international players were supporting Colombo’s war.
     
    "The international community through the involvement in the peace process during the last five years clearly knows that the Sri Lankan Government has never been ready to provide a reasonable solution to the Tamil people."
     
    A balance of power and parity of status between the negotiating parties - the LTTE and the Government of Sri Lanka - are key for successful negotiations to find a sustainable solution to the conflict.
     
    "It is fallacy to think that by weakening the LTTE, the movement can be forced to compromise on its political stand," Thamilchelvan told TamilNet.
     
    "I think the international community, by realizing this and by recognizing the Tamil people's struggle for their rights and by coming forward to support that struggle, can create a situation conducive for negotiations."
  • Flawed Logic
    Sri Lanka’s conflict is arguably one of the most internationalized today. The major powers, especially the Western states, are intimately involved and familiar with the dynamics at play in the island. The Sri Lankan state is integrated into the international system. Yet the Colombo government is today seemingly able to defy international humanitarian and human rights norms with impunity. Growing disquiet amongst some foreign governments is now manifest (after the killings, abductions and ‘disappearances’ of shocking number of innocent Tamils). But the continuing staunch support of a number of states, especially the United States, means Colombo is not unduly worried. The contempt with which the Sinhala government dismisses international concerns about the humanitarian and human rights situation in the island is underpinned by self-confidence that sufficient international support will be forthcoming for a war against the Tamil Tigers, no matter how bloody it is.
     
    Despite claiming commitment to peace, human rights and democracy, with the emergence of a Sinhala-hardline regime under President Mahinda Rajapakse, the overarching international approach is rationalized under the (demonstrably discredited elsewhere) slogan, ‘war on terror.’ The inclusions of the LTTE in international terrorism lists were political decisions. But now these listings are taken as ‘facts’ and used to justify the foreclosure of contact with the Tigers, engagement with the Tamil demand for self-rule and, ultimately, to back Sri Lanka’s military campaign.
     
    From the outset of the Norwegian-led peace process, the international approach to resolving Sri Lanka’s conflict has been flawed: one of carrot for the state and stick for the Tiger. Driven by a misguided belief that the events of 9/11/01 had persuaded the LTTE to seek peace (although the LTTE had offered a ceasefire and called for talks as early as November 2000), the international community has readily resorted to punitive and coercive method to discipline the Tiger. And this is despite the LTTE’s history of resisting any move sought at the point of a gun.
     
    Even today, the international community, led by the US, is relying on ‘pressure’ to force the LTTE to the table (even though no serious analyst thinks negotiations with the Rajapakse regime is a meaningful exercise). If the arrests of Tamil activists in various countries and other forms of pressure are intended to compel the Tigers to talk to Rajapakse on his terms, they will fail. There is a misguided belief that international action can cut the supply of funds and weapons to the LTTE. We believe that as long as the fundamental problem – i.e. the oppression of the Tamils by the Sinhala-dominated Sri Lankan state – remains, the LTTE will last and thrive. The Rajapakse regime has done much to compact Tamil opinion behind hardline stances.
     
    The international community’s hostility to the LTTE has been amply demonstrated in the past five years. Every act of ‘engagement’ was effectively a moralizing sermon on political violence and human rights. At the same time, the unrepentant Sri Lankan state has been gently chided and cajoled. These dynamics accelerated last year. Even though international ceasefire monitors warned of a ‘cycle of violence’, of a ‘shadow war’ between both sides, the European Union and Canada, following the US approach, singled out the LTTE for blame and banned it. The move emboldened the Sinhala hardliners. It did not tame the Tiger.
     
    The most important consequence of the ‘war on terror’ is that it offers people who have taken up arms against a repressive state Hobson’s choice: fight or perish. From the outset of their struggle, there was a desperate effort by the Tamils to internationalize the conflict (and a reverse determination by the Sinhala state, using the rhetoric of ‘internal affairs’, to foreclose any international involvement, save that which contributed to crushing the Tamils). This dynamic has continued despite international hostility to the LTTE. This is because the Tamil appeal for self-determination is based on the logic of escaping state oppression.
     
    Yet, despite rhetorical commitment to freedom, human rights and democracy, the international continues to ignore the Tamils’ core problem. The logics of ‘conflict resolution,’ ‘peace-building’ and, especially, the ‘war on terror’ all ignore the fundamental problem in Sri Lanka: the Sinhala-dominated state, fashioned on an ethos of racial and religious pre-eminence, oppresses and marginalizes the Tamils. But as long there is Sinhala oppression, there will be Tamil resistance. The current US-led approach, which ignores this basic truth, will not bring peace to Sri Lanka.
  • Can Sri Lanka wage war without US support?
    In early May the Asia Foundation published a report reviewing the United States’ role in Sri Lanka’s peace process from 2002-2006. It was written by Jeffrey Lunstead, who served as the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka from August 2003 to July 2006.
     
    In this retrospective analysis, Lunstead, senior State Department official, now retired outlines what he considers the reasons for US involvement in the Norwegian peace process. He also looks at the relationships the US has with the parties to conflict and other countries involved in the peace process.
     
    According to Lunstead, the degree of US involvement in the peace process was disproportionate as the US has little strategic or economic interests in the island.
     
    Contradicting common wisdom, Lunstead dismisses Trincomalee harbour as a strategic location the US would be interested in. He cites the security threat from the LTTE, a lack of facilities and infrastructure and the harbours distance to major sea lanes as drawbacks. He also points out to the negative effect any US interest in Trincomalee would have on America’s growing strategic relationship with India.
     
    US trade with Sri Lanka at a relatively insignificant US$ 2.3 billion per year, US economic interests in Sri Lanka is also limited, he says.
     
    The reasons the US enhanced its engagement in Sri Lanka in 2001, according to Lunstead were the Bush administration’s global war on terror, the pro-West and pro-free market policies of the newly elected Ranil Wickramasighe government and the personal interest of then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
     
    Whilst the first two elements were considered to be enabling factors the personal interest of Armitage was considered to be the driving factor.
     
    Lunstead says Armitage’s personal interest stemmed from a belief that Sri Lanka’s conflict could be resolved by peaceful political means assisted by the international community.
     
    Essentially the US, he says, saw Sri Lanka as a testbed for a new approach to resolving long-drawn internal conflicts which, if successful, could be applied to other trouble spots around the world.
     
    Lunstead feels the US adopted a nuanced policy in the Norwegian peace process: US offered the possibility of change in the US attitude towards the LTTE if the organisation changed its behaviour and renounced terrorism in ‘word and deed’ whilst encouraging the Government of Sri Lanka to develop a political strategy which included substantial devolution of power to address legitimate Tamil grievances.
     
    Further more, differing from the other Co-Chairs (European Union, Japan and Norway) and taking a hardline position against the LTTE, the US sent a message to LTTE that a return to war would not be acceptable.
     
    This, the US underpinned by strengthening the military capability of Sri Lankan state. However, according to the ambassador, the US also tried to make it clear to the government that the US military support was not an encouragement to seek a military solution.
     
    With hindsight he raises number of questions on the consequence of US approach.
     
    - Did the hard-line US approach to the LTTE have a positive effect, motivating the LTTE toward better behavior in the hope of gaining legitimacy?
     
    - Did it convince the LTTE that it would never be accepted as an equal partner in the peace process?
     
    - Did the LTTE understand the US message that removal of the terrorist designation was possible if LTTE behavior changed?
     
    - Would direct US contact with the LTTE have made that position more clear?
     
    - Did the supportive US military relationship with the Government of Sri Lanka have a positive effect by showing the LTTE that a return to armed conflict would be more costly?
     
    - What effect did it have on the Government of Sri Lanka?
     
    If Sri Lanka’s peace process was to be a testbed, the bloody violence into which Sri Lanka has now descended suggests it was a lesson in how not to do things.
     
    To begin with, the Norwegian peace process was built on delicate military parity between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan armed forces.
     
    If the LTTE was to secure a power-sharing arrangement for the Tamils from the Sri Lankan state, it was paramount it was treated as a legitimate, equal partner during the peace process.
     
    That was why the LTTE insisted Sri Lanka lift its ban on the LTTE before talks.
     
    The US disrupted this parity by rapidly arming the Sri Lankan state during the peace process and also by removing the ‘equal negotiating partner’ status of the LTTE by isolating the organisation through hardline ‘anti-terrorism’ driven policies and actions.
     
    In late 2001, when the LTTE entered the peace process, the organisation took a leap of faith and threw itself into an effort to building international legitimacy.
     
    It attempted to engage with number of international organisations, including the United Nations agencies, to ensure its practices were brought inline with international norms. It also set out programs of change in areas deemed problematic.
     
    Significantly, it stated explicitly it would be prepared to compromise on the demand for independence by agreeing to explore a federal solution.
     
    It should be noted that the Sri Lankan government made the same pledge. And its preparedness to abandon a unitary Sinhala-dominated state was accepted. As President Mahinda Rajapakse is now demonstrating, this was never going to happen.
     
    The LTTE during the peace process period behaved in a manner that should have encouraged the US-led international community. But instead of rewarding the LTTE’s tentative steps, the US simply stepped up efforts to isolate and weaken it.
     
    By not inviting the LTTE to the Washington Development Conference in April 2003 US deliberately humiliated the LTTE (and the Tamils it was supposed to be negotiating on behalf of).
     
    The US-led international community made it clear that the LTTE will never be treated as an equal partner in the process.
     
    It should be noted that at the time of the US snub, the LTTE was engaged in a massive effort to win international acceptance. It had, for over a year, observed ceasefire, avoided belligerence and was eagerly exploring several forms of engagement with international actors.
     
    As there were legal restrictions in LTTE members travelling to the US, would it have been difficult to host the conference in a venue that was acceptable to all for the sake of peace? At the time of the conference, was the LTTE showing any form intransigence for US to take a step that would be seen as hostile and detrimental to the sprit of peace building? Not really.
     
    In the context of the present bloodshed and destruction, what would the cost of relocating that meeting have been?
     
    If, as Lunstead argues, the LTTE used the non-invitation to the Washington Development Conference as an excuse to not attend Tokyo donor conference then US, though crass ignorance of the fundamentals of the conflict, paved the way.
     
    In effect, for the Tamils, the US actions were simply an extension of the Sri Lankan state’s second-class treatment of the Tamils since independence.
     
    Fast forward two years to the time after the December 2004 tsunami.
     
    Despite the Northeast having borne the brunt of the tidal wave, the international community was more inclined to not give the region its aid than accept having to direct rehabilitation funds through the LTTE.
     
    Having withheld the desperately needed funds for months, no sooner had the LTTE signed the P-TOMS (Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure) aid sharing mechanism with the Sri Lankan state (which grudgingly agreed to sign after intense EU pressure), the US immediately snubbed the Tamils again, by refusing to send any funds through it.
     
    The US’s public dismissal of the P-TOMS effectively destroyed its credibility and undoubtedly encouraged the state not to aggressively oppose the Sinhala-ultra nationalist JVP’s (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna) challenge to the agreement.
     
     
    Then in early 2006, amid what international truce monitors called a ‘cycle of violence’ or a ‘shadow war’ – in other words a cycle of tit-for-tat attacks - the US publicly called for the EU to punish the LTTE by banning it.
     
    At a time when the Sri Lankan state was openly defying international calls to honour its obligations under the truce agreement to reign in the Army-backed paramilitary groups, the EU ban sent a clear signal to the LTTE and the Tamils.
     
    Surprisingly, Lunstead wonders if the LTTE understood the message the US was sending.
     
    Whilst he may argue that the US had a nuanced policy which offered clear incentives to the LTTE for ‘good behaviour’, it is clear no positive signal was sent and, in contrast, a series of humiliating and marginalizing messages were broadcast.
     
    In word and deed, the US spurned LTTE efforts to engage with international demands.
     
    Equally important, the US failed to restrain the Sri Lankan state’s belligerence and instead tolerated and encouraged it.
     
    Whilst making the odd statement that there was ‘no military solution to conflict’, the US provided increased military and financial assistance to the state even when Colombo was stepping up military violence in breach of the ceasefire agreement.
     
    The past eighteen months have made the US’s lack of commitment to a negotiated solution absolutely clear.
     
    In this time, the Sri Lankan state has unleashed a fully fledged war in the Northeast, dismantled previous peace agreements (including the Indo – Sri Lanka Accord) and closed the space for peace actors to work.
     
    The Sri Lankan state has unleashed a military campaign that deliberately targets civilians, killing hundreds and displacing over 250,000 people.
     
    Yet the US has not only failed to pressure the Sri Lankan state to stop, it has also worked to undermine the efforts of other international actors (such as some European countries) to do so.
     
    Analysts are agreed that the US has given a ‘green light’ for Sri Lanka’s violence against the Tamils – in stark contrast to Lunstead’s assertion that the US never encouraged a return to war.
     
    On the issue of direct contact between US officials and the LTTE, restrictions stemming from the FTO designation only apply to US territory. British officials, for example, regularly meet with the LTTE, despite the UK ban.
     
    But US refusal to meet with the LTTE is a minor issue. What is more important is the US’s pursuit of the LTTE’s marginalisation, isolation and destruction in the midst of a fragile peace process.
     
    Despite Sri Lankan state’s historical record of discrimination, racism and violence against the Tamils, the US chose to give Colombo every advantage against the LTTE.
     
    The rationale that Sri Lanka is a state is not tenable. Consider the ongoing case of Kosovo, or in Bosnia before that. Consider developments in Darfur.
     
    Without any effort to understand the long and complex history of ethnic politics in Sri Lanka, the US has sought to impose an inflexible and simplistic ideology on Sri Lanka.
     
    The lack of nuance in US policy was amply demonstrated in comments by US Under Secretary Nicholas Burns in November 2006:
     
    “I'd just say on behalf of the United States that we have faith in the government and faith in the president of Sri Lanka. They do want to make peace. We also believe that the Tamil Tigers, the LTTE, is a terrorist group responsible for massive bloodshed in the country and we hold the Tamil Tigers responsible for much of what has gone wrong in the country. We are not neutral in this respect. We support the government. We have a good relationship with the government. We believe the government has a right to try to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country. The government has a right to protect the stability and security in the country. We meet often with the government at the highest levels and consider the government to be a friend to our country.”
     
    It is encouraging that a former US diplomat is prepared to question of the US’s conduct and even accept that perhaps things could have been done differently. But the fact that the realisation has not led to any change in US policy points to yet another shortcoming of the Washington’s inflexible approach to complex conflict.
     
    So, with hindsight, the US role in the Norwegian peace process appears less an effort to resolve the conflict than one to help Sri Lanka achieve what was proving very difficult to achieve on the battlefield: the destruction of the LTTE and the imposition of Sinhala hegemony on the Tamils.
     
    The Sri Lankan state is today, with active US support, unleashing a war that relies on Tamil civilian suffering to break LTTE resistance. The US, according to Burns, believes the government has “a right to try to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country.”
     
    But could not the same argument have applied to Saddam Hussein’s efforts annihilate Kurdish civilians in a bid to break their will to fight for an independent state?
     
    It must be recalled how Saddam and Iraq continued to enjoy strong US support even as that genocidal war was unleashed against the Kurds. The parallels to today’s Sri Lanka are striking.
  • Sri Lanka needs time to down flying Tigers
    Sri Lanka needs time to neutralise the air strike capability of Tiger rebels, a state-run daily said last Friday as the international airport shut down at night fearing guerrilla air raids.
     
    The Daily News said government forces were in a superior position in dealing with the Tamil Tigers on ground and at sea, but the flying Tigers had plunged the country into confusion.
     
    "The Sri Lanka air force will take time to train their people to destroy the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) air capabilities and to improve themselves," the Daily News said in its weekly "Defence Column."
     
    "The country is now in a confused situation," the state-run paper said.
     
    The full-page report came as the island's only international airport, Bandaranaike International, began shutting for six hours at night following a spate of air raids by the guerrillas who criss-crossed commercial flight paths.
     
    "The LTTE has been successful in their effort to drag the country into this unnecessary confusion due to their desperate attempts to put the government and the security forces in an inconvenient situation," the paper said.
     
    The guerrillas have carried out three attacks against military and civilian installations and drew intense anti-aircraft fire from ground troops who failed to hit the flying Tigers.
     
    The Tigers are known to operate at least two Czech-built Zlin-143 light aircraft out of the rebel-held north of the island. The air force has bombed a clandestine air field of the guerrillas, but failed to stop the Tigers.
     
    The Daily News report said that the military did not have a "proper" air defence system to protect its key assets and economic installations.
     
    The authorities had feared that the Tigers, who are fighting for an independent Tamil homeland, could use the cover of a civilian aircraft to enter the airport's air space and draw fire from ground troops.
     
    Airlines fear they could get caught up in anti-aircraft fire directed against LTTE aircraft.
     
    Under the new security measures, the airport will remain shut for six hours at night from 10:00 pm (1730 GMT) indefinitely.
     
    Travel agents said several major airlines had yet to finalise their new schedules, leaving many travellers scrambling for flights in and out of Colombo.
     
  • Fallen Fig Leaf
    Sri Lanka’s ruling party unveiled its much-heralded ‘power-sharing’ proposals last week, startling even the most cynical of observers with the starkness of its vision of centralized power. They were greeted by a chorus of outrage. But while southern moderates lambasted the Sri Lanka Freedom Party’s (SLFP) proposals, Sinhala nationlists howled that they had not explicitly committed to a unitary state – even though, in effect, it further strips power from minorities. President Mahinda Rajapakse is reportedly going to address the omission before submitting it to the All Party Representative Committee (APRC). Despite the United States’ repeated endorsements of the APRC, it is now universally accepted that it was merely an elaborate device to forestall international criticism. It is, in any case, a dead horse.
     
    With these proposals, President Rajapakse has signaled his wholehearted commitment to the military option. This, in effect, is his vision of Sri Lanka, to be rolled out following the eradication of the Tamil Tigers. In private, international observers admit to being stunned. Even if he was committed to a Sinhala nationalist utopia, some argue, for the sake of keeping up appearances, Rajapakse could have put forward some measure of devolution, no matter how weak. Instead, his proposals have compelled even his Tamil paramilitary allies to protest and embarrassed those in the SLFP who still describe themselves as moderates. And, officially, there has been pin drop silence from the international community, including the United States, the most enthusiastic supporters of the APRC charade.
     
    From the outset, however, the SLFP has been saying that its proposals will be in keeping with President Rajapakse’s 2005 election manifesto, ‘Mahinda Chinthanaya’ (Mahinda’s Thoughts). It has been true to its word. The surprise therefore comes from a misguided belief that, once safely ensconced in office, President Rajapakse would moderate his position. The simple fact is, he sees, with some justification, no reason to. Firstly, once the LTTE is destroyed, he is confident any damn solution can be imposed on the Tamils and Muslims (whose leaders have grown remarkably quiet once they entered the ruling coalition). Secondly, he is getting every international assistance to do just that. He is, after all, fighting the good fight, the ‘war on terror.’
     
    Sri Lanka is sliding inexorably towards an all out war. Even a superficial analysis of current dynamics shows that President Rajapakse is focusing single-mindedly on a battlefield victory (as, for that matter, is the LTTE). Every action by the government is intended to foreclose the possibility of a peace process and strengthen the war effort. This is why diplomats – including the indefatigable Norwegians – are barred from talking to the Tigers. This is why international NGOs are being harassed into avoiding the Northeast, why peace groups are being stamped on. Sinhala nationalists are being urged to protest against international actors, like Britain, who advocate peace talks.
     
    The international response to President Rajapakse’s all out military drive has been one of total acquiescence. The green light that the US gave Colombo to wage war against the Tigers is visible to everyone. No Sri Lankan government has had it so good in this regard. International criticism is about the widespread human rights abuses – not the recourse to war. And even that criticism is reprehensibly mild. The UK’s much-lauded, but minor cutting of aid last week doesn’t worry Colombo. Why should it - if the block on £1.5 million of aid is intended to express disapproval, what does the recent sale of £7 million of weapons say? And when the other donors, including several European countries, continue their aid programs.
     
    Ultimately, operating with a problem definition that blames the LTTE, rather than the oppressive Sri Lankan state, for the island’s war, international actors are loosely united behind Colombo. It can’t hurt, they say, if the LTTE is weakened, if not crippled. The logic stems from the same naïve belief in the inevitability of liberal compromise pragmatically mushrooming in a post-conflict Sri Lanka that lead to starry eyed expectations of the President Rajapakse’s proposals.
     
    Thus the only check on President Rajapakse and the Sinhala state, is the LTTE’s capacity for resistance. And for some time, the death knell of the LTTE has been sounded by an army of armchair strategists. Some of this insight has been challenged by recent developments, including the military’s lack of traction in western Vanni, the continuing volatility of the newly captured east and, of course, the LTTE’s airstrikes. But much international hope is still pinned on President Rajapakse’s strategy. Which is primarily why all out war is now inevitable.
  • US: ‘no change’ in policy towards Sri Lanka
    Visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher toured the Jaffna peninsula yesterday. Picture shows Mr. Boucher and the US Ambassador in Colombo Robert Blake soon after they landed at the Palali army camp. They were met by the Jaffna army commander G. A. Chandrasiri. Photo Daily Mirror

     

    Concluding his visit to Sri Lanka, top US envoy Richard A. Boucher Thursday expressed concern about human rights abuses in the country but backed President Rajapakse’s military campaign against the Liberation Tigers.
     
    Promising international assistance would help Sri Lanka “to face the threat of terrorism,” he called on Sinhala parties to forge a consensus and “show the Tamils they have a role in [Sri Lankan] society.”
     
    Saying “in all this we continue to view the situation with hope,” Mr. Boucher made clear: “I don’t see any immediate changes [in US policy toward Sri Lanka].”
     
    In his opening address to a final press conference Thursday, Mr. Boucher, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, said Washington has been “closely following” events in Sri Lanka.
     
    In wide-ranging comments, Mr Boucher backed the Sri Lankan government’s efforts to defeat the Tigers whom he denounced as terrorists.
     
    He urged southern political parties to come up with a consensus on the role Tamils would be accorded in Sri Lankan society.
     
    Acknowledging the human rights situation in Sri Lanka had “deteriorated” recently, Mr. Boucher was non-committal on international human rights monitoring, saying instead that this was the responsibility of the government and local institutions.
     
    The transcript of the press conference was released to media by the US embassy in Colombo.
     
    “I am concerned about the way things have been heading [here],” Mr. Boucher said at the outset.
     
    But the prevailing situation “is a consequence of people making difficult decisions because of the security situation, the breakdown of the ceasefire, and the human rights situation on the island,” he said.
     
    “We recognize that the people of Sri Lanka continue to face the threat of terrorism,” Mr Boucher said.
     
    “They face the threat from the Tamil Tigers, an organization that continues to be a terrorist group, continues to be a group that recruits child soldiers, extorts money, kills people, blows up buses, and attacks government facilities.”
     
    “We also know the international community can help in this regard. We are helping, and we will help. We do have defense cooperation with the Sri Lankan military. The international community has been taking action to try to slow the ability of the Tamil Tigers to get supplies, to get money, and to get weapons.”
     
    “There has been a lot of action by the international community to try to constrict the flow of money and arms to the Tamil Tigers because we are opposed to terrorism and stand with the people of Sri Lanka against terrorism.”
     
    Later, when asked about comments from White House that his mission to Colombo was meant to explore new initiatives for peace, Mr. Boucher replied: “You are ahead of me on the White House briefing. I didn’t see exactly what they said or how it is worded.”
     
    However, he said, “we come here knowing that people here are basically committed to the same goals and the same values as we have. and our goal is to work with them to find a way forward, to find the avenues for peace and the basis for negotiations and peace.”
     
    In his opening address, Mr. Boucher said: “we need action to try to move the situation forward -- forward toward peace, forward toward respect for justice for all the people of Sri Lanka.”
     
    He said he’d been speaking with southern leaders about “the prospects of having a set of proposals from this side of the island that can give a perspective to the Tamil community to show them that they have a place of respect, that they have a place on the island, that they have a role in society where they can control much of their own affairs.”
     
    Mr. Boucher welcomed the ruling Sri Lankan Freedom Party’s (SLFP) putting forward a proposal to this end and said “all the parties need to cooperate [to achieve a consensus].”
     
    Going further, he said “it’s important that people put all the parties to work toward a consensus through the All Parties Representative Committee.”
     
    “The other thing that we have talked about quite a bit has been the human rights situation,” Mr. Boucher said, referring to interactions with President Mahinda Rajapakse’s administration.
     
    “And there are two aspects that concern us most. One is abductions and killings, and the second is freedom of the press.”
     
    “We remain very concerned about some of the killings, the killings of aid workers, killings of people at various places on the island that have occurred in the last year or so,” he said.
     
    He hailed the government’s reiteration of the guidelines for arrest and transparency of arrest by the police or the military, saying “It is important that they have asked all people in government employment to respect those guidelines.”
     
    Commenting on US concerns about press freedom, Mr. Boucher said:” We’ve seen a lot of different reports. We’ve seen reports of intimidation, reports of government power being used on newspapers and journalists; and then, of course, we’ve seen killings and violent acts committed against newspapers and journalists.”
     
    Mr. Boucher did not refer to abductions and killings of civilians by Sri Lankan security forces, but urged the restraining of Army-backed paramilitaries.
     
    “It is also important that the government ensures security for everybody. And in the current circumstance that means stopping and controlling the paramilitary groups that have operated in various parts of the island and who are suspected, believed, known to be involved in many of the abductions and killings that have occurred in recent months.”
     
    However asked if the US would outlaw the Karuna Group, a leading paramilitary group blamed for widespread human rights abuses and conscription of child soldiers, as a terrorist group, Mr. Boucher said no decision had been taken.
     
    “As far as whether Karuna could get itself listed for engaging in terrorism, at this point I don’t know what to predict.,”
     
    “Certainly we will look at any group that consistently engages in terrorist activities and we will develop information and determine whether or not they meet our specific legal standards.”
     
    Mr. Boucher said there had been “some reduction of abductions in the Colombo area” but noted two people had been abducted the night before.
     
    “But I don’t think that is true at all in Jaffna,” he said.
     
    “I found a lot of people who are very afraid, a lot of people who are afraid because of the killings and abductions in Jaffna.”
     
    “You have seen journalists killed, we have seen people killed up there, and these are really serious threats to the people in that area, and they feel them very deeply,” he said.
     
    Mr. Boucher was asked by a Thinakkural reporter if “rather than issuing statements, are there any active measures to prevent these abuses, especially abductions, extra judicial killings, and threats to media personalities?”
     
    Mr. Boucher replied: “I’m not quite sure what you are asking for. The United States, I think, has been active. We have been active in looking at these things, looking for solutions. We have appointed and sent experts and representatives for the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons. We have raised these issues in very precise and specific terms with a variety of people on this island who can do something about them.  And that is where things have to be done.”
     
    When the Thinakkural reporter pressed the human rights issue, Mr. Boucher cut him off.
     
    Mr. Boucher also avoided endorsing growing calls for international human rights monitoring in Sri Lanka, saying it was the responsibility of the government.
     
    “As far as calls for international human rights monitoring, we will see where that goes and how the discussion develops. I think the first responsibility for human rights monitoring falls with the government, falls with the country, falls with the people.”
     
    “Free press is a vital part of that, but also organizations like the Human Rights Commission and other organizations on the island need to be active in monitoring the human rights situation. The police and the other groups need to actively investigate, and it should be the government that takes responsibility for monitoring and improving the human rights situation.”
     
    In his opening comments, Mr. Boucher said: “There are a number of committees and proposals operating now, inquiries to try to ensure accountability for things that have occurred in the past. … These committees and groups have an important role to play, and now that they are formed, now that they are working, they need to come up with answers.”
     
    Mr. Boucher refused to be drawn into commenting on Sri Lankan government claims that the LTTE’s newly unveiled aircraft posed a threat to India’s nuclear plants.
     
    Later when he was pressed on US views on the LTTE air strikes which had compelled the closure at night of Sri Lanka’s sole international airport at Katunayake, Mr. Boucher said:
     
    “We think they are very bad. They should not happen. They ought to stop. And the government has every right to stop those airplanes from hurting people and killing people and damaging the interests of the island.”
     
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