Sri Lanka

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  • Minorities most under threat in Sri Lanka

    Mar 28
    Sri Lanka is near the top of a global ranking of countries where the situation for minorities has significantly deteriorated in the last year, says a new global survey.
     
    Minority Rights Group International (MRG) said Sri Lanka and Pakistan had shown the biggest rise in this year's ranking of "peoples under threat", a major highlight of the international rights group's annual 'State of the World's Minorities' report.
     
    The report was released at the UN in New York last Tuesday.
     
    Sri Lanka jumped 47 places since the previous year and is now in the top-20 list of countries where minority communities are most under threat in 2007.
     
    The breakdown of the ceasefire between Colombo and the Liberation Tigers and intense fighting between government forces and the LTTE have left close to a 100,000 people displaced. Most are from ethnic minority communities, the report said.
     
    Tamils and Muslims are not only caught up in fighting between the government and the LTTE but are specifically targeted for rights abuses, including abductions and disappearances because of their minority status.
     
    "The human rights situation in Sri Lanka is deteriorating by the day. Reports of killings, disappearances and abductions are increasing and these reports are predominantly coming from minority communities," said MRG director Mark Lattimer.
     
    "The worrying factor in Sri Lanka is that multiple perpetrators are operating in a climate of fear and insecurity and little is being done by the government to address the situation," Lattimer added.
     
    The main 2007 list of peoples under threat is led by Somalia, Iraq and Sudan.
     
    The top 20 list includes six Asian and 10 African states.
  • Sri Lanka rejects foreign rights monitoring
    Sri Lanka last week rejected any foreign scrutiny of its human rights record amid growing international criticism of extra-judicial killings, abductions and the recruitment of child soldiers.
     
    Government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said Colombo would not allow any unsolicited monitoring of rights in the embattled island, but would invite “eminent persons from time to time” to assess the situation.
     
     “Many eminent persons have visited Sri Lanka at the invitation of the government... that is because we have nothing to hide,” Rambukwella told reporters here. "But, that is by invitation."
     
    “We will protect our sovereignty and will not allow any foreigner to force on us a set-up to monitor (rights).”
     
    He said if an independent international organisation or group arrives in the country without government's invitation to look into the human rights issues, that would be considered a hindrance to the activities of a sovereign state.
     
    Human rights groups have charged that at least 750 people had disappeared since the escalation of fighting between government forces and Liberation Tigers in December 2005.
     
    The bodies of people who had been shot dead “execution-style” blindfolded with their hands tied behind their back have turned up in swamps and by the roadside across the country.
     
    The government has denied involvement in the killings, which have sparked growing international criticism that the authorities were not doing enough to bring the offenders to justice, reported AFP.
     
    The newly appointed Sri Lankan ambassador to Geneva also voiced strong opposition to what was said by some member states and non-governmental organizations when speaking about Sri Lanka.
     
    Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) last Thursday Ambassador Dayan Jayatillake took exception to the tone and attitude of at least two NGOs and Sweden’s representative.
     
    In a strongly worded speech Ambassador Jayatillake said Sri Lanka was committed to remaining constructively engaged with UN mechanisms and the international community as a whole.
     
    He emphasised that as a sovereign democracy it would not be “prodded, pushed or intimidated” into accepting any measures or institutions against its wishes.
     
    “If certain steps were to be taken, they would have to be taken in concert with the Sri Lankan Government,” Ambassador Jayatillake said.
     
    “The Sri Lankan Government was constructively engaged with the international community in helping to improve the situation there.”
     
    In a joint statement issued at the session earlier in the day Human Rights Watch, the Colombian Commission of Jurists and the International Commission of Jurists said allegations of disappearances in Colombo and in the North and East of Sri Lanka continued to be received and urged Sri Lanka to invite the Working Group to visit the country.
     
    The Sri Lanka government has appointed a presidential commission of inquiry to investigate some selected serious human rights violations in the recent past.
     
    Rambukwella said that a special unit has been deployed to ensure the safety of those who give witness before the commission and that it would function with total transparency.
     
    He said since Sri Lanka has ratified to the conventions of the United Nations it has an obligation to fulfil the human rights requirements in the country and will continue to do so.
     
    An International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) was also appointed by the President to enhance transparency of investigations and to ensure they conform to international norms and standards.
     
    The international rights watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) has also urged the deployment of an international panel to provide independent monitoring of the island's rights record.
     
    “To be effective, the mission would be mandated to investigate serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law …; report publicly on its findings; and play a mediating role to help reduce local tensions. A monitoring mission will make it harder for those who commit serious human rights abuses to deny responsibility,” argued HRW’s Senior Legal Advisor James Ross in an opinion in the Daily Mirror.
     
    “The Sri Lankan government would also be sending a very strong signal to the international community that it was genuinely concerned with the state of human rights in the country and - more importantly - was willing to take a bold step to do something about it,” he argues.
     
    “Instead of dismissing out of hand the idea of a UN human rights monitoring mission, the Rajapakse government should take the initiative and begin discussions with concerned states to make this proposal a reality,” Ross wrote.
     
    However, Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona went as far as to deny any accusations of human rights violations in the military campaign against the LTTE, insisting that Sri Lanka was “one country that has taken great care to avoid any civilian casualties”.
     
    A UN official last year accused Sri Lankan government forces of colluding with a the paramilitary Karuna Group to recruit child soldiers in the island's east, a charge vehemently denied by the authorities.
     
    Sri Lanka introduced draconian prevention of terrorism laws in December, giving sweeping powers to the police and security forces to arrest and detain suspects for long periods without trial.
     
    Amnesty International and other rights groups have noted that the deteriorating rights record was linked to the escalating conflict between troops and the LTTE.
     
    Meanwhile the US congress and the opposition in a joint statement have requested American President George W. Bush to send a committee to Sri Lanka to look into the human rights violations.
  • SLA holds Tamil journalist, says RSF
    Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in a press release issued Friday said the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) was involved in the abduction and disappearance of Subramaniam Ramachandran, a journalist working for the Tamil daily Yarl Thinakural.
    Ramachandran disppeared on 15 February after being questioned at the Kalikai junction, Vadamaradchy SLA camp in Jaffna, and RSF said his colleagues believe that he is being held in an SLA camp.
    “Following the police chief’s recent admission that the security forces have been involved in abductions, Reporters Without Borders said it was in a position to affirm that the military participated in the arrest of journalist Subramaniam Ramachandran on 15 February north of Jaffna. Colleagues think he is now being held secretly at a military camp,” the press release said.
    Journalists demonstrate in front of Colombo’s main railway station to protest against the threats faced by their colleagues, with journalists disappearing, being abducted, killed and or arrested  
    Photo TamilNet
    “We appeal to the authorities to take action to locate and Ramachandran and have him released,” the press freedom organisation said.
    “The fact that the government publicly acknowledges the participation of the security forces in kidnapping and forced disappearance is very worrying, but at the same time gives us hope that Ramachandran is still alive.”
    Prior to his abduction in the Vadamaradchi area to the north of Jaffna, Ramachandran had written for the Tamil daily Yarl Thinakural about the involvement of a businessman and military officers in sand illegal trafficking. His stories gave such details as the licence numbers of the vehicles involved and the businessman’s connections with certain officers.
    The circumstances of his disappearance establish beyond any doubt that the SLA was involved, RSF said.
    “Accompanied by a friend, he left the school he runs in Karaveddy at around 6 p.m. on 15 February. When they arrived next to the Kalikai Junction military camp, soldiers ordered them to stop for questioning. Ramachandran was taken into the camp while his friend was asked to leave.”
    “According to witness, a vehicle containing a military intelligence officer, two members of the EPDP (a pro-government Tamil militia) and an army informer arrived one hour later, and then left a few minutes after that with Ramachandran. His family has had no word of him since then. Several Jaffna-based journalists say he is being held in a military camp in the north of the island.”
    Separately, the chief editor of the Uthayan newspaper published in Jaffna called upon all fellow journalists to act immediately and take necessary action to safeguard journalists associated with the Uthayan, and all Tamil journalists in the Jaffna.
    Publishing the daily newspaper Uthayan in Jaffna is an increasingly Herculean and dangerous task with armed gunmen who continuously threaten its work and staff, says the chief editor, V. Kanamailnathan.
    Writing to the Editors Guild of Sri Lanka, Kanamailnathan says journalists & employees working in the night face this risk each second of every day, with absolutely no respite.
    "Threats in the last four months have increased. Incidents that have occurred during this period have made our journalists and essential staff lead a stressful life of fear and insecurity", the letter states.
    Complaints to the police and other authorities have not proved fruitful, the chief editor says.
    "This letter is to urge you to kindly bring the traumatic conditions that we are hostages of , to the attention of all our colleagues of the Editors Guild of Sri Lanka", he said
    "We are being throttled and systematically targeted – we need your help, now more than ever, to secure our livelihoods, our profession and a shared commitment to the inviolable values of democracy and the freedom of the media", the letter further states.
    Upali Tennakoon, president of the Editors Guild told the BCC Sinala service that the guild had discussed the issue and decided to write to the President Mahinda Rajapakse about the plight of journalists in the north and specially of the journalists of the Uthayan newspaper.
  • Violence round up – week ending 18 March

    18 March

    ● Thirty-eight civilians, including twenty women, of all three communities, were arrested in a cordon and search operation by Sri Lanka government troops in Mt. Lavinia police division in Colombo. The police said they were taken into custody as some failed to prove their identity and others could not justify their presence in the location. Cordon and search operations were also conducted in Moratuwa, Soysapura, further south of Mt. Lavinia.

    ● Gunmen shot dead Vaiyramuthu Jeyachandran, 36, resident of LB3 Sivapuram, Kiliveddy, at Kiliveddy in Muthur, Trincomalee.

    ● A trader and a student accompanying him disappeared in Pungankulam, Ariyalai, inside the Jaffna Municipal area, after being interrogated by SLA soldiers. The disappeared were identified as trader, Vigneswaran Subaskaran, 39, from Nunavil along A9 highway in Chavakachcheri, and Thavarajah Nitharsan, 18, a school student who was helping Subaskaran in his errands. Both had gone to Jaffna town to attend to business matters, later visited Subaskaran's mother's house in Ariyalai, and were returning home to Nunavil along A9, when they were stopped by the SLA soldiers near Pungankulam and interrogated for several hours. Traders in Ariyalai and other witnesses said that an armoured Buffel vehicle entered the area and took the two civilians. Subaskaran had earlier been arrested by the SLA in December 2006, while he was staying with his mother, on false charges of possessing a hand grenade and released after being tortured.

    ● Kopalapillai Rameshthasan, 30, a family man, was abducted in Aanaikottai area in Jaffna, when he went to visit his family members in Velanai.

    ● A SLA soldier was killed at Sembimalai in Kuchchaveli police division Trincomalee when an unidentified group of persons fired at a SLA foot patrol. The military claimed LTTE cadres had fired at the government troops.
    17 March
    ● Amid an escalating number of killings in Jaffna peninsula, C. Meihandathevan, 28, a farmer, was shot at his home in Mirusuvil North, Thenmaradchy. This is the fourth shooting incident involving farm workers who are being increasingly targeted in Mirusuvil area.
    16 March
    ● Reports from Jaffna said the SLA shot dead a youth who attempted to enter their Intelligence Unit main camp at Koolavady, Annaikottai, Valigamam, after lobbing a hand grenade, which did not explode. The SLA said the youth’s jacket was packed with explosives.
    ● The SLA arrested three Tamil youths travelling in a private bus from Vavuniya to Mannar. The SLMM was informed of the arrest. Three Tamil youths stopped and boarded the bus at Murunkan. SLA soldiers stopped the bus at Koolankulam and arrested the three youths and took them away.
    ● Hundreds of SLA troopers who advanced into LTTE territory in Palamoddai, northwest of Vavuniya, were forced to hurriedly withdraw from the area, leaving behind military hardware. The Tigers put up stiff resistance against the SLA troopers, the LTTE's Military Spokesman, Irasiah Ilanthirayan, siad. Four SLA troopers were killed and 20 wounded in the operation, the LTTE claimed. However, the SLA said it suffered casualties when LTTE attacked their positions. A similar SLA move was thwarted the previous evening at Mullikkulam along Vavuniya Mannar border, west of Palamoddai.
    ● At least 19 SLA soldiers were injured, 4 of them seriously, when SLA troopers and the LTTE exchanged heavy artillery and rocket fire along the Thenmaradchi FDLs in the Jaffna peninsula. It is not known if LTTE suffered any casualties.
    15 March
    ● The SLA launched heavy artillery and mortar fire towards the Mannar - Vavuniya border villages of Mullikulam, Keerisuddan and Periya Pandivirichchan, causing hundreds of civilian families to flee the villages. Artillery and mortar fire from Iranai Iluppaikulam targeted villages surrounding Mullikulam, inside LTTE controlled territory in Madu. Heavy artillery fire was also reported towards the areas surrounding the access point in Puliyankulam from Poovarasankulam SLA camp.
    ● The SLAF carried out three aerial attacks on Mullaithivu district.
    ● SLA soldiers and police arrested thirteen Tamils from North and Eastern provinces in a pre-dawn search in Hathuduwa, Mt.Lavinia, a suburb of Colombo.
    ● Sivagnanam Rathikaran, 27, of Kasthuriyar Road, disappeared after he went to Jaffna city in the morning to attend personal errands.
    ● Thiraviyam Sasikumar, 37, a young family man of Point Pedro, left home for shopping in Point Pedro town and did not return.
    14 March
    ● The SLA refused permission to hundreds of Christian devotees to continue their annual foot pilgrimage to Calvary, in Komarasankulam, Vavuniya, citing security reasons. Devotees were forced to return to Mannar after they were stopped at Murunkan on their way to Vavuniya. The SLA also turned down appeals by Mannar Bishop Rt. Rev. Rayappu Joseph, church officials said.
    ● Three youths, from Kodikamam, Columbuthurai and Manipay, were accompanied by Jaffna SLHRC officials to safer areas, after they called for help fearing danger to their lives. The youths went underground fearing death at the hands of the SLA, after their names were called out during cordon and search operations in their respective areas earlier.
    ● The body of Mohamed Ali Nanthakumar, 26, with gun shot wounds, was recovered within the SLA HSZ at Konan Thottam Veethy near KKS road-Hospital road junction in the heart of Jaffna town. He had been missing since Tuesday evening when he went to escort his brother's daughter from school. Residents speculate Nanthakumar, of A.V. Road, Colombuthurai, was abducted and killed elsewhere before being brought in a vehicle and dumped at Konan Thottam Veethy. There is constant movement of SLA troops during curfew hours in the area where the body was recovered and could not have been dumped there without the SLA’s knowledge, residents added.
    ● Police recovered mutilated male body packed in a green plastic bag, normally used by the SLA, caught in the fishing net along the coast at Punguduthivu, an islet of Jaffna,. The body, with head, hands and legs severed, bore deep cut wounds in the stomach and appeared to belong to a male under 30. The bag containing the corpse was filled with stones and tied with barbed wire to stay in deep ocean bottom, but had been washed ashore due to rough seas.
    ● Thiraviyam Susikumar, 32, of Muthumariaman Kovilady in Alvai, Jaffna, was arrested by Navalady junction SLA camp troopers, according to his wife, who reported to the SLHRC that she witnessed SLA troopers taking her husband's motorbike into the camp.
    ● Anantharasa Anton Mariagnanarasa, 35, a fisherman and father of four, from Kudathanai in Vadamaradchy east, Jaffna, was stopped at the SLA sentry post near Valipuram Temple while returning home from Point Pedro, and taken away in a Buffel Armoured Personnel Carrier. His wife reported to the SLHRC that relatives had seen her husband being taken away by SLA soldiers.
    ● STF troopers shot dead a youth at VC junction in Kannaki village, Thirukovil, Amparai.
    13 March
    ● Mortar shells launched by the LTTE hit the SLA Omanthai brigade base, seriously injuring a trooper. The SLA launched random shelling on Omathai following the attack.
    ● A fisherman, Charles Peiris, 34, and 2-year old son Joyson were injured when the SLN fired at a group of people in Pesalai, Mannar. SLN crafts patrolling the Pesalai Sea noted persons loading goods in boats along the coast. The soldiers started firing at them, and a father and a son who were inside their house near by were injured.
    ● A Muslim textile dealer disappeared in Mallakam area, according to a complaint lodged by his wife at the Jaffna branch of the SLHRC. Abdul Galam Subaideen, 26, a young family man, married to a Tamil woman, set out from home on business and did not return.
    12 March
    ● Thirteen Tamil civilians, including three women, were arrested in a cordon and search operation by the SLA and Police at Kohuwela, Colombo. All are natives of the North East and were temporarily staying with friends and family or in lodges when they were arrested. Some of the arrested have failed to prove their identity, the police said.
    ● A postman and another civilian were killed in a claymore attack by a SLA DPU at fourth mile post along Madhu-Parapukadanthan road in LTTE held territory in Mannar. The postman, Fernando Arulananthan Croos, 48, was earlier a resident of Adamban and had sought refuge in Madhu refugee camp with his family following heavy artillery fire by the government forces towards his village. He was cycling towards Vattakandal Sub-Post Office to report for work when he hit the claymore.
    ● The body of a SLA DPU soldier, killed by the LTTE Saturday at Periyathambanai, in LTTE held territory in Mannar, was handed over to army officers. The soldier was identified as Corporal Senaratne of Kadugannawa, Kandy.
    ● Gunmen shot dead a textile vendor along Hospital road, Jaffna in front of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital. The men shot Lawrence Mariyaselvam, 32, a young family man from Navaly North, Manipay, in broad day light and escaped from the site by bicycle.
    ● A body of youth strangled to death, was found in a toilet pit in an abandoned house in Chunnakam South, Valikamam, Jaffna. Neighbours alerted officials after detecting a bad stench, and the body was found after a search. The body is believed to belong to one of the youths abducted recently in the peninsula by SLA soldiers and SLA-backed paramilitaries.
  • Colombo traders shut down in protest against ransom demands
    Shops in in the heart of Colombo closed as owners protested the ongoing ransom demands, abductions and death threats they face from paramilitary groups, the military and the police.
    Photo TamilNet
    Pettah and Fort traders in Colombo staged a shut down on 16 March to protest against ransom demands and death threats, allegedly from the paramilitary Karuna Group working in conjunction with the police.
    "Members of the Karuna group, in collaboration with the police, demand ransom from us and though we have complained to the police along with phone numbers as evidence, no action has been taken," a shop owner said.
    However, Kotahena police blocked traders from demonstrating in front of the police station, media reports said.
    Many businessmen have paid the ransom demanded to secret bank accounts under death threats, the traders said.
    The account number of a bank in Singapore was given to deposit the money, some affected traders said.
    Business activities ground to a halt in the busy area of Fort and Pettah as all shops remained closed in sympathy with the protests.
    Traders' Union representatives sent an appeal to Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapakse to help stop ransom demands.  
  • Kfirs target school, injure three
    Teachers and students took shelter in a bunker as their school was bombed.
    Photo TamilNet
    Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Kfir bombers bombed a school in Chundikulam, Vadamaradchi East in Jaffna, on March 19, wounding a female teacher and two schoolboys.
    Three bombs were dropped 25 meters from a class room of Chundikulam Vidyalayam. Two other schools, Aliyavalai Church Ceylon Tamil Mixed School and Uduthurai Mahavidyalayam, were also functioning at the site as they had been displaced from their original locations.
    A bomb that hit a tree exploded in the air, wounding Kanapathipillai Nirojan, 11, attending 7th grade at Chundikulam Vidyalayam, Luxmikanthan Jegatheepan, 16, attending 9th grade. The teacher was identified as K. Sathiyavathy, 26.
    Around 175 schoolchildren, 8 teachers and the principal of the school narrowly escaped injury or death.
    Kfir bombers dropped bombs on the school at 9:45 and later at 11:45, when the children were attending their classes
    A TamilNet correspondent who visited the site of the attack witnessed a second air strike at 11:45 a.m.
    There are no military installations in the area populated by IDPs. IDPs and the villagers fled towards shrub jungles following the attack.
     
  • Abducted TRO officers final rites held
    Photos were garlanded and floral tributes were paid as part of the final rites of seven TRO officials missing for more than a year and now presumed dead.
    Photo TamilNet
    The final rites for seven humanitarian workers abducted in January 2006 were held on 17 March, after three days of mourning.
    Seven officials of the Tamils Rehabilitations Organisation (TRO), presumed to have been abducted by the paramilitary Karuna Group working in conjunction with the Sri Lanka Army, went missing on January 29 and 30 last year.
    “The 7 aid workers remain “disappeared” over a year after their abduction and, as a result of news reports and information conveyed to our organization, it is with great sorrow and condolences to the families that TRO now believes that our co-workers were executed soon after being abducted by the GoSL-affiliated “Karuna Group” paramilitaries,” the TRO said in a press release.
    “Recent news reports state that they were tortured before being murdered and their bodies disposed of,” the press release noted.
    “TRO requests that the Police follow up on news reports and investigate the locations where the bodies may be buried,” the press release stated.
    The seven TRO officials who disappeared are Mr Thamiraja Vasantharajan, Mr Shanmuganathan Sujendran, Mr Kailasapillai Ravinthiran, Mr Arulthavarasa Satheeskaran, Ms Thanushkodi Premini, Mr Thangarasa Kathirkamar and Mr Kasinathar Ganeshalingam.
    Framed memorials with photographs were taken to relatives’ homes in Kilinochchi on 14 March for people to pay their respects. The pictures were then taken in procession to the Kilinochchi Cultural Hall, where the final ceremony was held on Saturday.
    Following lighting of the Common flame, relatives garlanded pictures of the seven staffers.
    Press reports, and especially an investigative piece compiled by Tamil columnist D.B.S. Jeyaraj, based on interviews with former members of the Karuna Group, formally known as the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP), said that the missing aid workers were executed by paramilitaries of the Karuna Group which took them captive.
    The TVMP is an anti-LTTE paramilitary group set up by a renegade LTTE commander, Karuna, who defected to the Sri Lankan military after his six-week rebellion was crushed in an LTTE offensive in early 2004.
    “The facts that I am privy to indicate that all seven abducted have been killed,” Mr Jeyaraj reported.
    “The solitary woman among them [Ms Thanushkodi Premini] was painfully gang raped before being killed,” he said.
    TRO President Mr. Sivanadiyar, speaking at the ceremony stated, “With respect to information on our abducted staff, though we received much information on their status from the beginning, we took much effort and time to ensure and confirm the truth of all the information.”
    “In the year since the abductions we have observed a day of fasting and conducted media events in Colombo to publicize and appeal to the Sri Lankan and international community for the release of the abductees. Based on the news that has been published in the Sri Lankan newspapers and based on the research we have performed, we now strongly believe that our staff have lost their lives,” he said.
    “Despite the committed efforts taken by the International Red Cross, Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, various Non-Governmental Orgnizations, UN Human Rights Groups, and the TRO, we were unable to save the lives of the seven dedicated workers,” he added.
    In the eulogy, Mr Sivanadiyar told the audience of the empathy the staffers had for the people who were suffering amidst violence and economic hardship, and the dedication with which the staffers served the people.
    Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians Pathmini Sithamparanathan, and K Gajendran, LTTE's senior member Balakumaran, Head of Northeast Secretariat on Human Rights (NESOHR) Rev.Fr. Kanagaratnam, and other officials of the TRO spoke at the event.
     
  • Refugee situation ‘critical and urgent’ - UN
    The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), struggling to cope with hundreds of thousands of displaced people in Batticaloa, has warned of acute shortage of basic supplies including food and urged for immediate assistance from the international community.
     
    According to the WFP, over 200,000 Tamils driven out by Sri Lankan military offensives in the eastern district will run out of food by end of April, if urgent funds are not received from donor countries.
     
    "If donor governments do not come in with fresh funds, supplies will run out by end April," WFP spokesperson in Colombo Selvi Sacithandam said.
     
    (file photo) Large numbers of Tamil refugees are crammed into overcrowded camps in Sri  Lanka military controlled areas.  Photo: Gamini Obeysekara/AFP/Getty Images
     
    WFP Regional Director for Asia Tony Banbury described conditions in the area as “critical and urgent.”
     
    “Unless we receive new funding very soon, we will run out of food supplies by the end of April. After all the suffering endured by the victims of the fighting in Sri Lanka, they should not be hurt further by a lack of international support and concern,” he said.
     
    Referring to the latest influx of refugees as a major humanitarian challenge, the WFP official added “we will do everything we can to ensure that all these victims of the conflict – many of them women and children – get the assistance they so desperately need.”
     
    Since the latest exodus began on March 8, the WFP has issued repeated warnings of impending food shortage and appealed for assistance to provide for the IDPs in Batticaloa.
     
    According to the agency it could only take care of 60% of the supplies and that the remainder was to be provided by the Sri Lankan Government and other assistance of local NGOs and INGOs.
     
    Basil Sylvester, District Officer in Batticaloa for the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies said "The UN can only take care of 60% of the food supplies, and they say that they are running out funds, there are a lot of people here and we need to act fast,"
     
    Food however is not the only concern, according UN agencies, who say that security, sanitation and over crowding are all major concerns.
     
    The Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC) has warned that "WFP is facing a break in pipeline towards end of April and is calling for urgent contributions from donors with requirements only for conflict IDPs and vulnerable groups affected by the hostilities at US$ 1 million a week for 400,000 people nation-wide.”
     
    According to WFP lack of international support has forced it to put on hold its Mother and Child Nutrition and school feeding programme in order to re-direct its limited resources towards the newly displaced and suspend most food-for-work rehabilitation projects for the tsunami affected.
    Meanwhile the Common Humanitarian Action Plan for Sri Lanka has only received 33 percent of its required funding for food assistance.
     
    The WFP told a press briefing in Geneva, Switzerland said it was too early to predict whether international donor funds would come through.
     
  • Sole representatives: why claim and why oppose?
    One of the most contested aspects of the LTTE’s politics is its claim to the sole (or more recently, authentic) representatives of the Tamil people in dealings with the Sinhala-
    Dominated Sri Lankan state.
     
    The LTTE’s claim is rejected by its detractors using a number of arguments, one of the more fashionable of which is that Tamils themselves have multiple identities (such as those of class, caste, gender, region and religion) and that no single organization, particularly the violent LTTE, can really claim to represent all Tamil political aspirations.
     
    Those of a more academic bent talk of the ‘impossibility of Tamil nationalism,’ given the allegedly multiple social, political and economic differences within the ‘imagined’ Tamil nation.
     
    Another response is simply to point to Tamil opponents of the LTTE, as if the mere existence of Karuna or V. Anandasangaree is proof enough that the LTTE cannot claim to represent the totality of political opinion within the Tamil people.
     
    The extent to which these figures actually have any solid political base or viable political program (i.e. independent of Sri Lankan government sponsorship) is less important in this regard than their espousal of an anti-LTTE position.
     
    Furthermore, the LTTE and the Tamils that endorse its claim are expected to simply keel over and give up the struggle in the face of this superior, novel and incontrovertible logic.
     
    The latters’ response, naturally, is that those challenging the LTTE’s sole representative claim or promoting anti-LTTE actors are primarily seeking to undermine and weaken the Tamils’ struggle for self-determination.
     
    Interestingly, their argument has a historical precedent, dating to at least the high noon of the British Empire – in South Asia itself.
     
    In the years following the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885, senior British officials were eager to pour scorn on its claim to represent Indian public opinion (i.e. the British were not wanted).
     
    For example, the then Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, dismissed Congress as ‘a microscopic minority.’
     
    And well before the current post modern vogue, a thoroughly modern British colonial official, Sir John Stratchey, was emphatic about the impossibility of the Indian nation.
     
    “There is not, and never was an India, or even any country of India.. no Indian nation, no ‘people of India’ of which we hear so much,” he confidently told a gathering of Cambridge Undergraduates.
     
    “That men of the Punjab, Bengal, the North–West Provinces and Madras should ever feel that they belong to one great Indian nation is impossible.”
     
    At different stages in the struggle between Congress and the colonial state, British authorities challenged the Congress’ authority to represent the Indian nation by pointing to divisions of religion, caste and class.
     
    The Congress, it was alleged, could not be the ‘sole representative’ as it did not represent religious minorities, Dalits and the rural population.
     
    Instead Congress was deemed to be a concern of upper caste, urban educated Hindus.
     
    Indeed, the Colonial state went further, taking upon itself the mantle of guardian and protector of other groups against the minority interests being selfishly pursued by the Congress party. 
     
    With hindsight it is clear that in challenging the Congress’ claim to represent the Indian nation, the Colonial state was actually obfuscating its own exploitative and oppressive nature.
     
    By pointing to the alleged divisions within the Indian nation, the Colonial state drew attention away from anti-colonials’ argument that India’s wealth was being drained, at the expense of her people, to support the British economy.
     
    Furthermore, the anti-colonials pointed out, excise and import duties favored British imports over the development of local industry thereby preventing the Indian economy from moving out of its dependence on the export of raw commodities.
     
    The oppressive nature of the colonial state became starkly clear at moments of popular confrontation, as occurred during the episodes of nationwide anti colonial protest mobilized by Congress.
     
    Particularly well known incidents include the massacre at the Jallainwallah Bagh when the army, under the command of Brigadier General Reginald Dyer, opened fire on a crowd of unarmed peasants that had gathered for a fair.
     
    The state that claimed to represent the sturdy, loyal peasant against the seditious, upper caste urbanite opened fire on a crowd of unarmed men, women and children. According to the official report 379 civilians were killed but Indians put the dead at closer to 1,000 with more than 2, 000 wounded.
     
    Interestingly, in response to the British sneers, Congress did not deny the existence of multiple poles of difference within the Indian nation.
     
    Instead it claimed to represent the interests of all Indians as colonial subjects in the struggle against British imperialism.
     
    The thrust of Congress’s argument was that colonial rule was oppressive and detrimental to the interests of all Indians, irrespective of their other identities.
     
    Meanwhile Congress leaders, particularly Gandhi, campaigned against the iniquities of caste while as early as 1920 the Congress party, recognizing the existence of multiple linguistic identities, reorganized its party structures along linguistic lines.
     
    Although not even the most ardent Indiaphiles would argue that post – Independence India has been an unqualified success there have been striking achievements. India has remained a reasonably stable democratic and federal state that recognizes multiple linguistic and caste identities alongside the Indian identity.
     
    The existence of multiple poles of difference within groups demanding the right to political independence is a recurrent phenomenon of both successful and unsuccessful nationalist movements.
     
    Opposing states have also always sought to divide nationalist movements by playing upon these differences.
     
    Nelson Mandela describes in his autobiography how the white Nationalists state attempted to undermine the African National Congress (ANC)’s bargaining position by creating divisions within the black and colored population.
     
    “The Nationalists’ long-term strategy to overcome our strength was to build an anti – ANC alliance with the Inkatha Freedom Party and to lure the Coloured Afrikaans – speaking voters of the Cape into a new National Party,” he says.
     
    “From the moment of my release, they began wooing both [Inkatha leader] Buthelezi and the Coloured voters of the Cape.”
     
    Once again the state’s strategy is one of obfuscation. By pointing to the differences within the black and coloured peoples, the Apartheid regime sought to distract attention from the exclusions and hierarchies they all suffered under white minority rule.
     
    Dharmeratnam Sivaram, the Tamil writer and journalist assassinated in April 2005, identified the creation of divisions amongst those struggling for freedom as a classic tactic of counter–insurgency.
     
    Mark Whitaker reports in his recent study of Sivaram’s life, work and politics – ‘Learning Politics from Sivaram,’ – a conversation in which Sivaram discussed the use of divide and rule tactics in breaking the will of a resisting population.
     
    According to Sivaram, “promotion of numerous political and interest groups from within the target population backed, covertly or overtly, by either vigilante groups or by the state, to dilute and obfuscate the basic issue in question that in the first place gave rise to the insurgency.”
     
    The claim that Tamils are a nation with a right to political independence does not deny the existence of gender, class, regional and religious differences amongst them.
     
    Rather what it asserts is that the social and economic well being of all Tamils would be served by a set of autonomous political institutions that would not be hostage to the whims of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism.
     
    It should not be forgotten that the Tamil demand for independence came as a consequence of thirty years of discrimination and oppression at the hands of a state that privileged the economic, social and political claims of the Sinhala Buddhist majority at the expense of the Tamil - speaking minority.
     
    This discrimination and violent oppression affected all Tamils equally, regardless of their gender, religion, region, class or caste. The racist mobs that hunted out Tamils during the pogroms of the 70’s and 80’s were not good post - modernists, stopping to consider their victims’ multiple sub-identities.
     
    Similarly the violence being unleashed now against the Tamils by the Sri Lankan state does not discriminate. Are not those supposed to be Karuna’s supporters languishing in Batticaloa’s refugee camps along with the rest of the district’s Tamils?
     
    The failure to share international development aid equitably has affected Tamil communities from all the northeastern districts: Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Mannar, Vavuniya Trincomalee and Batticaloa.
     
    The government’s Kfir bombers do not discriminate between Hindus and Christians, men and women or fishermen and farmers. All Jaffna Tamils, irrespective of caste, class and religious bent are feeling the crippling effects of the government’s refusal to open the A9 highway.
     
    The politics of divide and rule have found form in principled arguments such as the need to make peace negotiations ‘more inclusive’ or the need for ‘other Tamil voices’ to be heard.
     
    It is interesting that Karuna, one of the so called ‘alternative voices’, has nothing to say while 200,000 Tamils driven from their homes by the Sinhala military now languish in refugee camps.
     
    Anandasangaree, meanwhile, rails against the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement, saying the truce had prevented the ‘liberation’ of the Tamils of the Vanni.
     
    Indeed, it is no accident that such actors are feted by the Sinhala nationalist forces.
     
    By prioritizing the differences within Tamils, these arguments attempt to shift attention away from the burning question of the political status of the Tamil people: are they to be an autonomous nation in a multinational state or subordinate minorities in a Sinhala Buddhist one?
     
    Interestingly, whilst there are repeated calls for a Sinhala consensus (equates to non-ruling parties uniting behind the Sri Lankan state in its dealings with the LTTE), there is no similar call for Tamil unity.
     
    This is even whilst the state is urged to negotiate a lasting political solution with the Tigers!
     
    Just as in the case of Congress and the Indians, in demanding to be recognized as sole representatives of the Tamil people, the LTTE does not claim to represent every single Tamil interest and sub-identity.
     
    Rather, the LTTE claims to represent the overarching political interests that Tamils, as a collective, have in common as a consequence of the oppression and discrimination they share.
     
    The LTTE argues that it is the only significant, organized political force that is acting and speaking on behalf interests that all Tamils share as a consequence of their collective marginalisation within the Sinhala Buddhist state.
     
    Thus, especially in the current climate, where Tamils are facing levels of brutality last endured during President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s ‘war for peace’, arguments and strategies that prioritise the differences within amongst Tamils over their collective suffering can be plausibly dismissed as nothing more than new attempts to break their will to resist Sinhala domination.
  • Early Warning
    The Liberation Tigers’ airstrike this week on Sri Lanka’s main airbase at Katunayake has understandably triggered shockwaves both in the island and further afield. Whilst the Sri Lankan government insists its aircraft are unscathed, amid a blackout imposed by Colombo, there are persistent reports that a significant part of the Air Force’s strike capability has been knocked out – something some Indian analysts are also insisting. Irrespective of the reality, what is clear is that the LTTE has developed an indigenous air capability. It is the first armed non-state actor to do so, and it has managed it without the support of any state. Moreover the LTTE has achieved this against considerable odds and in spite of determined and extensive efforts by the Sri Lankan government and its allies to constrict the LTTE’s supply lines (hence the begrudging admiration expressed by many commentators, including some of its critics).
     
    Thus it is the institutional growth reflected in this single LTTE airstrike that is of significance. For almost a year, Sri Lanka’s hardline government has single-mindedly pursued a military solution to the Tamil question. In that time, large tracts of territory were captured from the LTTE in the sprawling and thinly defended east. President Mahinda Rajapakse and his cotorie of Sinhala nationalists have trumpeted this as evidence of the inevitability of a victory over the Tigers. Promising a final victory over the Tigers, Colombo has pursued a ruthless and blatantly racist strategy. At least two hundred thousand Tamils have been driven from their homes. They have been starved and bombarded for months. International aid agencies were officially prevented from providing humanitarian relief. And for the past few months the onslaught has been conducted in full sight of the international community.
     
    Interestingly, following the LTTE airstrike Sri Lanka has been vehemently making two contradictory arguments. On the one hand, Colombo’s military spokesmen have been derisively dismissing the TAF as a negligible threat. Yet at the same time, Sri Lanka’s government is shrilly declaring the LTTE planes a threat to “the entire region” and India in particular. Indeed, after a similar bout of agitation by Sri Lanka’s government, international concerns about the LTTE’s air assets were raised with the movement almost two years ago. The LTTE’s response, later repeated to media by the S. P. Thamilchelvan, head of the LTTE political wing was that all the organisation's structures and efforts are aimed at protecting the Tamil people and "was in no way a threat to any other country in general, particularly India.” Sri Lanka has long sought to implicate other countries directly in its war against the LTTE. Its efforts to get India to enter into a defence pact is but the latest of such efforts. Whilst aggressively rejecting – under the rubric of sovereignty –  international allies’ offers of help to peacefully resolve the conflict, Colombo repeatedly demands they get involved in its ‘internal’ affair under the logic of ‘fighting terrorism.’
     
    Sri Lanka’s promise of a quick victory over the LTTE – or, for the more skeptical, the promise of a serious weakening of the Tigers – has provided the justification for the humanitarian suffering unleashed on our people. Indeed various rationales have been floated for why Sri Lanka should not be restrained. The most cowardly of these is that Colombo simply won’t listen. The same international community that determinedly calls for sanctions against other (much larger and most robust) states which refuse to accept international norms hides behind notions of sovereignty when it comes to Sri Lanka.
     
    Amidst the deliberate infliction of widespread suffering on the Tamil people, the international community – including the mighty Co-Chairs – merely mouth feeble platitudes for Sri Lanka to pursue a political solution. As well as the war, that is. The peculiar logic is that once the LTTE is under severe military pressure, the Tamils could be persuaded to accept a much lower level of powersharing (it is no accident that these day no one talks of federalism). The more astute international actors are aware of the flaws in this logic: i.e. without the LTTE it’s irrelevant what the Tamils are prepared to accept. Yet international interests are served by an end to the conflict, even in the absence of a just solution for the Tamils i.e. the destruction of the LTTE would suffice.
     
    In short, amidst the rampant violence of the Sri Lankan state, the LTTE has become the convenient whipping boy for a variety of international actors including, shamefully, those who for many years lectured the Tamils on human rights and international humanitarian law. Many of these actors, it shouldn’t be forgotten, weighed enthusiastically into the Norwegian peace process, stymieing the LTTE’s efforts to secure international legitimacy and eventually contributing to the dissipation of the momentum of the peace process itself. Now with human rights violations by the state having become so widespread and blatant as to be impossible to ignore, all they can offer is feeble criticism. The Tamils, however, have to fend for themselves.
     
    It remains very much to be seen if President Rajapakse can deliver the inexorable reduction of the LTTE that he has promised. But what can be guaranteed is that amidst his efforts Sri Lanka will descend into a maelstrom of violence. With its raid on Katunayake the LTTE has demonstrated more than merely its ability to carry out airstrikes in any part of the country. More importantly, it has demonstrated its ability to overcome the considerable international difficulties that have been placed in its path. The continued expansion and refinement of the LTTE's institutional structures, of which its air wing is one, in spite of heightened efforts precisely to prevent this, suggest that faith in Sri Lankan promises of a neat military solution is foolish. But if the international community is not prepared to act against the state, it has no other options.
  • Karuna doing Colombo’s ‘dirty work’ - HRW
    Despite promises to investigate abductions of children by the pro-government Karuna group, Sri Lankan authorities have taken no effective action and abductions continue, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday.
     
    “The Karuna group’s use of child soldiers with state complicity is more blatant today than ever before, ” Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW said in a statement. HRW also accused the LTTE of recruiting child soldiers.
     
    “The Karuna group is doing the government’s dirty work,” Adams said. “It’s time for authorities in Colombo to stop this group from using children in its forces.”
     
    HRW says in February its staff in the eastern Batticaloa district, “witnessed children clearly under the age of 17, some armed with assault rifles, performing guard duty at various offices of the Karuna group’s political party, the Thamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP).”
     
    “Sri Lankan soldiers and police routinely walked and drove by the children without taking any visible action,” the group said.
     
    HRW staff saw a child with an assault rifle guarding the TMVP office in Kiran, home town of the group’s leader, V. Muralitharan, also known as Colonel Karuna.
     
    Other children, some of them armed, were seen in and around TMVP offices in the district, including in Valaichchenai and Morakkottanchenai, where the office is across the road from a Sri Lankan army base, HRW said.
     
    “When government troops at a military base look across the street at children standing guard at a Karuna office and do nothing, it’s hard to believe the government is taking any meaningful steps to end this abuse,” said Brad Adams, HRW’s Asia director.
     
    “The Karuna group’s use of child soldiers with state complicity is more blatant today than ever before. ”
     
    When relatives of the some children complained at one Karuna camp, cadres there told them not to report the case – or to say the LTTE took their sons, HRW said.
     
    When parents complained, “the military pressured them to say that their children were taken by ‘an unidentified group.’” HRW said.
     
    “There is strong evidence that government forces are now openly cooperating with the Karuna group despite its illegal activities,” HRW said.
     
    “Armed Karuna members regularly walk or ride throughout Batticaloa district in plain view of government forces,” HRW said.
     
    “In February, HRW saw a Karuna commander named Jeyam riding atop a Sri Lankan armored personnel vehicle outside Valaichchenai. In Batticaloa town, residents have seen Karuna cadre patrolling jointly with the police.”
     
    “The Karuna group maintains at least five camps in the jungle about 10 kilometers northwest of Welikanda town in the Polonnaruwa district, about 50 kilometers northwest of Batticaloa town. Welikanda is where the Sri Lankan Army’s 23rd division has its base. The area is firmly under government control, as is the main A11 road from the eastern districts to the Welikanda area. The Karuna camp at Mutugalla village is near a Sri Lankan army post.”
     
    HRW protested that though President Mahinda Rajapakse and other officials have repeatedly said that the government would investigate the allegations of state complicity in Karuna abductions and hold accountable any member of the security forces found to have violated the law, “to date, however, the government has taken no effective steps.”
     
    “The government says it needs evidence to start an investigation, but it already has ample information,” Adams said. “In addition to UN documentation and testimonies in our report, many families have made formal complaints to the police.”
     
    In January HRW provided the government with a 100-page report on Karuna abductions.
     
    With case studies, maps and photographs, the report shows how Karuna cadres operate with impunity in government-controlled areas, abducting boys and young men, training them in camps, and deploying them for combat.
     
    According to UNICEF, there were 45 reported cases of Karuna child abductions in three months – 10 in December, 24 in January, and 11 in February. Among these were three children abducted by Karuna cadre from camps for internally displaced persons in Batticaloa district.
     
    “The actual number is likely to be higher because many parents are afraid to report cases, and these numbers do not reflect the forced recruitment by the Karuna group of young men over 17,” HRW said.
     
    The LTTE has continued to abduct and forcibly recruit children and young adults, including women and girls, HRW said, saying UNICEF documented 19 cases of LTTE child recruitment in January and nine in February. The LTTE has also abducted at least four people from camps for the internally displaced, HRW said.
     
    HRW said it has repeatedly documented and condemned the use of child soldiers by the LT TE, and it has called on the United Nations to impose targeted sanctions on the LTTE because of its long history of recruiting children in violation of international law.
     
    “The LTTE is a notorious repeat offender of child recruitment,” Adams said. “It’s a shame that government forces complicit with the Karuna group are now involved in the same ugly practice.”
     
     
  • Violence round up – week ending 25 March
    25 March
    ● Armed men with hand guns chased Soosaithaas Thanaraaj, 19, as he was selling grapes on the pavement of Hospital Road and shot him dead while he was running for his life calling for help. Thanaraaj used to buy grapes from his native village of Ilavaalai and sell them on the pavements of Jaffna city.
    ● The owner of an ice-cream bar and his assistant were shot and killed behind the bus stand on Jaffna Power House Road. They were identified as Arulraaj Jeyantharoopan, 26, from Kokkuvil Kanthi Veethi and Yoakalingkam Chaarangkan, 23, Theatre Road, Inuvil.
    ● Two SLAF personnel, a group captain and a sergeant, were killed when their vehicle ran off the road and hit a bridge at Weerawila in Hambantota district. Six more SLAF personnel were injured in the accident.
    ● Two armed men on motorbikes shot dead the Batticaloa district Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) organiser at Erivil in Kalavanchikudy, Batticaloa. M. Sabaratnam, 65, a father of four, was shot dead as he was having breakfast at a food stall near his house.
    ● A plantation Tamil student at Nawalapitiya Balika Vidiyalayam has been reported missing since February 27, according to a complaint lodged with the Nawalapitya Police. D. Sellathurai said in his complaint that his son S. Krishnaraj, 16, left home to sit for his test and had not returned home. He was wearing green shirt and black trousers when last seen.
    24 March
    ● Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) directors, returning after monitoring the relief assistance to the displaced civilians, following the SLA operation on the Mannar Vavuniya border, were attacked by a SLA DPU claymore. Humanitarian worker Mr. Muthuraja Aruleswaran, 30, was killed and 3 TRO directors, including the Assistant Executive Director of the TRO, Vadivel Ravichandran, 38, were wounded in the attack at Periyamadu in Mannar. Mr. Aruleswaran, from Mudkompan in Pooneryn, is the father of a 1-year-old child, TRO officials said. The Emergency Assistance worker was driving the TRO vehicle when the attack took place. International Planning Director of the TRO, Seenithamby Parameswaran, 41, and the Director of Akkarayan Development Organisation, Selvarajah Nixon, 37, from Silavattai, were also wounded in the claymore attack.
    ● Attackers lobbed a powerful hand bomb into a SLA check post near the SLA 51-2 Brigade Command in Jaffna city, killing a SLA soldier and wounding four. A civilian was wounded when SLA soldiers opened fire after the attack and was identified as Balasubramaniam Gajarooban, 21, of Thirunelvaeli. The attackers had escaped after throwing the bomb, which is believed to be a powerful hand grenade. Military officials in Colombo claimed that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber, on a SLA road block.
    ● Mannar police recovered a grenade at a site opposite the telecommunication office along Mannar railway station road. The grenade was diffused by the SLA bomb disposal squad. Government troops rushed to the site on receipt of information from the Mannar Police and blocked all traffic and civilian movement along the road.
    23 March
    ● LTTE officials in Kilinochchi charged that more than 300 SLA troopers had breached 2 km into LTTE territory and taken more than 120 villagers of Periyathampanai, on the Vavuniya Mannar border, as “human shields”. More than 300 SLA troopers were engaged in the ground offensive, which followed heavy artillery shelling by the SLA and a DPU claymore attack wounding 2 civilians in Parappukkandanthan. The troopers were forced to pull back from Thampanai and Sinna Pandivirichchan after 15 hours of heavy fighting. LTTE officials said they defeated the two pronged offensive, without harming the civilians who were in the hands of the SLA. Around 60 SLA soldiers were killed, the Tigers claimed. Official figures from Colombo said 14 soldiers were killed and 42 wounded. The LTTE said they lost 6 fighters.
    ● The SLA launched heavy artillery and Multi Barrel Rocket Launcher fire on Periya Pandivirichchan. Joseph Manuelpillai, 51, a watcher attached to the Madu Multi Purpose Co-Operative Society (MPCS) secretariat was killed in the artillery fire. Heavy artillery and MBRL rocket fire was stepped up on the settlement near Madu church from the SLA camp in Piramanalankulam Junction on Mannar - Vavuniya Road and Madu Road Junction on Mannar Madawachchi Road.
    ● An attempt by SLA to invade into LTTE territory, from their camps in Unnichai and Vavunathivu, was successfully thwarted said S. Seeralan, LTTE Batticaloa District Deputy head of the Political wing. An Unmanned aircraft had circled over the area, after which four SLAF kfir fighter jets bombed Vavunathivu area in an effort to lend support to the SLA troops. In addition, the SLA, from its camps in areas under its control in Batticaloa, launched heavy artillery and Multi Barrel Rocket Launcher fire on LTTE held areas, Seeralan said. A Buffel Armoured Personnel Carrier was damaged, and SLA troopers who tried to advance had withdrawn when LTTE launched retaliatory attacks on Vavunathivu SLA camp, he added.
    ● Armed men on motorbikes waylaid Nirmalanathan Mayooran, 19, an employee of Periannai Church in Jaffna and abducted him at gunpoint as he was coming out of his house at Bankshall street in Jaffna town.
    ● A group of masked men forcibly entered a house in Faizal Nagar in Kinniya and shot at the inmates, injuring a husband and wife Arumugam, 40, and his wife Vijerani, 37, were admitted to hospital. Trincomalee office of the SLMM was informed of the incident.
    ● The wife of a Tamil resident of Negombo complained to Negombo Police that her husband, Selliah Tharmarajah, 46, who was employed at a foreign employment agency, had not returned home after he left by bus with his national identity card to report for work in Colombo office. Mr. Selliah Tharmarajah, 46, a native of Kopay in Jaffna district has been missing since January 11, according to the complaint lodged by his wife Vishayanthi Kalpana, 40. The family has been residing at Wellawatte in Colombo and later in Negombo for several years.
    ● A SLA soldier went missing in Kinniya, Trincomalee. R. P. S. R. Wickramasinghe, 24, of Nawalapitya, disappeared while travelling with a group of soldiers from Palathoppur military detachment in Muttur to Upparu in Kinniya. A complaint was lodged by the SLA with Muttur Police that the soldier is presumed drowned while crossing Mahaweli Ganga to reach Upparu with fellow soldiers.
    22 March
    ● A female employee of a pharmacy in front of Jaffna Teaching Hospital within a SLA HSZ was shot dead by two gunmen on a motorcycle and who pretended to buy medicine. Uthayajothika Kapilan, 27, from Kaithady was working at the Westco pharmacy, when she was killed. Local traders, who witnessed the escaping gunmen, said the gunmen rode with ease towards Vembadi Junction where there is a heavy presence of SLA troopers, and blamed the Sri Lanka intelligence operatives for the killing.
    ● SLA troopers abducted a labourer from his house at Mandan, Karaveddy in Vadamaradchy, Jaffna, knifed and strangled him, and dumped the body in Valaiveli area thinking he was dead. People who went in search of him the next morning found him severely injured fighting for life and brought him home. Thangathurai Thayaparan, 28, a father of one, testifying before Point Pedro Magistrate, said that he was abducted at gunpoint by SLA troopers and that he can identify his abductors. Thayaparan's younger brother, an auto driver aged 23, had received death threats from the SLA and Thayaparan's relatives speculate that Thayaparan was mistakenly abducted for his brother.
    ● Tharmaratnam Uthayasangar, 19, a student from Kudaniyan, Varani was found shot dead in Thenamradchy, Jaffna. Armed men shot him dead at his house.
    ● Sivapathasundaram Vijithas, 27, a father of one from Kokuvil, had married at Pommaiveli. His body was found dumped near his wife's house. Arasalingam Robinson, 18, was stabbed to death and burned with kerosene and was found in Annankai area in Kondavil. Both men were working as motor mechanics in a repair garage at Five Junction in Jaffna town from where both were abducted by armed men.
    ● SLA troopers in Buffel Armoured Personnel Carrier and motorbikes, accompanied by armed men in a white van, forcibly abducted a youth and a 16 year old student at gunpoint from the youth's house at Vayatkarai Lane in Vannarpannai, Jaffna. Masilamany Ajanthan, 24, is married and the abducted student, Vigneswaran Krishanthan, 16, is a student at Jaffna Illayathamby Vidyalayam. The latter, a relative and neighbour of Ajanthan, had gone to Ajanthan's house to get help with his lessons.
    ● Meikandathevar, 47, from Mirusuvil north, admitted to Jaffna Teaching hospital with serious gunshot wounds, succumbed to his injuries.
    21 March
    ● The LTTE launched heavy artillery shelling on SLA camps in Morakkoddanchenai and Mavadivembu, and on check posts along Trincomalee Batticaloa A-15 road inflicting damage to the SLA positions north of Batticaloa. LTTE fighters raided at least one SLA camp at Mavadivembu. The SLA claimed to have located 8 bodies of LTTE fighters after the raid which lasted for more than 2 hours. At least 4 SLA troopers were killed and 8 SLA troopers were seriously wounded in LTTE shelling. Two civilians, Kathamuthu Marimuthu, 54, Soudararajah Saraswathy, 42, were killed in retaliatory fire by the SLA. A SLA mini camp in Mavadivembu was almost destroyed in the raid and the Morakkoddanchenai SLA base sustained significant damage due to heavy artillery firing. SLA troopers fired mortars and artillery shells into SLA controlled areas infiltrated by the LTTE fighters in small groups. 28 civilians, sustained wounds in shelling, were admitted at Batticaloa hospital.
    ● Armed men on a motorbike shot dead a 27 year old Tamil man in the heart of Trincomalee town. He is a resident of Killikunchchumalai area in Kanniya village. The men had stopped a three-wheeler driven by the victim along Main Street in Trincomalee town and shot him dead.
    ● Sri Lanka Armed Forces along the coastal belt of Vadamaradchy, Jaffna, reinstated the ban on fishing on Vadamaradchy north and east seas until further notice. The SLA stopped fishermen going fishing and said the ban will remain until they receive orders from high command to lift the ban.
    ● Unknown persons set fire to the SLA mini camp at Chullipuram, Valigamam, Jaffna, when the troopers were out on patrol. Additional troops were deployed at the site while the camp continued to burn. SLA troopers cordoned off and searched areas in Chullipuram and directed residents to gather at a public place for interrogation. The SLA troopers also forced passers by to rebuild the camp. In an earlier incident, the same SLA mini camp was burnt by armed men and in the cordon off and search by the SLA troopers following the burning many innocent civilians were beaten and subjected to harassment.
    ● SLA troopers arrested a youth during a cordon off and search at s school area in Sakkottai, Vadamaradchy north, Jafffna, but denied arresting the youth when contacted for information. The search was triggered after noise of gunshots being fired in the area. SLA troopers rounded up all the fishermen in the vicinity and had them gathered on the main street where they were subjected to many hours of interrogation.
    ● Kopay police recovered the body of a family man, with severe injuries to his body inflicted by sharp blows from a blunt instrument. The body of Chelliah Jegatheeswaran, 42, from Kattaipirai in Irupalai, was found along New Chemmany Road in Kalviyankadu, within Jaffna Muncipal council limits. His wife identified the body and said he had been missing since going out on Tuesday evening.
    ● Armed men on a motorcycle shot dead Gnanapragasam Joseph, 46, a trader, and Velautham Deeswaran, 35, his associate, spraying bullets at them near the trader's house at Pothisumaku road in Vavuniya and escaped. The killers had called Joseph out of his house by name and when he came out with Deeswaran, who had been talking to him, fired rapidly at close range, killing both on the spot. Joseph’s relatives told officials Joseph had paid a ransom of 300,000 rupees to an undisclosed person, and again had paid 75,000 rupees on a further demand. The victims had no connection either to Tamil groups or military or police. Two months earlier Joseph's shop had been searched twice by police on tips-off that there was a bomb in the shop.
    ● Sri Lanka armed forces took into custody 72 civilians, most of them Tamils, in a cordon and search operation in Uddapu, a Tamil village in Chilaw district. The police said most of them were taken into custody when they failed to produce their National Identity Card and some failed to justify their presence in the location. Police took them to Munthal police station and subjected them to severe interrogation. Later the police released 67 of them and five have been further detained.
    ● Residents and traders in Puttalam observed a general shut down condemning the killing and abducting of civilians for ransom. Shops were closed, public transport came to a standstill and normal life in the town was disrupted. A demonstration was also held in the town with the participation of large number of people. Several speakers at the demonstration said the police have not been taking prompt action to stop abductions and killings of civilians in Puttalam. Puttalam Jemiyath Ulama Council and Al-Sura Council organized the general shut down and demonstration.
    20 March
    ● Five people – a Hindu priest, two teen aged sisters, and two IDP youths from LTTE held areas in Batticaloa district – have been taken away by paramilitary Karuna Group personnel and soldiers of the SLA Intelligence wing within the last 10 days, according to complaints lodged with Batticaloa SLHRC by their relatives. Alaguthurai Yogarajah, 23, of Kardiyanaru, Raveenthiran Gopinath, 21, of Ampilanthurai, Mylapodi Mehanathan, 45, a Hindu priest, Navaratnam Anjaladevi, 18, and Navaratnam Jeyalalitha, 16, two sisters from Unnichchai, were taken away forcefully from the temporary camps, schools and other public buildings, relatives said.
    ● Armed men abducted Mahalingam Baskaran, 34, a father of two, at gunpoint from his house in Tholpuram, Chullipuram, Jafffna.
    ● An SLA street patrol unit opened indiscriminate firing on youths who stood talking along Udupitty-Valvettithurai road at Valvetty area in Valvettithurai, Jaffna. The youths fled leaving their motorbikes and bicycles behind and the troopers took all the vehicles into cusyody.
    ● A fifty-seven year old resident of Sirupitty, Valligamam, Jaffna, sought protection from SLA troopers and their collaborating paramilitary members at Jaffna police station through the Jaffna office of the SLHRC. The man said that two youths had been killed at Nilavarai in his area and that he too feared being abducted SLA troopers.
    ● A private house functioning as an extension of Jaffna prison – where persons under protective custody are lodged – has become overcrowded and unhygienic conditions prevail for want of adequate space and basic facilities, according to prison officials. More than 200 inmates, including nearly 60 placed under protective custody, live in this house capable of accommodating less than a hundred persons. Chickenpox has spread nearly to all, as those infected cannot be segregated from the rest for lack of space.
    ● Armed men shot dead a carpenter in his house at Murganoor in Vavuniya. The victim was identified as Ragu, 47. His daughter and son were abducted two years ago. The son had managed to escape from the abductors but the fate of the daughter remains unknown.
    19 March
    ● Gunmen shot dead M. Ramesh, 26, the president of the Panankadu Auto Drivers' Union, while he was driving his auto in Akkaraipattu, Amparai.
    ● Villagers of Mulli at Varani discovered two corpses in partly burnt state dumped in shrub land along Kodikamam-Point Pedro road between Thenmaradchy and Vadamaradchi. The victims appeared to have been killed elsewhere, brought to Varani and burnt. Villagers fear there may be other corpses near the where the two bodies were found. A search by the police the next night ended in failure. Military boot tracks were found on the marshy ground and residents allege that the burnt corpses were removed during the night by the troopers who the villagers accuse of dumping the bodies there.
    ● Unidentified persons lobbed a grenade on a sentry manned by home guards at Mudcove, Trincomalee. No one was injured in the attack, but home guards and army troops rushed to the scene opened fire in retaliation. Later government security forces and police conducted a cordon and search operation in the area and took about 19 civilians into custody.
    ● Veersingham Nishanthan, 29, and Arasan Sahayanathan, 39, two fishermen who went night fishing in Muhathuvaram sea in Batticaloa did not return home.
  • Double Exposure
    This week Sri Lanka unleashed a massive bombardment of Tamil Tiger-controlled parts of Batticaloa. The targets were not LTTE camps, but Tamil villages. Within days 150,000 Tamils have been driven out of their homes, seeking safety in areas where the shells are not following - those held by the government. They join another 80,000 Tamils in the district and 150,000 elsewhere that the Colombo government has blasted from their homes since April last year. The targeting of Tamil villages and towns is not new. Every Sri Lankan President, beginning with J. R. Jayawardene in the early 80's has punished the Tamils for their defiance of Sinhala rule. President Mahinda Rajapakse's cruelty is not novel.
     
    International aid agencies and NGOs have expressed alarm and are pleading for financial assistance. The Sri Lankan state, which starved and bombarded the Tamils of Sampur and Vaharai throughout much of last year, is unconcerned by the humanitarian crisis unfolding this time in western Batticaloa. But here is the rub. The international community has endorsed this collective punishment. The rhetoric of the 'war on terror' legitimizes the deprivations being visited on our people. The deliberate inaction by the international community is brought into stark relief by events in the east. For once the international community is a visible witness to what Sri Lanka is doing to our people. During President Chandrika Kumaratunga's ruthless 'war for peace' the international community endorsed and assisted the state's campaign of collective punishment. But this time it is different. The international community, led by the very actors who preached non-violence and negotiation to us for the past few years, has a grandstand view.
     
    For many years now the Tamil Diaspora has actively sought the support of the international community for their struggle. This has been particularly so since the 2002 Ceasefire. International support was sought not only for the political demand of Tamil self-determination, but for practical steps towards Tamil wellbeing: to restrain the state's chauvinism, to end the impunity enjoyed by the Sinhala security forces, to ensure international aid was equitably distributed across the island, and so on. Across the world our people have lobbied government leaders as well as media and NGOs. We have been received and listened to. The sufferings of our people were sympathized with. We were told that the matters we raised would be taken up with the Sri Lankan state.
     
    In our hearts we knew this would not happen. The selfish interests of international actors are not served by pressuring the state on our behalf, but by courting the state and sacrificing us. That is why throughout the past three decades Sri Lanka's security forces were able to murder, disappear and rape with brazen impunity. It was only when the Sri Lankan military exhausted itself in the 'war for peace' (but not before spurring the LTTE's ascendancy) that the international community decided to take our interests into consideration. But that was not to ensure our future, but to blunt our progress towards self-rule.
     
    Those Tamils who denounced the Norwegian peace process as a project of containment, designed to weaken and emasculate the LTTE, were dismissed as sightless hardliners wedded to violence. But they have been vindicated. Nothing gives their analysis greater resonance than the complicity of the international community in the horrors the Tamils are being put through by the Sri Lankan state today. There is no media blackout or lack of information which we can tell ourselves was the reason the world stood by during the 'war for peace' until the Tigers defeated the Sinhala military. Nor is there confusion about what the Tamils want. Nor why there is a major war in the island. Everything has been explained at length. The facts and figures have been placed before the world.
     
    It was only the sense of the insurmountability of the LTTE's military power that produced the Norwegian peace process. It is a sense the LTTE can be defeated that has ended it. The rhetoric is that the interests of the Tamils are separate to the interests of the LTTE. But nothing reveals the invalidity of that premise than how, in the cause of defeating the Tigers, it is the Tamils on whom pain is primarily inflicted. We know all the talk of a political solution being needed is nonsense: it cannot be offered at the end of a bayonet. And we know under what circumstances the international community will again insist Sri Lanka negotiates a peace with the Tamils.
  • 150,000 Tamils flee Sri Lankan bombardment
    International relief agencies expressed alarm Monday at the rising number of civilians forced to flee fighting between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers, and said populated areas were endangered by continued shelling.
    As the number of civilians displaced due to the Sri Lanka military’s renewed efforts to move into LTTE territory in the Batticaloa district increased to over 150,000, international aid agencies urged both sides to ensure their protection and comply with international human rights law.
    The attack began last Thursday when the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched heavy artillery barrage towards LTTE controlled territories in Batticaloa district, as the Special Task Force (STF) began a two pronged ground offensive from Chenkalady and Pulukunawa.
    The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Country Team, which is chaired by the UN Resident Coordinator, expressed concern at the number of internally displaced, warning that this was “creating further pressure on an already difficult situation that will require more resources and capacity from all actors.”
    “As fighting continues, we are also worried for the safety and protection of all civilians, as reports indicate that shelling is occurring from and to, highly populated areas,” the IASC said in a press release.
    The ICRC spokesman in Sri Lanka, Davide Vignati, told Voice of America shortages of food and water are emerging at overcrowded refugee camps since the new refugees arrived. But, he says, the situation has not yet reached the crisis stage.
    "This new number of displaced civilians bring(s) the total number up to almost 120,000 displaced people presently sheltering in Batticaloa district," Vignati said Tuesday.
    "The main problem for the time being is food. New tents and shelter camps should be set up in the coming days to accommodate this new population."
    Aid workers in Batticaloa said Saturday that schools and other public buildings were being opened to help accommodate the new influx of refugees.
    “Most of them are under trees,” said Basil Sylvester, district officer for the main aid agency umbrella group, the Consortium for Humanitarian Agencies in Batticaloa.
    “When they get to Batticaloa, they don't know what to do. Some are in schools and churches. Many are staying with relations and friends.”
    But others said that aid supplies were already low, particularly water.
    “If in the next few days several other thousands are coming, then of course we have a problem,” Marcal Luethi, a protection officer with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Batticaloa, told Reuters.
    "We are extremely alarmed at the new level of displaced," Reuters quoted U.N. mission spokeswoman Orla Clinton as saying. "It's just going to add more pressure to an already very difficult situation."
    On Sunday, a Tamil lawmaker appealed for international intervention in the conflict.
    “The artillery shells fired by the military are falling inside civilian settlements and this is forcing the people to flee,” said Senadhiraja Jeyanandamoorthy, a member of Parliament from Batticaloa district representing the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).
    “The government is not providing them with facilities, therefore, the international community should come forward to stop this,” he said.
    Military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe denied that civilian areas were being targeted.
    “The Tigers use the civilians as human shields,” he said. “They (refugees) want to get out of there and come to safer places.”
    No independent account of the death toll was available, but civilians in the area said they could hear a heavy exchange of artillery and mortar fire.
    On Thursday all the gateways to the LTTE controlled areas in Batticaloa district – Paddiruppu, Vavunathivu, Chenkalady Black and Kiran bridges and Kurumanvely, Ampilanthurai, Manmunai ferries – were closed by the SLA.
    Only the displaced were allowed into the government controlled areas, being carefully screened on the way in. The SLA had also cut all mobile and wireless telephone connections.
    The SLA was trying to relocate those displaced in an earlier exodus – when government troops attacked the LTTE in Vaharai – back to their homes further north, Reuters reported, saying that would free up camps to accommodate new refugees.
    "They are doing their best to push the Vaharai people out immediately," Reuters quoted Brigadier Samarasinghe as saying. "They are setting up new camps in Batticaloa."
    Calling on both sides to immediately ensure the protection of civilians in these areas, the IASC Team also urged them to comply with their international human rights and humanitarian law obligations, as expressed in the Security Council resolutions on the protection of civilians and the guiding principles on internal displacement.
  • Three-pronged strategy to undermine Tamils
    There is every possibility that the Government of Australia will ban the Tigers. The Sri Lanka government is lobbying Canberra using the usual cocktail of issues – child soldiers, constraints imposed by the LTTE on movement of Tamil civilians and the attacks on civilian targets.
     
    The Tamil lobby in Australia is countering these allegations by presenting the horrendous human rights record of the Sri Lankan government, thereby claiming that adequate attention has not being paid by the international community to the suffering of the Tamils; that the Tigers perform an important function by the Tamil people; a proscription by the Australian government would only exacerbate tensions between communities in Sri Lanka.
     
    Though there is no certainty as to who will win this contest, it clarifies issues (if they needed clarification at all). Moves by Australia towards imposing this ban come at a time when Tamils in Sri Lanka are confronted by government- and paramilitary-inspired atrocities. Extra-judicial killing, disappearances, arrests and extortion both in the Northeast and Colombo have reached an explosive point.
     
    However, Tamils have no recourse to justice because the rule of law is near absent, while the legal system is undermined by security-related legislation such as emergency regulations and the PTA.
     
    Worse, the lack of political will among the governing core of the country – President Mahinda Rajapakse and his advisors – has resurrected the political environment of the early 1990s under President R. Premadasa, of absolute impunity enjoyed by those working for the president and his cohorts (and not necessarily the government), to do as they please.
     
    Meanwhile, the Vaharai operation is seen by the government and sections of the international community that gave it tacit support despite paying lip-service to “human rights violations,” as a successful military move in dislodging the LTTE.
     
    What is interesting though is, strictly speaking, the military component of the confrontation was minimal. Though there were skirmishes and ground engagements by infantry, most of fighting was confined to artillery duels and aerial bombardment by the SLAF.
     
    What was more important was the privation the Tamil population of Vaharai – both the IDPs fleeing from the Trincomalee District and residents of the area – was subjected to. Though aerial bombardment was used to hit civilian targets, including the environs of Vaharai Hospital and a school in Kathiraveli, it is not a tactic unknown in the 20-year-old war in Sri Lanka.
     
    What was new was the government’s willingness to starve a civilian population to its knees, deprive it of medicine, fuel and access, while the international community turned a blind eye to these atrocities. In other words, starvation of the civilian population was made an accepted counterinsurgency tactic in the war in Sri Lanka.
     
    Meanwhile, the use of Tamil civilians as human shields by the LTTE, which the government deplores as a human rights violation wherever it campaigns, is now being practiced by the government. Forcible relocation is underway to designated areas in the Trincomalee District, of Tamils that fled from Trincomalee to Vaharai and then to Batticaloa.
     
    About 4000 Tamils are earmarked to be resettled in the Kiliveddi area in Trincomalee. It is important to note that most of these people are not from Kiliveddi but Muttur. Obviously it cannot be difficult to resettle them in Muttur because the Muslim families displaced from there have been allowed to return to their homes.
     
    Tamils of course are not being permitted to return because they are deemed a security threat in Muttur that borders the high security zone (HSZ) by the coast of Sampoor.
     
    These Tamil families expressed deep reservation about going to Kiliveddi but significant numbers have been relocated – that is forcibly. The army arrived at the welfare centres IDPs were staying in Trincomalee town and threatened them with arrest if they did not consent to be relocated. As the government allocated site for relocation was not ready, the forced returnees were first sent to a school in Kiliveddi. Now these hapless people have been pressurised to leave the school for temporary shelters the UNHCR are putting up (they issued a position paper declaring these returns as forced returns).
     
    Tamils feel disturbed because the Kiliveddy area is highly populated with little room or opportunities for new settlers, and worse, near the HSZ surrounding the Kallar and Somapura camps. Their fears are well founded: they are forced to resettle in Kiliveddi precisely because they have to protect these camps. This group of civilians, numbering over one thousand, will form a human wall around the camps and act as a civilian shield to the military contingent stationed there. The moment the LTTE shells the area, the government will allege the Tigers are attacking Tamil civilians.
     
    All this only goes to show that Canberra is considering proscription of the LTTE at a time when the Tamil population is engaged in a desperate struggle for survival under the murderous regime in Colombo.
     
    If the past is taken as a guide, the result of banning the Tigers has been skewed. It has caused dismay among Tamil civilians by what they perceive is a lack of sensitivity on the part of the international community to their woes, while it exasperates the LTTE, because it dents its political legitimacy.
     
    But governments in Colombo have regarded LTTE proscriptions as an imprimatur to pursue the military option to settle the ethnic problem.
     
    The international community’s stock reply has been that bans are against the LTTE, not the Tamils. This argument sucks because the roots of the ethnic war in Sri Lanka, is not that of the Sinhala-dominated state against the LTTE; it is the Sinhala-dominated state against the Tamil people.
     
    The LTTE (and other militant organisations) emerged because the state was not fulfilling its function of protecting its population (or a section of it) but was actively targeting it.
     
    Since then, the state’s targeting of Tamils has declined or grown depending on the strength of Tamil armed militancy to withstand government forces. Today, it is the military balance – fear by the government and the Sinhala population of a backlash – that has kept the state from turning the screws tighter on the Tamils.
     
    If the Sinhala-dominated governing elite were inherently fair and was not reacting to the military capabilities of the Tigers, how come that every significant peace process has followed a major military onslaught by the Tigers (barring the Indo-Lanka Accord that was externally imposed)? In 1989-1990 it followed the LTTE’s capture of the Northeast once the IPKF withdrew; 1994-1995 after debacles at Pooneryan and the ill-fated Operation Yal Devi; in 2002 at the wake of a string of defeats that began with capture of the Wanni, overrunning of the Elephant Pass camp and attack on the SLAF’s Katunayake base.
     
    Proscription of the LTTE by different countries and regional organisations has been imposed with the fell purpose of de-legitimising the Tigers by questioning their political credentials and demonising them as a mere terrorist outfit.
     
    If after doing all that the international community can guarantee the security of the Tamil people or pressurise the Sri Lankan state to do so, it might be acceptable. But lack of commitment to such standards is quite evident in that the state cannot even ensure humane treatment to Tamil refugees in camps in the government-controlled areas!
     
    The line is therefore very clear: the target is the LTTE, but if we cannot get the Tigers through military engagement we will destroy the civilian population by starving and killing it slowly, while of course paying lip-service to humanitarian law, human rights standards and other piffle international diplomacy employs.
     
    All this goes to show that Canberra, like other members of the international community, is not acting in the interests of conflict transformation. Its actions are partly due to domestic political pressures upon the conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard.
     
    But the more important reason is that Australia has treaty ties with the US, which places great burden on the Australian government to be in consonance with the foreign policy of the world sole superpower.
     
    While positions of certain western powers have hardened, there is a perceptible change in India’s stand on the Sri Lankan question. Ever since the CFA was mooted, paving the way for increasing international involvement, India tried to play a lone hand in Sri Lankan affairs. Seeing the Indian Ocean as its backyard it remained largely aloof from being part of the co-chairs who symbolise western power projection into Sri Lankan affairs.
     
    But of late, New Delhi’s stance seems to be wavering. On the one hand it appears to understand that Colombo’s chauvinistic Sinhala-led political leadership and the anti-LTTE Tamil groups such as the EPDP, the Karuna faction and TULF leader V. Anandasangari are finding it difficult to deliver a lasting political solution to the Tamil question: which means bringing a weakened Tiger to the table to accept sharing power with Colombo.
     
    At the same time, the presence of refugees in Tamil Nadu is putting pressure on Tamil political parties in India – both in the state assembly as well as those propping up the union government in New Delhi – to restrain the Sri Lanka government’s killing spree.
     
    India’s interest in cooperating with the West is augmented by Colombo’s dalliance with Islamabad and Beijing to buy military hardware, which is something New Delhi is reluctant to sell Sri Lanka due to pressure by Tamil Nadu.
     
    It appears that the present scenario will remain for the next six months or so, during which time the international community and India will, very probably, try out a combination of the following strategies.
     
    First, see that sufficient military pressure is brought to contain the Tigers within the Wanni. This is the motive behind the government carrying out a war of attrition on the LTTE areas: shelling Kumburupiddy, upping military engagements in Vavuniya and carrying out operations in Thoppigala. If liberally supplied with hardware Colombo is confident of keeping the LTTE quiet. In the mean time pressure will be brought on the Tigers internationally by proscriptions and undermining their worldwide network in other ways.
     
    Second, misery will continue to be heaped on the Tamils through systematic human rights abuse, starvation and military attacks on civilians. This will reduce the population to its knees, create disenchantment between it and the LTTE and bring about a situation where any glimmer of hope would be welcome.
     
    Third, a glimmer of hope for the Tamils will be kept alive by the political package crafted by the All Party Conference. Though Minister Tissa Vithana has been pretending the APC is an ‘independent’ exercise, Tamils know it is a Sinhala government-driven initiative with marginal input from the Muslims and the Tamil EPDP. The experts group of the APC is, in the name of ‘southern consensus,’ putting together a watered down version of devolution and trying to sell it to the Tamils. If the UNP too takes part in the exercise it could be seen as an initiative of the Sinhala ruling class, but the UNP remains aloof. However, regardless of whether it has UNP support or not, the political package will be presented to the Tamils as a fait accompli. And needless to say, it is unlikely to be the basis of which negotiations could begin.

    Therefore, as of now, the Sri Lanka government and the international community have driven the Tamils to the wall by pushing a military solution. What is dangled as a political way out (devolution package) is a joke. This has only forced the Tamils to look at precisely the solution that the international community does not want them to – that the LTTE brakes out of the shackles of containment to reconfigure the present politico-military balance and then talk to a Sinhala leadership, hopefully a reconstituted one.

    (Edited)

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