A year and a half after the end of Sri Lanka's war, this is what senior UN relief official Catherine Bragg found after visiting the Vanni region this week:

“Most of the returnees [in the North] currently have limited access to basic services such as shelter, water and sanitation and health care.

“These communities remain extremely vulnerable and have critical humanitarian needs that we must address immediately.”

“However, those who have been released [from camps] now face a daily struggle to rebuild their lives, and have to start from scratch.

“There is nothing left. They are going to need schools and teachers, hospitals and doctors, and basic social services.

“It’s my observation that there are significant and immediate humanitarian needs resulting from the recent flooding in the east, as well as the ongoing needs in the former conflict areas of the north.”

See UN news reports Thursday and Friday on her visit.

In this context, see recent reports on schools and child labour in Vanni; and exploitation of female labour and the government's withholding of relief grants in the north generally.

See also reports on the closure of ICRC and UN agencies' offices in the north, and blocking of resettlement' in Jaffna: Valikamam north and Navatkuli (see also this).

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka state media said this month: "98 percent of the resettlement activities have been completed [and] civil activities are returning to normalcy."

Photo Eelanatham.com

"As the people of Jaffna seek to resurrect their lives after years of armed conflict, the Government and the people of India remain committed to facilitate development in the region."

"There is a special place in this relationship for age-old and time-tested bonds between the Jaffna peninsula of Sri Lanka and India."

- Indian high commissioner to Sri Lanka Ashok K Kantha. (See PTI’s report here).

"RSF finds it highly disturbing that literature is being celebrated in this manner in a land where cartoonists, journalists, writers and dissident voices are so often victimised by the current government."

"We believe this is not the right time for prominent international writers like you to give legitimacy to the Sri Lankan government's suppression of free speech."

- Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) and Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), in a letter to attendees of the forthcoming Galle Literature Festival.

It was signed by Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, Ken Loach, Antony Loewenstein and Tariq Ali amongst others.

“The failure of [Sri Lanka's] policing system to protect victims and witnesses - and its tendency to undermine rather than reinforce their rights - precludes the development of public trust in law enforcement, the judicial system, and the state.”

- Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza, political consultant and writer, Asian Human Rights Commission. See her analysis here.

See also the report 'A Study of Police Torture in Sri Lanka' by Morten Koch Andersen and Basil Fernando.

"Torture is a way of life at all police stations in Sri Lanka, whether the alleged crimes investigated are those relating to petty criminal offences, serious crimes or offences under the emergency and anti-terrorism laws."

- Asian Human Rights Commission in 2008 (see Reuters' report here).

See also Amnesty International's view on the conduct of Sri Lanka's police in 2002 - the first year of the internationally-led peace process.

The work of young Tamil filmmakers in Canada will be screened this weekend at  the Canadian Tamil Film Festival (CTFF).

The Arts and Culture Council of Canadian Tamil Youth Alliance (CTYA) will hosting the screening of films on Saturday Jan. 22 (10am-4pm) at the Markham Civic Centre.

The award ceremony is on Sunday at 6.15pm, following the screening of ‘1999’ (2-4pm).

Register here for the event.

“The event will provide the Tamil artists with a venue to broadcast their talents in the film industry and it will also serve as an encouragement to youth with an interest in the film industry, who have yet to pursue it,” the Arts and Culture Council says.

“There are many hidden talents within our community and by showing our support to those who have embraced such opportunities, we can definitely inspire our youth to take further steps to express their talents.”

Singapore will introduce a new Tamil-language elective next year for high-ability secondary and junior college students who want to go deeper into the language, its literature and culture, the Straits Times reports.

The National Elective Tamil Language Programme (NETP) will be similar to the existing Chinese and Malay language electives, but will not be amongst examined options.

Presently examined options include Tamil, Higher Tamil and Tamil literature, alongside similar in Chinese and Malay.

The NETP will instead be an enrichment programme with modules ranging from classical and contemporary literature to creative writing and public speaking.

The NETP is to be run at the Ministry of Education’s Umar Pulavar Tamil Language Centre (UPTLC).

The UPTLC has a dual role as a national resource centre for the Tamil language and as a Tamil teaching centre.

Although, along with English, Malay, Mandarin Chinese and Tamil are official - ‘Mother Tongue’ - languages, Singapore teaches all subjects except languages in English, the country’s main language of communication.

The all-pervasive climate of terror being engineered in the Jaffna peninsula is intended to stifle the revival of Tamil political and economic activity there.

The brutal killings, abductions, ‘disappearances’ and intimidation are not random or manifestations of ‘lawlessness’, but a deliberate campaign of targeted violence with specific political and economic goals.

The targets

The two categories of people targeted in the recent spate attacks are businesspeople  and those engaged in social and political activism.

These comprise the core of civil society anywhere, and their activities are fundmantal to the revival and growth of social, economic and political life in the war-shattered Tamil areas.

In Jaffna, blighted by decades of war and militarization (the tiny peninsula is dominated by 40,000 troops), these activities are vital if society is to recover and thereafter develop and become vibrant again.

Notably, the same types of individuals, along with media workers, politicians and aid workers, were constantly targeted during the war and especially during Norwegian-led peace process.

Then, as now, Army-backed paramilitaries and military intelligence operatives are responsible.

Why now?

The timing of the expanded terror campaign is linked directly to increasing emergence of civil society mobilisation in Jaffna, and the resurgence of Tamil entrepreneurship.

The backdrop is the President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s strategy to establish in the Tamil areas a Sinhala-dominated economy and rule through local proxies.

During the armed conflict, the proxies included the EPDP and TMVP paramilitary groups. In addition, his ruling party is now seeking to install its own cadre in local government machinery.

Almost two years after the end of the war – and fifteen years after Sri Lanka’s military captured the peninsula – Jaffna remains deliberately starved of government resources. What is provided used to consolidate the EPDP and other government loyalists. The administration is still run to the military’s diktat.

Large numbers of people displaced during the conflict have returned to Jaffna, but most are unable to return to their home villages, which remain enclosed in military High Security Zones (HSZs). Whilst refusing to allow these families to return, the military has been using – and profiting from – cultivating their farmlands.

These practices and the continued militarization of Jaffna and other towns and villages, along with the continued neglect of societal infrastructure – hospitals, schools, etc – has fuelled simmering frustration amongst the populace.

Emerging opposition

This has resulted in a range of localized mobilizations and agitation against the pernicious effects of continuing militarized rule. This resistance has received limited succor from some more established civil society actors and international action.

At the same time, there are renewed efforts by Tamil businesses, including several startups, to bypass continued official and undeclared restrictions on Tamil economic activities and take advantage of the post-war possibilities.

Such efforts have been encouraged by renewed efforts at normalization and development in the peninsula by the international community, especially India.

The Colombo government has responded by finding ways to disrupt these nascent efforts, such as bureaucratic and other restrictions, including those often arbitrarily imposed by the military.

The government is meanwhile encouraging, with military and bureaucratic support, Sinhala businesses to set up in the peninsula. These include business ventures controlled by ruling party figures and allies. President Rajapaksa’s son, Namal, has established a ferry-crossing business.

Burning the grass roots

These efforts at limiting Jaffna’s civil society efforts have not been successful. Which is why the government has now unleashed a campaign of violent terror.

Those targeted in recent killings and disappearances include community leaders, business entrepreneurs and individuals who have gained degree of standing for their contribution to society.

There is an immediate goal for the terror campaign: influencing local government elections and a census due this year.

Amid the fear psychosis induced by killings and disappearances – widely recognised by the populace as state-sponsored – it is impossible for opponents and critics of the government to engage in meaningful political activity.

Despite the anger amongst the populace, political parties other than the ruling party will not find individuals prepared to become candidates, campaigners and party activists.

Especially given that Sri Lanka already has a history of rigged elections in which the ruling party uses the police military and state media to its advantage – with even Sinhala parties in the south contesting declared results.

The census by a government unabashedly undertaking a campaign of ethnic colonization was never going to be a transparent and rigorous affair. (It is not surprising why the government is conducting a census despite the absence of normalcy and continued mass displaced of hundreds of thousand of Tamils.)

But the pervasive climate of fear is intended to make challenges and protests impossible.

In short, faced with determined efforts by emergent groups amongst the Jaffna populace to challenge the government’s continued deprivation of the region, and efforts by many to generate income-generation and economic activity despite the government’s restrictions.

The wave of terror in Jaffna by Sri Lanka Army-backed paramilitaries serves to undermine planned international efforts to restore normalcy in the peninsula.

Since the end of armed conflict in mid 2009, international donors seeking to build the conditions for lasting stability have paid particular attention to Jaffna, which, despite being in government control since 1996, still resembles the warzone it was then, with bombed-out, bullet-pocked buildings throughout the city. (See Ross Tuttles’ Sep 2010 report and photographs for Foreign Policy magazine).

Donors’ proposed efforts turn on firstly, ensuring the resettling the large numbers of people displaced during the conflict, and secondly, creating the objective conditions for the economic and societal revival donors believe will produce sustainable peace in the longer term.

To this end, in the past two years the United States, for example, has contributed millions of dollars to support resettlement in Jaffna and elsewhere, providing food aid ($75m) and demining ($11m) assistance.

The US government is also investing in a factory near Jaffna to make high-end blue jeans for US retailers. Last August the US Ambassador met with the Women's Chamber of Commerce in Jaffna and expressed hope it could “help reconstruct the economy in the North and provide jobs for needy women.”

Another donor has been Japan (see Tokyo’s contribution to ‘consolidation of peace and reconstruction’ here).

Indian connection

The most determined efforts towards rebuilding the war-shattered Northeast are being undertaken by India. Delhi has pledged a billion dollars for reconstruction and normalization of the Northeast.

The projects include 50,000 houses (of the UN says 160,000 are required) for returning displaced and railway links between Jaffna and Vavuniya and Mannar to Vavuniya (the three towns, along with Trincomalee and Batticaloa, are the five main Tamil population centres).

The Indian aid package includes start-up loans for Tamil entrepreneurs and businesses and a million dollars for an industrial park in Atchuvely, Jaffna.

The state-owned Indian Bank will open a branch in Jaffna this month and has sought permission to open others in Trincomalee and Batticaloa. The bank will support small and medium businesses and the farming sector.

For the long-term economic sustainability of the region, India is also seeking to establish links between the Northeast and Tamil Nadu and the booming economy.

To this end, Delhi is funding the development of KKS harbour, signed an agreement for a ferry between Rameswaram and Mannar and is seeking to develop Palaly airport.

Last November, Indian Foreign Secretary SM Krishna inaugurated an Indian consulate in Jaffna (against Sri Lankan reluctance, Delhi had been pushing for it since the war’s end in mid-2009).

Citing Jaffna’s historic role as centre of regional trade, Krishna said the consulate is part of efforts “resume the old ties and linkages of connectivity”.

Sinhala resistance

Sri Lanka is, however, determinedly resisting international efforts to restore normalcy in the Tamil areas.

For several years, the government has placed stringent restrictions on international aid agencies working there. These are being increasingly tightened. Recently Colombo ordered the ICRC and UN agencies out of several parts of the Northeast, including Jaffna.

The military arbitrarily reimposes restrictions – officially lifted - on Tamil fishing and farming activities. The military administers much of the Tamil areas through a thin, and often dispensed with, veil of civilian rule.

For example, the Eastern province is governed by a former Army general who can veto any decision by the provincial council. Jaffna is dominated by 40,000 soldiers (see the leaked US embassy cable on military complicity on paramilitary violence and crime here).

(See also para C.10 of the statement this week by Bishop of Mannaar, Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph.)

The government has increasingly overtly been resisting international efforts to restore normalcy. Last month it ordered a ban on constructions that it has not explicitly authorized (it denied the press reports, even after the circular was published).

The government also denigrated the Indian pledge to build 50,000 houses, claiming that only 5,000 would be new builds, prompting Delhi to assert anew that most of the constructions would be new homes.

More generally, Colombo has been dragging its feet on allowing the Indian normalization projects. For example, it took eighteen months from the end of the war for the Jaffna consulate and the Indian Bank’s branch to open.

Whilst the ferry service from south India to Colombo is to begin soon, the service to Mannar will be 'later'. The Indian Airport Authority approved the development of Palaly airport last April, but is still waiting for Colombo to act.

As one local government official told the Toronto Star, “They [government] want us [Tamils] tied down. They don’t want the north or the east  …to be financially sound.”

New violence

Which is also why against Indian and other international efforts to restore normalcy in Jaffna and other parts of the war-shattered Northeast, Colombo has stepped up its paramilitary-led campaign of terror.

It is telling how the killings and abductions have soared within days of Indian FM Krishna’s opening of the Indian consulate in Jaffna on Nov. 27.

The victims include both social and political activists, as well as businesspeople and public figures.

The effect has been to produce in Jaffna what has been termed a ‘fear psychosis’ (which is so intense even the Colombo press, which routinely self-censors these developments in the Northeast, was compelled to report on it. Access to the international press is tightly restricted).

Even before the recent spate of killings and abductions, Jaffna traders were being routinely harassed by the military and taken in for questioning on accusations they had funded the Tamil Tigers during the war (none have been charged).

While Tamil businesspeople are nervous about investing locally, amid the ever-possible violence, not only will international investors, including those from India, shun the Tamil areas, but donor-funded reconstruction and normalization projects will stagnate.

The state-backed campaign of terror is clearly designed to destroy the possibility of a suitable investment atmosphere emerging any time soon. It is working.

Despite assertion of an inevitable ‘post-conflict boom’, Sri Lanka’s growth in 2010, according to the Central Bank, was 7.6%. The Bank says growth in 2011 will be 8%.

By way of comparison, the bank’s figures during the final phase of the war were: 2009(3%), 2008 (6%), 2007 (6.8%) and 2006 (7.7%).

In other words, reported growth two years after the end of the war is similar to that in 2006 - when the Norwegian-led peace process collapsed and the war erupted again.

During the peace process, a period marked by massive donor support and investment, including after tsunami, the figures were: 2005 (6%), 2004 (5.4%), 2003 (6%) and 2002 (4%).

27 journalism students from Jaffna University received a warm welcome from the Vice Chancellor of the University of Madras this week when they attended a two-day seminar there.

University links between the island's Tamils and south India began over 150 years ago, but were largely disrupted by Sri Lanka’s Sinhala-first policies after independence.

While Madras University welcomed students from across the world, it was a ‘double delight’ to open its doors to Sri Lankan Tamils, Dr. G Thiruvasagam told the visiting students’ inaugural session.

“The doors of the Madras University are always open to these students and they could use our services and infrastructure anytime and for workshops of a longer duration too,” he later told media.

Traditional links

In travelling to Madras, the students are rebuilding the long-standing scholarly links with the subcontinent.

C. W Thamotheram Pillai (1832-1901), a native of Jaffna, was one of the first students to graduate from the University of Madras after it was founded in 1857.

Pillai then pursued a career as a civil servant in India whilst also contributing immensely to Tamil literary studies by publishing and editing Tamil literary works.

Later, as the demand for higher education grew amongst the island’s Tamils, Jaffna Hindu College was recognised in 1894  by the University of Calcutta as an affiliated college, and was able to offer courses that would lead to an examination in the University’s Bachelor of Arts programme.

In 1896, two other Jaffna schools, Victoria College and Mahajana College, were similarly granted affiliation status.

Severed

However, the Sinhala-first policies pursued in Sri Lanka after independence sought - successfully - to sever the longstanding intellectual and cultural links between Jaffna and the subcontinent.

This isolation became well institutionalised in the 1970’s when the SLFP government of Srimavo Bandaranaike heavily censored and restricted the flow of Tamil films, music, popular culture and even saris from south India.

That government also tore up the British-supplied constitution and replaced it with today’s majoritarian constitution – changing the country’s name from Ceylon to Sri Lanka.

In an infamous episode in 1974 the Bandaranaike government insisted the World Tamil Conference being held for the first time in the island, be staged in Colombo, not Jaffna.

The organisers refused and the event began as planned in Jaffna. The government ordered riot police to storm the awards ceremony on the last day and in the encounter nine people were killed.

"The international criminal justice system that has developed over the past 15 or so years has given us a tool of accountability we did not have before. No longer can heads of state, and other actors, be sure they can commit atrocious violations and get away with it."

"Denying access to alleged mass grave sites and places where the victims' mortal remains are allegedly deposited constitutes a clear violation of international human rights and humanitarian law."

- UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. (See IPS's Dec 31 report here on Cote d’Ivoire’s crisis.)

“The government will not allow the [UN] panel to carry out its investigations in Sri Lanka. They will not be permitted to carry out investigations, record evidence or visit places of their choice without prior government approval.”

- Kehiliya Rambukwella, Sri Lanka’s cabinet spokesman and minister of mass media and information. (See Allvoices’ report.)

See also comments by international law professor Francis Boyle in TamilNet’s May 2009 report.

Photo: The Sunday Leader

The doubling of Sri Lanka’s main stock market index in 2010 has led to some effusive news reports, most recently in The Guardian. Inevitably, these reports have been lauded in Sri Lanka’s state-owned press, alongside its own hype.

But, as other recent analysis shows, these reports make two mistaken assumptions: [1] that the index’s rise is entirely due to fundamental improvement in the stocks, and [2] that the market is indicative of the wider economy’s progress.

Firstly, the index has been driven up by Sri Lankan government buying, while foreigners are exiting. Secondly, the Colombo bourse is unrepresentative of the wider economy.

This is what the Sri Lankan Sunday Times’ economic column warned last October about the mistaken presumption:

“There is little doubt that the recent [stock] market performance is not directly related to either economic performance or market fundamentals. It has been guided by market sentiments, speculation and government intervention.”

See also this discussion in October by LBO of over-valuation and government buying.

In fact, international equity investors’ wariness of the Sri Lankan market is underlined by one detail:

Foreigners have been net sellers in 2010 and 2009 – after having been net buyers since 2001 (See Reuters’ reports in Dec and Feb 2010).

2010 saw a net foreign outflow of US$240m (Rs 26.4bn), more than twice 2009’s outflow of US$103m (Rs 11.4bn).

Below are further extracts of the Sunday Times' analysis:

Why the stock market and economy are not connected:

“There is a tendency to think that the performance of the stock market is an indicator of the country’s economic performance. Most people, including foreign observers, draw a connection between the economy and the stock market and the stock market and the economy. … Yet that relationship is not as strong as it is made out to be. It is often a very tenuous connection, especially in an economy such as ours and in a rather narrow stock market like [Colombo’s].”

“Economic growth is based on a far broader economy than reflected in the share market. … For instance … domestic agriculture that is still important and contributes to growth … is outside the stock market. [In Sri Lanka] many economic enterprises are not listed in the stock exchange. … Even much of the industrial and trade sectors are outside the orbit of the stock market. For instance garment manufacturing firms are hardly in [it].”

“This is not so in developed countries like the United States where much of the economy is in the hands of companies listed in the stock exchanges of the country and internationally.”

Why the stock market has risen:

“It is because of this presumed relationship [between the stock market and the economy] that the government has directed government agencies such as the EPF (Employees' Provident Fund) and ETF (Employees' Trust Fund), state banks and other government controlled institutions to invest in the stock market.”

The question:

“Those who believe that the rise in the share market was due to the healthy economic fundamentals and prospects for growth may be hard hit to explain why the market that soared to over 7000 points has now dipped. Is the economy in a down turn?”

Indeed, it is worth seeing how the market has behaved since October, especially after the Sri Lankan government unveiled its 'investor friendly' budget in mid November:

Graphs generated from Colombo Stock Exchange database on Dec 31, 2010.