Tamil Affairs

Coming Contradiction

Nov 24

When Sri Lanka's military finally defeated the Liberation Tigers in May 2009, having also slaughtered tens of thousands of Tamil civilians, President Mahinda Rajapakse and the rest of the Sinhala establishment were confident that not only would the Tamils now meekly acquiesce to Sinhala rule, but so would the international community. They were wrong on both counts. Not only have the Tamils endured the ravages inflicted on them during and after the war, they still stubbornly insist on their demand for self-rule. On the other hand, rather than embrace the Sinhala ethnocracy, the international community is doggedly pursuing its transformation into a liberal market democracy.

Throughout its war against the Liberation Tigers, the Sinhala establishment confused international support for its military efforts - and for Sri Lanka's unity and territorial integrity - with endorsement of its Sinhala-first governance. To be sure, now as then, there are those, both in the West and elsewhere, who stand with the Sinhala nationalists, rationalizing their policies. However, the broader international community wants change.

Which is why eighteen months after celebrating victory, the Sinhala establishment is caught in a growing nexus of international pressure. On the one hand, international interventions, led by the IMF, are underway to radically transform the economy, long structured to benefit the Sinhalese at the expense of the Tamils. On the other hand, even as he attempts to distract the Sinhalese from the pain of liberalisation with lavish celebrations and ever more promises of good times to come, President Rajapakse is readying for confrontation on another front: international demands for a political settlement with the Tamils.

This week India's External Affairs Minister S M Krishna will make another visit to the island. As an aside, his timing, as some of Sri Lanka's press have noted, is peculiar: avoiding the extravagant celebrations last Friday that accompanied President Rajapakse's swearing in for his second term - an event The Economist rightly likened to a coronation - Mr. Krishna will arrive Thursday and visit the Tamil heartland at an important time in the Tamil political calendar: Heroes Week.

What is more important than what the timing of his visit signifies, however, is what Mr. Krishna raises with Colombo. What India seeks in Sri Lanka, as Indian National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon recently put it, is: "creating an order within which all the communities feel that they can determine their own futures - that they have a say in the choices that affect their lives." It will not come easy. If Mr. Krishna is intending to take up the issue of powersharing during his visit, President Rajapakse has already made his response clear in an interview with The Hindu newspaper this week: there will be no such thing.

It is in this way that a long-standing contradiction between the Sinhala establishment and the international community, which had been masked by Indian and Western hostility to the Tamil armed struggle, is now coming clearly to the fore. In that sense, just as the West and India were agreed that the LTTE must be defeated, as Mr. Menon put it during his October visit to Washington, a permanent political solution in Sri Lanka "is a common Indo-US interest."

It is often forgotten by the international community that Tamil political demands grew in the sixties and seventies - from powersharing in the centre, through autonomy and federalism, to outright independence - not only because of increasing Sinhalisation of the state, but also because of Sinhala leaders’ blanket refusal to heed their protests. The three decade-long history of the Federal Party and its Gandhian campaign of civil disobedience was marked not only by outright Sinhala rejection of any Tamil demand, but also punitive violence. The same contempt is today manifest in the Sinhala state's responses to international demands for a political settlement. Any such suggestion Mr. Krishna brings, for a start, will get short shrift in Colombo. But then, we doubt he will be surprised.

President Rajapakse's vehement opposition to sharing power with the Tamils is not merely victor's hubris. Rather, it is an ideological, even theological, commitment to turning the island into a Sinhala-Buddhist bastion. In that sense, his platform is a well-worn one which every Sinhala leader has trod before - as a cursory reading of key state policies and election manifestos since 1948 shows. Of course, this argument has often been summarily dismissed as Tamil nationalist exaggeration. But we are confident it won't be long before it is thoroughly vindicated.
Parameters for international investigations into Sri Lanka’s war
There has been some convergence between Tamil and international demands for an independent international investigation into the events of 2009 in Sri Lanka. The international community now largely supports the view that the manner in which the last stages of the war in Sri Lanka were fought may constitute crimes against humanity.

The Office of War Crimes of the United States Department of State, for example, states at the outset of its 2009 report on Sri Lanka that “on further congressional direction, [the report] focuses on reports of alleged conduct which may constitute violations of International Humanitarian law (IHL) and/or crimes against humanity occurring during a period of especially intensive fighting, from January through May 2009”.

The International Crisis Group report of 2010 says (p24): “The government’s alleged actions concerning the supply of food and medical care to civilians including alleged attacks on humanitarian operations and hospitals deserves separate attention. They ... certainly raise the questions of whether individuals may also be responsible for Crimes Against Humanity.”

The People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka held in Dublin in January 2010 also made findings that crimes against humanity had taken place. It found that forced disappearances and violations committed in the camps holding internally displaced persons during and after the war “clearly constitute ‘crimes against humanity’, as defined in the Rome Statute, Article 7”

While the international community alleges war crimes and crimes against humanity, the Tamil Diaspora largely alleges genocide. This isn’t necessarily a contradiction.

The difference centres on the parameters of any investigation of Sri Lanka’s conduct: what are the allegations to be investigated? Are they war crimes alone, or do they constitute a program of genocide?

Diaspora organisations representing Tamil victims must involve themselves in the international efforts to investigate Sri Lanka’s wartime conduct. More precisely, they need to advance the demand for investigations in more specific ways than international NGOs and governments are able to do on their own.

In this context, it is worth reviewing the definitions of the alleged crimes:

War Crimes

A war crime is an individual violation of the laws applicable in armed conflict, also known as International Humanitarian Law (IHL). It may be an individual violation of the Geneva Conventions or it may fit any of the conduct outlined in the Rome Statute underpinning the International Criminal Court (ICC). Individual soldiers and commanders may be held accountable for war crimes without necessarily implicating top military commanders or government officials.

Crimes Against Humanity

The Rome Statue of the ICC (2002) explains that “murder; extermination; torture; rape, political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice. ... They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy ... or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority.”

The focus is on widespread systematic practice arising out of government policy.

The Rome Statue thus defines crimes against humanity as any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:

(a) Murder;

(b) Extermination;

(c) Enslavement;

(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;

(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;

(f) Torture;

(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;

(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender ..., or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;

(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;

(j) The crime of apartheid;

(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

Genocide

The definition of genocide focuses more on intent than on actions – in particular on the intent to destroy a target group, in whole or in part. The UN Convention defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

Alternative definitions of genocide exist, but the above is the essential one for the purposes of prosecution.

The most intuitive definition of genocide is the original one, given by Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term. He was quite clear:

“Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups ...”

Parameters of investigation

Both genocide and crimes against humanity are systematic and widespread acts. The difference lies in the intention behind those acts. Unlike a finding of crimes against humanity, a finding of genocide requires that prosecutors establish that the perpetrators had the intention to destroy, in whole or in part, an ethnic, national or other target group.

While an ICC prosecution is made difficult by the fact that Sri Lanka is not a signatory to this the Rome Statute. So prosecution will require a Security Council referral – the UN Convention on Genocide is binding on all its signatory countries, and it creates universal jurisdiction in those countries for the alleged genocide in Sri Lanka.

The Genocide convention also imposes on its signatories a duty to prevent: so recognition of recent genocide could be an effective tool to argue for further preventive measures designed to prevent any continuing acts of genocide.

It is time for Tamil victim groups to be very precise about exactly what allegations they believe should be investigated. It is no longer enough to call for ‘war crimes investigations’ as these can also be limited to individual incidents. While litigation should be brought for individual cases of torture, executions and so on in each country where victims or perpetrators (or their assets) can be located, the call for an international investigations needs to focus on the systematic nature of the crimes, and on the intent – effectively an investigation of genocide.

Anything less would fail to capture the entire horror of what the Tamil people have experienced.
Who benefits from Chinese loans to Sri Lanka?

Whilst China’s massive development loans to Sri Lanka are often portrayed as rescuing the Rajapakse administration from international economic pressure over human rights abuses, the details tell a different story.
While China’s loans are an immediate de-facto handout for Chinese companies (which Sri Lanka is obliged through conditionalities to hire and purchase from), future Colombo governments will be left with the debts - at interest rates higher than other developmental lenders ask for.

In short, Colombo is borrowing from China but pumping the money into the Chinese – not Sri Lankan – economy.

Already the biggest lender to Sri Lanka, China has now pledged more than $3bn (£1.9bn) for infrastructure development, maintenance and other projects, the BBC Sinhala service reports.

Key conditionalities

Much of the debt is offered by China’s fully government-owned Export-Import bank.

And here’s the catch:

“Chinese loans by Exim bank are mainly offered to buy Chinese products and services," says Asantha Sirimanne of Lanka Business Online.

Secondly, the contracting firms, the subcontractors and even labourers involved in Sri Lanka's major projects are Chinese nationals, he says. (There have even been reports that the Chinese firms have brought in convicts from China to carry out the work.)

"And all raw material is imported from China," Mr. Sirimanne added, in comments to the BBC Sinhala service.

So, while Chinese companies’ revenue and profits are boosted, China swaps some of its cashpile for a future income stream – which Sri Lanka will have to somehow generate revenue (or borrow anew) to meet.

No concessions

And Sri Lanka gets no favors on interest rates either.

“The rates offered by China are higher than those offered by the World Bank, and direct government loans from Japan," Mr. Sirimanne says.

"But it is definitely lower than the commercial bank rates."

This is normal for developmental loans. No government in its right mind would borrow for massive infrastructure projects on commercial bank rates – any more than individuals would look to buy a house on a credit card.

Any country embarking on massive infrastructure relies on soft (long duration, low interest) loans from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and similar multilateral lenders – which exist to provide such assistance – or from bilateral state donors.

Indeed, much developmental aid, especially from WB and ABD, come as grants – which governments don’t have to pay back.

These and soft loans have secondary advantages by enabling governments to pump money into their local economy to boost domestic growth.

However the Chinese loans to Sri Lanka are instead being recyled into the Chinese economy.

Until China began lending (after Mahinda Rajapakse became president), 75% of Sri Lanka’s ‘aid’ was from Japan, the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.

Unforgiving

And China is no friend to Sri Lanka when it comes to money owed. Here’s what the Sunday Times’ editorial says this week:

“Negotiations continue with China for several unpaid bills for arms purchased during the protracted ... insurgency. While China is offering to bail out collapsing European economies, it won't simply write off these loans from Sri Lanka as a bad debt.”

So what happens when Sri Lanka’s Hambatota port – built by Chinese contractors, using Chinese labour and Chinese materials and financed by Chinese loans – is complete? Colombo will be left with a port and a massive loan to repay.

In other words, any income that the port may generate goes not to Sri Lanka, but to pay off the Chinese and other debt.

And as the Sunday Times also pointed out, even now, “the country is also taking soft loans from the IMF and commercial loans from foreign banks at high interest rates.”

The gamble

And while Sri Lanka is banking on the Hambantota port becoming a transshipment hub to generate income, this is by no means a given.

Sri Lanka’s existing container port, in Colombo, is already seen as vulnerable to growing competition from fast-improving Indian ports such as Cochin, and the Salalah port in Oman.

India is meanwhile planning to develop a number of ports – for which Chinese-owned companies are reportedly also bidding.

Notably, while the Rajapakse administration envisions 10,000 ships coming into the Hambantota port a year – in addition to arrivals in Colombo, that is, - industry analysis by LBO says all of Sri Lanka’s existing ports combined have never welcomed more than 5,000 ships a year.

And if the Hambatota port fails to generate sufficient revenue?

Well, Sri Lanka’s government – headed by President Rajapakse or anyone else - will still have to find other ways to repay the Chinese loans.

And this may also involve cannibalizing Colombo’s port, driving traffic from there to Hambantota instead.

So, who really benefits from Chinese loans to Sri Lanka?
Less than 1% of rural infrastructure spending in Tamil areas

The Sri Lankan government’s own figures reveal that from a total budget of $10m (Rs 1214 million) earmarked for rural infrastructure development, only Rs12 million was spent in the seven Tamil speaking districts.

Over half the total budget was spent in three southern Sinhala majority districts.

(See details on p29 of the government's 'Fiscal Management Report - 2010')

President Mahinda Rajapakse’s home district of Hambantota received the largest allocation (Rs 408 million), while the second highest went to Kurunegala (Rs157 million) ,with Matara the third largest beneficiary (Rs128 million).

Of the 1% allocated to the seven war-shattered Tamil districts, Jaffna received Rs 7 million, Vavuniya Rs 3 million, Mannar Rs 1 million and Trincomalee Rs 1 million.

Nothing was spent on rural infrastructure in the districts of Mullaitivu, Killinochi and Batticaloa.

For all the hype about ‘Eastern Awakening’ and ‘Northern Spring’, the Sinhala-dominated government constructed a magnificent total of 7.32 km of rural roads in the Tamil speaking areas - out of a total for the island of 533.73km.
Fears for the economy – and of the state

The Sri Lankan state’s debt dependent and public sector heavy economic strategy is crowding out private investment, lowering domestic savings and foreclosing a sustainable economy in the long term, business and economic analysts warned this week.

The Central Bank’s growth projection were this week revised downwards by ratings agencies RAM Ratings and Standard & Poor’s who also warned that Sri Lanka’s long term growth depended crucially on cutting government spending.

Meanwhile, fear is silencing critics of the government’s economic policies, one business leader protested this week.

The “government is trying to compete (against private citizens), it could be hotels, insurance and any other area,” the head of Laugfs, a gas distributing firm, told a business forum in Colombo, LBO Online reported.

Colombo’s increasing hostility to any criticism had silenced opposition to the government’s economic policies, Mr. W. Wegapitiya said.

“Very few are courageous enough to talk. It is a wrong signal” he said, adding that state economic policy was being “crafted by few individuals who were not aware of the agony the private sector has gone though.”

Risk to growth

The government recently took control back from global giant Shell of a previously privatized gas distributor, a move that was criticized as sending the wrong signal to foreign investors nervous about their assets being forcefully nationalized. Shell Gas Lanka has been renamed Litro.

While the Central Bank claimed that the economy was set to expand by 7.5 – 8.0% this year, RAM Ratings and Standard & Poor’s gave a more conservative forecast stating that they expected the economy to show growth of 6.5% and 6.2% respectively.

Both agencies warned that Colombo had to control government expenditure to bring down the debt burden and encourage private investment.

“The key risk is the fiscal risk, which remains because of Sri Lanka's high levels of debt and high levels of interest payments,” said Roopa Kudva, South Asia head for Standard & Poors' while speaking at a business forum in Colombo this week.

Similarly Dr. Yeah Kim Leng, RAM Ratings Chief Economist says that investor confidence would only improve if government borrowing started to fall.

“We are very concerned about the fiscal deficit but we expect it would be in order,” Dr. Leng was quoted by The Island newspaper as saying.

Investors wary

Despite the government’s public rhetoric, the government’s practices have failed to inspire investor confidence. Even after the end of the war, foreign direct investment into the island this year have fallen from last year - which was the most intense of the island's conflict.

Only $200 million FDI had come into the island in the first six months of 2010, suggesting that the total for this year will be less than the $690 million worth of foreign investment seen in 2009.

Notoriously inefficient, Sri Lanka’s public sector has not only crowded private investment it has also fuelled the expanding budget deficit that has led to high levels of debt.

Last year Sri Lanka’s total government debt stood at 86 % of GDP and debt repayments amounted to 42 % of government revenue.

In June 2009 Sri Lanka was forced to accept IMF assistance and has since started begrudgingly to control the budget deficit.

Investors and analysts are keenly awaiting the 2011 budget announcement, expected to be presented in Parliament on Monday to see how far the budget discipline will continue.

In order to boost investor confidence, the budget must contain cuts in government spending whilst also expanding government revenue by widening the tax base, analysts say.

Press reports have speculated that the budget will extend income tax and end the often ad hoc system of tax holidays usually extended to politically connected enterprises.

State's ethnic largess

These changes are likely to be politically difficult, especially given the expectations of the state in the Sinhala-nationalist ideology exemplified by President Mahinda Rajapakse’s regime.

At present only 3% of the population of 20 million pay any form of income tax while cuts in government expenditure are likely to squeeze subsidies and public sector employment that are crucial to many household incomes.

Moreover, changes such as these, are an anathema to the majority Sinhala Buddhist community which expects the state to play the role of economic provider.

Under the Rajapakse administration, a long-standing Sri Lankan policy of discriminating in favour of the public sector to the detriment of the private sector has become particularly pronounced, the LBO Online analysis noted.

Whilst private sector banks are forced to list on the stock exchange, public banks remain exempt.

Public sector workers, including politicians, are exempt from income tax and public sector enterprises receive treasury handouts and have repeatedly had loans written off.

Public sector entities are also precluded from purchasing private sector insurance and are used to create a captive market for public sector insurance companies.

At the same time, public sector entities have cornered a number of markets. The Defense ministry runs a domestic commercial airline while the publicly owned State Fisheries Corporation is not only engaged in retail and distribution but has recently also secured control over fresh fish imports.

Sri Lanka’s road to sustainable economic recovery will require a massive reorientation of economic activity.

However, the policies that have since independence nurtured an almost exclusively Sinhala Buddhist public sector whilst punishing and restricting private enterprise have now become fiscally unsustainable.

Nonetheless, it remains to be seen whether Rajapakse regime will turn its back on Sinhala-nationalist ideology and push through the painful economic re-orientation that is now unavoidable if the country is to cope with the globalised world economy.

Sri Lanka is amongst world's heaviest borrowers - Moody's

In proportion to what it earns, Sri Lanka borrows more than almost any other state, according to the ratings agency Moody’s.

Sri Lanka’s total debt was 545 per cent larger than the total government revenue in 2009, one of the highest for any sovereign assessed by Moody’s, LBO reports.

Only Lebanon rated 'B1' and Jamaica rated 'B3' had worse credit metrics, among countries rated by Moody's.

Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa - who is also the Finance Minister - pictured on Saturday night with Secretary of Finance Ministry Dr. P.B. Jayasundara whilst preparing the final 2011 budget proposal. Photo/report Colombopage.

According to the government’s own figures, between January and April 2010, while total revenue was Rs234, 345 million, total government expenditure was Rs410, 864 million.

(See details on p19 of the government's 'Fiscal Management Report - 2010')

In other words the size of the government’s overspend (Rs167, 520 million) was over two thirds (69%) of its total income.

Any state needs to generate cash to function day-to-day. But Sri Lanka relies on borrowing, rather than revenue, to meet these needs.

Sri Lanka also needs to borrow to meet repayments on past borrowings. For example, over half the $1billion raised by the bond in October will go next year towards repaying past lenders.

In these circumstances, Sri Lanka’s short to medium term cash-flow is wholly dependent on at least maintaining its debt rating.

In September, ahead of the billion US dollar bond issue, Moody's rated Sri Lanka at a below-investment-grade 'B1' with a 'stable' outlook.

Fitch and S & P has rated Sri Lanka 'B+' four notches below the lowest 'BBB-' investment grade level.

Moody’s says its future assessment of Sri Lanka’s debt rating would depend on whether Colombo demonstrated a commitment to fiscal disciple and took action to cut the budget deficit.

Aninda Mitra, senior analyst and vice president of Moody's Investors Services told Lanka Business Online that the rating agency was waiting to assess whether the 2011 budget will indicate a “policy intention to improve fiscal fundamentals”.

Meanwhile Sri Lanka has set up a ‘Sovereign Rating Committee’ which is charged with devising a strategy of taking the country’s rating to an investment grade 'BBB-' or higher over the next four years, the Sunday Times reports.

Joy by Presidential decree

There appears to be no end to President Mahinda Rajapakse’s pompous self-regard. Having won the election and steam-rolled through the possibility of lifelong presidency, the president, through his ever obliging government, proclaimed the entire week, to be one of festivities, in order to commemorate his swearing in for a second term. The planting of a million trees, 4000 kilograms of the finest kiribath and a spree of honourary cricket events in Hambantota are but a small section of Mahinda Rajapakse’s self-congratulatory celebrations.

The fact that the cost of basic food has sky-rocketed in the past few months, to the extent that many of his supporters are struggling to buy a loaf of bread, has been conveniently forgotten. The protesters campaigning for wage increases have been reduced to a distant din and the dependency on IMF’s support to a bad dream. Of course, in all this, the plight of internally displaced Tamils, still in camps or temporary shelter, has little chance. The country’s problems, however big or small, have all been pushed aside to commemorate the president’s day. As Caesar in Rome, he offers the people games instead. What the President wants, the president gets, and this time his orders are to celebrate.

Schools were ordered to close on certain days, examinations postponed and public holidays imposed. Foreign media outlets, such as Al Jazeera and the BBC, which had until recently had a number of restrictions imposed upon them, were invited to film the pretentious affair. School principals were reportedly instructed by a government minister to facilitate the broadcasting of the president’s speech during the swearing in ceremony, so as to ensure all school children will have the mandatory opportunity to listen to him.

The landscape, which had been littered with its president’s conceited post-war face, has now been revamped with the latest issue of posters touting presidential smugness. Along with lavish fireworks in Colombo, three ships docked ceremonious at the new Chinese-built harbour. It seems even God was asked to join in: auspicious blessings were invoked at special prayers.

Beyond the outrageous egocentricity however, is the president’s stealthy creation of a quasi-religious monarchical rule. Perhaps most notable of all is the striking paucity of fierce criticism or dissent at the president’s plans, not only from those who face severe economic hardship, but those who would consider themselves liberally minded intellectuals, who argued against the 18th Amendment and ought to have felt patronised by the imposed gaiety. It all begs the question; is all this merely a reflection of the state’s stranglehold on free speech or a sign of the dissenting Sri Lankan’s hopeless acceptance, or indeed, conditioned embracement of the Rajapakse reign?
Angaadi Theru – Tamil Cinema’s Dickensian Moment?

The commercial as well as critical success enjoyed this year by the Tamil cinema release Angaadi Theru reflects not just the maturity and range of the Tamil cinema industry but also of its audience. Dealing with the difficult themes of harsh working conditions, rural poverty and exploring the lives of Chennai’s urban poor, Angaadi Theru is refreshingly different from the usual saccharine mix of romance, music and escapism that has become characteristic of Indian cinema as a whole.

Directed by Vasanthabalan, the film quickly gained the critical acclaim it richly reserved, landing the respectable runner up slot in the competition to be selected as the Indian entry for the foreign film category of the Academy Awards. However, Angaadi Theru has also been a huge commercial success, suggesting that Tamil cinema audiences across the world have a developing appetite for serious and challenging films.

Angaadi Theru’s central preoccupation is the unflinching portrayal of the dangerous, precarious and often fetid conditions in which the vast majority of the Tamil Nadu working poor struggle to live, love and care for their families. It focuses in particular on Chennai’s booming retail sector. Angaadi Theru can be loosely translated as commercial street and the plot centres on the fictitious Senthil Murugan stores, a mock up of the massive retail outlets found in Chennai’s famous T. Nagar. In following the lives and loves of the Senthil Murugan employees, the film shows the underbelly of Chennai’s booming retail sector.

The workers conditions of employment closely resemble the conditions of slave labour. Having been hired from struggling rural families, the young shop assistants then have to pay from their own meagre wages for their transport to Chennai, their uniform and also the squalid dorms in which they are housed. They are constantly at the prey of exploitative supervisors who regularly mete out violent punishment whilst also always looking for opportunities to sexually assault female workers.

In tackling the retail economy of Senthil Murugan stores, the movie also captures the working experiences of rural labourers and domestic servants. The hero, Lingam, is a bright student with a promising future who has to abandon his studies and seek employment in the Chennai retail sector when his father, a stone mason, is killed in an accident. Lingam’s father dies when his bus gets stuck across railway tracks and is hit by an oncoming train; the bus driver’s decision to risk the crossing an expression of a reckless approach to safety that routinely costs the lives of manual and construction workers across India.

The heroine Kani is also forced to Selvan Murugan to support her family while her younger sister is sent off to work as a domestic servant at the home of a prosperous and callous family. When Kani’s sister her first menstrual period the family instantly put her in the dog house to avoid polluting the family home. Later on the family decide to ship Kani’s sister off to Assam to care for a relative of theirs who has recently given birth and insist that the young domestic’s rail-fare will be met through deductions from her own measly wages.

The film has a distinctly Dickensian sensibility. It is animated by a social conscience and captures a large chunk of Tamil Nadu society; from the wealthy owner of the Selvan Murugan stores, through his violent and lecherous supervisors, to the corrupt police officers in his pay, the shop assistants themselves and their families and finally an array of characters who make their living begging, picking rags or pavement hawking on the streets of T. Nagar. It also features a guest appearance by Sneha, who gamely plays a knowing parody of herself as the glamorous actress fronting a commercial for the store and blissfully unaware of its darker workings.

But Angadi Theru is more than just a meditation on the exploitation and violence of Chennai’s commercial life. It Dickensian sensibility sheds light on the heroic and hopeful aspects of the human condition. It captures the moments of extraordinary generosity and tenderness in which rag pickers and pavement vendors care for each other and support each other through difficult times.

Meanwhile strangers regularly show kindness. When the two lovers are violently forced to leave Selvan Murugan stores finding themselves unemployed and homeless, it is a pavement seller who offers them a way of making money and helps them find a place to sleep where they can be safe from the predations of Chennai’s night-time gangs. When the penniless Kani laments that she is unable to provide her younger sister with the rituals that normally mark a girl’s first menstrual period, a group of women who happen to be gathered at a temple the sisters pass come together and conduct the ceremony ensuring the girl’s passage into maturity is marked auspiciously.

There are also moments of laugh out loud humour. All of the characters, particularly Kani, are blessed with a wicked sense of fun. Always ready to make the best of their difficult situation, their working lives and their romantic escapades are pricked with scenes of intense hilarity. Meanwhile the film’s gaze also captures the comedy of Chennai street life; including an enterprising pavement dweller who cleans a filthy public convenience and promptly turns it into a pay per use money spinner.

Along with an excellent script and flawless acting, the unalloyed watchability and cinematic pleasure of this movie are also down to its utterly beautiful soundtrack and mature cinematography that captures Chennai life exactly as it is; both the ugly and the beautiful. The soundtrack is a testament to the talent of the music producers Vijay Anthony and G. V Prakash Kumar. The lyrics are simple but moving and the music is melodic and memorable; the tracks will definitely become classics to be heard with pleasure by many generations to come. Meanwhile the cinematography of Richard M. Nathan demonstrates a highly developed aesthetic sense; the rural landscapes as well as the Chennai metropole appear as would seem to the movie’s struggling protagonists, harsh and difficult but also at times beautiful and always offering some small hope and promise.

Angadi Theru can be compared in its ambition and scale to Dickens’ ‘Hard Times’, a novel set in a fictitious industrial city called Coketown and centred on Gradgrind, a mocking caricature of the merciless and soulless industrialist. Through the novel Dickens hoped to prick the collective conscience of Victorian Britain by showing the underside of rapid industrial growth and its terrible disfigurement of social life.

Angadi Theru is clearly animated by a similar ambition. Although the signs of growing economic prosperity are everywhere in Chennai and across India more generally, the film points to the ongoing human misery that exists alongside economic prosperity. Without sliding into moralising or melodrama, the film has clearly captured an audience and attention. Perhaps it will serve as a Dickensian prick in the conscience and be part of a wider effort to recognise and address the exploitative working conditions endured by the vast majority of India’s labouring poor.
Who needs papers?

The Sri Lankan government will support the ‘rightful’ residents of the North and East who have lost the documents proving ownership of their lands, the Daily Mirror reported.

Sounds great – exactly what is needed in the Northeast, where after decades of war and displacement, many people do not have the official documents to prove their ownership of their properties.

A telling problem, however, promptly arises: what is the criteria by which people can prove ownership of their ancestral lands? And who decides on their validity?

The same government, it seems, whose military offensives drove these people from their homes.

The real point of all this is underlined by how large numbers of Sinhalese are being hurriedly settled in Tamil areas through government-funded schemes.

According to a 2002 survey by the Sinhala-dominated state itself, 81% of the displaced population was Tamil, 14% Muslim and 5% Sinhalese (see Amnesty International's report on Sri Lanka's displaced).

Since then hundreds of thousands of more Tamils have been displaced by military offensives.

Under the ‘Bimsaviya’ programme between 2011 and 2013, those who lost their documents will be issued with ‘Land Ownership Certificates’ (LOCs), the government says.

“Our goal is to identify the lawful owners and resettle them on their own land,” Minister of Land and Land Development Janaka Bandara Tennakoon said.

“The government is aware of the difficulties people face in getting back their houses and properties which they were compelled to abandon during the war. This has severely affected the resettlement programme."

The LOCs, he says, “would provide a much awaited solution to the land disputes in the North and East and help expedite the resettlement programme.”

For example, Sinhalese families recently settled – the government says ‘resettled’ - in Jaffna apparently had no problem proving their ownership of properties in the Tamil heartland.

It is worth noting that Jafffna has been under government control since 1995 - following the Sri Lankan offensive which displaced almost the entire population of the region.

In all that time, Sinhala ‘resettlement’ has never been raised as an issue by successive governments in Colombo – unlike the resettlement of Tamil-speaking Muslims, which was raised in the Norwegian-led peace process, also.

So, whilst hundreds of thousands of Tamils today remain displaced or are 'resettled' (actually often just taken from camps and dumped by roadside), Sinhalese setting up in various places in the Northeast with military assistance apparently already have the government-issued papers.

Sounds like 'reconciliation', Sri Lanka-style.
Sri Lanka wages war on ‘wheat terror’

The ultra-nationalist Sri Lankan government’s efforts to manage the economy has spurred a new war – against ‘wheat terrorism’.

The government drive to slash consumption of wheat-based food, especially bread, is decimating what are presumably some of the worst purveyors of terror: bakers.

Other bakers are trying to use rice flour to make bread ... because "we consider it our patriotic duty."

More than 2,000 bakers - a quarter in the island -have closed down this year because of high taxes and other government moves to discourage imported wheat, the All Ceylon Bakery Owners' Association says.

Sri Lanka spent over 250 million dollars on wheat imports in 2009, AFP reported.

The government has raised taxes on wheat imports twice in the past three months in a bid to discourage bread and encourage the consumption of locally-produced rice.

Sinhala nationalist have even said wheat is part of an international conspiracy foisted upon Sri Lanka by foreign corporations, The Independent and BBC reported.

At the same time, there are nationalist economic imperatives: "The government is promoting rice flour and wants to support local farmers," Ranasinghe said.

Meanwhile, desperate bakers are trying to comply with government demands they use rice flour instead to produce bread.

"We are taking every opportunity to use rice flour. We consider it our patriotic duty," Mahinda Ranasinghe, the bakers’ association's treasurer told The Independent.

Bakers are also lobbying government ministers and key officials in a bid to save thousands of jobs in the bakery and confectionery industry.

Meanwhile, the government has banned wheat products from various public institutions, including hospital, prison and school canteens.

"School authorities are not allowing students to bring wheat flour products purchased even from outside," All Ceylon Bakery Owners' Association President N.K. Jayawardane, told the Daily Mirror.
Learn Tamil, don’t employ Tamils

The Sri Lankan government is to apparently pay incentives to state employees to learn ‘local languages’, such as Tamil, to “reduce the communication gap with people of Tamil origin,” the Indian Express reported.

The move "aims to reduce the communication gap between those in the Tamil-dominated northern and eastern parts and the rest of the Sinhalese-majority country.”

Sounds like a good idea, moving towards bringing together the peoples of the island. That is until you read another piece of news – one that did not make it into any of the English language publications.

The Sri Lankan government has just released the list of those shortlisted for interviews after the 2009 exams for jobs with the Sri Lankan Administrative Service – the top civil service jobs in the country.

Of the 257 people shortlisted, not a single one was educated in the Tamil stream, according to a report in TamilWin. This is a repeat of the previous year, where of the 32 selected, again all had been educated in the Sinhala stream.

Thus while the Sri Lankan government publicises the actions that suggest moves towards reconciliation, the reality is that the Tamils are being excluded from senior government jobs, and any real say in how Tamil areas are administered.
Al Jazeera reveals photos of Sri Lankan military atrocities

Al Jazeera has obtained photographs that appear to show Sri Lankan army atrocities against Tamil civilians and captured or surrendered Tamil fighters in the final days of the Sri Lankan civil war in early 2009.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International say that the new photographic evidence warrants an independent, international, investigation.

Sri Lanka rejects outright any probe of its military's conduct.

Along with the International Crisis Group, the two groups Wednesday again rejected the Sri Lankan government's own inquiry as "warcrimes whitewashed".

Earlier this year, the ICG published the findings of a detailed investigation of war crimes in the final months of Sri Lanka's war.

The evidence gathered by ICG "provides reasonable grounds to believe the Sri Lankan security forces committed war crimes with top government and military leaders potentially responsible," the report's executive summary said.

Sri Lanka has responded by denouncing the groups' criticism as "colonial, patronising and condescending".
Shining case in point

Sri Lanka’s government denounces those fleeing its repression to the West as nothing but economic migrants. Consider then the case of the wealthy gem merchant who has sought asylum in Canada with his family.

Mohamed Razakdeen Aziz is gem merchant who showed up at the US-Canadian border with his family and $85,000 in precious stones, the Toronto Sun reported.

Mr. Aziz sought refugee protection on the basis he was kidnapped twice in Sri Lanka because he was a rich Tamil Muslim businessman. He paid a $250,000 ransom for release after one kidnapping.

“He now works as a security guard in Toronto,” his lawyer, Kumar Sriskanda, said. “He had to leave it all behind.”

Mr. Azis was attending a 2009 gemstone conference in Arizona with his family and seized the opportunity to escape across the border. Canada rejected their asylum claim, but successfully appealed to the federal court which ordered a new hearing.

“I find that the claimant was targeted as part of a large group of business persons who are perceived to be well off,” Justice Douglas Campbell said in his Oct. 28 decision.

“It became obvious that Muslims were openly kidnapped, extorted and those who refused to pay were killed. Many Muslim businessmen were kidnapped and some even left the country for good,” the judge said.

“There is more than a mere possibility that the applicant will be persecuted” if he returns to Sri Lanka,” the judge said.

On the same day as the Canadian judge's ruling on Mr. Aziz's claim, the Sri Lankan military declared its intent to arrest 163 Tamil traders in Jaffna on the charge they had funded the Tamil Tigers, TamilNet reported.

However, according to Jaffna Traders Association, the real motive behind the military's drive is to cripple the prominent Tamil traders in Jaffna and eliminate competion for the Sinhala traders who continue to invade Jaffna with the backing of the military.

The day before the round-up, Army-backed paramilitaries in Jaffna abducted textile traders from Tamil Nadu staying in the lodges in Jaffna town. The traders, who were engaged in business with permits from the Sri Lankan immigration authorities, have not been heard from since.
India-US partnership on 'creating order' in Sri Lanka

Amid the newly enhanced ties between the United States and India, the contours of a shared approach to Sri Lanka’s ethnic crisis by the two states appeared in little reported comments last month by Indian National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon.

Speaking in Washington, he outlined a twin track Indian strategy, which he said was supported by the US: first, restoring normalcy in the war-shattered Tamil areas, and, second, “creating an order [in Sri Lanka] within which, not just the restoration of democracy, but … an order within which all the communities feel that they can determine their own futures.”

Mr. Menon’s comments, quoted by rediff.com in early October, came in response to a question from the floor during an interaction as to whether “India shares any concerns about the roll-back of democracy in Sri Lanka.”

"Frankly for us, we are dealing with a neighbour, who's had a troubled history and has just come out of a civil war and has to repair the damage of that civil war and the effects that's had on their own society."

"So two things become very important,

"One is reconciliation between the communities and we've tried very hard to help in that process -- in reconciliation, in trying to bring life back to normal for especially the areas where most of the war was fought in the north and the east.

“[In this regard] We have a huge program to try and do that and we've discussed it with the US as well, which is also participating in this effort and we've tried very hard to make sure that by doing this -- and this is a common Indo-US interest really -- that we can prevent the emergence of the sort of terrorism that came out of Sri Lanka, which in our case cost us the life of a Prime Minister.

"But equally, there is also the work of political recovery in Sri Lanka … Of creating an order within which, not just the restoration of democracy, but more than that, an order within which all the communities feel that they can determine their own futures -- that they have a say in the choices that affect their lives.”

Mr. Menon admitted this was “a much more sensitive task” and said that “while we will continue to encourage Sri Lanka to do what she says, what the Sri Lankan authorities have consistently told us they want to do, ultimately that's their internal affair and it's something they'll have to take the tough decisions themselves on.”

This week, US President Obama urged India to do more to stand up for the oppressed in abusive states.

“Speaking up for those who cannot do so for themselves is not interfering in the affairs of other countries. It is not violating the rights of sovereign nations, it is staying true to our [US and India’s] democratic principles."
LLRC extension is no surprise

News that Sri Lanka's Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) has had it mandate extended by another six months was always expected, but there is an assumed logic behind Colombo's actions. The commission is the Sri Lankan state's attempt to fend off critics, buy time and forestall an independent, international inquiry.

International actors such as Amnesty International, International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch, have consistently rejected the LLRC as not fit for purpose.

The initial remit of six months, has now become one year, the commission’s new deadline being 15th May 2011 – two years after the government claimed victory in its war against the Liberation Tigers. If there was any doubt as to the state's disingenuous intentions, this recent move is yet further proof.

Conventions, treaties and diplomatic etiquette mean that while a country is undertaking its own internal investigation, the international community will remain reluctant to push through an independent inquiry. Or so Sri Lanka hopes. If true, the six month delay holds back an independent inquiry by at least that time.

However, in a state like Sri Lanka, time is of the essence. As international human rights organisations, including the three listed above, have rightly and repeatedly pointed out, there is no protection for witnesses in Sri Lanka. Viewed in conjunction with on-going abductions, countless disappearances, high profile assassinations and a complete disregard for the rule of law, the plight of witnesses or outspoken critics is truly terrifying.

The argument of respecting a state's sovereignty can only go so far in the face of allegations of war crimes. Indeed, as US President Obama said this week, criticism of the latter is not a breach of the former, but the defence of universally accepted principles.

In practical terms, the more time Sri Lanka is allowed to waste, the more time it has to destroy the evidence and eliminate the witnesses of its crimes. How many more extensions and excuses is the UN prepared to endure, before it feels the need to press forward on an independent international inquiry?

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