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  • STF offensives in the East

    Nov 28
    Two artillery-backed offensives by Sri Lanka’s elite Special Task Force (STF) against the Liberation Tigers in the Batticaloa and Amparai districts of the last week were repulsed after major clashes.
     
    On Saturday (Nov 25) STF troop from Kanchirankuda and Sangamankandy camps in Amparai district launched an penetration raid towards Thangaveluathapuram in LTTE controlled part of the district.
     
    Following stiff resistance put up by a guerrilla unit of the Tigers, the STF pulled back, local LTTE political official, Mr. Veeramani said.
     
    Two LTTE fighters and four STF personnel were killed in the fighting, he said.
     
    The LTTE cadres were named as Ilakkiyan, 24, a Sea Tiger and Jeyaprakash, 21.
     
    The STF however said four Tigers had been killed for no STF losses. It said troops seized two T-56 automatic rifles, a pistol and a walkie-talkie when they advanced into LTTE area and launched an ambush on a LTTE position.
     
    Residents said ambulances were observed carrying STF casualties towards Amparai town.
     
    After pulling back, the STF also launched a mortar attack on LTTE Heroes Cemetary in Kanchchikudicha Aru.
     
    A civilian was killed when the STF continued with heavy mortar fire towards Thangavelauthapuram. Residents fled the village following the STF shelling.
     
    Sixteen years ago, on 23 July 1990, the SLA chased away more than a thousand Tamil families from the Tamil villages of Thangavelauthapuram, Sagamam, Kanchchikudicha Aru and Alikambai. After struggling in camps in Thirukkovil for nine years, the families returned to their villages in 1999.
     
    On Thursday (Nov 23), seven STF troops were killed when the Tigers counter-attacked their unit which launched a ground movement towards the 38th Colony in Vellaveli, Batticaloa.
     
    One LTTE cadre, Nathan, was also killed.
     
    A 40 mm grenade launcher and a T-56 rifle were recovered after the battle by the Tigers.
     
    The STF had advanced with heavy artillery and mortar fire support that claimed the life of a 15-year-old female student and wounded 5 civilians including her 2 sisters and a brother.
     
    Kamalaharan Arulchelvi, 15 was killed when STF shells hit her house in Thikkodai, Vellaveli. Her siblings, Kamalaharan Nirusha, 07, Kamalaharan Kalaichelvi, 20, and Kamalaharan Arulrasa, 18, were wounded and were rushed to hospital
     
    Two other women, Thangarasa Chandra, 38, and Kanapathipillai Pakyam, 65, were also wounded.
     
    The victims had displaced from 39th Colony, inside LTTE territory, three months ago due to heavy shelling from the Sri Lankan military camps.
     
    The STF, a specially trained and equipped unit of commandos drawn from the Sri Lankan Police, was initially developed and deployed for counter insurgency operations in the eastern province in the 1980s.
     
    The growth of the LTTE's conventional military capabilities had impelled the STF during the Eelam War III to look beyond standard western counter insurgency doctrine and practice, with operational tasks in controlling government held areas in Amparai and Batticaloa districts, reports say.
  • Cool reception in Delhi for Rajapakse
    Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse (R) arrives at Indira Gandhi airport in New Delhi on Nov 25, 2006 as Indian Minister of Panchayati Raj Mani Shanker Aiyer (L) looks on. Photo Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images
    President Mahinda Rajapakse’s visit to India this week was overshadowed by Tamil Tiger leader Vellupillai Pirapaharan’s Heroes’ Day address declaring a resumption of the struggle for independence.
     
    Sri Lankan and other media have made much of Delhi’s call for negotiations to end Sri Lanka’s protracted civil war, suggesting it was a rebuff for the LTTE’s ‘call for Eelam.’
     
    But experienced political journalists saw India focusing on a different set of concerns – that of the hardline Sri Lankan government’s conduct vis-à-vis the Tamil minority.
     
    Delhi’s reassertion of the need for a negotiated solution is a direct rejoinder to President Rajapakse, whose government, expanding its defence budget by a staggering 45% and stepping up its vilification of the LTTE, has publicly taken up a military solution to the ethnic question.
     
    India is particularly frustrated by Sri Lanka’s persistant use of indiscriminate and excessive force resulting in the triggering of a massive humanitarian crisis in the Northeast and the deaths of large numbers of civilians in air and artillery strikes.
     
    Lastly, India is also frustrated at the Sri Lankan government’s uncompromising approach to reaching a political solution with the Tamils
     
    Not only is there no sign of a credible proposal from Colombo to put on the negotiating table, but the Rajapakse administration has actively begun dismantling a cornerstone of a future solution, the merged Northeast province.
     
    The Rajapakse administration’s pointed ignoring of repeated Indian entreaties to preserve the Northeast merger, also a crucial pillar of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, has also irked Delhi.
     
    India’s mounting displeasure on all these scores was conspicuously apparent in the dropping of customary diplomatic practices at the end of President Rajapakse’s three-day visit, which included a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
     
    After the leaders’ meeting there was no photo opportunity for reporters, nor were official photographs released.
     
    Even Sri Lanka’s flagship state-owned paper, the Daily News, had to settle for carrying a picture of Rajapakse’s meeting with Indian Opposition Leader L. K. Advani on its front-page on Thursday.
     
    There was, notably, also no joint statement by the two leaders after their hour-long talk.
     
    It was left to India's External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, to make comments to the press and answer reporters’ questions.
     
    Notably, President Rajapakse’s much publicized demand that the Indian Navy should commence joint patrolling with the Sri Lankan Navy was firmly rejected. India was (only) prepared to assist the Rajapakse government with ‘non-lethal’ military assistance, Mr. Mukherjee said.
     
    Moreover, Delhi is impatient for a political solution.
     
    An Indian foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters: “We conveyed our long-standing position on the need for a negotiated political settlement that is acceptable to all sections of society.”
     
    The hackneyed expression – ‘a solution acceptable to all’ – has specific connotations when India reiterated it to President Rajapakse: the solution must be acceptable to the Tamils.
     
    The Sri Lankan leader has repeatedly been making much of his efforts to forge a southern consensus – a euphemism for a solution acceptable to Buddhist hardliners and Sinhala nationalists.
     
    The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between President Rajapakse’s ruling SLFP and the main opposition UNP has not spelled out the terms of a political solution with any clarity – whilst it echoes the hardliners’ rhetoric of defeating terrorism and separatism.
     
    And while the UNP says is it is prepared to support the merger of the North and East, there is no sign the SLFP is going to table the matter in Parliament to allow the proper process for merging to be followed.
     
    The Indian stand is that a referendum can be held in Sri Lanka's northeast to decide if it must remain one or split up into two when there is a conducive atmosphere.
     
    But the Rajapakse government’s position is that there must be referendum in the east before the merger can go ahead (in a reversal of the terms of the Indo-Lanka Accord which says the merger must stand till a referendum on demerging is held).
     
    Seasoned observers could have predicted that a cool reception for Rajapakse was on the cards even before he left for Delhi.
     
    Last week Prime Minister Singh made his sentiments on developments in Sri Lanka clear in a letter to Y Gopalasamy (Vaiko), leader of the MDMK.
     
    The symbolism of the Premier’s letter to the stridently pro-LTTE Tamil Nadu party was itself striking (especially since the letter was undoubtedly intended to be made public).
     
    So was its unmistakable tone and contents.
     
    “The latest incidents in Sri Lanka leading to the loss of many innocent lives, mainly Tamils including women and children, are a matter of the utmost concern and sorrow to all of us,” Mr. Singh said.
     
    “We have consistently pointed out that there is no justification for violence of this kind and that the killing of innocent people, especially of women and children, is not acceptable.”
     
    “We have taken great care not to provide Sri Lanka with lethal offensive items of military hardware, specially of the kind that could be used against the Tamil population.”
     
    “We have, at every opportunity, also impressed upon the Sri Lankan Government to respect the rights and privileges of the Tamils of Sri Lanka as citizens of the country. This is again being conveyed to Sri Lankan authorities.”
     
    “We will reiterate to the Government of Sri Lanka that they must find a political solution through negotiations that would meet the genuine and legitimate rights of the Tamils, rather than adopt tactics that lead to the death of innocent people.”
  • British envoy urges talks, cites Northern Ireland
    Peace talks can succeed only if “everything is on the table and there is respect for all points of view,” Britain’s former Northern Ireland Minister said after meeting Tamil Tiger officials.
     
    Saying there is a “huge comparison” between the conflicts in Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka, Mr. Paul Murphy said “no one can win this kind of war.”
     
    “We have the same message for the Sri Lankan government as the LTTE: keep searching for a solution, ensure the ceasefire agreement is one of integrity, renounce violence and ensure there is a proper look at everything that can bring peace.”
     
    Mr. Murphy the former Northern Ireland Minister, is presently Chairman of the British Intelligence and Security Committee.
     
    He spoke to reporters on Nov. 16 after meeting with the head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, Mr. S. P. Tamilselvan at the LTTE’s Political Headquarters in Kilinochchi.
     
    “I was asked to come by the Prime Minister of Britain to give our experiences in Northern Ireland where I was Secretary of State for many years to see if people in Sri Lanka can learn from our experiences,” Mr. Murphy said.
     
    “I will be reporting back to Tony Blair on the points that have been made here [in Kilinochchi] – and the points that have been made in Colombo as well.”
     
    Sri Lanka’s conflict can be solved if there is genuine will on both sides, he said.
     
    “There is a huge comparison between Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka,” he reiterated.
     
    The numbers of people killed in the two conflicts are proportionately the same – out of a million and a half people in, 3,000 died and sixty thousand have died in Sri Lanka, he said.
     
    “There were cases of discrimination and real conflict in Northern Ireland [also],” Mr. Murphy, who co-chaired the peace talks there for two years, said.
     
    “No one can win this type of war. Everybody understands that and if there is a will for peace then there are all sorts of ways in which our experiences in Northern Ireland can help,” he said.
     
    “Everything has to be on the table, it has to be an inclusive process, everybody has to be involved and there has to be equal respect for everybody,” he said.
     
    “[In Northern Ireland] we looked at everything - constitutional arrangements, language, human rights, humanitarian issues, equality, police, criminal justice; all those issues were on the table,” he said.
     
    “Above all, equal respect for everybody’s point of view.”
     
    Speaking to reporters, the LTTE Political Chief, Mr. Tamilselvan said the meeting with Mr. Murphy had been interesting.
     
    “The Northern Ireland peace process succeeded because there was patience and commitment by the conflict parties,” he said.
     
    “[But] the Sri Lankan government doesn’t even want to acknowledge and respecting the Ceasefire Agreement we signed in 2002,” he said.
     
    “In the [new] budget, the government has massively increased military expenditure. What does that indicate?”
  • Sri Lanka expands military in marked shift
    Sri Lanka wants more Israeli-built Dvora gunboats after recent battle losses.
    Sri Lanka is preparing for a major onslaught against the Liberation Tigers, raising defence spending by 45% to $1.29 bln and calling on the international community to help fight terrorism.
     
    And amid analysts’ questions about foreign exchange, Sri Lanka announced a new dollar bond would be launched next year.
     
    Two weeks ago Sri Lanka’s military chief, Air Chief Marshal G.D. Perera, told top defense and military officials from 23 countries that his government needs "a lot of assistance" in handling the “terrorist issue.”
     
    Meanwhile defence spokesman and cabinet minister Keheliya Rambukwella said: "right now the requirement of strengthening the air force, navy and defence sector becomes very paramount. National security comes first.”
     
    Perera was speaking at a gathering on Nov 15 of top defense and military officials from 23 countries including nuclear powers the U.S., France and Pakistan, along with Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and several Southeast Asian nations.
     
    "Sri Lanka is straddled with a terrorist issue and a lot of assistance is required from neighboring countries, not only India and Pakistan but also in the region," AP quoted Perera as saying.
     
    Sri Lanka's government plans to use a budgeted 28 percent increase in defence spending for 2007 to help beef up the military, Reuters reported.
     
    The budget raises defence spending to Rs139.56 billion in 2007 from a revised Rs108.67 billion in 2006.
     
    Parliamentarians voted 133 in favour to 18 against to pass the budget bill. The 18 were all members of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).
     
    Reuters quoted military sources as saying the navy was likely to look to replace Israeli-made Dvora fast attack boats sunk in recent naval battles with the Tigers, as well as buying more ammunition and weapons systems.
     
    President Mahinda Rajapakse made no mention of defence spending figures in his abridged budget speech to parliament on Thursday, but the budget estimates document shows defence spending will rise to 139.56 billion rupees ($1.29 bln) in 2007 from a revised 108.67 billion rupees in 2006.
     
    "Right now the requirement of strengthening the air force, navy and defence sector becomes very paramount. National security comes first," said government defence spokesman and cabinet minister Keheliya Rambukwella.
     
    "When the sovereignty of the state is threatened it has to be safeguarded," he said. "Defence professionals will have to look into (what to buy) -- basically what you need to defend the country."
     
    "We already know they are acquiring four more Mig 27 fighters, so similarly there will be other armoured vehicles for the army and ships for the Navy," Iqbal Athas, Sri Lanka’s leading defence correspondent and analyst for Jane's Defence Weekly, told Reuters.
     
    "They need some because they have lost some fast attack (naval) craft in battle."
     
    Analysts said the increase in spending was higher than anticipated, expecting the budget deficit to widen due to increased defence expenditure, and wondering where the government will find the money.
     
    "It looks as though they might be planning to upgrade their defence hardware, which means they will have to raise foreign money," Dushyanth Wijayasinghe, head of research at Asia Securities in Colombo told Reuters last month.
     
    "They could do that partly from dollar bond issues and partly from long-term credit lines from (arms) suppliers," he added.
     
    This week Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal told Reuters that Sri Lanka plans to issue its first US dollar bond in 2007 to raise funds for major infrastructure projects such as roads and ports.
     
    Cabraal did not say how much of the money raised from the bond issue would be earmarked for infrastructure projects.
     
    Athas said President Rajapakse's sharp increase in defence spending marked a departure from previous administrations.
     
    "It becomes significant if you look at the past, particularly with the two previous administrations, which sought a de-escalation with the ongoing peace process. All of a sudden we see a diversion from that and an escalation," Athas said.
     
    "The government is preparing itself militarily. There is a marked shift there."
  • UN envoy vilified over military child recruitment charges
    Sinhala nationalists, carrying an effigy of UN Special Advisor Allan Rock, protested opposite the UN headquarters in Colombo on Nov 21. Photo Dinuka Liyanawatte/ Daily Mirror.
    As Sri Lanka’s government angrily rejected findings by a UN envoy that troops are forcibly conscripting Tamil children for their paramilitary allies fighting against the Tamil Tigers, international ceasefire monitors said they also had evidence of the practice.
     
    The special advisor to the UN Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Allan Rock, told reporters in Colombo Tuesday (Nov 14) that he had evidence of direct involvement of Sri Lanka troops in forcibly enlisting children for the paramilitary Karuna Group.
     
    Not only does Mr. Rock’s findings implicate the Sri Lankan armed forces in the forcible conscription of children for combat, they also reinforce accusations that the military is supporting anti-LTTE paramilitaries.
     
    The LTTE has long protested that despite the 2002 truce, Sri Lanka’s military has been waging a murderous campaign against Tiger supporters and cadres using paramilitary groups like the Karuna Group, led by a renegade LTTE commander.
     
    "Sri Lankan security forces rounded up children to be recruited by the Karuna faction," Mr. Rock said at the end of a 10-day mission to study the situation of children in the embattled island.
     
    "We encountered both direct and indirect evidence of... [troops’] complicity and participation," Mr. Rock further said, adding there was both eyewitness and anecdotal evidence to back up his claims.
     
    Mr Rock said he had evidence that security forces travel to villages and photograph Tamil children who are later forcibly recruited by the Karuna Group. Children as young as 13 or 14 have been taken.
     
    And amid indignant denials by the Colombo government, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), which is tasked with overseeing the fragile 2002 truce, said it endorsed Mr. Rock’s findings.
     
    Mr. Rock’s comments triggered a surge of Sinhala nationalist outrage.
     
    Demonstrators led by hardline Buddhist monks demonstrated outside the UN office in Colombo on Monday (Nov 20), shouting slogans and waving placards that questioned the motives of both Rock and the UN.
     
    The Sri Lankan government accused Mr. Rock of being a Tamil Tiger sympathizer.
     
    "He [Rock] has attended a LTTE fund raising event in Canada," Keheliya Rambukwella, minister of Policy Planning and the government defense spokesman, told reporters.
     
    "A responsible member of the international community would not have made such unfounded public statements in such an irresponsible manner," said Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera.
     
    "Even if they were true, a person of that nature should have had the decency to bring it to the notice of the government discreetly."
     
    However the SLMM said it would soon be providing its own evidence to support Mr. Rock.
     
    "We have known for some time that there is a level of co-operation between certain elements of the security forces and the Karuna faction," Acting SLMM Spokesperson, Helen Olafsdottir said.
     
    "The statement made by the UN official is correct and the SLMM in its second Geneva report released in August also stressed that we had sufficient evidence to prove that the government forces were involved in child recruitment," she said.
     
    "We are compiling more information and will present the government with a comprehensive report on the matter."
     
    In its report to the second round of talks in Geneva in October, the SLMM said that child recruitment and child abduction continued on a relatively high level from June to August but unlike earlier months, the majority of the cases reported were not against the LTTE, but against the Karuna group.
     
    The SLMM said that there were a number of indications that the Sri Lankan government was actively supporting the Karuna group.
     
    "Known Karuna supporters have been seen moving to and from SLA camps, and it is evident that the security forces and police in some areas are not taking action to prevent armed elements from operating," the SLMM report said.
     
    Latest reports complied by the SLMM too said that abductions were continuing in Batticaloa.
    “Numbers are bound to be much higher as parents of abductees have been threatened by the perpetrators not to report to police or international organizations," the SLMM said.
  • Troops massacred students - ceasefire monitors
    International truce monitors said this week Sri Lankan troops entered a school and opened fire on a group of students at close range on Nov. 18, killing five of them, after a deadly Tamil Tiger ambush nearby on government forces.
     
    The students were shot dead in an Agriculture school in Vavuniya shortly after a Tamil Tiger blast killed five soldiers in the area.
     
    "These soldiers fired indiscriminately at a group of students who had thrown themselves on the ground seeking safety after an LTTE (Tamil Tiger) claymore mine blast nearby," Helen Olafsdottir, spokeswoman for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission that oversees the 2002 ceasefire, told Reuters.
     
    "Witnesses say that soldiers jumped over the fence, into the agricultural school premises, and opened fire," she added.
     
    "They shot from close range, five of the students were killed and at least 10 others were injured."
     
    A Sri Lankan military spokesman said ground troops claimed the civilians were killed in crossfire after the blast which killed five soldiers and that police were investigating.
     
    The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a coalition of Sri Lanka’s main Tamil parties, condemned the massacre, pointing that 99% of Sri Lankan troops are Sinhalese and hostile to the Tamil population.
     
    “This is yet another crime in a very long list of such crimes that have deliberately and systematically targeted innocent Tamil civilians. These are war crimes of the most serious nature,” the TNA said in a press release.
     
    Vavuniya Magistrate S Illancheliyan who visited the scene has ordered the Army to surrender the weapons used by the soldiers involved for inspection by the government analyst.
     
    The TNA press release described the massacre in detail:
     
    “On 18 November 2006, at about 10.30 am, the Army personnel had approached the premises of the Agriculture Farm School in Thandikulam, Vavuniya from several fronts firing in the air with live ammunition.
     
    “Several students dressed in uniform were engaged in practicals at the time. On hearing the firing the students had taken cover by lying flat on the ground.
     
    “On entering the school premises, members of the Army had ordered the students to stand up.
     
    “At this point, one student Ramachandran Atchuthan, had stood up and explained that all those present were students of the said school and had no connection whatsoever to an earlier claymore mine attack that had been carried out on a Sri Lanka Army vehicle.
     
    “At this stage the Army personnel shot Atchuthan in the head at point blank range.
     
    “Subsequently three other students, Gopinath of Trincomalee, Rizwan Mohammed of Batticaloa and Sinthujan of Vavuniya were also shot in execution style killings.
    “The Army personnel then proceeded to open fire randomly at the remaining students, grievously wounding ten students of whom six were girls.”
  • Anton Balasingham afflicted by rare cancer
    Mr. Anton and Mrs. Adele Balasingham pictured February 2006 while attending the peace talks in Geneva. Photo LTTE
    Mr Anton Balasingham, theoretician and political advisor of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been diagnosed with bile duct cancer (cholangiocarcinoma), a rare and aggressive malignancy of the biliary system.
     
    The cancer is in an advanced stage and has spread to his liver, lungs, abdomen and bones, doctors have informed Mr. Balasingham, who is now resting at home, cared for by his wife, Adele.
     
    Mr Balasingham has had various medical investigations and is consulting oncologists about the possibility of treatment and the prognosis.
     
    Commenting on his illness to TamilNet, Mr Balasingham said that, “it is an unfortunate personal tragedy. However, when compared to the vast ocean of the collective tragedy faced by my people, my illness is merely a pebble.”
     
    “I am deeply sad that I am crippled by this illness, unable to contribute anything substantial towards the alleviation of the immense suffering and oppression of my people,” he said.
     
    Mr Balasingham is 68 years old and has been suffering from diabetes for 35 years and in the late nineties developed renal disease, for which he underwent kidney transplantation.
     
    He has been associated with the Tamil liberation struggle for more than 30 years and participated as chief negotiator on behalf of the Liberation Tigers in almost all political negotiations, beginning with the Thimpu talks in 1985.
  • Ugly Reality
    New rocket artillery on parade in Colombo. The internationally supported peace process was intended to create a space to rebuild Sri Lanka's shattered economy and the battered military. Photo Daily News
    Since the beginning of Sri Lanka’s latest peace process, the doves and the hawks within the Tamil community have been engaged in intense debate on its merits and pitfalls.
     
    The doves contended that the peace process was an inevitable engagement between the Tamils’ representatives and the Sri Lankan state.
     
    Unlike past diplomatic engagements, this one, they argued, was more likely to succeed as a result of the support of the international community.
     
    The hawks, for their part, were sceptical of the interests of the various foreign powers and more importantly of their track record of involvement in the island’s violent affairs.
     
    The hawks, it seems, have been proven right.
     
    In their much awaited statement this week the self-styled Co-chairs of the Sri Lankan peace process - the United States, Norway, the European Union and Japan - delivered a muted condemnation of the recent violence - orchestrated largely by the Sri Lankan state.
     
    Most importantly, they made it bluntly clear that there would be no tangible measures take to curb the state’s aggression.
     
    Many observers of the situation in Sri Lanka, including the rapidly shrinking population of Tamil doves, have been taken aback at how mild the Co-Chairs’ latest statement was.
     
    However, the Sri Lankan government was evidently not anticipating any backlash from the Co-chairs.
     
    The state was unleashing unprovoked bombing raids on LTTE-held territory even as the two days of deliberations in Washington were taking place.
     
    The post-conference comments by the individual representatives of the Co-Chairs revealed much more than their feeble joint statement.
     
    The US and Japan have been unapologetic backers of the Sri Lankan state for several decades, even through some of the worst acts of collective violence against the Tamil minority.
     
    Mr. Nicholas Burns, the US representative, reiterated for the second time in a month punctuated by mass killings of Tamil civilians that Sri Lanka was a staunch ally of his country and that Colombo would continue to receive Washington’s unreserved support.
     
    A little more surprising was the EU’s acknowledgement that it would continue its financial assistance despite Colombo’s disregard for the peace process and ceasefire agreement.
     
    The EU, lest we forget, indignantly banned the LTTE in May 2006, the same month the Sri Lankan armed forces began their now six month old onslaught against the LTTE and the Tamils.
     
    There was little evidence this week, moreover, that the EU was any more uncomfortable than the US in backing the Sri Lankan state amid its violence.
     
    Another myth that was dispelled this week was the notion that the Norwegian peace process was being underpinned by aid conditionalities whereby the Sri Lankan state would need to make political compromises with the Tamils.
     
    Mr. Yasushi Akashi, Japan’s representative, declared that most of the $ 4.5 billion of aid pledged to Sri Lanka in Tokyo in 2003 conditional upon progress in the peace talks, had already been delivered to the state.
     
    This is despite Sri Lanka’s failure to deliver on a single agreement reached in the peace process - including the Ceasefire Agreement.
     
    During the same period the Tamils’ representatives, the LTTE, were proscribed as part of a coordinated effort to pressure the movement into making concessions during the peace process. Apart from the EU, Canada banned the LTTE this year.
     
    In December 2002 the LTTE said it would explore a federal solution. Since then the LTTE has not publicly asserted the Tamil demand for independence.
     
    In 2003 it also put forward proposals for negotiations on an interim administration – maximalist proposals, yes, but for discussion.
     
    These concessions were not reciprocated by the state, whose present position is, just as it has been for much of the conflict, that only a unitary solution will suffice.
     
    The most telling aspect of recent international involvement in Sri Lanka has been the carte blanche offered to the state to continue its violence.
     
    And this is after state terrorism in the island had already reached levels last witnessed during the height of the ‘war for peace’.
     
    State violence against the Tamils ranges from collective deprivations though blockades of food and medicine on large swathes of the Tamil areas to a systematic campaign of execution and disappearances of Tamil aid workers, journalists, and elected politicians who are sympathetic to the cause of self-determination.
     
    With hindsight, the Norwegian peace process appears to be little more than an elaborate effort to curb Tamil political ambitions which had begun gaining momentum through the LTTE’s armed struggle.
     
    Almost every element of the peace process appears to have been stacked against the Tamils.
     
    Even the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) in its official accounting of violence since 2002 has been less than even-handed.
     
    The SLMM rules that most violations were carried out by the LTTE.
     
    But there is no accounting for the six hundred thousand Tamils being starved in Jaffna each day – or the 40,000 being bombed in Vahari.
     
    The many accusations of child recruitment against the LTTE remain as violations even when the teenagers are released.
     
    But the hundreds of thousands of Tamils unable to return to homes occupied by the military, or resume their fishing and farming livelihoods are not even logged.
     
    For its part the Sri Lankan state is content that given the status quo continues, it will be able to crush the Tamil problem through a multifaceted campaign of violence.
     
    The massive military and financial support it is receiving from the international community has allowed it to increase military spending by 30% this year.
     
    Commenting on Indian assistance reportedly not forthcoming, President Mahinda Rajapakse confidently asserted that he doesn’t need anything more from Delhi: the present economic ties and support from India would be more than adequate for Sri Lanka to sustain its present military initiatives.
     
    The Tamil doves have clearly been wrong.
     
    At the outset they thought the LTTE had mistakenly been included in the ‘war on terror.’
     
    They contended that if the Tamils could demonstrate to the international community that the situation in Sri Lanka is a case of ethnic oppression, then the world would pressure the state to end its tyranny.
     
    However, this calculation is incongruent with the widespread support the Sri Lankan state was enjoying prior during its ‘war for peace’ – and that was prior to the international ‘war-on-terror’ which began in 2001.
     
    The Tamil people endured the collective punishments of embargo and blockade throughout the 1990s – during which period the international community was determinedly backing the Sri Lankan state.
     
    The reality is that Sri Lanka is no more an ally in the ‘war on terror’ than it was an ally in the war against communism in the 1980s.
     
    The international community has always known that the war is between the Sinhala-dominated state and the persecuted Tamil minority. The language used suited the era, but the reality was always understood.
     
    But the optimism triggered amongst the Tamils when the same international actors which had backed a war against them suddenly began backing a peace process lent weight to the doves and marginalized the hawks.
     
    The prevailing understanding was that the international community was simply uninformed as to the realities of Sri Lankan state oppression.
     
    Enormous effort has thus gone into engaging with the international community, into explaining the history oppression, into appealing for support for a just and equitable solution.
     
    It was a monumental waste of time and effort.
     
    The logic of the international community is thus much more understandable in the aftermath of the Norwegian peace process.
     
    The major actors have frequent briefings on developments on the ground and have an intimate knowledge of daily events. They are briefed by the various political, humanitarian and military actors.
     
    The Tamils need to come to terms with the fact that the international community is in fact extremely well informed and always has been. It is simply not interested in their difficulties.
     
    The international community is primarily concerned with pursing its own interests and to that end will be actively complicit in Sri Lanka’s genocidal efforts, if necessary.
     
    The Tamils should not be surprised at the present turn of events.
     
    Morality has no place in such calculations. The invasion of Iraq was about destroying Saddam’s threatening regime, not about freedom for Iraqis. The world coolly watched the genocide in Rwanda for months. And justice is being served there only because the Tutsis won.
     
    The Tamils need to take note. History is written by victors – it is perhaps this very logic that drives the international community’s immoral approach to Sri Lanka.
     
    Throughout the conflict there has been a direct correlation between international confidence that the LTTE could be defeated and the level of international support rendered to the state’s indiscriminate and vicious war effort.
     
    And the Norwegian peace process was ultimately about a space to rebuild Sri Lanka’s shattered economy and battered military.
     
    The international community, perhaps satisfied that the peace process has achieved these objectives, is now openly demonstrating its contempt for the Tamils’ ‘legitimate’ grievances.
     
    But perhaps, the point which has, in turn, eluded the international community, is that the peace process was also an exercise for the Tamils in studying the motivations of the international community.
     
    The eternal debate between the doves and the hawks over the intentions of foreign powers has now concluded.
     
    The Tamils, in the island and the Diaspora, have conclusively proven to themselves that their fate rests solely in their own hands.
     
    In short, strength inspires respect, weakness invites contempt. And violence.
  • What's in it for India?
    The sentiment of the overwhelming majority of Sri Lankan Tamils is that India’s central government must intervene to arrest the catastrophe unfolding in the island's Northeast.
     
    Sri Lanka’s military is launching an indiscriminate onslaught against the Tamils. Over 200,000 people, mainly Tamils, have been driven from their homes.
     
    Refugee camps and teenagers’ schools have been shelled and bombed. Dozens of Tamils are being shot or ‘disappeared’ by the Sri Lankan military. Over a thousand Tamils have been killed this year alone.
     
    The 2002 Ceasefire Agreement has become worthless as the government of Presdient Mahinda Rajapakse continues its military onslaught against the Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by targeting the Tamil population.
     
    And it is not the Tamils of Sri Lanka alone who are looking to Delhi for action.
     
    Politicians from Tamil Nadu, where 16,000 Tamils from the island have fled to, have been urging the central government to break its silence and to prevail on the parties in Sri Lanka to find a lasting solution.
     
    The call to intervene on behalf of the island’s Tamils comes from both allies and opponents of India’s ruling coalition.
     
    Political and military analysts in India have also been increasingly arguing for action.
     
    And right now that means arresting the military onslaught of the Sinhala-dominated government.
     
    India’s reticence is understandable. Delhi has had bitter experiences from intervening in Sri Lanka.
     
    But that was a function of the mode and form of intervention, not the principle itself.
     
    Indeed, India’s initial steps in the early eighties helped blunt the Sri Lankan oppression of the Tamils.
     
    After the 1983 pogrom, the Indian government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had no choice but to establish links with Sri Lankan Tamil leaders, both parliamentary and militant, in order to fully gauge what was going on in the island.
     
    But even that was very late, even decades late.
     
    Sri Lanka’s problem ethnic erupted soon after independence from Britain. London’s ill-fated and irresponsible decision to leave the Tamils – whose distinct homeland had been merged with the rest of the island - at the mercy of the Sinhalese resulted in the former being powerless to resist a series of discriminatory majoritarian measures.
     
    Even before the 1980s, Sri Lanka’s Tamils had been squeezed out of the military, state employment, access to higher education and international developmental assistance.
     
    And successive pro-Sinhala constitutions, increasingly oppressive to the Tamils, ended up with a unitary system of government with an executive president with centralized powers centralized, a Sinhala-dominated parliament, and a biased judiciary worked in favour of the Sinhala south and to the detriment of the Tamils.
     
    Yet Indian leaders, whilst conscious of the crucial role their secular constitution played in holding the nation’s numerous communities in unity did not intervene to stop Sri Lanka’s drift towards majoritarian tyranny and thus into ethnic conflict.
     
    Even the state sponsored pogroms of 1956, 1958, 1977, 1979 and 1981 in which thousand of Tamils were killed by Sinhala mobs failed to draw concrete action from Delhi.
     
    And India’s inaction suited Sinhala leaders perfectly.
     
    Only when smouldering Tamil militancy began to erupt in the 1980s and the Sri Lankan government began to seek support from extra-regional powers did India begin to react to protect her own interests.
     
    And after the 1983 pogrom which saw thousands of Tamils being slaughtered by Sinhala mobs and hundreds of thousands being made homeless, India acted quickly – not least because Tamil Nadu was in uproar.
     
    But Indira Gandhi's government was unable to persuade the racist President Junius Jayawardene to end state violence against the Tamils or to roll back the unprecedented centralisation of power.
     
    Delhi therefore started to provide military training to over a dozen militant groups resisting the Sri Lanka state.
     
    It was an unfortunate tragedy for the Sri Lankan Tamils that Indira Gandhi's was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in1984.
     
    Her son, Rajiv Gandhi, became Prime Minister.
     
    But he changed the strategy from a sophisticated covert one to a clumsy overt intervention by the Indian military.
     
    The move which was skilfully exploited by President Jayawardene to inveigle the Indian military – originally sent to protect the Tamils from the Sinhala Army – into attacking the Tigers and the Tamil areas instead.
     
    The Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) era was a horrible and traumatic experience for India and the Tamils. Over a thousand Indian soldiers and many Tamil fighters died. So did 5,000 Tamil civilians.
     
    The central Indian government lost international prestige and blackened its image in Tamil Nadu also.
     
    Amid anguish and anger in the southern state, the new Indian prime minister V P Singh, in 1990 withdraw the IKPF from northeastern Sri Lanka.
     
    In any case, with the Indian military having inflicted severe damage on the Tamil struggle, the new Sinhala President, R. Premadasa had demanded it be removed.
     
    The assassination in 1991 of Rajiv Gandhi by a suicide bomber during his election rally near Chennai, in Tamil Nadu distanced the relations even further between India and the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
     
    Delhi blamed the LTTE for the assassination.
     
    And for many years afterwards, successive Sinhala governments successfully dissauded India from intervening to protect Tamils by portraying Sri Lankan state violence as primarily aimed at destroying the LTTE, rather than the Tamils.
     
    For over a decade, the governments that came to power in Delhi maintained a hands-off policy towards the Tamils in Sri Lanka, even at a time when tens of thousands of them perished in Sri Lankan military offensives and embargos on food and medicine.
     
    India even helped the Sri Lankan military on occassion. Delhi’s navy intercepted LTTE vessels in the Indian Ocean and destroyed them, for example.
     
    But the conflict escalated to engulf the entire Northeast and sometimes the capitol, Colombo. By 2001, Sri Lanka’s military was exhausted and the country’s economy in meltdown.
     
    Whereupon the Norwegian peace process started.
     
    Even then India was not prepared to get involved. An LTTE request for peace talks to be held in India was refused (Thailand offered and was accepted).
     
    For the past four years India has closely observed the Norwegian effort, remaining intimately informed of the diplomatic and other developments, but not actively getting involved.
     
    Despite repeated requests from the Co-Chairs – the United States, European Union, Japan and Norway – India has refused to become the 5th.
     
    But India’s distant support for the Norwegian peace process has meant little influence over the actions of the protagonists, especially the Sri Lankan state – or the other Co-Chairs for that matter.
     
    And now Sri Lanka is sliding rapidly heading back to a new war.
     
    International support has rebuilt Sri Lanka’s military and economy. But instead of seeking a negotiated settlement that would ensure a lasting power-sharing arrangement with the Tamils, the government of President Rajapakse is pursuing a new military solution.
     
    India is thus facing the same problem she did in the early 1980s.
     
    Sri Lanka’s military is once again launching an indiscriminate onslaught against the island’s Tamils. Refugee camps and teenagers’ schools have been shelled and bombed.
     
    Over 200,000 people, mainly Tamils have been driven from their homes. Dozens of Tamils are being shot or ‘disappeared’ by the Sri Lankan military.
     
    As a consequence, just as in 1983, Tamil Nadu is in uproar.
     
    Echoing widespread sentiment in the southern state, DMK leader wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arguing “the time has come for answering the question: how long India can tolerate this?”
     
    All the other Tamil Nadu parties are agitating for Delhi to act. Many, like the DMK and its main rival, the AIDMK have in the past been hostile to the LTTE.
     
    Even the BJP in Tamil Nadu has joined the chorus for something to be done about Sri Lanka, arguing it is Delhi’s “duty and right” to act.
     
    In a welcome sign, Premier Singh has urged Tamil Nadu’s leaders and people to remain calm because his government would ensure what is required will be done.
     
    But with a humanitarian crisis engineered by the Sri Lankan government breaking amongst the Tamils, India must move quickly if she is to avert a catastrophe.
     
    Meanwhile, President Rajapakse has blatantly tried to copy the strategy of his predecessors to co-opt India into his efforts to crush Tamil aspirations.
     
    First he tried to seduce India into joining his war effort. Soon after being elected in late 2005 he rushed to Delhi to seek support. That failed when Tamil Nadu leaders reacted angrily to his policies.
     
    President Rajapakse reacted just as President Jayawardene had done, by swiftly turning to rivals of India, this time Pakistan and China for military assistance.
     
    Subsequently, as the Sri Lanka military stepped up its paramilitary violence and later began direct offensive operations against the Tigers and the wider Tamil population, President Rajapske has been trying to ensure India remains inactive and moribund.
     
    Despite the use of embargo and denial of humanitarian relief to hundreds of thousands of people, his government is striving to portray its onslaught against the Tamils as a military effort against the LTTE.
     
    In the first instance, India should reject this duplicitous argument and intervene to thwart Sri Lanka’s ruthless strategy.
     
    More generally, India should evaluate the longer term benefits of the Tamils of Sri Lanka achieving a substantive measure of self-rule.
     
    Unlike successive Sinhala governments have done, no Tamil political leaders have acted against India’s strategic interests.
     
    When Sri Lanka moved to turn Trincomalee harbour over to extra-regional powers, the small Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) fought determinedly against the move.
     
    Even the traumatic IPKF war was sought by neither India nor the LTTE – only Sri Lanka’s then government, which promptly ejected the Indian troops once they had sufficiently weakened the Tigers.
     
    The oft-raised claim of Tamil separatism ‘spreading’ to India from the island is a phantom intended to raise anxieties.
     
    It neither follows logically nor has any concrete basis. Tamil Nadu’s people and leaders see their future dependent on sharing power in the centre and not in breaking away.
     
    India’s Tamils are enthusiastic Indian citizens. The constitution allows them to enjoy both identities at the same time without needing to compromise.
     
    Self-rule for the Tamils in Sri Lanka thus has no drawback for India. On the contrary it has direct benefits.
     
    It will provide lasting protection for the Tamils from Sinhala aggression, removing the issue from India’s domestic politics.
     
    To support Tamil self-rule is not a question of supporting the LTTE.
     
    The Tigers are the vanguard of the contemporary Tamil struggle for self rule, but a self-governing Tamil entity will be a permanent fixture of the region’s political landscape.
     
    And, as every Tamil leader – both in the island and in India – has attested, it will be an indispensable ally of India.
     
    On urgent humanitarian grounds, in the wider interests of regional stability and in the longer term interests of her geopolitical interests, India must act to protect the Tamils from renewed Sinhala aggression.
  • We must unite and act
    The first cases of death from starvation have been reported from the Jaffna peninsula. Stark reality is staring us in the face. This is not happening in some distant land. It is on our doorstep, in our homeland.
     
    Since the closure of A9 highway, the Jaffna peninsula has been cut off from the rest of the island. And that was in August.
     
    A humanitarian catastrophe has since broken. Large numbers of people are starving. A shortage of medical supplies and doctors has worsened matters.
     
    The same thing is happening in the east. Tens of thousands are being starved in Vaharai.
     
    Food and medicine is being blocked as artillery and airstikes pound the region where 40,000 people who fled the military’s offensives in Trincomalee have sought shelter.
     
    International aid agencies are being prevented from going in, wounded civilians are not being allowed out.
     
    All this can happen because the victims are Tamils.
     
    The refusal of the Sri Lankan government to open the A9 highway and access routes to Vaharai so as to alleviate the urgent needs of the people has unmistakably demonstrated that it doesn’t care about the welfare of the Tamil people at all.
     
    The government’s preparedness to starve an entire community as a way to win the war reveals its true nature. Food is a weapon of war.
     
    Meanwhile, the military and its sponsored paramilitaries have gone on a killing spree amongst Tamils in government-controlled areas. Anyone can be arrested or shot. Abductions, executions, torture, is reported from every area.
     
    Unimaginable terror is gripping the Jaffna peninsula and Army-controlled parts of the east. Fear underlines the daily struggle for survival: “will it be starvation or a bullet that will claim my life?”
     
    Yet the atrocities by the government of Sri Lanka against those it claims as its citizens have failed to stir the hearts of the donor states, the rest of the international community or even India.
     
    The most they are prepared to do for us, as some of them already have, is to issue meek statements of ‘regret’ and declare that the LTTE and the government must find a “compromise.”
     
    This is just window dressing to pretend they have some concern for our people. They will not lift a finger to avert the human tragedy that is unfolding minute by minute in the Northeast.
     
    They know very well who is to blame for the blockades. But they are not prepared to blame the government for fear of jeopardising their own interests.
     
    We always knew the international community would always look after its own interests. Now we know this is true even when the slightest action on our behalf might risk these interests.
     
    From the outset the Tamil freedom struggle has eagerly sought the support of the international community to confront the tyranny of the Sinhala state. Without success.
     
    Now we face this tyranny again, this time in full view of the international community – and the world turns its face away.
     
    Last July, when irrigation water to the fields of a small part of the Trincomalee district was cut off, there was outrage and uproar against the LTTE.
     
    And when, in breach of the Ceasefire, the Sri Lankan government launched a military offensive to open the water supply, the world watched approvingly.
     
    Even after the LTTE had agreed to reopen the water supply, Sri Lanka escalated the offensive. Even then the international community did not restrain the government.
     
    Perhaps the international community’s logic is that military violence is justified when humanitarian needs are at stake.
     
    Now hundreds of thousands of people are being denied food and medicine by the Sri Lankan government.
     
    Yet there is international silence - or some mild protests and the usual call for ‘talks’. Colombo’s violence is being endorsed by the world.
     
    The Tamil people are, as always, very much alone.
     
    We therefore need to find our own way out of this.
     
    We must take responsibility for not only finding a way to end this humanitarian crisis, but to ensure we can never be put into this situation again.
     
    We must set our differences aside for now and unite behind this goal.
     
    When the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) swept the 2004 elections in the Northeast it was on the platform of recognising the LTTE as ‘sole representatives’ of the Tamil people and on the need for a self-governing interim authority for the Northeast.
     
    That popular mandate – and responsibility of leadership - was given to the LTTE, albeit through the TNA.
     
    The LTTE must now respond to the humanitarian crisis in the Northeast.
     
    Just as it acted decisively after the devastating tsunami of December 2004, the LTTE must take the lead in finding a way forward.
     
    Enough is enough. The well being of our people simply cannot be left in the unwilling hands of others.
  • Singh: 'Civilian deaths of utmost concern and sorrow'
    Dear Shri Vaikoji,
     
    The latest incidents in Sri Lanka leading to the loss of many innocent lives, mainly Tamils including women and children, are a matter of the utmost concern and sorrow to all of us. We have consistently pointed out that there is no justification for violence of this kind and that the killing of innocent people, especially of women and children, is not acceptable.
     
    We are taking up with the Government of Sri Lanka, at the appropriate level, the recent cases of civilian casualties, as well as the killing of innocent Tamils. We will reiterate to the Government of Sri Lanka that they must find a political soiution through negotiations that would meet the genuine and legitimate rights of the Tamils, rather than adopt tactics that lead to the death of innocent people.
     
    I am aware that the Geneva talks in October between the representatives of the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE had collapsed. This has possibly hardened attitudes on both sides. We consider this unfortunate, and it is possible that the recent violent incidents are an outcome of this.
     
    We share your concerns about the closure of Highway A-9 leading to acute scarcity of food stuff and essential supplies in Jaffna and its environs.
     
    Taking note of the acute scarcity of essential items in the Northern and Eastern parts of Sri Lanka, we have dispatched substantial quantities of rice, sugar and milk powder by way of humanitarian assistance. This may not be sufficient I agree, but I understand that the Sri Lankan authorities are meantime trying to supply Jaffna by the sea route.
     
    We are fully alive to the sensitivities prevailing in the North and East of Sri Lanka, and the plight of the Tamils as also Muslims in these areas. You are aware that we have taken great care not to provide Sri Lanka with lethal offensive items of military hardware, specially of the kind that could be used against the Tamil population.
     
    We have, at the same time and at every opportunity, also impressed upon the Sri Lankan Government to respect the rights and privileges of the Tamils of Sri Lanka as citizens of the country. This is again being conveyed to Sri Lankan authorities.
     
    You may rest assured that we would do everything that we can to ensure diplomatically, and otherwise, that the loss of innocent lives does not take place.
     
    With regards,
     
    Yours sincerely,
    Manmohan Singh
  • Army-backed paramilitaries threaten TNA MPs
     The paramilitary Karuna Group has issued death threats to Tamil parliamentarians from the East, warning them to resign by Nov 27, the National Alliance said in a letter to the Speaker of the Sri Lankan Parliament.
     
    If the 8 parliamentarians from Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Amparai, did not resign their posts before Monday, November 27, they would be assassinated, the Army-backed Karuna Group has warned.
     
    4 key members of the the TNA, 2 MPs, an ex-MP and a to-be-nominated MP, have been assassinated during the past 2 years.
     
    The TNA consists 22 members of Parliament of the 23 Tamil members elected from the NorthEast.
     
    Full text of the letter from Tamil National Alliance parliamentary group follows:
     
    On the Sunday the19th of November 2006 between 8.00pm and 8.30pm, we the undersigned Members of Parliament from the Batticaloa and Amparai Districts and the National List of the Tamil National Alliance (ITAK) received death threats over the phone. We were informed specifically that if we did not resign from being Members of Parliament we would be killed.
     
    The person who spoke to each of us introduced himself as Gunanan of the Thamil Eela Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP) Batticaloa Office. He warned that if the eight MPs belonging to the Tamil National Alliance (ITAK) from the Eastern Province did not resign by the 27th of November 2006, all eight MPs will end up receiving the “Maamanithar” (Great Human Being) award posthumously as all eight MPs would be killed. The caller stated that this was the order of their leader.
     
    Considering the fact that the Tamil National Alliance (ITAK) has already lost several of its members due to assassinations, these latest death threats must be viewed with utmost seriousness. We would like to take this opportunity to point out that MPs Joseph Pararajasingham and Nadarajah Raviraj were also assassinated after receiving similar death threats.
     
    You will appreciate that these threats to our lives greatly affect our ability to duly perform our duties. Therefore in view of the aforementioned we strongly urge you as the custodian of the rights and privileges of the Members of Parliament to take all necessary steps to enable us to safely carry out our duties by the people who voted us to office. Thanking you.
     
    T. Kanagasabai M.P.
    (Batticaloa District)
     
    Thangeswari Kathiraman M.P
    (Batticaloa District)
     
    S. Jeyanandamoorthy M.P.
    (Batticaloa District)
     
    P. Ariyanethran M.P.
    (Batticaloa District)
     
    K. Pathmanathan M.P.
    (Amparai District)
     
    C. Chandranehru M.P.
    (National List)
  • Iran to build 2 thermal power plants in Sri Lanka

    Iran will build two 300- and 500-megawatt thermal power plants in Sri Lanka, Iranian Energy Minister Parviz Fattah has said.

    Speaking to reporters after a meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart W D J Seneviratne, Fattah said that an agreement on construction of the power plants would be signed by the two sides this week.

    He said Sri Lanka has been keen to bolster cooperation with Iran in the energy field, adding that "further talks with Sri Lanka on the subject of power plant construction will be held if the issue of the country's use of the Iranian forex credit is settled."

    He noted that a Sri Lankan delegation had visited Iran's power plants and thereby became familiar with the capabilities of Iranian experts, and said an Iranian expert delegation would pay a visit to Sri Lanka to discuss cooperation in the field of hydro-electric power.

    Fattah said that a number of Sri Lankan experts, under the agreement, would be trained in Iran.

    Meanwhile, Iran-Sri Lanka economic interactions, regarding the average price of oil in the last two years, were evaluated as much as 400 million dollars.

    Non-oil economic interactions, not including tea, are evaluated as much as 30 million dollars, Iran's minister of mining and industry, Alireza Tahmasebi, said.

    Tea adds another 20 million dollars, he said.

    Tahmasebi expressed hope that Iran and Sri Lanka would enhance economic ties especially in the export of technical services.

    He also named, building of cement making, car manufacturing and steel factories and transferring science and technology in discovery and exploitation of mines by Iranian experts as the promised terms to Sri Lanka by the Iranian side.

    For his part, Sri Lanka's minister of industry also asserted on the enhancement of Iran-Sri Lanka industrial ties.

    "Iran's industry possesses a good level of technology and we demand Iran's cooperation in the fields of automobiles, agriculture, cement producing factories, trucks and tractor manufacturing factories, discovery of iron mines and exploitations," he said.

  • Violent roundup – week ending Nov. 5
    Summary of incidents - apart from major clashes - since October 30

    In the week to 5 November, 40 people killed, 19 injured and another 16 disappeared across all the districts of the NorthEast. Another 5 people were arrested during this time, mainly by paramilitary cadres working with the Sri Lanka Army.

    Of the 36 incidents during the week that resulted in a death, injury or disappearance, Jaffna was the most ‘active’, with 16 incidents reported.

    Batticaloa was the most dangerous district during the week, with 32 people impacted by the violence. Most incidents involved ‘disappearances’ with 15 youths abducted by paramilitaries traveling in white vans. Nine people were killed and another 8 injured in violent incidents.

    In Jaffna eleven people were killed, one injured and another person disappeared. Another four men were arrested during the week, all by paramilitary cadres working with SLA soldiers.

    In Vavuniya, four people were killed and another six injured. In Trincomalee three people died and one was injured. In Amparai, the count was four dead and two injured, while in Mannar, two people were killed. There was also a killing in Colombo.


    November 5

    ● An auto-rickshaw driver from Rajakiramam village in Karaveddy West, Vadamaradchy was shot dead by gunmen. This is the third killing involving youths from Rajakiramam travelling-in or owning auto-rickshaws in the last six months.
    Ponnuchamy Ramesh, 30, from Mattakuliya in Colombo, married in the Rajakiramam, and has been driving auto-rickshaw for a living. He is the father of two children.

    ● Armed men shot dead a shop assistant on a bicycle at Puthukudirrupu, Valaichenai. Selvam Raju, 29, father of one, employed in a Video shop in Valaichenai town, was shot at close range on his head, chest and stomach while going to his house in Kalikovil street in Puthukudirrupu after closing the shop.

    ● The body of an unidentified male person washed ashore in Talaimannar coast and was buried at government expense. Talaimannar Police removed the body on receipt of information from the public. A post-mortem examination revealed that the person had died due to drowning.

    ● Thavasi Rasenthini, 29, was shot at her home in Sirupiddy, Valikamam East, by unidentified assailants.

    ● Alfred Charles, 16, a student from Chunnakam residing with his uncle in Kayts, was shot dead by SLN soldiers. The SLN alleges that a group of youths tried to flee when asked to stop for violating curfew hours. Witnesses said the students were returning after renting a movie from a video rental store in Kayts town.

    November 4

    ● Nadarasa Sivamoorthy, 26, a former member of the LTTE, was abducted from his home at Iluppaikulam by six unidentified persons on Friday night. His body was found with knife injuries. He left the Liberation Tigers in 2000 and had been living in Vavuniya. He is the father of three month old child.

    ● A former senior member of the paramilitary PLOTE was abducted from his home in Puliyankudal, Kayts, Friday and his body was found with gunshot wounds. Kumaravelu Suthaharan, alias Appan, 33, left PLOTE less than 5 years ago, got married and was living in Puliyankudal in the Jaffna islet when he was killed.
    Suthaharan's body was dumped in shrub jungles surrounding the Kaattu Vairavar Temple in Puliyankudal.

    Suthaharan was widely believed to be behind the abduction and beheading of a Karaveddy youth, Rajaratnam Rajeswaran, 23, at the PLOTE offices in Nelliady, in 1999. The decapitated body was recovered in from a cess pit behind the office of the PLOTE at at Puthuthottam, Nelliyadi, and the head was recovered inside a drain near Kasturiar Road in Jaffna town. Suthaharan appeared in court proceedings in Point Pedro courts in the murder case, and later absconded, went into hiding, and started a family in Puliyankudal.

    ● A SLN soldier was killed and another injured when a road clearing patrol was the target of a claymore attack at Allesgarden, Uppuveli, north of Trincomalee town.

    ● Unidentified persons triggered a claymore device targeting a truck carrying STF troopers and police at Pottuvil, Amparai, killing a police constable and seriously injuring two STF troopers. The dead policeman was identified as T. N. Jayawardne, 35. L. Nanthasri, 33 and U. Ranatunge 38 were the two STF troopers seriously injured in the blast.

    ● A former worker at the Jaffna offices of the paramilitary EPDP was shot dead by gunmen at her residence in Puttur, Valigamam East. Gunmen who went to the house of Ms Nagamani Rajinithevi, 31, in Puttur North, called her to the front door, shot her at point blank range and escaped.

    November 3

    ● Marimuthu Chandrasegaram from Kilinochchi, 36, was shot dead by unidentified men inside his house at Aachikulam in Samalankulam in northern Vavuniya. He fled Kilinochchi due to military operations and was living at Sithamparapuram Welfare Centre. He later resettled at Samalankulam. He lost his a leg in a mine explosion.

    ● Four were killed and six injured in a mortar attack launched by the SLA from its Mankerny camp in Batticaloa on Vaharai, a village in LTTE held territory in Batticaloa. The shells launched continuously by the SLA on and around the temporary shelters of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) exploded, causing the IDPs to flee in fear in all directions. Nallathamby Thiyagarajah and his son Thiyagaraja Rajanikanth, 28 were killed while they were riding on a bicycle when the shell fell near them. Nadaraja Anushanthan and Packiyaraja Thileepan, two IDPs from Manalsenai, Trincomalee, were also killed.

    ● Two SLAF Kfir bombers targeted a Sea Tiger base at Kiranji in Pooneryn, dropping 16 bombs on two different targets. They also attacked Palai later in the morning.

    ● Sivalingam Krishnan, 39 and a father of five, of Periyamurippu village in Mannar, was shot dead by unidentified persons. His body was found near the suspension bridge along Madhu Road to Kunchukulam Road. Relatives of Krishnan, a fisherman, moved the body from the scene to Periyamurippu village. He had earlier been a member of the LTTE and later left the movement and was living in the village with his family, TamilNet reported. A police team that visited the scene recovered 9 mm bullets.

    ● Assailants hurled hand grenades at the cadres of the paramilitary EPDP selling the "Thinamurasu", a weekly paper printed by EPDP, in Valaichchenai, Batticaloa, but no one was injured in the attack. SLA soldier and EPDP members beat youths passing through the junction, and searched nearby houses following the attack. Paramilitaries operating with the SLA in the Valaichchenai Fishing Harbor Army camp used to force people travelling in buses, minibuses, motorbikes and bicycles along the Valaichchenai-Kalkudah Road to buy the paper, TamilNet reported.

    November 2

    ● Five members of a family were killed and another person seriously injured when SLAF Kfir jets dropped 16 bombs within 500 meters east of the newly built Kilinochchi General Hospital at Anandapuram (see separate story).

    ● Yasothiny Narayanamoorthy, 25, from Odai area, Point Pedro was shot dead near Pandaary Amman Temple in Thambachetty, Jaffna. She was riding a bicycle near the Amman Temple when two gunmen followed her in a motorbike, shot her at point blank range and escaped. The "Ellalan Force" claimed responsibility for the killing in a press release issued to the media stating that she was punished because of her involvement in anti- social activities.

    ● Sivasubramaniam Tharmenthira, 25, was arrested at Fifth street on Brown Road in Jaffna town by SLA troopers.

    November 1

    ● SLAF Kfir bombers bombed civilian settlements in LTTE held Kattumurivu, Batticaloa, nine times. Twelve civilian houses are said to be badly damaged.

    ● The SLA launched heavy artillery fire and multi-barrel rockets on Vaharai areas from Valaichenai Paper Factory, Karadikulam, and Kadguwatte SLA camps on Panichankerny, Ooriyankaddu, Salithivu, Kandalady, Vaharai and Thadumunai villages in the LTTE controlled territory. SLA soldiers were brought in 10 buses to Mankerny, said residents from Mankerny. The LTTE retaliated by launching mortar fire on Mankerny and Kadguwatte SLA camps.

    ● SLA troopers on field bikes along with paramilitary cadres in a White van arrested Baskaran Pirathaban, 23, an auto rickshaw owner, at his home at Manipay Road in Inuvil west. Pirathapan's mother, Kamalavathy, 52, was shot and seriously injured by the SLA troopers.

    ● Nadarasa Narmathan, 20, a technical college student was arrested at home in Chunnakam east by SLA troopers on field bikes and paramilitary cadres in a white van, relatives said in the complaint with SLHRC.

    ● Sivananthan Sritharan 30, a carpenter of Kerniyady in Kokuvil was arrested by SLA at his house in Kerniyady area.

    ● Thirugnanasampanthar Ramanan, 23, a recent returnee from Malaysia, disappeared after being last seen undergoing interrogation at the SLA check post at Inuvil when he was on his way to Mallakam. He did not return from the SLA check post and no information is available about his whereabouts, his relatives said.

    ● Unknown persons triggered a claymore bomb killing one civilian woman, Kovinthasamy Jegathambal and injuring two SLA soldiers and a policeman at Thekankaadu in Vavuniya. The attack was targeted towards a SLA road check-post located 1 km from Vavuniya town. The woman died due to heart attack caused by the blast.

    ● A pavement trader near Muneeswaram Road, in front of Jaffna Teaching Hospital, was shot dead by gunmen on a motorbike. Local traders said that the killing was carried out by the Sri Lanka security forces as revenge for the killing of another trader near the same spot Monday. The killers escaped after dousing the body of Thiruchelvam Surendrakumar, 34, from Navanthurai, with gasoline and setting it on fire. SLA soldiers stationed about 100 meters from the scene of the incident failed to approach the crime scene after the killing, local witnesses said.

    ● Two armed men on motorcycle shot dead Thambipillai Atputharanee, 48, a seamstress, in her tailor shop at Manning Place in Wellawatte, Colombo. Atputharanee, originally from Madduvil Jaffna, had been living in Wellawatte for the last 10 years with her 20 year old son.

    ● SLA soldiers stationed along the coastal belt of Gurunagar fired at 21 fishermen, returning in six boats from LTTE- controlled Pooneryn and adjoining areas. No one of was injured in this attack. The fishermen earlier fled to the LTTE controlled area following the break out of fresh violence between LTTE and Sri Lankan Forces on August 11. SLA soldiers arrested all fishermen when they reached the shore at Gurunagar Jetty and later released after interrogation.

    October 31

    ● Fifteen students of Chenkalady Central College are alleged to have been abducted on by armed men in a white van. The parents of one of the missing have lodged complaints with Eravur Police, the ICRC and SLMM. The abducted youths include G.C.E Advanced Level students, Kugathasan Thusyanthakumar, 18, and Bawa Pratheepan, 19, both of Chenkalady main road. According to the parents of Thusyanthakumar, he and some other students were forcibly taken away.

    Many others in the region have complained that a large number of youths are being abducted while they are involved in sports activities after school. Hundreds of abductions have been reported in the recent months in Batticaola, Amparai and Trincomalle district in the Eastern province. Most of the parents or relatives fail to report the abductions due to fear of retribution.

    ● One trooper was killed and two others from the Mandur Kampikattu Bridge STL in Batticaloa were seriously injured by the LTTE when they responded to an attack by the STF. The STF unit had penetrated and waited in ambush 4 km into LTTE held area from their STF camp. The LTTE cordoned off and searched the area and attacked the STF troopers when they tried to escape. A Buffel Armoured Personnel Carrier was badly damaged.

    ● A Sinhala home guard was shot dead by gunmen who attacked a checkpost at Neelapola in Trincomalee. SLA soldiers retaliated but the gunmen escaped.

    ● STF soldiers shot dead two from the political wing of the LTTE when the SLA cordoned off and searched Vinayagapuram in Thirukovil, Amparai. The dead youths were identified as Pavakkannan, 23 and Satha, 25. An LTTE representative said the youths had gone to do political work in the Amparai district. Pothuvil STF said that they recovered one pistol and two hand grenades from the two youths.

    ● Kattankudy police recovered the body of a youth with gunshot wounds near Puthukudiruppu Ayurveda Medical Centre in their division. An SLA and STF road patrol unit found the body with hands and legs bound and eyes tied. The victim was identified as Ponnambalam Krishnanathan, 25, of Puthukudiruppu Multi-purpose Society Road in Puthukudirippu. Krishnanathan had been abducted by armed men a few days previously.

    ● A SLA soldier was killed and three others seriously injured when attackers triggered a claymore mine targeting a foot patrol at Rangathgama junction in Poovarasankulam, Vavuniya.

    ● Joseph Kumar Ramanakumar, 27, a resident of Uppukulam in Mannar, was arrested by the Slave Island Police in Colombo. Ramanakumar had been residing in Wellawatte in Colombo and following a course in English Language.

    ● Attackers lobbed a grenade into a SLA checkpost close to the public playground in Mannar town while the soldiers were checking a lorry. Tension prevailed in the town and the shops were closed for the day as SLA soldiers detained an old passenger of the lorry. The other persons on board the lorry had fled from the site following the grenade explosion.

    ● Two armed men riding bicycles shot dead Ramalingam Thavathurai, 47, from Thumpalai, a trader, at his shop near Lourdes Mary Church on the Point Pedro-Thumpalai road in Point-Pedro, Vadamaradchi. The assailants, pretending to be buyers shot the trader and escaped.

    October 30

    ● The SLN fired at a group of fishermen in Mullikulam-Pookulam sea area in Mannar. Fishermen fled to the shore leaving their boats and nets in the sea. No one was injured in the shooting. Some boats left by fishermen in sea had been taken away by the SLN.

    ● SLA soldiers stationed in camps along Gurunagar, south east of Jaffna town, fired and launched mortar attacks on about 45 Gurunagar fishermen returning to shore in 15 boats from LTTE controlled Pooneryn and Kanjikuda. One boat was destroyed but no one was injured.

    Several fishermen from Gurunagar, Pashiyoor, and Mandaitivu, who were at sea when fighting broke out along Jaffna lagoon on 11 August, had sought refuge in LTTE controlled areas on the southern shores of the lagoon as they were unable to return to the Peninsula. With the closure of A9, and as the failure of Geneva-II talks reduced the prospects of A9 reopening in the near future, the fishermen said they took the risk of crossing Jaffna lagoon by boats. SLA soldiers fired at them after they anchored their boats in Mandaitivu and were walking towards Jaffna town waving white flags, the fishermen told TamilNet. The SLA arrested the fishermen for further investigation.

    ● A civilian was shot dead by gunmen on Muneeswaram Road in the central business area of Jaffna town.

    ● Gopalasundaram Pathmakalaparan, a member of the Verugal Pradesiya Sabha in Eachilampathu division, Trincomalee, was shot dead by armed men as he was cycling near a bakery, about fifty meters from a Sri Lanka police check point.

    ● M. Gunaratne, 41, from Monaragala, a father of two and a policeman attached to Pothuvil police station in Amparai district, shot himself in an apparent suicide at the his room near the police station. The reason for Gunaratne's suicide is not known said the police who are investigating the death.

    ● The bodies of two men, riddled with bullets and hands bound, were found by SLA and STF road patrol troopers in a paddy field along the Pillaiyarady Veethy at Sathurukondan, Batticlaoa. One of the men was identified as belonging to Christhoper Christin, 28, from Church Road in Thannamunai. The body was found 100 m from Sathurukondan SLA camp. The police suspect these two men may have been abducted on Sunday or earlier and shot to death before being dumped in the fields.

    ● Navaratnam Mahinthan 17, a street vendor was shot dead at Muneeswaram road in Jaffna town. He was from Kaithady east.

    ● Ramiah Krishnakumar, 38, an auto owner was shot at Temple Road in Nallur. He was from Kalviyankadu, a suburb of Jaffna town and was traveling in an auto-rickshaw when he was shot and killed.

  • Dozens killed in naval clashes
    A Sea Tiger flotilla clashed last Thursday with the Sri Lanka Navy off the coast of Jaffna, killing 25 SLN troopers, capturing 4 others alive and destroying two Dvora Fast Attack Crafts (FACs). A third Dvora FAC was damaged. 

    Five Sea Tigers were killed in the intense naval gun battle Thursday, the LTTE said. The body of a SLN trooper was also recovered by the Tigers.

    The SLN has listed dozens of sailors as missing.

    The clash erupted after the SLN attacked Sea Tiger boats on training exercises off the coast of Nagarkovil in the northern peninsula.

    The two Dvora FACs (P461 and P416)were seized and the Sea Tigers dismantled all the armament including a 23 mm cannon and a HK automatic grenade launcher.

    A 23 mm Cannon, five PK-LMGs, four 50 calibre guns and an Heckler-Koch Auto Grenade Launcher with ammunition were seized by the Sea Tigers.

    On Thursday night reporters in Kilinochchi were allowed to meet the four SLN personnel who were captured by the Tigers.

    Meanwhile, Sri Lankan naval officials in Colombo claimed that the Dvora FACs which came under attack east of Point Pedro were escorting a vessel "Green Ocean‚" with 300 people on board.

    However, an LTTE spokesman denied the Sri Lankan claim and said there was no ship observed during the clashes.

    The clashes took place when Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) Kfir jet bombers and helicopter gunships attempted to attack the Sea Tiger vessels, he said.

    He also refuted Sri Lankan Navy officials claim that several Sea Tiger boats were destroyed.

    The entire LTTE flotilla under the Command of Deputy Commander of Sea Tigers, Cheliyan, safely returned to their base in Vanni with the captured armaments, prisoners and the recovered body, quoted Sea Tiger Special Commander Col. Soosai as saying.

    The first Dvora was sunk around 5:30 p.m. Thursday in the seas off Point Pedro as the Sea Tigers pursued a group of SLN vessels that had fired on them.

    It was engulfed in a ball of fire, disintegrated into pieces and sank.

    Another SLN gunboat was damaged around 6:00 p.m. off Valvettithurai by the Sea Tiger flotilla which chased the surviving SLN vessels into Kankesanthurai harbour, eyewitness reports in Vadamaradchi said.

    Two Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Kfir bombers flew overhead attempting to turn back the Sea Tiger flotilla, the eyewitness reports from Point Pedro said.

    In a clash at sea near Trincomalee the following day, SLN gunboats destroyed an LTTE boat escorting another boat carrying the body of an LTTE officer, Lt. Col. Arivu, killed in fighting in the Vaharai area earlier this month.

    The navy captured the second LTTE boat, but the crew escaped. The SLN handed the body of Lt. Col. Arivu to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to be handed back to the LTTE.

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