The Norwegian Council of Eelam Tamils (NCET) attracted enough number of participants in the poll that took place Sunday November 15 in 16 centres of the different regions of Norway, in which 2767 voters turned out to elect 5 members under a national list and 10 under regional lists.

Noticeable of the results was Mr. Bjønar Moxnes topping the national list polling 1864 votes. Mr. Vijayshankar from Tamil Nadu is elected to the Council topping the list of Western Region.

Considering the electoral history of Eelam Tamils, who have hitherto been imposed with constitutions and were voting in elections conducted by others, this is their first ever country-wide elections, conducted by them on their own, to form a political body of their own, based on their own constitution. The eight-member Election Commission performed the task with professional perfection, observers said.

The five members elected under the national list were Bjønar Moxnes with 1864 votes, Panchakulasingam Kandiah with 1767 votes, Jeyasri Balasubramaniam with 1483 votes, Athithan Kumarasamy with 1287votes and Tharmaseelan Tharmalingam with 1243 votes.

Under the regional list, the ten members elected were Sivaganesh Vadivelu, Rajendhram Ponnuthurai, Sivarajah Vallipuram, Kannan Nagendram, Mary Florida Judin Francis, Rajaratnam Veluppillai, Rasakumar Kumarasamy, Vijayshankar Asokan, D. Reggie and Ruben Ayathurai.

Participation of non Eelam Tamils in the elections for the cause of Eelam Tamils is an encouraging phenomenon, as any democratic struggle addressing ‘state fundamentalism’ has to be waged internationally, inside each and every state of today, commented Tamil circles in Norway.

Meanwhile, institutions of Eelam Tamils functioning in Norway elected five members to the second chamber, House of Eelam Institutions in Norway. At the polls which took place on November 8, Kailainathan Ambalavanathan, Luxshjeha Sri, Nirmalan Selvarajah, Suthakar Kumarasamy and Varaluxmy Vasanthan were elected.

The constitution requires minimum 30 percent Eelam-Tamil voter turnout for any decisions on it, which has been accomplished in the present elections. The number of voters of the origin of the island of Sri Lanka including Sinhalese, obtained from Statistics Norway, is 8772.

The estimation is that the polling centres roughly covered 74 percent of the voting population, i.e., 6512 voters and the voter turn out was roughly 43 percent.

In a press statement released before the polls, Prof. Ilango Balasingam, a member of the Election Commission, said that it is the first time a Tamil diaspora body is being formed through country-wide democratic elections and he was hopeful that the efforts would set an example for the global organisation of Eelam Tamil polity.

Nine candidates contested for the five seats of the national list and 28 candidates entered the fray for the 10 seats under the regional list. Three native Norwegians and one Tamil of Tamil Nadu were among those who contested for the seats.

The NCET constitution, while permitting vote only to people of Eelam Tamil descent above 16, allows even others to be elected provided they accept the principle of the Council advocating independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam in the island of Sri Lanka.

Another feature of the candidates list was that many of them are highly educated professionals in various walks of life. Seven on the list were women, eight were under 35 and two over 60.

5574 voters said yes to Vaddukkoaddai Resolution in May 2009. The Council is now formed based on the principle of this resolution. Roughly 50 percent of the number that stood for the principle now participated in the electoral process.

More than 50 percent of the number of voters, who said yes to the Vaddukkoaddai Resolution have participated in the formation of NCET in all the regions of Norway, except in the Western Region (Bergen). The voter turn out was also less than 30 percent in Bergen.

While the historic exercise of the election goes on record and the Council has now come into effect through a totally peaceful ballot, the reactions the efforts faced directly and indirectly, from inside and outside of the society, also go on record.

Eelam Tamil diaspora all over the world, aspiring organisation of its own polity, has to carefully make its own judgements by deducing motives behind personalities, sections of media operating in the diaspora and imperceptible approaches of powers to certain exerting sections of the society - all that caused a political discourse in the last couple of months about the formation of the Council, commented political observers.

Asylum seekers were involved in a riot at the Christmas Island detention centre, off the coast of Australia.

Thirty-seven people were injured in the chaos as around 150 people clashed and attacked each other with tree branches and pool handles.

It took the authorities more than half an hour to regain control over the situation.

The centre houses more than 1,000 asylum seekers, mainly Afghan and Sri Lankan, who had to be separated after the brawl. Most of the ‘Sri Lankan’ detainees are Tamils fleeing persecution by the Sri Lankan government.

After the incident 3 people had to be flown out of the centre to Perth, to be treated for broken bones. Some of the injuries included a broken jaw and a broken ankle.

Australian Immigration Minister Chris Evans cited frustration amongst the Tamil detainees as a possible cause for the scuffle.

"There hasn't been too many problems but there has been some increased tension I think around the Sri Lankans, in particular being a bit concerned as we have had some people removed back to Sri Lanka... generally there has been a bit of anxiety among Sri Lankan detainees."

At Christmas Island, Afghans form an overwhelming majority of the asylum-seekers who have been granted visas this year.

In the year to October 12, 544 Afghans were granted protection visas while 21 Sri Lankans were granted visas, which may have further exasperated tensions between the two groups.

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, said Tamil asylum-seeker claims were going nowhere.

"The problem is the Australian government is using the Sri Lankan embassy for security checks and identity checks," Ms Pamela Curr of the ASRC said.

"The Sri Lankan embassy is spitting bile about the Tamils. This is the way they can get at them: they go in slow, they don't release the information."

The detention centre is run by a private firm, Serco, who have recently been criticised over their handling of the centre. There is said to be overcrowding and restrictions on recreational activities.

Australian opposition immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone also expressed her concerns and called for an urgent inquiry into the centre's management.

"There's massive overcrowding now on Christmas Island, but you have to wonder what sort of management or discipline is in place in the centre if you have 150 people brawling," she said.

"I am seriously concerned about whether the department is now so overwhelmed by the numbers there."

Ian Rintoul, from the Refugee Action Coalition, spoke to many of the refugees housed at the detention centre and felt the sheer number of people being held there the most prominent cause of the brawl.

"I have spoken to one Afghan and one Tamil detainee inside the detention centre. The incident seems like it was confined to just one compound, but they were aware of the situation and had spoken to people and the Afghan guy had observed some of it certainly," he said.

"What they say is that there was no particular cause. That is a result, people are angry, people are frustrated.”

"The overcrowded conditions inside simply boiled over inside the Green 1 compound and the Afghan detainee told me he was surprised it hasn't happened before and he is very certain that it will happen again."

"There is restricted news access, restrictions on some of the access to kitchen facilities and making tea and coffee during the day, trying to save," he said. This came with reports that inmates are restricted to two teabags a day and no access to the internet.

"It is those kinds of tensions or there are ethnic tensions simply to divert attention away from the deteriorating conditions inside Christmas Island and all the problems that are associated with mandatory detention.”

"The Rudd Government has seen fit to continue those Howard government policies and it is now reaping the whirlwind.”

"All the consequences, all the difficulties that were faced by the Howard government, will be visited on the Rudd Government because they have perpetuated the appalling conditions in mandatory detention."

The scars in Kumar’s hands are zipped-up wounds. Though the flesh is repaired, the marks are alive. You could almost reach out and open them, see the blood trickle out softly to tell a story.

He moves in the kitchen like a predatory tiger: swift, hungry and unnoticeable. I worked with him years ago in a tiny-but-charming restaurant in Toronto, where his performance was formidable: quick-tempered and precise.

He used to address my co-workers in confident broken English, and if you didn’t understand his machine gun of words, you were asked, “Do you speak English?!” He came from Russia. From England. From Sri Lanka.

I later learned that he owned the place. He was 26 years old. Kumar* began his work in the kitchen before he knew what onion was in English. To him, cooking knows no language, anyway. It’s all movement and instinct.

One day, while I was waiting on a dish he was cooking, I asked him where his scars came from. I waited for small stories; wounds acquired in the kitchen.

“From the war. Oh, and refugee camp.” He brought a calendar to work one day. It had lovely, balletic Tamil lettering and a group picture of scowling army soldiers in full military

regalia.

There’s an eerie feeling about their collective expression, quite implacable.

He proceeded to show me a community newspaper. Casualties littered the pages, but none of the images were as concrete as the last page, that of a Tamil family lying scattered in a raided house. There was blood everywhere, but that was no longer unusual.

The story was in the mother’s skirt: blood below the waist, confined.

Kumar asked me to imagine the soldiers in the calendar, their lives after the camera flashed. He said he forgot most times, but the slightest ponderous gaze in the distance charged his face.

The calendar, he later told me, commemorated the lives of suicide bombers.

An August 2006 BBC headline, “Dispute over Sri Lanka air raids,” hinted at the two disagreeing sides of the story, but the verified facts painted the picture with frightening clarity:

planes roaring over the heads of teenage girls, about to explode inside an orphanage.

BBC admitted the difficulty in reporting the truth about the Sri Lankan civil war.

"Lots of the worst things that happen go on well away from the eyes of independent journalists,” BBC’s South Asian editor, Bernard Gabony, stated. “In other words, a lot of lying goes on, but unless you have the proof of who is lying, all you can do is report what the different sides say.”

Kumar’s friend, Siva*, 33, had one such story. When he was 16 or 17, Siva went to school at St. Patrick’s College in Jaffna, taking shelter under a tree when he heard the all-too-familiar roaring plane overhead, felt the tremor of the blast and saw the dust, rising. A few kilometers away, people ran to take cover inside St. Joseph church, thinking it a godly shield.

But this time, the air raid didn’t target a school. The pilot of the plane could see where the people were taking cover. The sacrilegious bomb found them there.

And the caved walls of St. Joseph church became flesh.

Instinct told survivors to run, lest they find themselves eclipsed by a creeping airborne shadow-bearing fire. A stronger instinct told them to dig.

“There was no time to be emotional. Your brain tells you to find people who are still alive,” Siva said.

Passing vehicles took those injured by flying debris to the nearby hospitals. Siva? He shoveled dead bodies into a truck.

When he was 17, Siva, would disappear for days, not out of teenage rebellion but out of the government’s fear that he was connected to the Tamil Tigers, a declared terrorist organization, according to the Stephen Harper government back in 2006. If Siva was connected to the Tamil Tigers, the Sri Lankan government wanted to know.

The military took him, blindfolded and hands tied, to a remote place two to three hours away. There, they fed him gruel. “Sometimes I’d find a rusty nail in it,” he said.

But that was the least of his worries.

The interrogations were the main event. They would involve a bowl of boiled chilli pepper and, later, a bucket of gasoline.

“They make you breathe it,” Siva recalled. “My eyes and throat burned from the chilli, and the gasoline made me pass out, but not for long. They hit me to wake me up, then they continued with the questions.”

Siva’s mother, who made only 3,000 rupees a month, was extorted 50,000 rupees in exchange for her son’s freedom. “My mother had to sell our land to pay them off,” said Siva.

After two incidences of these days-long questionings without a warrant, Siva ran away to Batticaloa to live with his uncle, then to Colombo, then to Canada.

Siva told me the worst stories. “I know someone who almost died,” he said, adding that these kinds of torture happened on a regular basis in Sri Lanka during the civil war.

“They hung my cousin Kamma* from his thumbs, with just his toes touching the floor. Then they hung him upside down from one ankle and beat him with PVC pipes filled with sand,” Siva continued.

 “They do that so that you don’t get scars. You just bleed inside.” Kamma was hospitalized for three months and, to this day, still gets chest and back pain from the beating.

When asked about the validity of these claims of torture by the Sri Lankan government to the Tamil people, Toronto consulate general of Sri Lanka Bandula Jayasekara defended

his country.

“I deny these claims,” Jayasekara told Excalibur. “People can say anything.

They can show scars, but that’s not a solid proof. They could’ve gotten that anywhere.” Jayasekara said that, with the civil war ending last May, there is now peace in Sri Lanka.       “We have defeated the rebels, and child soldiers are now being rehabilitated. It’s now safe there.”

Jayasekara further emphasized the optimism he has for achieving unity between the two ethnic groups, and ensured that Tamil-Canadians will be met with equality if they decide

to go back to Sri Lanka.

“I don’t like saying ‘Sinhalese’ and ‘Tamils,’” he added. “We’re all Sri Lankans. We have to move forward. We need to forgive and forget.”

Some Tamils in the York community are not as optimistic as their consulate general. Vithu Raman, president of the York University Tamil Students Association, told Excalibur about his hesitation to go back to Sri Lanka, even now that the civil war is over.

“When a Tamil activist goes back, anything can happen. I feel terrified,” said Raman.

Raman further stated that, though the violence between the government and the rebels is over, the cause of the conflict is far from resolved. “I would love to hope that there would be peace now, but displaced victims of the war will be resettled away from their original homes and still stripped of rights,” he said.

“I think it’s going to take decades because the problems are not solved. Until all the voices in the country are heard, true peace can’t be achieved.”

*Names have been changed to protect identity  

Amnesty International has written to the Commonwealth heads of state, drawing attention to the human rights violations in Sri Lanka and urging them to raise their concerns about these with their Sri Lankan counterparts.

The letter also encourages them to support the calls for “greater accountability for abuses of human rights”.

The letter was written as the heads of commonwealth countries gathered at the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) meeting at the Port of Spain in Trinidad & Tobago.

“In particular, we wish to alert you to continuing serious problems affecting the safety and dignity of Sri Lankans displaced by armed conflict,” the letter said.

It goes on to describe the situation in Sri Lanka, since the end of the war and describes the various violations of the liberty of the Tamil civilians that have allegedly been carried out by the Sri Lankan Government.

“...six months after the end of the war, Sri Lanka continues to confine people who fled fighting in closed displacement camps in uncomfortable and sometimes hazardous conditions,” the letter says.

“Camp shelters have deteriorated as Sri Lanka has entered the rainy season, and the UN reports that funds for shelter repair are running out,” the letter notes.

The London-based NGO also describes its own “Unlock the Camps” global campaign, which aims to end the arbitrary detention of the Tamil people.

The letter sets out the conditions of restricted movement for the people remaining in the camps.

“The camps remain military in nature. The military controls all decision-making related to management of the camps and the fate of displaced people in those camps; the military severely restricts the residents from leaving the premises even to seek medical care, and denies the displaced population basic legal safeguards,” the letter said.

Citing the widespread government reports that people have been released from the camps, Amnesty International raises its concerns.

“Amnesty International has received reports that displaced people have been subjected to rescreening by local authorities to determine whether they had links to the Liberation Tigers,” the letter said.

“There are also reports that some people who have been released, have been denied necessary documents to ensure that they are safe from re-arrest,” Amnesty noted.

“The Sri Lankan government has prevented humanitarian organizations from talking to displaced persons, and obstructed their ability to conduct crucial human rights protections activities, such as providing legal aid or assisting with family reunification,” the letter notes.

The letters also raises concerns about the screening process set up to identify Tiger cadres from among the detainees.

“Amnesty International has received repeated, credible reports from humanitarian workers about the lack of transparency and accountability in the screening process, which is conducted outside of any legal framework and the increased dangers to detainees when they are held incommunicado,” said the letter.

The letter raises the need for investigations into war crimes committed by both sides during the conflict. It also raises concerns about the Sri Lankan government’s attacks on critics and the continuing reliance on special security legislation.

“Special security legislation ... remains in place and grants extraordinary powers to the authorities to arbitrarily arrest and detain individuals almost indefinitely,” the letter notes.

It points to the “chilling” effect on freedom of expression the targeting of journalists, lawyers, witnesses and human rights defenders.

Amnesty International ended the letter by arguing that the Heads of Government should use this meeting as an opportunity to discuss this situation with their Sri Lankan counterparts and convince them to address the “urgent concerns” brought up.

Saying that the “time to act” is now, the letter concludes by calling on the CHOGM representatives to act on these concerns and encourage Sri Lanka to restore liberty, allow access and end arbitrary detention. It also calls for their support in ensuring accountability and accomplishing the needed reforms, including bringing about an international mandate for investigations and prosecution. 

This piece is written on the assumption that Sarath Fonseka (SF) will stand for the presidency and be supported by a Joint Opposition (JO) of the UNF, the JVP and possibly minority parties. However, Rajapakse keeps dithering about an election because he will have to quit promptly in the unlikely event that he loses; hanging on for the remainder of the first term, whatever the constitutional position, will see the streets ablaze. Will he take the chance? Also by putting back the election Rajappakse makes the JO and SF stew and squabble for a year or two. So read on with these several caveats in mind.

SF’s endorsement by the JO is also problematic. He has altered several points in the Addendum to the first version of the resignation letter agreed with the UNF and leaked to the press. The alterations are all retrogressive, reactionary and militaristic; unwelcome by democrats and unacceptable to Tamils. Therefore liberal-democrats, minorities and the left should confer on Fonseka the same suspicion they accord Rajapakse.

The Tamils cannot hold it against Sarath Fonseka that he fought a war against them and won. It is a soldier’s job to fight, and there will be casualties, and it is his job to win if he can; no one can shrink from facing that fact. The point is; did he fight clean? Is he responsible, or partly responsible for alleged war crimes and contravention of human rights? These are grave charges about which he will have to reassure the Tamils if he wants any of their votes. I don’t think he can build this confidence; surely MR and SF are liable in equal measure for the alleged crimes – not to mention GR. Nevertheless let us see what they have to say about each other as the campaign heats up. Don’t be surprised if you see one in the Presidential Palace and the other in The Hague; charges of treachery are already flung around like confetti.

As I wrote last week universal justice and humanitarian obligations in war are now vigorously enforced; the old days when governments could get away with war crimes are fading. Israel is in the UN dock literally, and the mighty USA is in the dock of global public opinion. Little wonder then that the world is breathing down on Sri Lanka and for sure the actors in the election will have a lot to say about each other’s conduct in those fateful days of 2009; chronicles of white vans and motorbikes will leak like a plumber’s nightmare.

Hobswamy’s choice

Initially, I will approach the choice between MR and SF from a Tamil perspective, not because I am one (let alone 24 carat or 18 carat, not even 14 carats worth), but because the swing vote of the minorities is important. I think the hardcore Sinhala chauvinists will stick with MR; ideologically and politically he is their man and SF can’t break that. Those who suggest that he can split the most racist-reactionary sections of the Sinhala-Buddhist electorate will be proved wrong. Rather, SF will have to play to the middle ground, the progressive Sinhala vote, ethnic and religious minorities, the JVP vote, and folks fed up with corruption and abuse of democracy. But, he does not seem to understand this as evidenced by the aforementioned changes to the Addendum.

Points 14 to 16 of the original Addendum are good. Fourteen chides the government for ill-treating the IDP’s but in the new version the demand that IDPs be allowed to go live with relatives has been removed and some security related clap-trap inserted; a despicable alteration. The original point-15 blamed MR for failing to reach out to the Tamils and achieve a credible solution to the national question; the emphasis is now adjusted to say more troops and security are needed, again militaristic jingoism instead of a political approach. Point 16, in its original form, was near verbatim from the Platform for Freedom agenda, it has been entirely deleted; obviously, democracy is not one of Fonseka’s strong points!

If SF had the inclination and character to move in a progressive direction he may have made himself persuasive to the Sinhala middle ground and minorities. If for example he dumped the anti-conversion bill it would have brought the Christian vote flooding into his ballot box. Won’t he lose the extremist S-B vote you may ask? Nope, he was never going to get it, as I said two paragraphs ago.

It is Hobson’s choice for the Tamils. Vote this way, that way, boycott, enlist a Tamil candidate, what to do? It’s a miserable choice, but a decision is obligatory. In the event of a strong Tamil candidate like Sampanthan appearing, then the second-preference is the key. If Sampanthan does not contest and proclaims neutrality, it is a tacit endorsement of MR, because to contest is to draw a large number of additional Tamils to the booth and their second-preference vote into the spotlight. Tamils who will puke rather than vote for SF may however be able to bring themselves to do a number two on him. The TNA’s decision will tell us what kind of horse dealing has been going on in the background.

The executive presidency

SF is on record that he will retain the executive presidency as he needs authority to root out corruption and abuse. A website quotes him as saying, ‘that’s the way I did it in the army and that’s the way I am going to do it nationally’; this is nearly verbatim. He is more than half wrong; firstly, an administration with an executive president or Westminster style prime minister can be corrupt or clean, depending on the people at the top. Secondly, countries are not armies, as SF will learn if he becomes president; and a corollary the general seems to have missed, presidents who try to run a country like an army are known by another epithet, Dictator! Thirdly, it will take a good two years to get a new constitution written and adopted and the transitional arrangements implemented. That’s executive-time enough to get the basics of corruption fighting done.

SF’s tone is too full of himself and too self-aggrandizing. He will have to climb down and learn flexibility and people skills, neither of which the kaki uniform is adept at inculcating. Forcing capitulation on the executive presidency issue to secure Joint Opposition endorsement would be a good start in teaching him to be pliable and political. The UNF and JVP should tell SF to go to hell if he does not climb down on this issue.

The West, China and India

The Rajapakse government has drifted away from the West and into Sino-Iranian waters not because of any ideological preference, this government is ideologically chintanaless, but rather because these friends are anodyne on human rights issues. Western governments, under pressure of domestic public opinion, the Tamil diaspora and the global human rights lobby, have made themselves pesky gadflies, now even beckoning from the corridors of The Hague.

The anti-Western tilt opens a window which SF can use if his foreign policy is sufficiently sophisticated.

A critique can be made of the Rajapakse government for unbalancing our traditional post-independence relationship with the West and its educational, cultural and intellectual openings. It can be argued that this has already cost us GSP+, and could damage direct private investment and harm our economy in many ways. Ever since 1956 Lanka has been adroitly non-aligned, developing economic and regional ties with new friends while protecting its strong historical links with the capitalist West. Now is first time this balance has gone way out of kilter, the United States even contemplating war crimes charges against some political leaders. The point is not the charges per se, but the breakdown of established relationships.

The Sri Lankan voter is no fool; he/she will take the benefits of a balance in foreign linkages into account when marking the ballot. Hence SF can play the ‘rebalance and restore our traditional non-aligned foreign policy’ card, if he knows how to.

The great unknown in this game is Delhi, which will of course be very pleased by a tilt back from a Beijing-Teheran-Islamabad love affair towards the West; towards America to be precise. The unknown is whether India will risk discarding the known devil for the unknown, or think it safer to stay the course with MR having invested so much political capital in propping up the regime in its deadly duel with the Tigers. My prophetic nose feels a twitch of premonition about which way India will tilt, but it’s too early to share it with you.

Why either MR or the UPFA must go

The choice between MR and SF is like Scylla and Charybdis; between the UPFA and the JO, like the devil and the deep blue sea. Are there good reasons for abandoning sea monsters and ghouls in exchange whirlpools and the ocean depths? The answer is that the merit lies not in the entities themselves but in the need to thwart a second term; to have MR as president and the UPFA in parliamentary majority, jointly, for another six years, will be a calamity. These people have had a monopoly of too much power for too long and this is one root cause of corruption, abuse of power and the peril to democratic rights. Recall that for 17 years the UNP misruled while holding both branches of state, and then the SLFP-PA has done so for another 15, except the short Chandrika-Ranil interlude.

The interlude, notwithstanding the shortcoming of internal squabbling in power sharing governments, was clearly the best for the public. It was also the best for the minorities. I have no doubt that the Oslo Accord during the interlude was the closest we came, since the Dudly-Chelva Pact, to settling the national question; and the 2003 ceasefire ushered in the most hassle-free period for the Tamil people for so long as it lasted. I have no patience with those who say the ceasefire was a sell out to the LTTE – plain war mongers and chauvinists!

Six months after Sri Lanka's decades-old civil war ended with a final assault, about 200,000 people remain trapped in overcrowded government-run camps that were once safe havens for those fleeing the conflict.

Facing pressure from the Obama administration and the European Union, the Sri Lankan government last month launched a campaign to resettle tens of thousands of the minority Tamil detainees. But interviews in the country's war-ravaged north reveal that many civilians have merely been shuffled from the large camps to smaller transit ones and are being held against their will. Others have been released, only to be taken from their homes days later with no indication of where they have gone.

After the army defeated the Tamil Tigers in May, top government officials paraded their success on the streets of Colombo, the capital, and the country's leaders made noble promises about ensuring national harmony. Now analysts say the real test of Sri Lanka's success in building a stable, post-conflict society lies in the fate of these scores of thousands of detainees.

Human rights groups say the government is lying about its resettlement efforts; authorities concede they are using the camps as a tool to uncover any remaining Tamil militants but deny they are deliberately stalling civilians' return home.

"We thought this war was over. But for Tamils, it's like going from the frying pan and into the fire," said Devander Kumar, whose brother was released, only to be taken away by police without explanation, one of 30 men in the seaside city of Trincomalee who have disappeared soon after their homecoming. "Do we Tamils have to prove every second of the day that we are not terrorists?"

Tamil leaders worry that if civilians end up languishing in the camps indefinitely, the situation will only breed more resentments and risk spawning another generation of rebels. But the government says it needs more time to de-mine vast stretches of land in the north, as well as to repair infrastructure damaged by war. Authorities also say they continue to root out rebels who have blended into the civilian population.

"History will prove us right," said Basil Rajapaksa, who is leading the resettlement process. Rajapaksa is a U.S. citizen and an adviser to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, his brother.

"We need the transit camps to weed out any underground rebels. The Tamil people have had a lot of hardship," he said. "So the last thing we want is to sacrifice their security for the sake of risking even one more sleeper cell or one more attack."

After a fierce military offensive in May, the government declared victory over Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a well-funded militia that for 26 years fought for a separate homeland in northern Sri Lanka. The United States and other governments have labeled the Tamil Tigers a terrorist organization.

The U.S. State Department has called for an investigation into war crimes allegedly committed by both sides during the war's final days. After the fighting stopped, the president commissioned patriotic pop songs extolling the virtues of a prosperous Sri Lanka united under one flag. In the new Sri Lanka, he said, the Sinhalese Buddhist majority would embrace its Tamil compatriots, who are mostly Hindu and make up 15 percent of the nation's 20 million people.

But there is growing frustration among Tamils over the camps, ringed by razor-wire fencing and patrolled by armed guards. There is also anger over the unexplained arrests of military-age men.

On a recent day at a camp set up inside a school here, soldiers held back a group of weeping women who rushed to the gates to greet family members they had not seen in more than a year because they had gotten separated during the fighting.

"The most worrying part of the transit camps is that nobody is allowed to even meet them inside, not even religious leaders or desperate relatives," said V. Kalaichelvan, head of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies in Trincomalee. "It's like a wound on the psyche of the already damaged Tamil community."

Mano Ganesan, a Tamil member of Parliament, has filed a lawsuit against the government to allow him and other Tamil leaders to visit both the transit and the relief camps.

"Tamils feel like inmates in their own country. . . . The irony is that the root causes of this conflict are being ignored yet again. That can only mean more Tigers in the future," Ganesan said.

On a 10-hour trip by car from the capital to Trincomalee, one encounters frequent checkpoints, abandoned villages and fields of weeds where once rice and cashew were grown. The transit camps appear overcrowded, with families spread out under trees.

"In the last few weeks, there has been a sincere effort to release more people from the detention camps," said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect diplomatic efforts. "But we have so far been unable to track where exactly they are going. We are hoping to see evidence soon that they have actually been resettled."

Sri Lankan officials say the government has begun relocating nearly 42,000 people from the camps. The government also says it will dedicate a large amount of development money to the Tamil-dominated north.

But mistrust prevails. In one village, residents said police had taken away several of their neighbors, who they said were innocent. "One of the major problems with the camps is that the government is not telling people when or why they are arresting relatives," said Gordon Weiss, a spokesman for the United Nations in Sri Lanka. "In a country with a long history of disappearances, just snatching people creates an incredible atmosphere of fear. At the same time, the sinister nature of this war was that so many civilians were militarized, which legitimized them as targets by the other side. That is the tragedy of this conflict."

When the Second World War was ending in the Western Theatre in May 1945, the British public made one of its wisest decisions in history in sending Winston Churchill to political retirement and electing Clement Atlee who was able to evoke new hopes about freedom of peoples all over the world by announcing independence to colonies.

Postal votes cast by British soldiers experiencing the pulse of peoples in different parts of the world in fact made the edge of the decision.

The war that is declared ended in the island of Sri Lanka fails to evoke any hopes in the minds of the masses in the island as well as in the civilized world because no formula other than further repression is what forthcoming in addressing the underlying issue of national question in the island.

The Sri Lankan government and the military chief aspiring for political power are only competing in who could prove more repressive to the national question of Eelam Tamils.

The plain truth is that political justice cannot be expected from the guilty and the paranoid ones unless they are ‘Dharma Ashokas’ of the Buddhist fame. Even Ashoka who shed much tears in his inscriptions for the war he waged in Kalinga, never thought of giving independence to that country.

For reasons yet to be understood fully, the war in the island was collectively and determinedly fought by all the powers of the world. What is that sane point of global polity they wanted to achieve and if they have achieved it where is the political justice long due for Eelam Tamils, remain as puzzles.

Many diplomatic circles were long hinting at the bankruptcy of ideology in the powers of today. According to them, the island of Sri Lanka was a test case for ‘trial and error geopolitics’ of 21st century and except China the others fought the war with an ‘extraordinary vision’ of ‘what comes later will be addressed later.’ As a result, at the end of the war, the geopolitical configurations became more precarious than before.

Now comes the great idea of ‘reconciliation.’

A widely expressed opinion considering all what had gone before is that reconciliation has to first take place between the powers and Eelam Tamil psyche.

Probabilities for such a reconciliation taking place genuinely are remote unless the powers recognize the national question as national question and come forward to address it in ways fit enough for chronic cases.

In this respect the US state department’s paradigm of reconciliation is wanting in Hillary Clinton’s pre-election vision on recognition of national questions.

The war and its aftermath have indisputably proved that 'human rights' and 'development' are not sufficient enough to handle a crisis like that of Sri Lanka. Any approach to the diaspora about which the West is particularly interested in may not bear much fruit unless there is open commitment of them to the national cause of Eelam Tamils.

India has no excuses now in recognizing the national question as the ‘terrorism’ it was complaining about doesn’t exist and as Mr. Karunanidhi has proved that the Eelam Tamil nationalism is a separate entity of its own.

But the Indian Establishment is far behind in politically gearing itself to meet the requirement. Its traditional approach through bureaucrats and intelligence agencies to create and manipulate factions will not work anymore. Only an open political confession acknowledging the national cause will mobilise masses in its favour and that is its greatest security.

On boldly specifying the national question even certain friendly sections of Eelam Tamil cause in India seem to be slipping at a most wanted time. There is a view among sections of them that an independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam will not be acceptable to the peoples of India and the issue has to be addressed as a case of ‘self-determination.’

TamilNet has written at length how ‘self-determination’ is vague and ambiguous in contesting 'right to security of a state' and thus often meaningless in international vocabulary in addressing ethnic questions and ‘intra-state’ national conflicts.

What puzzles Eelam Tamils is how ‘ideology’ of some Indian political parties that once staunchly upheld the creation of Bangladesh could not now justify Tamil Eelam to the peoples of India. Is it because Tamils are inferior to Bengalis or is it because genocide is less in Sri Lanka or is it because ideology has to be adjusted to the whims and fancies of the Indian Establishment are questions asked in Tamil circles.

The most fundamental political freedom is the right of a people to tell what they politically want for them.

The Sri Lankan state has disenfranchised Eelam Tamils in this respect long back by the 6th Amendment to the constitution in 1983. Today, one finds some other states too engaged in either telling Tamils not to reveal what they wish in their heart or intimidating directly or indirectly expression of opinion in favour of their national cause.

Mr. Karunanidhi is not alone in deleting the word Eelam but there are also countries in the east of India that frown at their citizen’s solidarity with the cause. In the so-called globalized world, political fundamentalism of Establishments in the name of state has become the worst threat to transnational political opinion and people to people solidarity.

The free world will certainly appreciate the refreshing example set by Norway last May in allowing Eelam Tamils to democratically express their opinion and mandate independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam. Now similar exercises are pursued in several other countries of the West.

Eelam Tamil diaspora should pick up the cue and what they could demonstrate democratically will sure to be a novel contribution to global polity, besides benefiting their own cause.

Re-mandating independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam of the Vaddukkoaddai Resolution of nonviolent politics, forming democratically elected country councils and evolving a democratic transnational government are three major steps for Eelam Tamils in the diaspora. The steps in principle are not contradictory to one another but contributory as well as safety locks, and any affliction to the success of even one of them will affect all.

Eelam Tamils have to demonstrate that ‘self-determination of people’ is some thing that is exercised and not received from others.

Those in the international community who aspire for reconciliation and peace in the island may do well by encouraging the Eelam Tamil diaspora in evolving political structures culminating in transnational state so that a platform of dignity and identity could be there to smoothly facilitate reconciliation first with the international community.

Of course ultimate reconciliation has to take place between Sinhala and Tamil nations for peace in the island and in the region. But genuine reconciliation cannot come without parity and dignity.

The said political steps of the diaspora may immensely help to enlighten the Sinhala nation of the democratic realities of the national question in the island and could pave way for reconciliation. At present, the Sinhala nation has no avenues for learning the true democratic opinion of the Tamil nation that is in captivity in the island.

The current psychological and political reality in the island is that 'reconciliation' is an issue between two nation states, and it has to be approached acknowledging this reality, not only for political formulas and peace in the island, but also for achieving shared sovereignty of the EU model in the region, if that is what going to be the demand of time in future.

Present day International Community will register a point of progress in the polity of human civilization by collectively eradicating baneful states like Sri Lanka that habitually blackmails, using the card of geopolitics, to resist restructure.

A situation is not far away that the Sinhala nation too will be demanding this from the international community and reconciliation would perhaps come at that point, if at all not by other means.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has appointed a five-member high-level committee to look into a US Congress report that alleged human rights violations by both the Army and LTTE during the last phase of the 30-year-old civil war.

The committee would be headed by legal expert D S Wijesinghe, Minister for Disaster Management and Human Rights Mahinda Samarasinghe told reporters on November 6.

The other members of the committee are Nihal Jayamanne, C.R. de Silva, Mano Ramanathan and Jesima Ismail.

Rajapaksa had earlier said that he would appoint an independent committee to comprehensively examine and provide recommendations on the report.

The report, submitted by the US State Department to the Congress, had charged that both the government and the LTTE with "serious" human rights violations in the final months of the conflict.

The 68-page report prepared by the War Crimes Office lists 170 human rights violations between May 2 and 18.

The committee will have until December 31 this year to submit its final report, Samarasinghe said. 

The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall has just been celebrated. For many, that momentous event marked the so-called end of history and the final victory of the West.

This week, Barack Obama, the first black president of the once-triumphant superpower in that Cold War contest, heads to Beijing to meet America’s bankers — the Chinese Communist government — a prospect undreamt of 20 years ago. Surely, this twist of the times is a good point of departure for taking stock of just where history has gone during these past two decades.

Let me begin with an extreme and provocative point to get the argument going: Francis Fukuyama’s famous essay “The End of History” may have done some serious brain damage to Western minds in the 1990s and beyond.

Mr. Fukuyama should not be blamed for this brain damage. He wrote a subtle, sophisticated and nuanced essay. However, few Western intellectuals read the essay in its entirety. Instead, the only message they took away were two phrases: namely “the end of history” equals “the triumph of the West.”

Western hubris was thick in the air then. I experienced it. For example, in 1991 I heard a senior Belgian official, speaking on behalf of Europe, tell a group of Asians, “The Cold War has ended. There are only two superpowers left: the United States and Europe.”

This hubris also explains how Western minds failed to foresee that instead of the triumph of the West, the 1990s would see the end of Western domination of world history (but not the end of the West) and the return of Asia.

There is no doubt that the West has contributed to the return of Asia. Several Asian societies have succeeded because they finally understood, absorbed and implemented the seven pillars of Western wisdom, namely free-market economics, science and technology, meritocracy, pragmatism, culture of peace, rule of law and education.

Notice what is missing from the list: Western political liberalism, despite Mr. Fukuyama’s claim that “The triumph of the West, of the Western idea, is evident first of all in the total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to Western liberalism.”

The general assumption in Western minds after reading Mr. Fukuyama’s essay was that the world would in one way or another become more Westernized. Instead, the exact opposite has happened. Modernization has spread across the world, but it has been accompanied by de-Westernization.

Mr. Fukuyama acknowledges this today. “The old version of the idea modernization was Euro-centric, reflecting Europe’s own development,” he said in a recently published interview. “That did contain attributes which sought to define modernization in a quite narrow way.”

In the same interview, he was right in emphasizing that the three components of political modernization were the creation of an effective state that could enforce rules, the rule of law that binds the sovereign, and accountability. Indeed, these are the very traits of political modernization that many Asian states are aspiring to achieve.

Asians surely agree that no state can function or develop without an effective government. We feel particularly vindicated in this after the recent financial crisis. One reason the United States came to grief was the deeply held ideological assumption in the mind of key American policymakers, like Alan Greenspan, that Ronald Reagan was correct in saying that “government is not a solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Fortunately, Asians did not fall prey to this ideology.

Consequently, in the 21st century, history will unfold in the exact opposite direction of what Western intellectuals anticipated in 1991. We will now see that the “return of history” equals “the retreat of the West.” One prediction I can make confidently is that the Western footprint on the world, which was hugely oversized in the 19th and 20th centuries, will retreat significantly.

This will not mean a retreat of all Western ideas. Many key ideas like free-market economics and rule of law will be embraced ever more widely. However, few Asians will believe that Western societies are best at implementing these Western ideas. Indeed, the assumption of Western competence in governance and management will be replaced by awareness that the West has become quite inept at managing its economies.

A new gap will develop. Respect for Western ideas will remain, but respect for Western practices will diminish, unless Western performance in governance improves again.

Sadly, in all the recent discussions of “the end of history,” few Western commentators have addressed the biggest lapse in Western practice. The fundamental assumption of “the end of history” thesis was that the West would remain the beacon for the world in democracy and human rights. In 1989, if anyone had dared to predict that within 15 years, the foremost beacon would become the first Western state to reintroduce torture, everyone would have shouted “impossible.”

Few in the West understand how much shock Guantánamo has caused in non-Western minds. Hence many are puzzled that Western intellectuals continue to assume that they can portray themselves and their countries as models to follow when they speak to the rest of the world on human rights.

This loss of moral authority is the exact opposite outcome that many Westerners expected when they celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Does this mean we should give up hope? Will the world become a sadder place?

Probably few in the West remember the last paragraph of Mr. Fukuyama’s essay. He wrote: “The end of history will be a very sad time. The struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk one’s life for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination and idealism, will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands. In the post-historical period there will be neither art nor philosophy, just the perpetual caretaking of the museum of human history.”

Here, too, as the 21st century unfolds, we will see the exact opposite outcome. The return of Asia will be accompanied by an astonishing Asian renaissance in which many diverse Asian cultures will rediscover their lost heritage of art and philosophy.

There is no question that Asians will celebrate the return of history. The only question is: Will the West join them in these celebrations, or will they keep waiting for the end to come?

Kishore Mahbubani is dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore and the author of “The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East.”

Sri Lanka has expressed its outrage over a request by the US Department for Homeland Security (DHS) for meeting with Chief of Defense State General Sarath Fonseka

The request for the meeting outraged top Sri Lankan officials who demanded Washington officials to drop the request for the interview.

"The Department of Homeland Security should forthwith desist from any endeavor to interview General Fonseka," Rohitha Bogollagama told Reuters.

"Whatever information General Fonseka may have acquired in the exercise of his official duties is privileged by nature. Therefore, it cannot legally be shared with third parties without the prior approval and consent of the Sri Lanka authorities."

"The U.S. authorities should not exert procedures on [Fonseka]. The interview should not take place,” Bogollagama was quoted by Time magazine as saying to US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Patricia Butenis .

The Sri Lankan government believes that despite Fonseka's status as a green-card holder, the U.S. does not have any jurisdiction over him at this point because he entered the country on a Sri Lankan passport.

"General Fonseka is a citizen of Sri Lanka and he holds a diplomatic passport from Sri Lanka," Bogollagama added.

The minister said that Fonseka could not divulge privileged information he knew of the war and its conduct without approval from his superiors and the Sri Lankan government.

Whilst the request was termed to be a ‘volunteer meeting’, the Sri Lankan embassy in Washington was quick to organize legal representation for the former Army commander and to seek advice on whether the US authorities had the legality to override his diplomatic immunity.

Responding to previous international criticism, the Sri Lankan government has declared that it would not subject any of its military commanders or civilian officials who led the war to any kind of international investigation or war-crimes tribunal.

The Sri Lankan government is coming under mounting pressure internationally about its human rights abuses, including from the European Union which has threatened not to extend the GSP + program that allows Sri Lanka certain trade advantages on its garment exports to the EU.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for the Human rights also made fresh calls on October 22 into an external inquiry into war crimes committed by Sri Lanka, along the lines of war crimes investigation into the Israeli attack on Gaza.

Bruce Fein, a lawyer for the US-based group Tamils Against Genocide, has argued that the political justification for a genocide investigation was strengthened because the "United States has been vocal with Serbia, Bosnia and other nations about policing and punishing their own citizens or residents for genocide", reported ther Guardian newspaper.

Joining international calls for a full independent investigation into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka, a group of British Parliamentarians welcomed the initiatives taken by the United States in this regard and urged the UK government to support Washington’s efforts.

In a statement released November 3, the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils (APPG-T) welcomed US authorities questioning of Sri Lankan Army General Sarath Fonseka over the massacre of Tamil civilians in the closing months of the war this year.

“This is an important first step in bringing the perpetrators of alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka to justice and also begin the process of a true reconciliation between ethnic communities in the island,” the APPG-T said.

APPG-T said it will be requesting UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband to support the US Government's efforts to probe into war crimes in Sri Lanka and to also fully endorse the US Department of State’s Report to Congress submitted on 22 October 2009, which detailed alleged violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) by both warring parties during the military offensive this year.

“[The Government of Sri Lanka] must facilitate an international, independent inquiry into alleged violations of IHL in order to establish peace, justice and equality for all citizens in Sri Lanka,” the Parliamentary group said.

Apart from Colombo’s massacres during the war, the APPG-T also protested the treatment of civilians after the Sinhala government declared victory over the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam).

“When the war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ended, the Government of Sri

Lanka (GSL) gave assurances to the International Community, including Britain, that it will resettle all internally displaced people (IDPs) within 180 days. The Government’s own deadline is only a fortnight away but APPG-T has no evidence that suggests the GSL is committed to implementing its assurances to the International Community,” the group noted.

The parliamentarians called on Britain, NGOs and governments around the world to “urgently appeal” to Sri Lanka “to honour all its commitments and to immediately end the forced detention of over 250,000 Tamils in the camps.”

“I viewed what happened on the beach below through the lens of a camera recorder from the seventh floor of a building located next to the Bambalapitya railway station”, Assistant News Editor of TNL News channel, Sisikelum Dahampriya Balage said, giving evidence to the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s inquest into the killing of Balavarnam Sivakumar, 26.

He said that he saw a man being chased by three persons towards the sea and saw them assaulting the man they were chasing, with sticks. But he could not clearly make out the three men chasing the lone man were police officers or not.

But the witness said that it was his impression that it took place “under the supervision of the police”.

The elder brother of the victim, Balavarnam Kadirgamanathan, informed the courts that Sivakumar had mental depression for a couple of years for which he received medical treatment from a mental hospital.

“I have five elder sisters and one younger sister. He is my only brother. He had been undergoing treatment for his mental illness. When I saw him for the last time, he was wearing a black T-shirt and brown trouser. On October 30, I went to the morgue and identified the body of my brother,” he told the Magistrate.

He urged the courts to carry out a proper investigation into the killing of his brother so that justice was served. 

Sri Lanka delivered its formal response to a European Union probe that found it in breach of international human rights laws and said it was hopeful of retaining a lucrative trade concession with the bloc.

The EU had set Friday November 6 as a deadline for Sri Lanka to respond to its report.

The report said that Sri Lanka was in breach of full implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The failure could spell the end, at least temporarily, of the tariff concessions.

The concession, the Generalised System of Preferences Plus (GSP+) is a special incentive scheme for sustainable development and good governance, offering tariff cuts to support vulnerable developing countries in ratification and implementation of international conventions in these areas.

It is currently worth $116 million to the island nation.

"We will be setting out to clarify the points they have raised," Sri Lankan Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told the media.

"We are continuing the dialogue with the EU and we are hopeful that finally that GSP+ is granted."

Sri Lanka had earlier criticised the report as an attempt to undermine its administration.

Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama later handed his country’s response document to all EU member states represented in Colombo, the ministry said in a statement.

The Sri Lankan government submitted a 48- page document to the EU in Colombo on November 6, titled ‘Observations of the GOSL [Government of Sri Lanka] in Respect of the Report on the Findings of the Investigation with Respect to the Effective Implementation of Certain Human Rights Conventions in Sri Lanka’.

"Minister Bogollagama expressed confidence that the observations provided by Sri Lanka would be extensively examined by the European Commission and the findings reflected in its recommendation to the Council of the European Union," the ministry statement said.

The report challenged the findings of the EU report.

It said, "in this situation, of the very foundation of the (EU) Report being in question, it would be reasonable to keep action on the document in abeyance, while the authorities of the European Commission and the Government of Sri Lanka continue a constructive engagement concerning the issues at hand," reported ICP.

The government has maintained that while not cooperating with the EU investigation, its preferred mode of negotiation was through bilateral dialogue.

"The government of Sri Lanka is taking positive action (on the GSP Plus extension)," Bogollagama had said the day before he handed over the report. "We are in dialogue with the EU."

Export Development and International Trade Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris told the Sri Lankan parliament on November 5 that the government had prepared a comprehensive response to the EU report.

Immediately after the October EU report came out, Peiris said that the government would not change its stance and subject itself to any kind of EU investigation.

The government had rejected EU requests for an investigation in October 2008 and maintained that such an investigation from foreign powers would undermine the country’s sovereignty.

The EU's ambassador to Sri Lanka, Bernard Savage, told Reuters after receiving the report that he expected a decision from the European Commission later this month.

EU diplomats have said Sri Lanka could retain the concession, if it could address concerns raised, including rapid resettlement of more than 150,000 war displaced, release of an arrested journalist, ensuring media freedom and protecting human rights.

Sri Lanka, which had initially said it would not respond, appointed a four-member panel to analyse and reply to the EU report, which had alleged human rights violations and torture.

Human Rights Minister Samarasinghe, a member of the panel, said the country had taken steps to address the "problems and challenges" confronting it in the aftermath of the end of its 25-year civil war in May, reported Reuters.

He said more than 40 percent of the 288,000 people displaced by the war, known as internally displaced persons or IDPs, had been resettled, while a national action plan to address issues such as torture and extra-judicial killings was being finalised.

"Certainly on IDPs, that's something that they were interested in, now we have a successful position to communicate to them," Reuters quoted him as saying.

Samarasinghe added that Sri Lanka's president had appointed a five-member committee of local legal and academic experts to probe a U.S. State Department report of possible war crimes at the end of the conflict.

"We have already responded 99.9 percent of the allegations with clear answers. But, we are still ready to emphasise the Sri Lankan government stance, based on the recommendations through this independent committee report," he said.

Separately, Rajiva Wijesinha, secretary of the Sri Lankan disaster management and human rights ministry, told Al Jazeera his country had responded to some of the "specifics" raised by the EU.

He said Sri Lanka "refused to submit to what is called a general investigation. But any specific thing we have said we will look at and this we are doing".

However, Wijesinha also accused the EU of being dishonest in its dealings with Sri Lanka. "I think we have a situation where the EU is under a lot of pressure. We know that there are diaspora pressures; it's just that they are so dishonest about it," he said.

"The Americans, for instance, were much more honest in telling us that there was a report on certain things that was mandated by congress. I wish there was more honesty about these things."

Sri Lanka is one of 16 countries with GSP status.

In 2008, the European Union was Sri Lanka's largest export market, accounting for 36 percent of all exports, followed by the United States with 24 percent.

Suspending the tariffs would mean EU buyers would have to pay more for Sri Lankan exports.

Globally recognised brands like Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Next could take their business elsewhere, such as China, India and Vietnam.

The move would hit Sri Lanka's textile industry hard and thousands of job cuts as a result.

France’s Human Rights Ambassador François Zimeray, who spent three days visiting the island, criticised the government to continue to enforce what AFP described as “draconian legislation”.

"Ending of the emergency (in force since 1983) should have been the first consequence of ending the war (in May)," said the Ambassador.

"The fact that the conflict is over should be an opportunity to put an end to emergency laws.”

The “State of Emergency” that allow these laws to be enforced were extended for another month after a motion was passed in parliament.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) were the only parties to vote against the motion.

These laws were used earlier on this year to sentence Tamil journalist J Tissanaiyagam to 20 years in jail, an issue that even US President Barack Obama commented on.

The French Ambassador’s visit coincided with an impending EU ruling on GSP+ trade concessions.

This is an issue that would influence Paris’s stance with regards to future trading with Sri Lanka, he pointed out.

While the envoy stressed that they were not trying to impose “western values” upon Sri Lanka, he stressed that the government has a duty to implement its own laws to protect human rights and ensure the rule of law.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who arranged for the Human Rights Ambassador Zimeray to visit Sri Lanka, also condemned Colombo, for their treatment of civilians after the civil war has ended.

“Six months after fighting ended in the oldest conflict in Asia, the population of Sri Lanka is suffering the consequences of this dreadful war on a daily basis,” reported the Foreign Minister in a statement.

“Tens of thousands of people are still being held prisoner in camps and kept under the control of armed forces. The camps must now be permanently dismantled and the humanitarian organizations must be able to provide assistance and protection without any restriction to the displaced populations.”

“Several months after the end of the armed conflict, we are waiting for the Sri Lankan authorities to take resolute action to dispense justice to compensate the pain of all the victims of this conflict,” said Kouchner.