Since President Rajapakse came to power, many hundreds of Tamil civilians have died in deliberate Sri Lankan military attacks. The violence, as many Tamil observers have repeatedly protested, has been unambiguously directed at civilians.

Although these attacks are flagrant violations of international humanitarian law, the international community has failed to publicly and unequivocally condemn the Sri Lankan government’s policy of deliberately targeting civilians.

Many Tamils were initially bewildered by this international silence. But it is now apparent that the studied indifference to Tamil suffering is part of a wider, familiar, strategy.

Through their silence, international actors are allowing a space for the Sri Lankan government to pursue a strategy demoralisation the Tamils of sufficient intensity to induce them to despair. It is clear to all, including the Colombo government, that the international community intends to let the Tamils endure the military’s collective punishment until they resolutely turn away from the LTTE.

The central assumption made by those hectoring the Tamils about terrorism while they are bombed and starved is that international support is painfully critical to the Tamil struggle. The reality is, of course, that the Tamil struggle has never enjoyed even a fraction of the international sympathy and indulgent support afforded to the Sinhala Buddhist polity and the state.

In short, the Tamil project has come this far in the face of open and consistent international hostility and contempt.

Indeed, from as far back as the late 1940’s, when Tamils first began pressing their demands for territorial devolution, international actors have consistently adopted a policy of supporting the Sri Lankan state regardless of the consequences this has for the Tamil people.

For all those muttering about democratic pathways, international actors even backed successive Sri Lankan governments that unilaterally abrogated agreements made with the Federal Party, the Tamils’ then elected representatives.

Even through periodic bouts of state sponsored anti-Tamil violence that began in 1956 and punctuated every decade since, the Sri Lankan state enjoyed the unstinting support of its international friends.

Particularly telling was international community’s conduct immediately following the July 1983 anti Tamil riots in which thousands of Tamils were massacred in six days of undisguised and organised rioting.

Almost as soon as the flames had died down and the bewildered and brutalised Tamils began stumbling to their bloodied feet, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary visited the island. He hailed the strong relations between his country and Sri Lanka and congratulated the Sri Lankan embassy in Washington on the excellent job it was doing countering ‘Eelamist’ propaganda.

Within a year the Sri Lankan President, J. R. Jayawardene, was invited on a state visit to the United States, where he held discussions with President Ronald Regan on their common fight against, as troublemakers like Tamils were then known, ‘communist terrorism.’

As the war escalated and Sri Lanka imposed its economic blockage of the Tamil areas including the densely populated Jaffna peninsula, the US stepped up its military assistance, as did Britain (remember who set up and trained the STF which massacred so many Tamils – not to mention the Sinhala youth of the JVP era?)

In the same year that President Jayawardene was feted as an anti-communist and anti-terrorist hero in Washington, the British and Commonwealth Affairs Minister, Baroness Young, visited the island and said that Britain ‘sympathised with the Sri Lankan government efforts to combat terrorism.’

It goes without saying, of course, that there was very little sympathy for the Tamils, even amongst the self-styled leaders of the free world.

The international community’s determination to ignore Tamils’ suffering and view their struggle through the lens of terrorism is therefore nothing new. While the callous indifference is obviously hurtful it is no longer shocking – except perhaps for the new generations of Diaspora Tamils raised on a staple of democracy, human rights, etc. etc.

Since its inception in the 1940’s, the Tamil struggle has thus fallen on the wrong side of international priorities.

But in fact the Tamil nationalist project has become so multifaceted and mature precisely because of implacable international opposition.

When the international media failed to present a balanced picture of the Sri Lankan situation, the Tamils set up their own media outlets. As international organisations failed to respond to the humanitarian crises created by the economic embargo and Sri Lankan bombardment of the Northeast, the Tamils created and supported their own institutions, such as the Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO).

The international community’s duplicitous and partial use of liberal humanitarian norms has turned Tamils from all walks of life into well-seasoned cynical analysts, dissecting international statements for omissions and betrayals and international positions for hidden interests and loyalties.

The limited progress that has been made towards a just political settlement to Sri Lanka’s ethnic question is therefore entirely down to the Tamils themselves.

Even international actors recent discovery of Tamil ‘grievances,’ is itself thanks to the determined efforts of Tamil activists through the decades and not the result of some newfound international magnanimity or sympathy.

Indeed, notwithstanding their pretensions to omnipotence, the international community have proved themselves entirely incapable of forcing the Sri Lankan government to enter into a substantive engagement with Tamil demands.

Arguably its consistent attitude of hostility towards Tamil demands goes hand in hand with the international community’s complete lack of leverage over the Sri Lankan government that they have over the years so assiduously pampered.

Meanwhile, the international community’s record on the Tamil issue has convinced Sri Lankan politicians that the norms of liberalism and democracy are more or less convenient sticks with which to beat the Tamils. And that’s all they are.

The real and tangible substance of international engagement with the Tamil issue has always been in the language of fighting terrorism and noxious separatism. Even something as simple as the Post Tsunami Operational Management Structure (PTOMS), with its incontrovertibly humanitarian in intent, could not be delivered by Sri Lanka’s loyal friends.

Despite their evident lack of leverage over the Sri Lankan state, the international strategy of providing the Sri Lankan armed forces with a breathing space in which to brutalise the Tamil population out of its nationalist preoccupations looks set to continue.

The Times of London recently addressed the Tamil Diaspora in a hectoring editorial calling upon the Tamils to turn away from the LTTE and its evil, tyrannical terrorism. The Times magnanimously noted that the Tamils had legitimate grievances but told them in no uncertain terms that they ‘would not find peace until they turned away from the LTTE.’

This echoes statements made by the US ..Richard Boucher who has said that while his government recognised Tamil rights, it was completely determined to fighting all forms of ‘terrorism,’ whether it ‘emanates from the mountains of Afghanistan or the fields of Vanni.’

International humanitarian organisations are also in the chorus. The mealy mouthed comments made by UNICEF after visiting the bombed out remains of the Sencholai children’s home indicate a latent willingness to condone collective punishment of civilians in the greater interest of fighting the LTTE menace.

Although admitting that the victims were not LTTE cadres but schoolgirls on a residential first aid course, UNICEF pointedly wondered who was organising the course. Like it makes a difference.

But by suggesting that the civilians might have been consorting with the LTTE, she condoned the atrocity as just punishment for such association - even when for the purposes of first aid training.

Similarly the failure to condemn the killing of MP Joseph Pararajasingham as well as Vigneswaran, the elderly activist nominated to replace him, clearly demonstrate that even those who peacefully advocate the Tamil nationalist cause are fair game.

The slightest taint of association with the LTTE becomes the mark of a deserving victim. The irony of this policy being sanctioned by the very people who attack the LTTE for allegedly assassinating political opponents is not lost on the observant Tamils.

No doubt this type of rank hypocrisy and wilful misinterpretation was evident during earlier phases of Sri Lanka’s post-independence history.

We can just imagine the insightful editorials the Times might have written following each pogrom, telling the Tamils in no uncertain terms that their woes would not end until they stopped being such bad sports, abandoned the secessionist Federal Party and joined the political mainstream.

UNICEF might have wondered whether the children caught up in the riots were being indoctrinated with poisonous Tamil separatism by the youth wings of the Federal Party and later the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF).

As the current phase of the conflict escalates the Tamils will undoubtedly have to brace themselves for further suffering.

Meanwhile international actors will deliver pious lectures to the Tamils on the paramount importance of liberal humanitarian norms - even as they ignore the collective suffering caused by the Sri Lankan military’s embargos, bombings and massacres.

But it is thus that Tamils and their struggle will grow. For Tamil resistance to oppression has always included confronting international contempt and hostility.

The Norwegian government, which is responsible for monitoring of Sri Lanka’s ceasefire said this week that its staff were withdrawing from the embattled Northeastern districts to the capitol, Colombo.

The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), comprising staff from Nordic countries, is to lose many of its members at the end of the month: the LTTE has refused to accept monitors from countries that have proscribed the group.

Staff from Sweden, Finland and Denmark are being withdrawn, including SLMM head, Maj. Gen. (retd) Ulf Henricssion, who is Swedish.

The next head of the international ceasefire monitors in Sri Lanka is former Norwegian Army chief, Maj. Gen. Lars Johan Sølvberg. Maj. Gen. Sølvberg will take over from Maj. Gen. Henricsson at the end of the month.

“Swedish, Finnish and Danish members of the SLMM are due to leave by the end of August, as the LTTE will not accept EU nationals as monitors after 1 September,” a Norwegian government statement said.

“The gradual withdrawal of these 39 monitors (out of a total contingent of 57) has begun. Norwegian and Icelandic monitors will remain in Sri Lanka, and their number will gradually be increased to 30 when the ground situation permits and demands such an increase.”

“It is envisaged that additional monitors from other countries will be invited later,” the Norwegian statement also said.

Explaining the decision to pull even the Norwegian and Icelandic staff from the Northeast, the Norwegian embassy said: “At the moment, intensive military operations and fighting are taking place in several locations in the North and East. The parties are restricting the SLMM’s access to combat areas.”

“As a result, the Head of Mission, Major General Henricsson, has decided to regroup the international monitors in Colombo temporarily.”

“This will allow the SLMM to focus its full attention on ensuring that the scaled-down mission is safely and securely re-organised under new Norwegian and Icelandic leadership.”

“Norwegian and Icelandic monitors will be redeployed to the district offices as soon as the personnel is ready and the situation in each district permits the resumption of secure field monitoring.”

The new SLMM head, Maj. Gen. Sølvberg, 54, retired from the post of Chief of Staff of the Norwegian Army in 2005. Prior to that he headed the Army’s 6th Division for four years. He is credited with a key role in the Army transformation process over the past decade.

He has commanded an infantry brigade, a mechanised infantry brigade, a tank squadran as well as holding staff positions at all levels.

He is a graduate of the US Army War College (1998) and the US Army Command and General Staff College (1991), the Norwegian Army General Staff College (1988) and the Norwegian Military Academy (1977).

Since retiring, he has established a consultancy in Oslo.

The Air Force massacre of scores teenagers at the Sencholai children’s home in Vallipunam triggered outrage and anger amongst the Tamil community in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu. But whilst some international actors criticized the bombing, others were conspicuously muted, even silent.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Sri Lanka’s largest Tamil political party, said the aerial bombardment on the well known children’s home “clearly indicates that the attack was premeditated, deliberate and vicious.”

The TNA appealed to the International Community “to take the earliest possible action to stop the Sri Lankan State from proceeding with its genocidal program.”

Tamil expatriates in North America, Europe and Australasia demonstrated and held vigils in protest.

Participants urged the international community to intervene to stop the atrocities of Sri Lanka armed forces and associated paramilitaries against Tamils in the Northeast.

Anger and outrage amongst Tamil Nadu’s population prompted an unprecedented condemnation of Sri Lanka by the state Assembly, with the unanimous backing of all parties.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi called for the parties’ unity to continue.

“Now the war is against the Sinhala racist forces,” Karunanidhi said, adding that in the war against Sinhala dominance, there may be competition in redeeming the lives of Tamils, but there should be no “infighting among the brothers”.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) also condemned the attack. Protesting that innocents were being killed in the rising strife on the island, the CPI-M demanded the Indian government intervene to produce peace talks.

The Swiss government described the bombing as “an outrage.”

UN officials criticised the bombing, with Secretary-General Kofi Annan described by a UN spokesman as “ profoundly concerned at the rising death toll including reports of dozens of students killed in a school as a result of air strikes in the northeast.”

“These children are innocent victims of violence,” said Ann Veneman, head of the UN Children’s Fund. “We call on all parties to respect international humanitarian law and ensure children and the places where they live, study and play are protected from harm. “

But the Co-Chairs of Sri Lanka’s donor community - United States, European Union and Japan – maintained a public silence.

The ICRC, which condemned a similar SLAF airstrike in 1999 which killed 21 civilians, this time avoided comment.

Despite international criticism that its jets killed scores of innocent teenagers, Sri Lanka’s government this week continued to defend its bombing of a known children’s home in LTTE-controlled Mullaitivu.

55 people (51 schoolgirls and four staff)were killed and over 150 wounded on August 14 when four Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Kfir jets dropped 16 bombs on the Sencholai children’s home in Vallipunam on Paranthan-Mullaithivu road.

Sri Lanka’s government said it had bombed a Tamil Tiger training camp and killed “50-60 terorrists.”

But international ceasefire monitors who visited the site said they couldn’t find “any evidence of military installations or weapons.”

The head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Ulf Henricsson, said monitors who visited after the airstrike found at least 10 bomb craters and an unexploded bomb.

“It was not a military installation, we can see [that],” Mr. Henricsson told Sri Lanka’s MTV television.

“These children are innocent victims of violence,” said Ann M. Veneman, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director said in a statement.

UNICEF chief in Colombo JoAnna VanGerpen told AFP Tuesday: “As of this time, we don’t have any evidence that they are LTTE cadres.”

“These were children from surrounding schools in the area who were brought there for a two-day training workshop on first aid,” Ms. VanGerpen told AFP.

UNICEF said that the airstrike was a “shocking result of the rising violence,” in Sri Lanka and called on all parties to respect international humanitarian law and ensure children and the places where they live, study and play are protected from harm.

But even after the SLMM and UNICEF comments, the Sri Lankan government’s official spokesman, Minister Keheliya Rambukwella, insisted the bombed site was a Tamil Tiger training camp.

The government showed reporters a video which they claimed was proof the site was a training camp. However, the video only shows vehicles, including ambulances, rushing to the site after the airstrike and figures running to help.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a coalition of the island’s four largest Tamil political parties, condemned the airstrike and appealed to the international community to restrain Sri Lanka’s armed forces.

“This attack is not merely atrocious and inhuman - it clearly has a genocidal intent. It is yet another instance of brazen state terrorism,” the TNA said.

Officials of the LTTE, briefing reporters in Kilinochchi, described the attack as “a horrible act of terror” by the Sri Lankan armed forces.

The site of the bombing had been designated a humanitarian zone and the LTTE had passed its coordinates on to the military via UNICEF, and the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC).

The GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) details were passed to the Sri Lankan military during the last period of conflict, before the 2002 ceasefire, as part of efforts to ensure protection of humanitarian spaces during conflict

More than 400 schoolgirls were staying in Chencholai. The Kfirs flew to the target without circling over the attack site, civilians said.

52 wounded girls were rushed to Mullaithivu hospital. 13 were admitted at Puthukudiyiruppu hospital. At least 64 wounded were taken to Kilinochchi hospital.

Girls from various schools in the Mullaitivu district were staying overnight at the compound, attending a course in first-aid, LTTE officials in Kilinochchi said.

The LTTE Peace Secretariat urged representatives of international agencies in Kilinochchi, including UNICEF, to visit the site of the bombing.

UNICEF staff from a nearby office immediately visited the compound to assess the situation and to provide fuel and supplies for the hospital as well as counselling support for the injured students and the bereaved families.

The Grama Sevaka (a civil servant) of Vallipunam, Mr. Sivarajah, told reporters that the area around the Sencholai home was a well identified civilian zone with other residential homes, including those for the disabled.

“[The Sencholai] compound was established eight years ago and is well known to international agencies,” Mr. Sivarajah said. “Many UN seminars, including those conducted by UNICEF have been held here.”

In September 1999, SLAF jets killed 21 people in a similar daylight raid.

Commenting at the time, in 1999, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said: “We can confirm that 21 civilians were killed consequent to the air strike at Manthuvil junction …The ICRC deplores the fact that the air strikes were carried out in a civilian area.”

The ICRC is yet to comment on the Sencholai bombing.

Sri Lankan authorities are deliberately hampering efforts to investigate the murder of 17 aid workers, some of whose relatives blame the military, the chief international truce monitor on the island said on Saturday, August 12.

“I have experienced this in the Balkans before. When you’re not let in, it’s a sign that there’s something they want to hide,” retired Maj. Gen. Ulf Henricsson, who heads the unarmed Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) told Reuters.

Relatives of some of the 17 Action Contre La Faim (ACF) staff shot dead execution-style in Muttur town last week blamed Sri Lankan security forces for the killings.

The international community, from the United States to the United Nations, demands a transparent investigation into one of the worst massacres of aid workers in living memory.

But the Sri Lankan government is denying Nordic truce monitors access to the site, Reuters quoted the SLMM chief as saying.

“You have a lot of time to clear it up. If there was clear evidence for the LTTE to have done it, why not let us in to see it? I think the government makes the situation worse for themselves, because the truth will come out,” Henricsson said.

“They are denying us access to the whole area, so we cannot monitor. There were journalist trips arranged to Mutur last Saturday and Sunday. That was possible, but we had no access. Why? For security reasons? Of course not. There are other reasons.”

Henricsson’s monitors say there is evidence that troops have been involved in extrajudicial killings of Tamils in the war-ravaged north and east.

15 of the ACF staff had been found dead on the floor of their ruined office, while two had been gunned down while apparently trying to escape in a car. In the office, the bodies, clad in ACF T-shirts, had bullet wounds and most of them lay face down.

All except one, a Muslim, were Tamils.

The Sri Lanka Army accused the LTTE, but diplomats are sceptical, Reuters reported.

“All of our initial information suggests the government was involved,” the news agency quoted one western diplomat as saying. “The government’s only option is to have a full independent investigation with international support.”

The father of one aid worker said another son was amongst five Tamil students shot, also execution-style by Sri Lankan commandos in Trincomalee earlier this year.

“We believe it was the army,” 50-year-old Richard Arulrajah, another parent whose 24 year-old son was among those shot dead, told Reuters.

“They said the LTTE came and told them to leave,” said Arulrajah, who believed the Tigers would not have killed the ethnic Tamil workers. “They said: We are leaving this place so you must also leave or we can do nothing to protect you.”

Joining the rest of the humanitarian community in condemning of the massacre of the ACF staff, the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) said the failure to investigate and punish those responsible for attacks on its own aid workers in the past had contributed to a climate of impunity.

Ten TRO staff members were kidnapped by Army-backed paramilitaries in Batticaloa district on January 30, 2006. Three were released, but the other seven have ‘disappeared’ and many believe they have been killed in custody

Heavy fighting that has raged in Jaffna since August 11 subsided this week allowing an aid ship to travel to the embattled peninsula, but sporadic artillery exchanges continued, reports said.

Hundreds of combatants have been killed in two weeks of intense artillery exchanges and heavy ground fighting. The air and sea supply lines to Jaffna, which had been cut by LTTE shelling, hesitantly opened this week.

Shortages have been rising fast for the roughly half a million people on the army-held peninsula. Some people are eating only one meal a day. A Red Cross-flagged aid ship, carrying food and essential supplies left Colombo on Tuesday evening and will only arrive on Thursday.

The LTTE given security guarantees both for the aid ship and for a smaller ferry that will begin evacuating expatriates from Jaffna with foreign residency or nationality, as well as some aid workers.

The Sri Lanka Air Force has resumed limited flights into the Palaly airbase which had been struck almost daily by LTTE artillery. Civilian flights however remain suspended.

The fighting in Jaffna broke out when the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) began a major offensive at 5.30 on August 11 towards LTTE-held Elephant Pass area, the Tigers said. The Sri Lankan government however blamed the LTTE for starting the fighting.

The LTTE said its forces, throwing back an SLA ground advance , overran the SLA defence lines at Muhamali and then advanced into the High Security Zone. The SLA says it pushed the LTTE back to the front defence lines (FDLs).

There are conflicting casualty reports, but the fighting has made it all but impossible to independently verify tolls.

The Sri Lankan government claimed this week to have killed almost 500 Tigers, but the LTTE says it lost only 88 fighters. Colombo-based diplomats believe LTTE losses are likely to be higher, but say the Army routinely exaggerates its claimed kills.

The Army says it lost 159 soldiers, but defence officials in Colombo told reporters the bodies of 400 soldiers have been brought to the south.

The majority of the casualties have been borne by the SLA’s elite 53 Division. The US-trained Division has now been pulled back for a while to either shelter it from fruther losses or to refresh the division, TamilNet reported.

Several hundred civilians are also feared to have died and more than 160,000 people have fled their homes since the confrontations began on July 21 when the SLA launched a major offensive against the LTTE in Trincomalee.

While both sides say they want peace, diplomats believe both probably still have military objectives they want to achieve. The unarmed Nordic ceasefire monitoring mission has withdrawn most of its staff to the capital, although some remain stuck on Jaffna.

“It is a little more quiet but there is still a lot of shelling,” said outgoing chief truce monitor former Swedish Major General Ulf Henricsson. “I can''t see any military gains on either side... I think there has been too much unnecessary killing and rather big losses on both sides.”

Some diplomats and analysts say the fighting could drag on despite international pressure as the government and Tigers seek the military upper hand before entering peace talks.

“Neither side has got a bloody nose yet to encourage them to talks,” one diplomatic source close to the Norwegian-backed peace process told AFP. “Both will try to see how far they can go (militarily) before agreeing to talks.”

“I don''t think the military has really been able to make that much of a dent on the LTTE''s military capability,” said Nanda Godage, a defence analyst and a former Sri Lankan diplomat.

Godage said the LTTE''s war machinery appeared to be intact despite the heavy losses the military says it inflicted.

Namal Perera, the defence columnist for the Ravaya weekly, said that despite a lull in the fighting this week, the potential for a flare-up was high.

“It looks like the LTTE has still not used their elite units,” Perera said. “They could be kept in reserve for a bigger push.”

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse told diplomats in Colombo Monday that his government was ready to resume peace talks which the Tigers put on hold in April 2003 - provided the Tigers halted their attacks (see page 1).

“What the president says is that we have not started a war and we want to talk and have a negotiated settlement,” government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said. “But we will not compromise national security.”

Responding to President Mahinda Rajapakse’s call for the LTTE to declare its commitment to the ceasefire, the head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan said that it was the Colombo government which launched a major military offensive in Trincomalee and thereby triggered defensive measures by the Tigers.

“The Norwegian facilitators and the SLMM monitors are witness to the fact that Colombo deliberately chose to launch an offensive in Maavil Aru despite the civil dispute being resolved peacefully,” Mr. Thamilchelvan said.

The Sri Lankan military said its offensive on July 21 in Maavil Aru was to open a sluice gate that had been closed in LTTE-controlled areas, blocking water to villages in government-controlled areas of the district.

The SLA offensive triggered an LTTE counter-offensive in Muttur, close to Trincomalee’s main harbour. The fighting and Sri Lankan shelling of LTTE areas displaced tens of thousands.

However, when Nowegian Special Envoy Jon Hanssen-Baur negotiated an end to the water dispute and international monitoring chief Ulf Henricsson went to open the gate, SLA artillery fired dozens of shells at his party.

The LTTE charges the water dispute was an excuse for Sri Lanka to launch a major offensive against its forces in Muttur east and Sampur in Trincomalee.

“The Sri Lankan military has a long-term hidden agenda which underpinned its decision to launch a large-scale offensive with massive firepower into our territory in Muthur East,” Mr. Thamilchelvan charged.

“This was evidenced in repeated airstrikes on the region for some considerable time, even before the water dispute emerged,” he added.

“Furthermore, although the Sri Lankan government claimed the purpose of the offensive was to restor ethe flow of water, the Sri Lankan military continued its offensive even after the gates were opened,” he said.

“These actions clearly proved that Colombo had wider objectives behind its military offensive.”

“And when the Sri Lankan military escalated their offensive from their Trincomalee naval base, we were forced respond towards that their launchpads for artillery fire and troop movement towards the frontline,” Mr. Thamilchelvan said.

Thamilchelvan also accused Colombo of escalating its military offensive and attacking the LTTE in the Batticaloa and Jaffna districts.

“In Jaffna, heavy weapons and troop movements were observed in Eluthumadduval, Kilali, Nagarkovil and Muhamali areas throughout the day on August 11. The movement of civilian traffic was restricted to assist the Sri Lankan military buildup.”

“Finally, at 5:40 p.m. that day, the Sri Lanka Army launched a major offensive towards our area across the Northern defence lines, in another major breach of the ceasefire.”

“However, our fighting forces, well aware of the impending Sri Lankan offensive, were prepared to face the confrontation and defeated it,” LTTE political head said.

Norwegian Special Envoy John Hanssen-Bauer has questioned the European Union’s decision last May to classify Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers as terrorists, the BBC reported Sunday.

Mr. Hanssen-Bauer told the BBC that the EU move had damaged the chances of renewed talks, aimed at ending the recent upsurge in violence.

The Norwegian Special Envoy, whose visit Sri Lanka two weeks ago coincided with an eruption of violence between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE, said the EU ban had only served to harden the Tigers’ position.

The LTTE is insisting that ceasefire monitors from EU countries must leave Sri Lanka, as they cannot be considered neutral observers.

SLMM spokesman Thorfinnur Omarsson told BBC Sinhala service, Sandeshaya, that members from three EU countries would leave by 31 August due to the demands of the Tamil Tigers after the EU ban.

Mr. Bauer said the reduced numbers of monitors with the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) were clearly insufficient.

“We see now that the SLMM will be reduced to half its original capacity in a situation where it’s badly needed, and where the work has been more demanding than ever. I would have hoped that the situation would have been different,” Mr. Bauer told the BBC.

The non-EU members of SLMM have meanwhile decided to increase the number of monitors from their countries as members from Sweden, Denmark and Finland are leaving soon.

Iceland and Norwegian governments have decided to increase their members from 4 to 10 and 16 to 20 respectively.

Norwegian officials are yet to announce the replacement for the current head of SLMM, Swedish national Ulf Henriccson, Omarsson added.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s Military affairs spokesman, Minister Keheliya Rambukwella, criticised the Special Envoy’s comments.

“I would like to remind that the Norway has merely repeated the initial response by the LTTE just after the ban,” he told bbcsinhala.com.

Mr. Rambukwella said the EU took its decision to ban the LTTE after “long scientific research.”

He did not elaborate.

Shortly before the EU imposed it ban on the LTTE, the movement’s Chief Negotiator and Political Strategist Anton Balasingham warned the move “will seriously impact negatively on the already weakened peace process in Sri Lanka.”

“The hardliners in the south are urgently seeking the international isolation of the LTTE as a prelude to taking up the military option in earnest,” Mr. Balasingham said.

Sri Lanka has rapidly descended a spiral of violence since the EU ban, with hundreds of combatants and civilians dying the past month alone after Sri Lanka launched a major offensive against the LTTE mid-July, sparking fighting on several fronts.

Amid an unfolding humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka’s Northeast, the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse came under pressure this week to end its offensives against the Liberation Tigers.

At a meeting with the President on Monday, representatives of the Co-Chairs of Sri Lanka’s donor community – the United States, European Union, Norway and Japan – raised a number of concerns, reports said.

The envoys had discussed the mushrooming humanitarian crisis sharply triggered by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensive against the LTTE in Maavil Aru, Trincomalee on July 21.

That SLA offensive triggered confrontations with the LTTE on many fronts. Heavy fighting has taken place elsewhere in Trincomalee, but also in Batticaloa district and, especially, in the Jaffna peninsula where hundreds of combatants on both sides have died in bloody clashes this month.

The envoys had also discussed the Sri Lankan military’s targeting of civilians in airstrikes and the slaying of NGO workers in Muthur – widely blamed on the security forces, press reports said.

Last week scores of Tamil teenagers were killed when Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) jets bombed a children’s home at which residential first aid course was being run and three weeks ago, 17 local employees of a French aid agency were lined up and shot dead in the wake of SLA troops entering a contested town in Trincomalee district.

Overall, an estimated 160,000 people, mainly Tamils, but also tens of thousands of ethnic Muslims, have been displaced since April, the UN refugee agency said over the weekend.

They join hundreds of thousands of long-term war displaced, badly stretching the resources of local and international aid agencies in the Northeast.

The violence in Trincomalee in late July triggered a major displacement of Tamils and Muslims in the district.

But Sri Lanka’s military has since unleashed a systematic bombardment campaign against Tamil areas in Trincomalee, Batticaloa, southern Jaffna and Vanni.

“Some 15,000 to 20,000 people are now displaced in the Killinochchi area as a result of repeated [Sri Lankan] artillery shelling and air strikes,” UNHCR said.

Amid reports Sri Lankan forces were preventing people in the Jaffna peninsula from escaping intense fighting near the government’s southern defence lines, UNHCR appealed for the parties to the conflict “to permit freedom of movement to all civilians displaced by their conflict.”

Conditions for the displaced in LTTE-held areas are being compounded by a military blockade, including on aid workers.

Amid mounting criticisms by aid agencies, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan spoke directly to President Rajapakse on August 16, urging him to allow relief workers into the LTTE areas.

Foreign diplomats in Colombo have pressed Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera on the same issue.

But the government only allowed the International Red Cross (ICRC) to visit LTTE-held areas near Vakarai last Friday August 19, a full two weeks after tens of thousands of Tamils were driven from their homes by Sri Lanka air and artillery bombardment which has killed scores of civilians.

“We and our partners are now seriously concerned about the welfare of civilians in areas inaccessible to humanitarian agencies because of strictly enforced travel restrictions, as fighting continues in the north and east of Sri Lanka,” UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis told journalists in Geneva.

“Eastern districts face a similar crisis,” Pagonis said. “Thousands of displaced families in Muttur and Eachchilampattu divisions of Trincomalee district, and Vaharai division in Batticaloa district, are in desperate need of sustained humanitarian relief.”

“We have gained limited access to Vaharai [in Batticaloa],” Pagonis said, referring an area of Batticaloa receiving many thousands of displaced people from neighbouring Trincomalee.

About 12 thousand displaced Tamils trapped in LTTE held villages in Eachchilampathu division in the Trincomalee are not being supplied by NGOs and local government relief agencies since the fighting broke out, reports said.

Furthermore, most of the school buildings and concrete structures in these eastern areas have been damaged due to frequent Sri Lankan artillery fire and aerial bombardment which first started on April 25 and has regularly taken place since.

Only volunteers of Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) staying in Eachchilampathu division are looking after these IDPs with limited stock of food available on the ground.

The entry points to LTTE held Muttur east through Kaddaiparichchan SLA camp and to Eachchilampathu division through Mahindapura SLA camp have been completely closed for civilian movement and transport of food and essential items since the outbreak of fighting.

Indeed, since fighting began to flare up in April, UNHCR has recorded 162,000 Sri Lankans who have fled their homes but remain within the country, as well as 7,439 who have crossed the Palk Strait to become refugees in southern India’s Tamil Nadu state.

More than 80,000 people from the eastern province are now in camps at Kantali and Serupura in government-controlled areas and at Vakarai in LTTE-controlled territory.

Around 50,000 of the former refugees come from or near the eastern town of Muttur, which was devastated in the fighting which erupted on August 2 as the LTTE counterattacked near the town to stifle the SLA offensive on Maavil Aru.

After the main access road to the Jaffna peninsula through the LTTE-controlled Killinochchi district was closed, supplies of food and water have fallen to what Pagonis described as “alarmingly low levels” in many locations.

“Unfortunately, we have limited stock [in LTTE-controlled Kilinochchi] and are not sure when new stock will arrive because of restrictions on road transport,” said Pagonis.

Humanitarian agencies in Kilinochchi are targeting their help to those displaced people – some 9,500 individuals – living outdoors under trees, or in communal buildings, the UNHCR said in a statement from its Geneva headquarters.

In Jaffna, a week of fighting and the LTTE’s severance of air and sea supply lines to the 40,000 strong SLA garrison in the northern peninsula has provoked further displaced and hardships.

Thousands of people including foreign nationals are stranded in Jaffna town and have joined lengthy waiting lists to leave by sea.

The LTTE says it counter-attacked an imminent SLA offensive at Muhamalai, sparking two weeks of bloody fighting (see page 3).

Over the weekend, the LTTE ceased its shelling of the Palaly airbase.

On Monday, the Air Force resumed limited flights between Ratmalana air base in Colombo and Palaly. But taking off and landing at Palaly is restricted to late evening or night and only two trips are being made each day.

In the meantime, prices for essential items, such as rice, sugar and vegetables, have skyrocketed in the peninsula, which is cut off from the south by a large swathe of LTTE-controlled territoriy.

Fuel, including petrol, diesel and kerosene, is in very short supply. Much of the area has been subject to continuous electricity blackouts. After moving most of their cash to the Palaly base for security, the banks restricted withdrawals to just 1,000 rupees ($US10) last Friday.

Following pleas from aid agencies and government officials in Jaffna this Tuesday, a ship with relief supplies for the peninsula’s residents was scheduled to depart from Colombo port.

The move came the day after the international envoys met to pressure President Rajapakse.

Last week the United States’ Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Steven Mann, made an unscheduled visit to meet with President Rajapaksa in Colombo.

He also met with representatives of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a coalition of Sri Lanka’s four largest Tamil parties.

Mr. Mann also met with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) chief Sarath Fonseka.

Recently, some sections of the international community have begun to demonstrate an understanding that addressing the root causes of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict will go a long way toward its resolution.

A number of states, human rights groups and media organisations have begun acknowledging that Tamil grievances do exist. Many have asserted a need to recognise Tamils’ fundamental rights - to live free from discrimination and language rights amongst others.

The most prominent recent convert to this ‘Tamil grievance’ position has been the United States, which in a promising step forward, acknowledged the legitimate political aspirations of the Tamil people and their claim to a homeland.

Yet some of the most powerful new proponents of this position still offer impractical routes as to how the Tamil people should go about achieving these basic rights.

Whilst finally acknowledging Tamil grievances, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Richard Boucher, also rejected their backing the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a means of securing redress. The LTTE, he said, has to eschew violence and join Sri Lanka’s democratic process. In other words, surrender.

Boucher’s statement on Tamil rights marks a welcome shift in the right direction by Washington. It was only five years ago, that US Ambassador Ashley Wills, speaking in Jaffna told the Tamils that they were not a people, that there was no Tamil homeland and the Tamil struggle was a form of racism. It was uncompromising statements such as these which convinced many Tamils that the International Community would always prioritise ties with Colombo over the rights of downtrodden minorities.

The recent US move to distinguish between the legitimate aspirations of the Tamil people and the LTTE as a vehicle for achieving them has been mirrored by other international actors peers. In several meetings between European governments’ and Tamil representatives, such as parliamentarians of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the donor community has been keen to emphasize that they would be much more supportive of the Tamil cause, were it not for the existence of the LTTE.

Another example of this newfound international empathy for the Tamil plight are the recent comments by the British Deputy High Commissioner to Sri Lanka. Mr. Dominic John Chilcott admitted that the British system of governance passed on to Sri Lanka had been flawed in its inability to protect minorities from abuse.

In light of the various unconstitutional measures enforced by subsequent Sinhala governments this seemed unnecessarily self-critical. Nonetheless it demonstrated that the international community has a keen understanding of the insurmountable constitutional challenges to reforming the Sri Lankan state.

Unsurprisingly, associated media and non-governmental organisations have also begun to endorse this new paradigm; that Tamil aspirations can only be met after the LTTE has been disarmed.

Another new believer in legitimate Tamil aspirations seems to be Human Rights Watch (HRW), whose Asia Director, Brad Adams, also recently acknowledged Tamils may have grievances, but also insisted the Tamil Diaspora pressure the LTTE to relinquish violence as step towards addressing them.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, this is a peculiar position, given HRW’s last report on Sri Lanka claimed the Tamil community did not support the LTTE and any assistance was due to widespread intimidation. The implicit reversal of HRW’s position is welcome, but does result in scepticism amongst the appeal’s target audience, the Tamil Diaspora.

The Times newspaper in London echoed the same demand that the Tamils dump the Tigers in a violently anti-LTTE editorial on August 15. The paper accused the LTTE of spurning “every gesture” of President Mahinda Rajapakse - who it also admitted was aligned to hardline Sinhala nationalists.

The paper simply overlooked the refusal of the Rajapakse government to implement the agreements reached in the last round of talks with the Tigers in February. The talks, termed Geneva I, had called for the dismantling of state-backed paramilitaries, but nothing has happened, except the violence has deepened. The paper also omitted mention of the numerous paramilitary attacks on LTTE cadres and supporters and, most importantly, the offensive launched by the Army since July 21.

The Times made a glancing mention of legitimate Tamil grievances before concluding that the LTTE’s armed struggle is an unacceptable vehicle for resolving such issues and demanding that the Tamil Diaspora disown the organisation. The Tamils, it added darkly, “will have no peace” until they do so.

Perhaps when compared to CNN’s coverage of the Sencholai massacre last week, The Times might seem balanced: the US media organisation simply reported Sri Lankan government’s version of the incident, saying an LTTE base was bombed - and that moreover, despite the statements from the site of the massacre by UNICEF and the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission, that the victims were in fact school children at a first aid course.

Tamils have come to expect various international media organisations to be biased towards the state when reporting this island’s decades long conflict. However, the critical aspect of recent statements, press articles and NGO releases, is the overall effort to get the Tamil Diaspora to give up their backing of the LTTE in return for - as yet to materialise - international support for their recently acknowledged legitimate grievances. In other words, to split the Tigers and the Tamils.

The problem is one of credibility. To date there is no sign of international understanding what exactly Tamil grievances are. More importantly, even if the international community were able to appreciate Tamil aspirations, there is little evidence that it is capable of delivering them.

Revelations by Canada’s deputy foreign minister of how his country is encouraging reform in Sri Lanka are particularly disheartening for the Tamils. Donors such as Canada had shifted, he said, from providing infrastructure-focused aid toward reform-focused assistance as a way to encourage state reform.

It is obvious that such incentive systems have failed to impact successive Sri Lankan governments, largely due to the intense competition between donor nations to lend money in a bid to secure political influence in the country.

The reality is that Sri Lanka is offered substantial amounts of aid by countries ranging from the US to Korea and even China, each seeking to secure political influence in the region. With this variety of suitors courting Sri Lanka, securing political influence alone will prove a challenge, let alone demanding any sort of reform in the process.

The various institutional and constitutional challenges in Sri Lanka are also virtually unassailable. The ethnic ‘outbidding’ politics which has dominated the island makes the two-thirds majority necessary for reform of the state impossible, particularly with the rising influence of extremist Sinhala parties.

With no extra-constitutional measures being considered by external actors to overcome such hurdles, there is no tangible evidence as to how the international community intends to deliver on any political commitments it seems to be offering the Tamils sans LTTE.

Even more concerning than the inability of the International Community to effect reforms in Sri Lanka is their apparent unwillingness to do so.

The appalling international silence in the aftermath of the Sencholai massacre last week suggests that concern for Tamil grievances is merely rhetoric. The Sri Lankan military has consistently terrorised Tamil civilians as part of its efforts to defeat the LTTE. But, as during the infamous ‘war for peace,’ the International Community appears to consider Tamil civilian (and child) casualties an acceptable price of defeating the LTTE.

Tamil welfare and rights have been sacrificed in the past, long before the emergence of the LTTE. In the aftermath of the 1983 anti-Tamil riots, there were few voices demanding reform of the Sri Lankan state. The three decades that preceded that landmark pogrom had witnessed state sponsored ethnic cleansing, other anti-Tamil riots and ever-deepening institutional racism.

Despite all this, Canada says that international focus at the time was aimed at developing the Sri Lanka’s infrastructures and not in reforming the transparently chauvinistic state.

So how can the international community now expect to convince the Tamils that in a future without the LTTE’s leverage over Sri Lankan affairs, international interest in Tamil welfare will remain?

The appalling international silence over the Sencholai massacre and the widespread recent displacement of Tamils doesn’t inspire confidence. This alone tells the Tamils that international interests will always determine external responses to Tamil suffering - and that the Tamils will require their own security apparatus in any final settlement to the conflict.

The most disturbing aspect of al this is that recent international policy statements reveal the substantial knowledge about the island’s conflict that the international community has.

Tamil academics and journalists have repeatedly produced papers and articles toward ‘informing’ international policymakers, based on the assumption that their policies are not malevolent but merely misinformed.

But there is clear international understanding of Sri Lanka’s flawed and irreversibly majoritarian constitution - as Mr. Chilcott underlined. Mr Boucher’s acceptance that Tamils are a people with a homeland and legitimate grievances suggests that the International Community has been well versed on of ethnic dynamics in the island. The Canadian Deputy Foreign Minister acknowledged that despite knowledge of the Sri Lanka’s oppression of the Tamils, aid has flowed unfettered to state’s coffers.

In light of this nuanced understanding of the ground situation, Tamils must reflect on the efficacy of ‘informing’ the international community. After all, when it suits their interests, it is pretty clear the international community will engage the Tamils, and most probably in a more genuine manner.

Moreover, international statements tow-ards recognising Tamil grievances, whilst welcome, are linked to the ever-changing military situation on the island.

International actors and media expect the Tamils to abandon the LTTE at the first whiff of any acknowledgement of legitimacy of their struggle.

But the Tamil community, assisted by virtually no other power than its invaluable Diaspora, have been one of the few peoples in history to halt genocide on their own, with no external assistance.

If the international community is genuinely supportive of Tamil grievances, it ought to focus on challenging the Sri Lanka state’s discrimination and violence, rather than seeking for ways to give the Tamil liberation struggle routes to legitimacy.

In a complete reversal of their position, New York based NGO, Human Rights watch (HRW), which earlier this year described the Tamil Diaspora as caught in a ‘culture of fear’ of the LTTE this week turned to Tamil expatriates to exert their influence on the LTTE in support of human rights.

In March this year, HRW published a damning report claiming Tamil expatriates were being terrorised by LTTE fund-raisers extorting money from them to finance the war in Sri Lanka. The report, which was specifically cited by the Canadian government when it banned the LTTE in April, caused outrage amongst expatriates.

But on Saturday August 5, HRW Asia Director Brad Adams joined Professor Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial killings in asking for the Diaspora to exert their influence on the LTTE to implement their recommendations on human rights.

At an event in London, Professor Alston launched a Tamil version of his report, which says, among other things that “the diaspora has a responsibility to use its considerable political and financial influence and funding to promote and to insist upon respect for human rights.”

Professor Alston and Adams said it was vital that the Diaspora make it clear to the LTTE that the war would not be won by territorial and military considerations alone but by considerations of legitimacy and respect for international human rights standards.

The Diaspora had a duty to ensure the LTTE met these standards, they argued. Supporting the LTTE unquestioningly, said Professor Alston, was like bringing up your child to do whatever he liked; it was counterproductive and not helpful to the child because he would not learn to act as a responsible adult.

The metaphor where the LTTE was likened to a ‘child’ of the Tamil Diaspora is astonishing in the context of previous policy statements by HRW and United Nations.

On the face of it, the event should have been a walk in the park for the organisers. After all, who doesn’t subscribe to human rights standards as a matter of principle? Philip Alston provided an additional incentive (as if the matter of principle was not sufficient). He said one had to be seen to be meeting international standards of legitimacy in order to achieve political goals, including that of a separate state.

But instead of support, the organisers were met with anger and a litany of complaints against their organisations’ conduct from many of the Tamil Diaspora. The event highlighted systemic disagreement between the panellists and the sections of the Tamil Diaspora being addressed by the former’s appeal.

After the conference, a clarification was sought from HRW on their understanding of the extent of voluntary support for the LTTE compared to the proportion that was being reportedly being pressured by the Tigers.

Adams replied on behalf of Human Rights watch that he had absolutely no idea. A member of the audience had claimed that the LTTE had the support of eighty percent of the Tamil Diaspora. Mr Adams thought that might well be true, but he admitted he did not really know.

In essence, Adams admitted they had no statistical information on the extent of LTTE support among the Diaspora, and further that they had no capability to obtain such information. The Asia Director of HRW said this was the first time he had been to London to meet the UK Diaspora.

But Adams did not even accept that statistics had any bearing on Jo Becker’s controversial report on fund raising by the LTTE and related organisations. In short, HRW did not know if the people who had alleged intimidation by fundraisers were a statistically significant proportion of the overall population or not – even though the report had repeatedly alluded that it was.

Adams argued that, in any case, HRW’s position was not a question of mathematics or science. He refused to accept there was even a question of proportionality. He said that if even one person felt that they were being intimidated then HRW would find itself obliged to report on it.

But for anyone who read the original HRW report this comes across as a major shift in position. The report painted a picture of a community gripped by fear and ill served by British or Canadian police or their parliamentary representatives. An entire section of the original report was dedicated to why no prosecutions had been brought in the western democracies where these offences were allegedly taking place.

It even claimed: “in Canada, the Tamil community forms a powerful voting bloc, and many members of Parliament from ridings (electoral districts) in the Toronto area are dependent on Tamil votes. Some Canadian Tamils suggest that as a result, many members of parliament are reluctant to address LTTE intimidation.”

Jo Becker, the author, in an interview with the BBC Sinhala service had countered allegations of an underlying political agenda by saying “Our only agenda is to safeguard the human rights of the expatriate Tamils.”

But Adams’ revelation that he has no idea what the Diaspora really thinks or wants and that further they had not taken trouble to find out sharply contradicts Miss Becker’s emphatic need to save the community from the LTTE.

HRW had previously issued a qualification of its report, saying it was ‘qualitative rather than quantitative’. Brad Adams said on Saturday was that the estimated several dozen people interviewed worldwide (the HRW report itself prominently leaves out the sample base) between October last year and February for Becker’s report had “appeared to give credible accounts.” Readers have to take Jo Becker’s word for it because the witnesses remained anonymous.

But even on a ‘qualitative’ basis the report runs into difficulties. A search of the HRW website reveals that Becker, an experienced human rights researcher, has written only two reports on Sri Lanka, both of them virulently anti-LTTE. This despite the fact that of the over thirty five thousand civilians killed in the Sri Lankan conflict the overwhelming majority have been Tamil civilians killed by government forces.

Becker’s March report was leaked to the Sri Lankan minister of foreign affairs before it was published. The report immediately preceded and was cited in the Canadian government’s ban of the LTTE.

The UK launch of Miss Becker’s earlier (November 2004) report (on child soldiers) had been organised by well-known anti-LTTE radio station, TBC (Tamil Broadcasting Corporation). One of Miss Becker’s co-panellists at the launch was Virajah Ramaraj, the TBC’s program director. Ramraj, a veteran of an anti-LTTE paramilitary group, ENDLF, was arrested by Swiss police in March on long-standing criminal charges.

Ms Becker used a self-selecting sample for her March report. In other words, people who wanted to complain and who were linked into the network were invited. Ramaraj, also appears in Becker’s report, this time as a witness, rather than as a fellow author. The interviews had been conducted, in many cases, by long distance telephone calls to the UK and Canada.

The report accepts that the Metropolitan police in UK concluded in the face of specific complaints that there was no evidence of an offence. But Jo Becker went on to say that Scotland Yard turns a ‘blind eye’ due to political considerations. Adams reflected the same thinking when he insisted last week that for Diaspora witnesses, HRW (and not the local police force) was the ‘first place’ to which they could turn.

Yet Adams confessed that HRW did not have much knowledge of any of the local Diaspora communities. By extension, the organisations does not have the capability to assess the credibility or qualifications of its sources. To counter this failing, HRW contends that in many ways it does not matter: Adams says if even one person feels intimidated by LTTE fund raising strategies, then that is enough.

But this position has deep flaws. Lobbying for proscription of the LTTE (which is what HRW’s report does – successfully in Canada’s case) is to deny the expatriate Tamils their right to support the LTTE’s political project; politics. The politics of an entire community of respectable citizens is being tarnished by a select few associates of the likes of Ramaraj: the disregard for their views verging on the racist.

By ignoring ‘big picture’ analysis, Adams is holding on to a very simplistic view of truth. There are lies of distortion and lies of omission. HRW has indulged in both.

By focussing disproportionately on one human rights problem, others are marginalised. In the Sri Lankan conflict there are a plethora of abuses, including disappearances in government custody, torture, massive proportions of long term displaced, military occupation, arbitrary executions to name just a few.

HRW chose to prioritise a small group of people who unverifiably claim their rights are being violated over many of those who argue their rights are being defended against the Sri Lankan state by the LTTE. The point here is that HRW, when it writes on Sri Lankan affairs, even on a Diaspora issue, is intervening in the Sri Lankan conflict.

Even the merest respect for the numbers of rights abuses within the Sri Lankan question would have led to very different set of priorities from that chosen by HRW.

Almost a quarter of Tamils in Sri Lanka are internally displaced. Arbitrary, racially profiled, mass arrests of Tamils in cities such as Colombo are commonplace. So are cases of torture and disappearances.

In contrast to HRW, many of the Diaspora prioritise Sri Lanka’s rights abuses differently. Stopping the greatest abuser, the state military, is their concern. Many Diaspora Tamils argue for self-rule and autonomy on this basis and back the LTTE’s political struggle on this basis.

They are aware the LTTE does not have a clean sheet, but, in their view, this is not a concerning as securing the overall cause of self-determination which, when realised will protect Tamils from the Sri Lankan state.

Little surprise then that HRW has difficulty establishing credibility with the Diaspora: the human rights goals of the two groups may be broadly aligned in theory but in practice there is no agreement on implementation.

HRW enunciates human rights principles but are (at best) dangerously careless of the wider political impact of their work. The Diaspora on the other hand pursues the collective human rights of their community through the goal of self-determination and the LTTE.

For example, HRW deplored the impending exit of international truce monitors because with fewer people on the ground it would be harder to track human rights issues.

But the Diaspora saw the exit of the monitors as an inevitable consequence of their countries’ proscription of the LTTE. The Diaspora instead deplored the ban as a violation of their community’s human rights. They are also well aware HRW’s controversial (and now suspect) report contributed to the ban.

HRW deplored the large number of internally displaced people in the island. But Tamil Diaspora activists with organisations such as the TRO (Tamil Rehabilitation Organsiation) were furious because the ban also indirectly obstructed their humanitarian fund raising. Again, such activists see HRW as having targeted their struggle (in support of the Sri Lankan state that caused those displacements in the first place.)

HRW’s apparent recognition that the Diaspora matters to Sri Lankan politics comes somewhat late in the day. Notably, the Diaspora’s views were not consulted before the proscription of the LTTE - in fact all of the protests and appeals by the Diaspora were bluntly ignored. Instead, HRW’s report was cited as evidence for a need to save the Diaspora from the LTTE.

Ironically, Alston’s original metaphor of the parent-child is correct: the LTTE relies on the Diaspora for financial, intellectual and moral support.

But then it is impossible to seek a cooperative relationship with the parent having just helped in the demonising and condemnation of the child. If the organisers of last week’s meeting with the Diaspora were shocked by the anger they were met with, they had only themselves to blame.

This confrontation is not about water. Despite the talk of ‘humanitarian’ missions, the truth, as the head of the international monitors, Ulf Henricsson, suggested, is that this war is about something else.

After all, the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE have resolved numerous other far more controversial issues in the past four years of ceasefire than a blocked water channel. And not once, but twice, Sri Lankan bombardments have destroyed deals with the LTTE to open the sluice gates.

It is now quite clear this is about Sri Lanka pursuing a military campaign against the LTTE despite the constraints of the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA). Whilst some observers are perplexed at the government’s actions, an examination of its stated objectives suggest this is not inconsistent behaviour.

President Mahinda Rajapakse’s administration has relentlessly pursued two objectives since he assumed power. The first, like all his predecessors, is to ensure he maintains power and secures a second six-year term. And the second is to implement his manifesto, unsubtly titled ‘Mahinda Chinthana’ (Mahinda’s thoughts).

What might appear crass, even stupid, on the international stage is, in the Sinhala heartland, honest, even honourable. A promise to the people is being kept.

The abrogation of deals with the LTTE is easily explained. After all, the Tigers are the Sinhala nation’s arch foes and all is fair in love and war. And this internal constituency is far more important to Rajapakse than the self-interested members of the international community.

Even at the internationally transparent talks in Geneva in February, the Rajapakse government struggled to accept the legitimacy of the CFA. And even though it finally agreed to implement it, soon after its delegation arrived back in Colombo, it repudiated the Geneva 1 deal.

Within weeks, Army-backed paramilitaries resumed their campaign against the LTTE and its supporters, sparking the low intensity hostilities that has escalated steadily to war this month.

And it is not only agreements with the LTTE that have been scrapped.

Rajapakse’s administration has repeatedly assured the foreign powers backing Sri Lanka’s peace process that it is committed to peace and welcomes their support - and there is no doubt it certainly welcomes their fiscal support.

However, in the face of increasing international pressure to deliver on his various pledges, including Geneva 1, President Rajapakse’s response was to court new allies abroad and to attempt to marginalize the Norwegians by seeking direct talks with the LTTE.

When this clumsy political chicanery failed, Colombo had to respond to new pressures from the international community.

But he got an unexpected break: having virtually conceded that President Rajapakse was never going to disarm the paramilitaries, the international community changed focus from demanding Geneva 1 to efforts pushing for a permanent political solution.

Pressure grew for a bi-partisan agreement with the main opposition UNP that could reduce the influence of the ultra-nationalist JVP and JHU. Rajapske’s response was to dust off an old Sri Lankan trick: the All Party Conference (APC).

And he wasn’t very subtle, not even bothering to invite the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), even for show.

Furthermore, he sent an unambiguous message to the JVP and its allies – and for that matter, the Sinhala and Tamil communities – by appointing a group of Sinhala ultra-nationalists to the committee to draft his administration’s proposals for power sharing.

Meanwhile, a ground breaking deal engineered by India between the UNP and Rajapakse’s ruling coalition collapsed: no sooner had Delhi’s Envoy left Sri Lanka, the President resumed poaching UNP parliamentarians to the government benches.

Why, observers might ask, is the man deliberately damaging the necessary steps to a stable negotiation process and a permanent solution?

The answer lies in the twin objectives Rajapakse has never concealed: his political future and Mahinda Chinthana.

The UNP crossovers enhance his government’s stability whilst spreading discord and disharmony within the UNP’s already disarrayed ranks. It also makes joining the (more stable) government a more attractive option for the savvy JVP.

At the same time, the delaying of a bi-partisan deal with the UNP also put paid to any hope of the APC coming up with a pan-southern platform for peace talks. It also bought time for the committee tasked with coming up with power-sharing proposals.

Rajapakse’s most important success is outmanoeuvring Delhi’s interventions on behalf of the stuttering peace process.

Having politically re-engaged in Sri Lanka at the behest of both protagonists, India could not have expected the degree of duplicity that Rajapakse demonstrated with regards the bi-partisan deal that Delhi’s envoy set up. Else India would not have staked its prestige on it.

And then there is the military escalation by Colombo, despite India’s reported insistence of restraint. Within a week of assurances to India to prevent further escalation of the conflict and to pursue a negotiated solution, Rajapskse unleashed a major military offensive against the Tigers.

The only way to determine Rajapakse’s intentions is to understand his interests.

Bottom line, Rajapakse needs to pursue a solution to the ethnic problem which is within a unitary state. Any other option risks alienating the JVP and, more importantly, the Sinhala vote bloc which backed him last November.

Besides, a federal or autonomy solution is at odds with Mahinda Chinthana. There is no need for a bi-partisan agreement with the UNP if you don’t need the two-thirds majority. You don’t need the majority if you don’t intend to substantially change the constitution.

What about international opinion? Rajapakse knows full well that international support for federalism is not based on any fundamental commitment to the Tamils, but as a bid to buy off the Tamil separatist campaign. If the threat from the LTTE was to diminish, so will international pressure for autonomy, in his view.

This column has argued before that international guarantees against the LTTE’s struggle means that even if a military effort by Colombo goes awry, there will be no great political cost – Rajapakse would only still need to agree to a federal model (and the JVP or JHU could not fault him then for selling out).

But were he to be successful on the battlefield, Rajapske knows he won’t be pressured to offer that much to the Tamils, a point reinforced by the stated commitments to Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity by several leading members of the international community.

He is much more likely to continue in power in either solution. But not if he were to sell out to the Tamils by making a serious offer of autonomy now.

These calculations have been apparent to Rajapakse even before he filed his papers for last November’s Presidential polls.

And since coming to power, he and his hardliner defence officials have been preparing the ground for a military confrontation. That is why the paramilitaries were not disarmed, but expanded and reinforced. That is why the embargoes were not lifted.

Columnists in this newspaper argued as early as June 2005 that Sri Lanka was planning a war in the east. This column did so again in April 2006.

The reasons for the present Sri Lankan military offensive in Trincomalee are nothing to do with water or any other humanitarian issue.

With the international community focused on the Middle East, President Rajapakse has acted swiftly to take advantage of a fortuitous controversy that erupted in the strategic eastern theatre.

Hence Rajapakse’s haste to escalate the violence despite the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) in the area being on the verge of resolving this otherwise mundane water dispute.

Contrary to many international actors, the political vision behind Rajapakse’s military offensive is not to weaken the LTTE and secure a better position at the negotiating table.

It is to create the conditions under which a solution within the unitary constitution can be offered on a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ basis to the Tamils.

The international community has in the past backed similar weak offers. Federalism entered the negotiating field only after the ferocious LTTE violence of 2000-1.

In any case, there cannot be a limited war. If Rajapakse is successful initially, the JVP and other Sinhala nationalists will insist the war goes all the way to a total victory. As the National Movement Against Terrorism declared in its recent poster campaign, the goal is ‘Onward to Kilinochchi.’

As this column argued earlier, if the LTTE is able to resist his military onslaught, then the most Rajapakse will have to offer is a federal solution.

But that is sometime in the future. The question can be revisited then. Right now, neither of Rajapakse’s objectives – staying in power for the next decade, or delivering his vision of Sri Lanka, ‘Mahinda Chinthana’ – can be achieved through offering a federal solution. So war it is.

Tamil Guardian: Sri Lanka’s war aim is to take the east [April 19, 2006]
Tamil Guardian: Will new war be in the east? [Jun 29, 2005]