Inside a yellow building smelling of fresh paint and with bright red floors a number of girls go through dance steps under the watchful gaze of their choreographer. They clap hands in time to the tinny music being played on a cassette recorder that has seen better days, one eye anxiously on their instructor. "Again, again," she cajoles, "we only have a few days to go."

The girls are practising for celebrations marking the 10th anniversary of the Senthalir Ilam (Tender Sprouts) orphanage in Mullaitivu, in Tamil Tiger-controlled north-east Sri Lanka.

The day is doubly significant - it is when their brand new premises will also be officially opened.

Three-quarters of the 132 children belonging to the orphanage drowned when the tsunami struck last December. The waves lashed the school, perched on the Mullaitivu coast. Not a single child under six survived. Orphaned by the long-running civil war, the survivors were traumatised all over again.

But nearly nine months after I visited the school’s temporary shelter, life has slowly begun picking up.

Just off the highway, Tender Sprouts has a new home. Three buildings housing the dormitories have already been built, and the Norwegian government has pledged money to build schoolrooms, a kitchen and additional facilities.

With the monsoons having hit particularly hard this year, the children are glad they are better protected.

"Earlier, when we were living in a tent, the roof would often leak when it rained," says 14-year-old Niranjana.

"But it would be nice to get a space where we can study in peace, and perhaps a playground," she adds shyly.

It is here that the children stay, eat, pray and play. Everyday, they go to the neighbouring school for their lessons. In the evening the school holds special classes in music and dance, drawing and even karate.

"When we moved out of Mullaitivu after the tsunami, there were only 31 children left," says Sudarshini, who runs the school on behalf of the Centre for Women’s Development and Rehabilitation. "Now there are 115."

The additional numbers are made up by children who were orphaned by the war and the tsunami in other parts of the conflict zone but have no place to go.

But Tender Sprouts also functions as a boarding school for the children of single parents who are unable to take care of them.

"There are so many children whose parents are simply unable to cope after having lost their spouse in the tsunami," says Sudarshini.

"Many of them are so badly scarred psychologically that we are in a better position to take care of their children."

Thulasi’s mother was pregnant with her when the tsunami struck, taking away her sister and father. Now nine months old, she lives in the school because her mother was badly traumatised with her loss and has since been receiving counselling.

Twelve-year-old Krishantini also came to the orphanage after losing her father and two siblings to the tsunami. She loves music and sings in a beautiful, clear voice. It’s a song from a popular Tamil movie. "I miss my mother’s heart and her love," translates Sudarshini.

In the initial months after the tsunami, the children were encouraged to demonstrate their thoughts and fears creatively, through drawing, singing and acting. The school authorities say over the months they have noticed a slow but perceptible change.

Niranjana, a quiet, serious-looking girl with dark eyes, began drawing while undergoing counselling after the tsunami. In the initial months, she used to draw waves and an angry sea. Now she has graduated to tamer landscapes - the countryside and even sunset on a calm, blue sea.

When I met 15-year-old Shanthi nine months ago, she was haunted by dreams of her younger sister who drowned in the tsunami. "I still remember my sister but I no longer wake up at night," she says.

She enjoys sport and loves playing football and learning karate. "I used to compete at sporting events," she says.

"Now I have begun training again. The district sports meet is only a couple of months away," she says as her face breaks into a smile.

Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers group is using its own funds to build homes for tsunami survivors in areas under its control, raising concern aid money still isn’t reaching the parts of the island were it’s needed most.

Tamils in LTTE-held areas who were left homeless by the Dec. 26 tsunami are living in transitional shelters, built with funds from overseas Tamils and non-government groups, the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization said.

The charity is building permanent houses in the north and northeast, where almost half the 30,000 Sri Lankans killed in the disaster lived.

International donors hoped a joint operation by government and Tiger forces to rebuild areas hit by the tsunami would help break a three-year deadlock in peace talks aimed at ending Sri Lanka’s civil war.

An agreement to jointly distribute $3 billion of aid was scrapped in July, adding to tensions between the two sides and threatening the February 2002 cease-fire.

“There would have been a lot more funds coming through and benefiting the whole country if there was a joint mechanism on aid,” said Julia Hume, a project development manager with the Tamil rehabilitation group.

“There are a few examples of work together, but essentially there is no such coordination.”

Aid of $2.2 billion and a debt moratorium of $300 million together with $500 million to boost foreign reserves were pledged to Sri Lanka following the disaster.

The tsunami, generated by a magnitude-9 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, left half a million homeless across Sri Lanka and destroyed two-thirds of the country’s coastline. After the disaster the government said it needed to rebuild 100,000 houses, as well as roads, hospitals and ports.

Sri Lanka’s Tamils, who say they are discriminated against by the majority Sinhalese, have been fighting since 1983 for a separate homeland in the island’s north and east, parts of which were among the hardest hit by the tsunami. They make up 18 percent of Sri Lanka’s 19.7 million people.

The distribution of aid has been hampered since July 15, when a court blocked an agreement between former President Chandrika Kumaratunga and the Tigers. That ruling followed a petition by the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, which quit the ruling alliance a month earlier over the plan to jointly distribute aid. The JVP opposes autonomy for the Tamil Tigers.

“The spontaneous solidarity that united communities immediately after the tsunami rekindled hopes that the ethnic divisions that have cost the country so dearly in recent years may finally be waning,” Sri Lanka’s Institute of Policy Studies said in a report.

“However, a mutually acceptable arrangement for aid sharing to enable assistance to flow into the LTTE controlled areas has proved elusive.”

An agreement was needed because the US, UK and India have designated the Tamil Tigers a terrorist group, which stops most international aid organizations from providing aid to the group and the victims of the tsunami in areas it controls.

“There has been much less work done in Sri Lanka because of the political problem,” said Sam Worthington, executive director of Plan USA, an international relief organization. “It may be a challenge for some donor countries to accept some exceptions amid restrictions on whom to work with.”

The cease-fire in the two-decade civil war has come under further strain because of an upsurge in attacks on soldiers, Tigers and civilians. The LTTE accuses the government of carrying out a covert war, while the government blames a breakaway LTTE faction for the escalation in violence.

The government in January declined a request by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to visit LTTE-held areas devastated by the tsunami. Instead, Annan visited a mosque sheltering displaced families in the southern city of Hambantota and makeshift quarters in a school in the northeastern port city of Trincomalee.

According to the state-run Task Force for Relief and Reconstruction, $58 million of about $919 million of aid disbursed so far to Sri Lanka has reached the northern districts of Jaffna, Mullaitivu and Killinochchi, which include areas controlled by the Tigers.

Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran says progress in the peace process is the key to rebuilding.

“If there was so much opposition in southern Sri Lanka to a simple provisional arrangement, then it is a daydream to expect to secure a regional self-governing authority in the Tamil homeland by negotiating with the Sinhala political leadership,” Prabhakaran said in his annual Heroes’ Day speech on Nov. 27.

Any renewed war in Sri Lanka could threaten health programmes already hit by Asia’s tsunami and hamper efforts to fight bird flu, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

"It would depend on the nature of the conflict, but it could stop people from seeking treatment when they need it, "WHO country representative Agostino Borra told Reuters in an interview. "It could undo the gains we have made."

Borra said he was also concerned immunisation rates might be falling off, possibly sparking new cases of polio, which can kill and disable children.

"I would like to see a new polio vaccine campaign," Borra said. "It would be very difficult if you had conflict and some of these places went back into the dark."

Malaria - reduced to almost nothing across the rest of the island -- remains in the conflict affected areas, which include a seventh of Sri Lanka under Tamil Tiger control, Borra said. Other diseases were also more common.

Across the rest of the country, deaths from easily curable diseases are much lower than in many developing nations. The main cause of death in hospitals is heart disease - typical of developed countries, not war-weary developing nations.

The WHO has little hard medical data on Tiger areas but says monitoring information on human and animal diseases - key to identifying and controlling bird flu, amongst other illnesses - is passed on to the capital, Colombo.

"There is a shortage of human resources," he said. "Everyone wants to be in the nice cities of Galle, Kandy and Colombo. It’s particularly acute in the north and east."

Sri Lanka has yet to see an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has killed 71 people across Asia and which health experts fear could spark a global pandemic if it develops the ability to jump easily from person to person.

Any return to war - increasingly feared by diplomats and aid workers - could jeopardise surveillance and co-operation across the front lines, making it more difficult to track the disease and respond to an outbreak.

"It definitely wouldn’t help," said Borra. "The disease has such a high mortality rate that around half of the people who get it die."

Three Sri Lankan ministers are supporting a military intelligence directed shadow war against the Liberation Tigers, two former Tamil paramilitaries who defected to the LTTE said this week.

Ministers A L M Athaullah, Douglas Devananda and Maithripala Sirisena are complicit in helping paramilitaries operating in the east, two former members of the Karuna Group, named after the renegade LTTE commander who head it said.

Karuna himself is living in India, but is in constant contact with his gunmen, they said. Once the Tigers’ most senior commander in the east, Karuna defected to the SLA in April 2004 following the collapse of his six-week rebellion against the LTTE leadership.

There has been no comment by the Sri Lankan government, Athaullah was this week reported to have threatened Tamil journalists who covered the press conference at which the revelations were made.

The Sri Lankan intelligence led paramilitary campaign has over the past two years led to a serious deterioration in the integrity of the February 2002 ceasefire.

Hundreds of people, including LTTE members and supporters, Tamil paramilitaries, Sri Lankan intelligence officers and many civilians have been killed and international ceasefire monitors despair of trying to arrest the cycle of violence which has peaked in recent weeks.

Although a brief lull after the November 17 presidential elections had encouraged the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) to praise the decrease, the killing of two pro-LTTE activists by paramilitaries in Jaffna unleashed a wave of deadly retaliatory attacks, including two landmine attacks which killed fifteen Sri Lankan troops.

The LTTE has consistently accused Sri Lankan military intelligence of waging an undeclared war through a clutch of Tamil paramilitary groups.

But the involvement of Sri Lankan ministers other than Douglas Devanda, the head of the paramilitary Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), was pointedly raised in the Heroes Day address by LTTE leader Vellupillai Pirapaharan.

“Though these violent acts were committed under the guidance and direction of the Sri Lankan military intelligence, we are aware that mysterious hands of some racist Sinhala politicians are behind these nefarious activities,” he said.

It was at a press conference this week in LTTE controlled part of the Batticaloa district that the two former paramilitaries, including a senior cadre, first made public the involvement of Athaullah and Sirisena.

Thurasingham Chandrakumar, 21, alias Puhalventhan (from Kaluwankerni), and Samithamby Arunkumar, 26, alias Gnanatheepan (from Vantharumoolai) surrendered to the LTTE after killing other members of a paramilitary unit enroute to attack an LTTE position.

They said the Karuna Group, one of five paramilitary groups, has a strength of at least forty cadres and was being supplied with weapons and logistical support by the Sri Lanka Army, they said.

"Transport arrangements, arms and ammunition supplies are arranged by the Sri Lanka Army Intelligence," Gnanatheepan said.

However, the funding for the Karuna Group, which is mainly based in two places, Thivuchenai and Thirukonamadu, was being provided by an external source through a key operative, he said.

Meanwhile, the Liberation Tigers conferred "Tamil National Patriot" titles on the two sisters of Puhalventhan who killed in revenge last Wednesday night by suspected paramilitaries, at Palacholai in Batticaloa.

Mrs. Yogarasa Yogeswary, 26, and Thurairasa Vathany, 17, were shot as they emerged from their door to greet two callers who had entered the compound around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday. A two years old child was seriously wounded.

Their were cremated with full military honors at the LTTE Cemetary for Patriots Saturday, daily Batticaloa Eelanaatham reported. The LTTE’s Senior Batticaloa military, Colonel Banu, other LTTE commanders, LTTE fighters and Palacholai residents paid their last respect to the sisters.

Tensions continued in Sri Lanka’s Northeast amid continuing violence and aggressive patrolling by government troops in several locations, including the northern Jaffna peninsula.

In Jaffna Sri Lankan Troops angered by recent attacks on their comrades carried out house to house searches – including many homes occupied by people who had previously been forced to flee during two decades of war.

"Most of the Tamils support the LTTE," 25-year-old soldier Sarath told Reuters after checking homes in the military-held peninsula.

"Today we checked the area for weapons like hand bombs and grenades. Some people give us information. By these attacks, it is their own people who suffer."

Soldiers cordoned off and searched several villages in Jaffna district on Wednesday including Kachchai area in Thenmaradchy, Ariyalai in Jaffna, Myilankadu in Valikamam North, Erlalai North and Mandan in Vadamaradchy area.

At least seven youths were reportedly arrested in two days of cordon-and-search operations in the region, where a clutch of attacks by unidentified gunmen ten days ago left at least fifteen soldiers dead.

Troops cordoned the area surrounding the road leading to Potpathi Road Jaffna from Kondavil on Palaly Road and are conducting house to house searches early morning Tuesday. The Kodikamam area in Thenmaradchy and Kerudavil area in Meesalai were also cordoned and searched.

This week an organization calling itself the "Roaring Peoples Force" claimed responsibility for the recent attacks against SLA troops in the Jaffna district.

The organization, widely suspected to be a front for the LTTE, warned that the attacks will intensify if SLA continues to roundup and harass civilians.

Posters condemning the paramilitary Eelam Peoples Democratic Party (EPDP) leader Douglas Devananda and demanding the SLA leave Jaffna were pasted overnight on street walls in several parts of Jaffna, TamilNet reported Wednesday.

An Mi-17 transport helicopter of the Sri Lanka Airforce (SLAF) came under fire and made an emergency landing in Kumana, Ampara district, reports said. It is the first time a Sri Lankan aircraft has been fired on since the February 2002 ceasefire.

"The helicopter came under fire - it had two bullet holes and minor damage," SLAF spokesman Group Captain Ajantha Silva told Reuters, blaming the Tigers. "Definitely it was a terrorist action."

Suspected Tamil Tigers fired mortar bombs at a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camp in eastern Sri Lanka, military officials said Tuesday.

The bombs missed the camp in Meeravodai, around 20 miles (30 km) outside the eastern town of Batticaloa and caused no casualties.

Miravodai is located 4 km north of Kiran where two Tamils were shot and killed by unidentified gunmen Monday night.

"81 mm mortars were fired from the uncleared areas" at the army camp, a military official in Batticaloa told Reuters, referring to Tiger held areas.

A civilian was wounded when two men riding a motorbike lobbed a grenade at an SLA road patrol at Pethalai in Valaichenai around 12:45 p.m. Monday.

On the other side of the island, unidentified attackers threw hand grenades at a meeting of police in north-western Sri Lanka, wounding at least 18 officers, the Defense Ministry said

The grenade was thrown as around 30 policemen attended a routine briefing by superiors at Pesalai police station late Monday in Mannar district.

Sri Lankan forces took two Tamil youths into custody in a three-hour cordon and search operation conducted in the bazaar area of the Mannar town Wednesday morning, TamilNet reported.

A senior cadre of PLOTE, a paramilitary group operating with the SLA in Vavuniya, was abducted by unidentified gunmen riding in a van whilst riding his motorbike. The SLA blamed the LTTE.

The abduction was raised by international ceasefire monitors with the LTTE, but the Tigers denied the Army’s accusation, pointing out that the vehicle, which belonged to a local resident, had been moving around in SLA-controlled territory.

A claymore mine exploded Monday just missing a police patrol in Vavuniya.

"The policemen were returning after a routine route-clearing patrol when they were ambushed," a military spokesman told AFP. "They had a narrow shave. There were no casualties."

There was a similar explosion aimed at a bus transporting 60 constables in the east of the island late Sunday, the military said, adding the blast also narrowly missed the police.

A claymore mine went off Monday morning hitting an unmanned SLA post on Vavuniya - Mannar road at Varikuddiyoor, 12 km northwest of Vavuniya town, police said.

On Sunday, unidentified gunmen shot and killed an armed policeman, Mahes Ranasinghe, inside the Vavuniya Hospital premises and abucted Ms Gunaratnam Puveneswari who was undergoing treatment at the hospital under police custody.

After firing at Mr Ranasinghe, unidentified men entered the ward through backdoor, ordered the remaining policemen to leave the site, took command of the patient, lifted her over the walls of the hospital and fled the site in a van, police said.

Puvaneswari, who took cyanide when Sri Lanka Navy arrested her with four others on board a boat in Mannar sea last Tuesday, was taken away by the men who entered the ward. The LTTE has denied involvement and blamed Army-backed paramilitaries.

Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) soldiers and Police cordoned and searched large areas of Mandaitivu, an islet located south west of Jaffna town, from 9 a.m. and 12 noon Sunday. Residents were barred from leaving the islet when the search was in progress.

India and Sri Lanka this week conducted their first-ever fully fledged joint naval exercises off the island’s western coast, carrying out various manoeuvres, including professional fleet managment and mid-sea transfer of personnel between ships.

Two Indian Navy warships, INS Sukanya and INS Kirpan, together with an Indian Navy helicopter and a Donnier aircraft participated with three Sri Lankan navy ships, a gunboat and a fast attack craft

Sri Lanka’s navy conducted a similar exercise recently with India’s Coast Guard.

"This was the first exercise involving the two navies, though there had been a regular interaction," said Sri Lankan Naval spokesman Jayantha Perera was quoted as saying.

"The exercise was purely a professional one, involving fleet manoeuvre, boarding of pirate vessels and mid-sea transfer between ships," Perera said.

INS Kirpan is a corvette, indigenously designed and built in India by the garden reach shipyard of Kolkatta. Sukanya is an offshore patrol vessel and has served as the flagship and the presidential yacht for the President of India.

They are based at Vishakhapatnam and are part of the Indian Navy’s eastern fleet.

Meanwhile, Vice Admiral Sureesh Mehta, Commander in Chief of the Indian Navy’s Eastern Naval Command visited Sri Lanka this week.

He met with the Service Commanders of the Sri Lankan armed forces, Vice Admiral W. K. J Karannagoda, Air Marshal G. D Perera, Lt. Gen. G.S.C Fonseka, Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral D.W. K Sandagiri and the Prime Minister/Deputy Minister of Defence, Ratnasiri Wickramanayake.

“These friendly discussions focused on ongoing bilateral cooperation,” a statement by the Indian Embassy in Colombo said.

The Indian Army’s Eastern Commander Lt.Gen B.S. Thakar was also in Colombo earlier this month to exchange views with regard to the defence issues.

WSWS: India's 'Suez Canal' [Dec. 14, 2005]

The Foreign ministers of Sri Lanka and Norway are scheduled to meet in Hong Kong Thursday to discuss Oslo continuing its efforts in brokering peace in the Indian Ocean island, even as the Scandinavian country seeks a new approach by both sides to its role.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera and his Norwegian counterpart Jonas Gahr Store are scheduled to meet during the World Trade Organization’s ministerial meeting in Hong Kong.

The meeting comes amid renewed friction between the two states, with Colombo bristling at the new Norwegian government’s declaration that it expected certain conditions to be met if it was to continue as facilitator.

Colombo expressed ‘concern’ over the remarks made last week by Norwegian International Development Minister Erik Solheim, the Sunday Times said, adding that it would raise the issue with Norway’s ambassador.

Sri Lanka’s new President Mahinda Rajapakse was elected by a substantial majority of Sinhala voters on a hardline position on the peace process that included a vow to review Norway’s role.

But escalating violence in the island’s Northeast, combined with a pointed refusal by India to get involved in brokering an end to the protracted ethnic conflict spurred Rajapakse to call the Norwegians back in.

The LTTE welcomed Colombo’s decision, but Norway has reacted cautiously.

“Our initial reaction is that it’s positive that we’ve been asked to continue our work. This is a vote of confidence,” Solheim said in Oslo.

“But we want to make sure we agree with the government as well as with the LTTE on the conditions before we accept to take on that role again,” he told AFP in Oslo.

There is speculation in Colombo that Norway will seek a better audit trail of communications and, given past accusations of bias, will insist the two parties take the blame for any failures (or successes) of the brokering process.

Political correspondents in Colombo also said Samaraweera was being rushed to Colombo to demand that Solheim, Norway’s Special Envoy to Sri Lanka’s peace process, be replaced in the peace process.

Solheim was appointed as International Development Minister when a new government took charge in Oslo and it is not clear who the next Special Envoy will be.

But he is one of the diplomats with the longest involvement in Olso’s project in Sri Lanka and is known to have the confidence of the LTTE leadership - when former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar demanded Solheim be removed in 2000, the LTTE insisted he remain.

Interestingly, Samaraweera, a close aide of former President Chandrika Kumaratunga – like his predecessor Kadirgamar - has been one of the most strident and public critics of Norway’s role in Sri Lanka, accusing Oslo of being biased towards the LTTE.

He once famously sneered: "Of course we can’t expect anything better from a nation of salmon-eaters who turned into international busybodies."

Indeed, criticism of Norway’s efforts to broker peace in Sri Lanka not only underpinned Rajapakse’s election campaign but was integral to the support of the Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) and the Buddhist monks party, the Jeyathika Hela Urumaya (JHU).

And Rajapakse snubbed Norway’s congratulations and offer to resume facilitation delivered within hours of his victory being confirmed. Indeed, he avoided any reference to Norway in his victory speech and in is inaugural speech as President talked of getting other international actors such as the United Nations and friendly neighbours – an undisguised reference to India – involved.

However in the wake of Samaraweera’s visit to Delhi earlier this month it has become clear that Delhi does not wish to see Norway’s role in Sri Lanka disrupted.

Meanwhile Japan, Sri Lanka’s biggest aid donor, last week suddenly offered to host future talks, if both sides were agreeable.

The offer, made by Yasushi Akashi, Japan’s peace envoy, pre-empts the customary wrangling about whether talks should be discussed within Sri Lanka (as the new government has insisted) or in a foreign location (as the LTTE has always insisted).

President Rajapaske’s administration has said talks in international venues confer legitimacy on the LTTE, which it considers a terrorist group. However, Sri Lanka’s government is willing to hold discussions in a country in Asia, Akashi was quoted by Bloomberg as saying.

Akashi did not visit the Tigers during his visit and said the Sri Lankan government had told him not to contact them directly.

LTTE media coordinator Daya Master told Reuters that “the Tiger leadership has not decided yet whether to attend peace talks in Japan.”

"After deciding we will inform the facilitators," he added. "Akashi’s message came through the media, but any suggestion should be made through Norway."

Co-chairs of Sri Lanka’s donor community - the US, Japan, Norway and the European Union - will meet in Brussels on December 19 to review the peace process in the island amid an escalation in violence, Akashi said.

"In Brussels we will certainly be engaged in a fundamental analysis of the situation on the prospects of peace in Sri Lanka... We will take stock of the situation and determine the kind of role the co-chairs might be able to play in this situation."

"The deterioration of the situation, the potential danger of a sudden escalation of violence and very delicate state in which the parties are engaged in a comprehensive review, I think the co-chairs are paying a lot of attention as to what is happening and what could happen in Sri Lanka," Akashi said.

Asked on the possibility of India serving as a partner to the donor co-chairs, Akashi said that the question did not arise "based on the historical fact that the four co-chairs chaired the Tokyo conference on the reconstruction and development of Sri Lanka in June 2003."

"The four co-chairs are the four co-chairs. But we would very much like to engage in continuous and substantive discussions and exchange of views with the government of India, which obviously carries a very considerable influence in this region,” Akashi, who will attend the Brussels meeting on behalf of Japan, said. “We have been thinking and talking with India how best we could deal with each other."

Sri Lanka’s is stepping up pressure on the European Union to proscribe the Liberation Tigers in its member states, even amid renewed efforts to resume peace talks, reports said. Sri Lanka’s position is being bolstered by Indian pressure, reports also said.

Whilst the EU slapped a travel ban on the LTTE after it was accused of being behind the assassination of former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in August, the 25-member bloc has refrained from imposing a threatened all out ban.

However, the new Sinhala nationalist administration of President Mahinda Rajapakse has been pressing the EU to proscribe the LTTE as a terrorist organisation.

The LTTE has protested that an EU ban will embolden the state to adopt intransigent positions at future talks and undermine the Tamils’ ability to make the case in the international stage.

This week Sinhala nationalists marched in Colombo demanding the EU ban the Tigers. Activists of the National Movement Against Terrorism (NMAT) demonstrated in front of the EU’s offices

Malinda Seneviratne, a official of the NMAT’s co-ordinating committee, said "We want EU to ban the LTTE and stop their fund raising in EU member states. EU must ban them the same way they have banned the Al Qaeda."

The EU has not commented, but in strongly worded statement issued protesting the killing of Kadirgamar by a sniper, the European bloc said it is “is actively considering the formal listing of the LTTE as a terrorist organisation” and that “in the meantime, [it] has agreed that with immediate effect, delegations from the LTTE will no longer be received in any of the EU Member States until further notice.”

The European Union also agreed that “each Member State will, where necessary, take additional national measures to check and curb illegal or undesirable activities (including issues of funding and propaganda) of the LTTE, its related organisations and known individual supporters.”

Two weeks ago Sri Lankan press reports said India was also pressing the EU to proscribe the LTTE.

The Island newspaper quoted ‘informed sources’ as saying that India’s Ministry of Home Affairs has sent to the EU, through the Minister of External Affairs, a dossier on the LTTE and three Indian militant organisations to be considered for a ban.

The Indian dossier sent to the EU says the LTTE runs a wide network of publicity and propaganda activities through bases in at least 54 countries, the Sinhala nationalist paper said, adding that financial support comes in the form of donations from expatriate Tamils across Switzerland, Canada, Australia, the UK, the US and

The LTTE has already been proscribed by India (in 1991), the United States (in 1997) and Britain (in 2001). Fundraising has been also banned in Australia and Canada.

While Colombo has been increasingly engaged in portraying Tamils’ struggle for self-determination as ‘terrorism’ in international fora taking advantage of the changed political climate following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the consequent war on terrorism, Liberation Tigers have exhibited genuine desire to adhere to the international human rights standards by closely engaging with UN agencies,

Human Rights has gained prominence in the last few years as global climate on terror has allowed Nations to advance their own national interests using Human Rights as an instrument. We are saddened by biased application and adoption of double standards in approaching Human Rights issues.

Right to life, Right to Identity and the Right to Homeland constitute the three most essential tenets of Human Rights. The Right to Homeland represents a fundamental “Collective right” of a people so that every member of this group can exercise freely his or her political, economic, civil and social “Individual Rights.” The right to Homeland represents an inalienable fundamental right of a people to determine their own political destiny without any external coercion and, if necessary, to seek secession, he added.

It is critical for us to understand the legacy of Western European thinking related to human rights, statutes and the international covenants on Human rights, to declare the legitimacy of our struggle and to expose the transgression of the Sinhala polity on Tamils fundamental rights.

Current human rights statutes are codifications evolved from peoples’ “natural rights” and “inalienable rights," a body of thinking advanced by 18th century philosophers Locke and Rousseau. In this context, self-determination relates to the collective right to life with freedom, and represents peoples’ right to live as a nation. The fundamental rights of people is also the inspiration behind and cornerstone of US’s Declaration of Independence.

Successive governments in the South have alienated Tamil people, in sharing power within the Sri Lankan political system and unleashed genocidal violence to Tamils’ non-violent resistance against discrimination and oppression. Now Tamils have evolved into a strong force asserting their distinct identity under a national leadership. Around 18 000 youths gave their lives in the war to safeguard the inalienable right of Seif determination.

Today, Tamil people are living in their homeland deprived of their right to life and the right to live with freedom and dignity. Our homeland is under occupation by the Sinhala military and our people are driven from their homes and forced to live in refugee centres. Whenever our people demonstrate against the injustice and express their political aspirations, they are threatened of their lives by the military, despite the cease fire agreement.

Sri Lankan Governments have not yet conducted proper investigations to provide answer to the parents and relatives of hundreds of Tamil youths who disappeared in Jaffna immediately after the Sri Lanka military occupied Jaffna peninsula. Sri Lanka’s political and legal systems have stymied exposing security forces’ complicity in Chemmani mass graves, Bindunuwewa killings and several other crimes. Tamil people are also perplexed.

The Liberation Tigers have demonstrated their firm commitment to Human Rights even during the height of war. For example, the LTTE has strictly adhered to the norms of the Geneva Convention in treating prisoners of war.

Many international humanitarian agencies are working in the liberated areas of the Tamil homeland independently without any harassment or hindrance. We have assured our full co-operation for anyone who wants to conduct investigations to independently verify complaints

Article 4 of the Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) proposal we submitted for NorthEast governance demonstrates our commitment for human rights.

Allegations still continue on the matter of recruiting children. We continue to explain the ground realities of children who have lost their parents in the war and have been driven to poverty. We are closely interacting with UNICEF and other relevant agencies to address their concerns.

Statistics relating to allegations are provided to the UNICEF periodically and the process of dialogue is ongoing in this matter. We have open invitation to UNICEF and other human rights agencies to work with us to institute effective realistic enquiry proceedings into the allegations.

We had discussions with the Secretary General of the Amnesty International (AI) last week and invited AI to conduct an independent survey. The number of joint projects we have ongoing with UN agencies, ICRC, and other international organizations for human rights indicates the level of transparency we have adopted to help allay concerns of these agencies.

While commemorating the International Human Rights Day today, let us think of the hundreds of thousands of our people killed by state terrorism and hundreds who have disappeared under military occupation. Let us resolve to unite in our mission to win our rights to our homeland on the basis of self- determination. Let us resolve to cherish human rights in our homeland, and preserve and nurture our national and cultural traditions.

Compiled from a December 12 TamilNet report on keynote address by Mr. S. P. Tamilselvan, head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, on Human Rights Day.

Sri Lanka’s new President last week made the first of what is hopefully a series of policy reversals necessary to shift his administration away from the hardline positions on the peace process he adopted during the November presidential polls and towards a practical peace process. Mahinda Rajapakse invited the Royal Norwegian government to resume its crucial role as facilitators in talks to end Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict. Interestingly, his Sinhala nationalist allies, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) and, more importantly, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) did not protest, instead maintaining a studied silence over the move which reneges on key undertakings in the pre-election pacts he signed with both parties.

Despite espousing extremist nationalist positions during his election campaign and his strong personal beliefs, observers of Sri Lanka’s conflict had hoped that Rajapakse would take a more ‘realistic’ or pragmatic approach once in office. Initially such optimism was dashed, particularly in the wake of his victory and inaugural speeches. Moreover, fresh optimism stemming from his reversal on Norway’s role as facilitator is likely to prove misplaced.

Rejection of Norway is only the first of many issues that needs to be reversed. Some of Rajapakse’s other election pledges included the refusal to countenance a federal solution to end the ethnic conflict and the rejection of any aid-sharing mechanisms with the Tamil Tiger controlled areas of the Northeast – in particular the Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure (P-TOMS). The Rajapakse government faces the challenging and potentially embarrassing task of extricating itself from its self-imposed policy hurdles before arriving at the position from which previous administrations were even able to being engaging in peace negotiations. The final and potentially most substantial hurdle to a permanent will be that of a getting an agreement acceptable to the Tamils also accepted by the Sinhalese at referendum.

Much has been made of Sri Lanka’s powerful Presidency. If Rajapske were to see the light, some argue, the powers of his office would enable him to push through a peace deal. But this neglects the substantial difficulties Sri Lanka’s political system poses. Should President Rajapakse decide that a meaningful peace process and power-sharing with Tamils are the most sensible route to a stable Sri Lanka, he has the unenviable task of convincing his hardline coalition partners, the combative main opposition and the Sinhala majority in the South of the merits of this u-turn.

The invitation to Norway back into Sri Lanka is arguably the first step to initiating talks with the LTTE. However, it was not made without first making exploratory inquiries as to the possibilities of replacing the Norwegians. The rejection of overtures by President Rajapakse’s government toward the Indian government and indication by New Delhi that it preferred the continuation of the status quo were a crucial factor in the Sri Lankan government’s new pragmatism.

The JVP/JHU silence is intriguing. Some suggest it is a sign that even the more hard line elements of Sri Lanka’s political spectrum are now aware of the geopolitical realities that grip the island. However this optimism is misplaced – the Marxists have been more than ready before to challenge international community at the right time. Others suggest their passivity stems from the implicit admission by some of Sri Lanka’s top generals last week that the armed forces, lacking modern weapons and good intelligence, was not yet ready to meet the LTTE on the battlefield. A peace process may provide the time needed to make ready.

So what can be achieved through such a peace process? On the core issues, an unassailable impasse is glaringly obvious. Rajapakse has rejected federalism and even his shift from a defence of a ‘unitary’ to a ‘united’ Sri Lanka – and that, moreover at Delhi’s urging – is slight enough to be meaningless. He has, in any case, rejected the notion of a Tamil homeland and by implication a Tamil national identity, cornerstones of the Tamil position. But no one seriously expects these issues to be taken up anyway, with more pressing issues needing to be addressed – the fraying ceasefire, for one.

But even beyond the truce, there is the issue of aid flows to the war-shattered Northeast – or, rather, the lack of aid. Rajapakse has rejected any potential aid sharing mechanisms with the LTTE. The last such effort at a mutual rehabilitation effort was the P-TOMS. It was ambushed by a legal challenge by the JVP and then dispatched to the scrap heap shortly after Rajapakse came to power. Instead, the new administration has offered to develop the Northeast as part of an island wide developmental exercise. The Tamils are unenthusiastic about this solution, as it deliberately fails to recognise that the conflict has been fought predominantly in their areas and, as a result, the Northeast will require specific attention to redress the substantial imbalances with the South.

The central issue now is of course the ceasefire. From the LTTE’s perspective this is primarily about implementing the February 2002 truce i.e. about disarming the Army-backed paramilitaries and restoring normalcy to Tamil areas by withdrawing Sri Lankan troops from civilian spaces. For the state, it is about halting the killing of intelligence officers and political assassinations. It remains very much to be seen if talks will begin and, if so, how far they can progress, given the yawning chasm.

Given Delhi’s polite rebuff, it is clear that President Rajapakse administration can be forced to toe the line by the international community’s pressure and Colombo’s hurried diplomatic scramble this week suggests he is well aware of the limitations of his position. For a start, with an ambitious new budget aimed at promoting the development of party strongholds in the rural south, the ruling coalition is critically dependent on foreign aid. But those cheered by Rajapakse’s u-turn on Norway and the JVP/JHU silence, ought to reflect on the serious difficulties that the new President faces even if he was to roll over and accept the international crib sheet as his predecessor, Chandrika Kumaratunga occasionally did.

To begin with there are President Rajapakse’s own political interests to consider. He undoubtedly wants a supportive, even, compliant Parliament, though he will settle for an nonobstructive one. With parliamentary elections a possibility in the near future, he cannot afford to damage his credibility with too many policy reversals so early into his tenure. Dramatic u-turns could tar his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) as unprincipled and untrustworthy – even by Sri Lankan party standards. Most importantly, it would lend weight to the JVP assertions that they are the only credible force in Sinhala politics capable of delivering on their election pledges.

Rajapakse would not want to alienate the JVP and JHU anyway. With a much better relationship with both than his predecessor, his chances of securing a second term and in the near term a parliamentary majority are substantially boosted by maintaining these relationships.

Then there is the main opposition. The United National Party (UNP), long the darling of the international community seeking to produce market economy and a liberal peace in Sri Lanka, made a telling mistake in the closing stages of the election campaign: it scrambled –clumsily and unsuccessfully - for the Sinhala nationalist heartland, shedding its veneer of economic and political liberalism, offering subsidies hand over fist and thumping the anti-LTTE drum. After its defeat, the UNP is more than likely to make stronger efforts in the coming period to woo back voters who have flocked to the SLFP and JVP in recent years. The UNP leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, is facing his sternest internal challenge yet, with the hawkish Karu Jayasuriya positioning himself as a potential and much needed successor.

However, there is always the potential of an alliance between the SLFP and the UNP emerging and curtailing the ‘outbidding’ dynamic on the peace process. Alliances between the two main Sinhala have been called for and mooted in the past. All such initiatives have hitherto failed, but with the new personalities involved, the chances may be better. However, the lowest common denominator on the ethnic question – what degree of powersharing to offer the Tamils – is likely to be reduced even further by the JVP.

The Marxists’ exponential growth in Sri Lankan politics has surprised many political analysts. Should their rate of growth continue, they could potentially become the second largest party on the island, by passing the SLFP and rendering an alliance with the UNP futile. It is not unthinkable – if Rajapakse u-turns on all those issues necessary to roll the peace process even imperceptibly forward, a bewildered and irritated Sinhala electorate may switch ever more behind the JVP.

There is little faith amongst the Tamils that any of these factors are likely to change in the near future. In the unlikely event that Sri Lanka’s new president jettisons his right-wing manifesto, he faces the dilemma which bedevilled the previous SLFP President, Chandrika Kumaratunga: any compromises on hardline policies are likely to lead to the downfall of his government. Even if the JVP and JHU continue to maintain a helpful silence, why would the UNP commit political suicide and help him – the greater good of the country has never brought the two main parties together and the tradition, even tendency, for ethnic outbidding by bashing the deal offered to the Tamils will undoubtedly recur.

The international community needs to recognize that Sri Lanka’s southern politics are continuing to edge toward the extreme right. Even the bluntest aid conditionality has failed to provide sufficient resistance to this slide. Punitive actions – and threats of further actions – against the LTTE has conversely, contributed to this. Ultimately, of course, the southern parties are aware that aid will not be withheld to the point of too much pain – donors do not want to be responsible for the country sliding into complete anarchy.

The international community will thus need to make some dramatic and controversial shifts in present policy to arrest the country’s slide back into conflict. The cocktail of theocratic, Marxist and nationalist elements within southern polity compels this. The donor community will need to sidestep the state and channel assistance to the Northeast. The latent Sinhala fear of the strengthening of the Tamils may prove to be the only means of shifting southern politics back towards the centre.

The first chief of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Retired Norwegian Army Major-General Trond Furuhovde, passed away following a period of illness at his home in Norway. He was 67.

Maj. Gen. Furuhovde, who retired from his one year service (March 2002 - Feb. 2003) as SLMM Head of Mission in Sri Lanka, returned to the island again in February 2004, when the Norwegian government re-appointed him after a controversy in November 2004 involving his successor, who was declared persona non grata by Colombo.

Maj. Gen. Furuhovde, an experienced monitor in international conflicts, has earlier served as the Force Commander of United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) from 1993 - 1995.

Furuhovde who was under medical treatment in Norway, undertook a mission to Sri Lanka as a Special Representative of the Royal Norwegian Government in October 2005 to consult with the parties.

The leader of the Liberation Tigers, Mr. Vellupillai Pirapaharan, sent a letter of condolence to Mrs. Furuhovde in which he also expressed his movement’s gratitude for the General’s efforts to keep the peace in Sri Lanka.

“General Furuhovde twice undertook the most difficult task of the Head of Mission in Sri Lanka during turbulent times, and made an outstanding contribution to the establishment of peace and stability in the war torn Tamil homeland. With extra-ordinary skill and leadership he guided the monitoring mission in overseeing peace and helped to strengthen and consolidate the truce agreement,” Mr. Pirapaharan wrote.

“With passionate commitment to peace General Furuhovde performed his task with stunning efficiency, adhering to the noble principles of objective neutrality and social justice. His exemplary service will always be appreciated with gratitude. On behalf of the people of Tamil Eelam, I express my heartfelt condolences to you and your family.”

International and local charities have wasted aid money meant for tsunami relief and slowed reconstruction efforts in Sri Lanka, an independent think-tank said.

The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) asked the Sri Lankan government to rein in the number of charities, many of which it says are in competition with each other and preoccupied with grabbing media attention.

Last year’s tsunami killed more than 31,000 people on the island and displaced nearly a million. Some 250,000 people still live in cramped transitional homes, despite international aid pledges topping 3.2 billion dollars.

"Reluctance to co-operate with government institutions and competitive behaviour towards others continue to hamper coordination and implementation," said IPS economist Paul Steele.

Nearly 300 aid agencies capitalised on a huge international outpouring of sympathy for tsunami survivors and collected millions of dollars to rebuild and restore livelihoods along Sri Lanka’s devastated coastlines.

But an official from the country’s housing ministry said some NGOs (non-governmental organisations) were less than honest.

"We came across quite a few NGOs that had signed MOUs (memorandum of understanding to build homes) and then used the document to raise funds," said the official, who declined to be named.

IPS’s Steele said one way to monitor performance would be to consolidate. "It might be better if some NGOs are amalgamated. There is a whole plethora of costs," he said.

"Administration costs are high. There are salary anomalies within NGOs, poor targeting of recipients and most unfortunately, competition among organisations themselves to get visibility within the community," he said.

The tsunami damage to infrastructure was estimated at one billion dollars, but the replacement cost was put at between 1.5 and 1.6 billion dollars, according to a study released in January.

"Costs are up by around 60 percent since January. For instance, the government estimated around 400,000 rupees (4,000 dollars) was enough to build a house. Now its over 600,000 rupees (6,000 dollars)," said Sisira Jayasinghe, economist and an author of the IPS post-tsunami recovery study.

The island’s former tsunami reconstruction chief, Rohini Nanayakkara, warned that Sri Lanka has to compete for aid following natural disasters in other parts of the region.

She said that although the initial pledges were twice the reconstruction cost, the country could end up with funding gaps.

"If aid is not closely monitored, donor interest will slow down because there have been other disasters elsewhere that are now drawing their attention," she said.

In a report to parliament, Auditor General Sarath Mayadunne said continuous project delays had cost millions of dollars.

President Mahinda Rajapakse, who was elected on November 17, has set up a new authority to coordinate all tsunami-related relief operations.

Violent protests against the continuing military presence in and around high schools and other public places erupted in the Jaffna peninsula this week with students in Point Pedro clashing with troops and police.

There were other protests against the killings of two Tamil activists last week by suspected Army-backed paramilitaries and as this edition goes to print, the Jaffna Student Consortium said that they have decided to expand the protests across the district schools.

Military violence on Monday against protesters spurred more demonstrations and tension gripped the Vadamaradchy area as protests continued into Tuesday.

The students are demanding the withdrawal of Sri Lankan troops from the High Security Zone (HSZ) encompassing Hartley College and Methodist Girls High School.

The February 2002 ceasefire stipulates that Sri Lankan troops must withdraw from schools, places of worship, private homes and other civic spaces they are occupying.

Despite repeated protests by residents keen to resettle in their homes, the military refuses to move out, citing security concerns. Several town and villages in the Jaffna peninsula are now enclosed in the military’s HSZs.

On Tuesday hundreds of students from other schools in Vadamaradchy area joined the protest by setting up road blocks using tree branches and dragging concertina fences, and burning tyres along all four roads leading to the HSZ, College Road, Vinayagamudaliyar (VM) Road, Harbor Road and Sea Road, and blockaded the SLA camps

More Sri Lankan soldiers and police were brought into the area and formed a cordon around the students Tuesday. The situation further deteriorated as parents, fearing safety of their children participating in the protests, assembled around the outer circle of SLA soldiers and police. Although tear gas was used in places and soldiers fired into the air, there are no report of any injuries.

Protests spread to other towns in Vadamaradchy when students from schools in Nelliyady, Valvettiturai (VVT), Udupiddy and Thunnalai set fire to tyres in front of their schools.

On Monday hundreds of students of Hartley College and Methodist Girls High School setup road blocks and demonstrated against the SLA’s efforts to construct a new checkpoint on College Road leading to both schools. SLA soldiers fired warning shots into the air and tear gas to disperse the protesting students.

On Saturday protesters burned barricades and blocked major roads in Sri Lanka’s government-held Jaffna peninsula on Friday as part of a general strike over the killing of two Tamil activists.

They blamed the government and the EPDP, an anti-LTTE Tamil group that is an alliance partner of new President Mahinda Rajapakse, for the killings. The military denied the charge said they had no idea who gunned down two Tamil men on Thursday night.

"We have no information on who has done this," Brigadier Nalin Witharanage told Reuters. "But every time something like this happens people blame the army or the EPDP."

Last week a 24 year old man was wounded when troops fired on stone-throwing protestors who confronted them in Meesalai when the soldiers tied to dismantle roadblocks set up by local residents.

Hundreds of families displaced from the HSZ in Valigamam district and living in refugee camps for more than fifteen years picketed in front of Uduvil Pradeshya Sabha offices protesting against the reduction in the relief assistance announced by the government.

The Government has been providing dry rations and compensation worth Rs 1140 per month per displaced family based on the 1990 estimate of living needs. But this amount has not been increased for the past 15 years.

Protesters said that the Government should either increase the relief money to meet the basic living needs, or it should allow them to move into their own homes inside the HSZ.

The role of Army-backed paramilitaries in stoking communal tensions between Tamils and Muslims became clearer this week as two cadres who surrendered to the Liberation Tigers revealed their erstwhile comrades’ deadly attack on a mosque in Akkaraipattu.

The two cadres of the Karuna Group surrendered to the LTTE Monday after an abortive attack on Tiger positions in the island’s restive east. The Group is named after the renegade LTTE commander who deserted to the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in early 2004 and heads it.

A key operative of the Karuna Group, Iniyabarathy alias Barathy, and three other cadres were killed Monday night when their party was ambushed by the Tigers whilst enroute to lay an ambush of their own near the LTTE’s Kanjikudichcha Aaru forward defence post.

Iniyabarathy was killed with three other paramilitary cadres in the no-man zone between the Sri Lanka Army held Manthoddam and the LTTE held Kanjikudichcha Aaru, located 5 km east of Siyambalanduwa near the border of the Moneragala and Amparai Districts.

Iniyabarathy, described as Karuna’s deputy, was allegedly behind many abductions and killings in the east under the aegis of the Army-backed shadow war against the LTTE.

A group of at least ten paramilitaries were moving towards the LTTE forward defence posts located around a kilometer from the positions of Sri Lanka’s elite Special Task Force (STF) in the Amparai district when they were ambushed.

Two other paramilitary cadres surrendered to the Tigers, Mr. Daya Mohan, political head of the LTTE in Amparai told TamilNet

The pair confirmed reports that Iniyabarathy’s cadres had carried out a grenade attack two weeks on Akkaraipattu Mosque, Mr. Mohan said.

Over a hundred Muslims were praying at the mosque on the Akkaraipattu-Amparai road on November 18 when grenades were thrown into the congregation early Friday morning, killing four people and seriously injuring over twenty.

The LTTE condemned a grenade attack on a mosque in the eastern Amparai district as a calculated attempt to create “division and animosity” between Tamils and Muslims.

The Sri Lankan military blamed the LTTE for the attack.

At the time, Rauf Hakeem, the leader of the island’s largest Muslim party, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) said that it is “highly unlikely,” that the LTTE was involved.

The targeting of Muslims has become more pronounced in the past few weeks, though some are blamed on rivalries within the community.

Karuna, the Tigers’ most senior commander in the east, defected to the SLA in April 2004 following the collapse of his six-week rebellion against the LTTE leadership.

Since then several LTTE cadres and supporters, paramilitaries and security forces personnel have been killed in violence that has come to be characterized as a ‘shadow war.’

In the latest revelation of Sri Lankan military collusion with anti-LTTE paramilitaries, the surrendered cadres further had said that the paramilitary group was operating from the STF camp in Pannalagama in Amparai district.

Meanwhile attacks on Muslims continued. Unidentified gunmen shot and killed two Muslim anglers Monday night at Maruthamunai, 34 km south of Batticaloa town.

And last week motorbike-riding gunmen shot and wounded Mr. A.L.M. Falleel, the Divisional Secretary (DS) of Kattankudy, at his office around 12:40 p.m. Friday.

Internal political rifts and use of violence for political revenge within the Muslim community has been on the rise, an official at the DS office said.