Diaspora

Taxonomy Color
red

  • Blunted Tool

    May 20
    That Sri Lanka this week failed to garner enough votes at the United Nations to get on to the Human Rights Council will bring cheer to many, including a coalition of international human rights groups and the three Nobel laureates who had publicly called for Colombo’s bid to be rejected. However, this moment is neither some sort of watershed in the Sinhala state’s fortunes nor of any consequence to the ongoing suffering of the Tamil people. In short, whether Sri Lanka is on the council or not, is largely an irrelevancy.
     
    To begin with, it beggars belief that Sri Lanka could even be a credible candidate, given the brazen confidence with which the Sinhala military and its paramilitary allies murder, ‘disappear’, torture and, as news reports are beginning to acknowledge, rape - assuming, of course, that the HRC is taken seriously as site of human rights protection in the first place. Remember that Sri Lanka has actually been on the council for the past two years. Whilst the concept of ‘human rights’ has for almost two decades been promoted by powerful Western states and their associated institutions and organization as supposedly a key principle of modern governance, in practice it has proven remarkably brittle. Not because human rights are still violated, but because both Western states and their developing world favourites have been able to do so without real consequence.
     
    Thus, rather than some sort of ‘universal’ principle, the concept of ‘human rights’ has, in actuality, served mainly as a tool for the West-led international community to (re)order the world to their preference. This is not to say that human rights, in themselves, are not of moral value. As a people who have endured sixty years of oppression, including thirty years of militarized violence by the Sinhala state, the Tamils have long documented and protested their suffering in the language of human rights. Our problem, rather, is the manifest hypocrisy of the West which has, whilst lecturing us solemnly on the overarching morality of human rights, steadfastly backed the state that brutalizes us.
     
    This hypocrisy has become glaring in the past three years, as the Sinhala-supremacist regime of President Mahinda Rajapakse has enjoyed every practical assistance it requires from the West. This assistance has admittedly been rendered amid much admonishment. But harsh words won’t hurt a state like Sri Lanka. No matter how brazen Sri Lanka’s abuses against the Tamils are, concrete steps against the Sinhala state will not be forthcoming: the recent assurance by the EU – which in particular makes much about ‘human rights’ - to extend its trade concessions for three more years is a case in point.
     
    Moreover, what is interesting about this week’s tussle over Sri Lanka the UN is the polarization between various state groupings. For example, whilst Sri Lanka was passionately opposed by Western human rights groups and some states, the Sinhala regime was actively supported by China, India and, according to some reports, Japan. Clearly, this is not to say these states either have no respect for ‘human rights’ nor that they believe Sri Lanka was actually qualified to be on the council. Rather, what we are seeing is interest-driven international politics at play. Indeed, amid such polarization amongst powerful states – not in the overarching sense of the West and the Soviet Union, but on selected issues – the term ‘international community’ is increasingly losing its coherence.
     
    We argued recently that, two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the emergence of new poles (with their own interests and values) has raised serious challenges to the US-led West's interests, as well as the ideological values it has promoted in the service of those interests. We also argued the Sinhala state is making a deliberate shift to the East and away from the West and that the logic behind this realignment is that Sinhala majoritarianism will inevitably always remain in tension with West’s vision of global liberalism.
     
    Sri Lanka has long been on the frontline of the West’s efforts to expand this liberal order. The Norwegian-led peace process was the most ambitious effort yet to do this. The West mistakenly believed the UNP-led government of Ranil Wickremsinghe was a partner in the project. In reality, whilst the UNP regime was prepared to go along with the Western project (of which Japan, one of the Co-Chairs alongside the US, EU and Norway, was a reticent member), and shared the project’s free-market logic the UNP had no more commitment to liberal political values than the SLFP. Rather, both Sinhala parties are committed to Sinhala majoritarianism and communalism. This has been demonstrated by the lurch towards the Sinhala right the UNP has attempted in the past three years (the Sinhala voters, however, trust the SLFP more than the UNP to safeguard their privileged position).
     
    These dynamics are also at play in the Eastern Province, where, following the laughably unabashed rigging of the Provincial Council elections on May 10, Sivanesathurai Chandrakan, alias Pillayan, the leader of the Army-backed paramilitary group, the TMVP, has been appointed Chief Minister. It was clear that the Western states were clearly hoping for the UNP would win the elections, prompting the Sinhala ultra-nationalist Champika Ranawake, Sri Lanka's Environment minister, to mockingly declare the UPFA’s election victory as a defeat for the 'West-backed Eelamists.'
     
    The point here is that repeated insistence by powerful states, especially the United States, that Sri Lanka is not a strategic concern in no way diminishes their active involvement in the micro-dynamics of the island’s politics and conflict. From the very outset, in the early eighties, of the armed resistance phase of the Tamil liberation struggle, countries such as the United States and India, for example, have sought to pursue their interests through such localized involvement.
     
    What this means for the Tamils is that their grievances only matter when taking these up serves the geopolitical and geoeconomic interests of powerful states. The long-running efforts by the wider Tamil liberation movement to ‘internationalise’ the Tamil cause has therefore not been merely to seek sympathy abroad, but to make it clear that it is not the Tamil demand for independence that makes Sri Lanka a zone of instability and disruption in the international order, but, rather it is the ferocity of the Sinhala state’s efforts to maintain its chauvinistic domination of our people.
     
    The main point for Tamils to bear in mind is this: the world’s powerful states have no more commitment to sovereignty than to human rights. Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity is no more important to them than Tamils’ freedom. It’s just more useful at this point. And as the British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston put, ‘we have no permanent friends and we have no permanent enemies. We have permanent interests’. It is no different for any other state in today’s world.
     
    It is in this context the LTTE leader, Vellupillai Pirapaharan, observed in 1993: “Every country in this world advances its own interests. It is economic and trade interests that determine the order of the present world, not the moral law of justice nor the rights of people. International relations and diplomacy between countries are determined by such interests. Therefore we cannot expect an immediate recognition of the moral legitimacy of our cause by the international community. ... In reality, the success of our struggle depends on us, not on the world. Our success depends on our own efforts, on our own strength, on our own determination..."
  • India to build power plant on Tamils’ land
    Site proposed by the Sinhala government for the coal power plant.

    In a surprise development, India has agreed to build Sri Lanka’s proposed second coal power plant in Sampur, the site originally proposed the Sinhala government, partners in the joint-venture, the Sunday Times reported.
     
    Last week the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and India’s National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) shook hands in New Delhi over India’s acceptance of the site, according to a well-placed CEB source.
     
    While NTPC Chairman Ram Charan Sharma told the media that the 500-MW thermal power project in Trincomalee district will be one of the largest infrastructure investment in Sri Lanka, residents and rights activists complained that the Indian decision to pick that site for the power project had added to the misery of Tamil people displaced from there.
     
    The controversial site is in the North Eastern province, across the Koddiyar Bay from Trincomalee. Sampur is a large and populous fishing village overlooking the famous port.
     
    The two countries signed an agreement in December 2006, after the Sri Lanka Army captured Sampur from the LTTE in September that year, driving thirty thousand Tamils from their homes.
     
    However, the location of the plant in Sampur became an issue, with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) raising political and environmental objections.
     
    Under the agreement, NTPC is to soon launch a feasibility study on the proposed 500MW plant, estimated to cost US$500 million, while Sri Lanka will conduct a survey and secure 500 acres in Sampur for the project.
     
    Sources told the Sunday Times there was plenty of government land in Sampur to accommodate the project, adding that no persons would be displaced by the project because the area comes within a high security zone.
     
    Accommodation would be found for any persons who had been displaced earlier because of the proposed project, the government claims.
     
    However, the Tamil National Alliance alleged that there was a hidden agenda to the project to permanently evict Tamils from the Muttur east region.
     
    The TNA claims that about 30,000 Tamils were forced to leave the southern Trincomalee region when the military launched a major operation in 2006 to retake the area.
    The advocates of power plant in Sampoor region seem to think that a military victory alone would not be sufficient, in the long run, to evict Tamils permanently from the region.
     
    Up to as recently as March this year, the CEB was busy trying to secure Veloor, a site north of Trincomalee town, for the joint-venture power project.
     
    The NTPC had expressed a preference for a site that was near the Indian Oil Corporation complex. It is believed that Delhi’s sudden change of heart came after the CEB made it known that it would invite bids to build a third coal power plant at Sampur, where the Sri Lankan government was already making arrangements to build a jetty to unload coal for the second joint venture power project with the Indians.
     
    The Sunday Times’ sources believe the Indians, fearing the presence of other powers in the strategic port region, had quickly decided to accept the CEB designated location.
     
    The project, which is expected to be completed in May 2012, will see CEB and NTPC each taking an equity stake of US$75 million, while the balance money will be raised through borrowings, making a debt equity ratio of 70:30.
     
    "Indian arguments that the coal-based plant is meant to benefit locals in Trincomalee are having no effect on rights activists and the thousands who fled the region after fighting between the Tamil Tigers and the military," IANS reported.
     
    The NTPC project will affect a large number of people," the IANS report quoted K. Thurairatnasingham, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP from Trincomalee, as saying.
     
    "We have conveyed our feelings to Indian diplomats. Our people cannot accept this," he added.
     
    "This is where our forefathers lived. It is the only land in a largely dry area with water resources suitable for cultivation.We are not saying we don't want the project. But why build it in an area that will force Tamils to give up for ever their ancestral land?"
  • 1 Million in Northeast face starvation as UN cuts food rations
    Even as the global food shortage worsened and price of essentials hit record levels, the UN food agency, World Food Programme (WFP) announced it is cutting down on its rations to one million Sri Lankans it is feeding in the war-torn North and East of Sri Lanka.

    “Scarcity of food items and the subsequent escalation in the cost of essential items may result in more than one million in the country facing starvation," Mohamed Saleheen, the WFP Country Director in Colombo told the media on Friday, April 25.

    As a result of the situation, the WFP in Sri Lanka is facing major crisis, he said, and urged donor countries to respond immediately to overcome the crisis.

    “More than a million civilians affected by civil war depend on the relief supplies provided by WFP. Most of these are internally displaced and recently resettled people currently residing in Kilinochchi, Mullaiththeevu, Jaffna, Mannaar, and Batticaloa.” said Mr. Saleheen

    “Each month 9200 tons of food is required to meet the needs of the people in the North including Kilinochchi, Mullaiththeevu, Jaffna and Mannaar. However, we are able to ship only 6000 tons. If this crisis continues our activities will become complicated, and over million people dependent on WPF-funded programme will be directly affected. The civilians already suffering by the effects of civil war will be seriously hurt if unable to receive food supplies. The effect of malnutrition will not be felt immediately but will be visible only after a year or two.”

    Saleheen said the cost of food supplies has increased by more than fifty percent and the allocation of US$64 million for 2008 is no longer sufficient for WFP operations and urged donors to provide immediate assistance to affected people.

    “We appeal to the donor countries and the international community to realize the seriousness of the situation and immediately come to the aid of the affected people.”


    Commenting on the UN rations cut, the Nation Building Ministry’s Project Director, R.H.W.A. Kumarasiri, said that though they have had discussions regarding the problem, there was still no final decision on reducing the rations.

    However, Saleheen contradicting Kumarasiri said from May 1 WFP would be forced by circumstances to suspend their food-for-work programme to about 175,000 people in the war-affected regions and reduce rations of others from 1,900 kilo calories to 1,665 kilo calories per day per person.

    While suspending the food-for work-programme, he said they would continue to assist the priority targets such as the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), the returnees, the economically displaced, pregnant women, nursing mothers, children under five and school feeding, which he termed as “absolutely imperative”.

    The WFP basket of rations comprises rice, wheat flour, cooking oil, dhal and sugar. The Sunday Times learns that the quantum of rice supplied -- 200 grammes per day per head -- will remain untouched, but cuts will be in wheat flour and sugar.

    Kumarasiri said there was no problem in WFP procuring items like rice from the local market. The problem was in imported food items like wheat flour which were affected by rising world prices.

    But, according to the WFP, already two local suppliers who had contracted to supply rice this year had defaulted as they are unable to supply at the prices contracted six months earlier. Mr. Salaheen said though they had budgeted US$64 million this year to feed the affected people, so far they had only been able to raise less than half, leaving a gap of US$ 35 million to be filled.

    Saleheen warned that failure to meet the reality now would have its impact on ordinary people in several months down the line as their health might get affected. He was specifically concerned about children and pregnant women. Last year the WFP provided dry rations to affected Lankans on a budget of US$ 50 million, with more than half of it coming from the United States.
  • A new era of ‘South-South’ alliances?
    The successful visit to Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India by Iranian President Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad points to a greater, more assertive role by Iran in regional and global arenas. The growing ties between Iran and South Asia also indicate a general trend where more developing countries share their wealth and resources for development, instead of depending on Western aid. Such South-South cooperation is vital in the age of globalisation.

    One cannot underestimate Iran's increasingly visible profile on the global stage vis-a-vis the energy issue. Iran has the second largest oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia and it is a key supplier of oil and natural gas to the rest of the world. It is in this context that we should appraise Iran's spearheading of the US$ 7.5 billion Iran-India-Pakistan natural gas pipeline and two energy projects in Sri Lanka costing around US$ 1.5 billion.

    The former will be very significant for both India and Pakistan, two of the fastest developing nations in South Asia. Next to China, India has the second biggest energy consumption in Asia. Its energy needs will rise exponentially over the coming years.

    Moreover, the envisaged pipeline has also become a symbol of closer rapport between India and Pakistan. Indeed, there were many positive comments about President Ahmadinejad's behind-the-scenes diplomatic skills which literally cleared the way for the massive pipeline.

    As for Sri Lanka, it already imports 70 per cent of the crude oil requirement from Iran. Iran's help for the Sapugaskanda refinery expansion will help Sri Lanka to refine more crude oil, saving foreign exchange currently spent on importing finished products such as petrol and diesel. The Uma Oya project will be a vital lifeline for the people in Uva-Wellassa and the South, irrigating thousands of acres and as a bonus, adding 100 MW to the national grid.

    Although the power generation capacity is low when compared with the proposed coal power plants, it will nevertheless help address the present power needs up to a certain extent. Another significant aspect is that these projects are being implemented with local expertise, which will also lead to a substantial foreign exchange saving. It is well known that many donors specify that their construction firms be awarded the tender(s) as a prerequisite for granting aid.

    Many Western countries and donor agencies also attach various conditions to their aid packages, such as human rights. However, the key donor countries in the South including China and Iran have perceived the need to keep these issues quite separate from the development agenda.

    They are of the view that such issues should not be tied with development as that could ultimately negate the very purpose for which aid is provided. Increased trade and development cooperation among the developing countries is one way of reducing or nullifying the Western influence on the world development agenda.

    Although some Western countries publicly cautioned the South Asian countries not to host the Iranian leader, the fact that all three countries accorded him the highest possible welcome indicates their desire to work with Southern partners to achieve peace and prosperity.

    Indeed, Southern hemisphere countries have been assuming a bigger profile in world fora and through their own groupings such as the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of 77.

    Heads of State and Government from South Asian countries will be meeting in July in Sri Lanka for the annual SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) Summit, which should be seen as yet another opportunity to cement their bonds of friendship.

    While the SAARC Charter generally does not sanction the discussion of bilateral issues, the SAARC leaders would do well to ponder on development issues affecting their region including the prevailing food and energy crises.

    One prime example is India's willingness to provide rice to Sri Lanka in spite of an export ban on non-Basmati rice. The whole of Asia is being affected by the rice crisis and Asian countries must necessarily cooperate to overcome it. They should take the lead in developing higher-yielding rice varieties and helping each other to modernise paddy cultivation.
    Similarly, India will help Sri Lanka to build a power plant in Sampur and lay a transmission line between the two countries.

    This will make it possible for both countries to supply electricity to each other in times of need. These are fine instances of South-South cooperation which is emerging as the best solution for the woes confronting the Third World.

  • A Time of Change
    The pointedly symbolic visit to Sri Lanka, in between those to Pakistan and India, by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has inevitably sparked considerable analysis as to the implications for politics, broadly defined, in the island, the region and indeed, internationally. In the recent past Iran, long in the background of Sri Lanka's dynamics, has come into the limelight as forcibly as has China. Conversely, under President Mahinda Rajapakse, the Sinhala state is making a deliberate shift to the East and away from the West. Such realignments are, of course, never absolute. Contemporary international relations are characterized by schizophrenia whereby the modern state engages in both competition and cooperation with both ally and enemy. Nonetheless, there are specific logics inherent to the Sri Lankan state's ongoing transition. In short, the long-term interests of the Sinhala-nationalist project at the heart of the post-independence Sri Lankan state are incompatible with Western ambitions of global liberalism and are better served in the company of states committed to non-interference in each others' 'internal affairs'.
     
    The Tamil struggle against state oppression became an armed conflict during the Cold War and was promptly caught up in it. Sri Lanka's swing to the West under President Junius Jayawardene earned the Tamil militants both Western condemnation as 'terrorists' and India's active support against the Sinhala state. The armed struggle continued after the Cold War ended and global liberalism - i.e. the spread of liberal democracy and market economics - became a project pursued with evangelical zeal by powerful Western states. In this context, the Tamil armed struggle was never going to be anything but 'terrorism', no matter what horrors the Sri Lankan state visited on the Tamil people. Indeed, the latter was excused precisely because it was inflicted in the cause of 'fighting terrorism'.
     
    The point here is that whether international actors supported or opposed the Tamil liberation struggle had less to do with what Tamils did or said than with whether their struggle and its outcome served the relevant external actor's interests or not. This is still the case. For many years, the Tamils were solemnly lectured on liberal values by leading Western actors - even as they unabashedly backed the Sinhala state's oppression. This hypocrisy has been naked in the past decade the West repeatedly went to war all over the world in the pursuit of its own geopolitical and geoeconomic interests. The legitimating rhetoric was those of human rights, freedom, even peace. But the interests being pursued were all too often clearly visible through the veil of liberalism.
     
    Under President Rajapakse, the Sinhala state's ethnomajoritarian ethos has became overt and overarching. Which is why the state can abuse human rights, crush media freedoms and roll back the liberal order's hard fought gains in the island and yet retain the enthusiastic support of the majority of Sinhalese. At the same time, the emergence of new poles (with their own interests and values) has raised serious challenges to the West's interests as well as the ideological values it has promoted in the service of those interests. With Western states ideologically and institutionally committed to engineering a specific configuration of liberal democracy (consider what happens when non-Westerners use democratic means to endorse leaders and actors the West doesn't like) and free market economics, the Sinhala state knows it can never be at peace within a liberal order.
     
    Irrespective of whether the state defeats the Tamil Tigers or not, Sinhala majoritarianism (and its attendant consequences of ethnic and religious marginalisation of Tamils and, of late, Muslims) will inevitably remain in tension with the liberal order. Sinhala hegemony needs external partners unconcerned by these consequences. The logics of aid conditionalities (political or economic), notions such as 'responsibility to protect', 'power-sharing', solutions 'acceptable to all communities' etc. will simply not do. Which is why we argue that Sri Lanka's turn to China, Iran and other like-minded states - in the sense of non-interference in 'internal affairs' - is decisive. There will be relations with the West but, as many of them are already lamenting, the global liberalists will have less and less leverage.
     
    None of this is new to the West, its challengers, the Sinhala state or the Tamil liberation project's leadership. Realpolitik has always been the order of things. It's just more overt now. This is not to predict that things are going to be either better or worse for the Tamil liberation struggle, but to argue that both new opportunities and new challenges will come our way.
  • Father Karunaratnam: martyred serving the Tamil people
    In our April 9th issue, in an article entitled “Iconic of the times” one of Tamil Guardian’s columnists discussed the rationale behind the Sinhala-Buddhist Sri Lankan state’s attacks on the Northeastern Church, among which was last month’s shelling of the historic Catholic shrine of Our Lady of Madhu.
     
    The columnist argued that more important than the theological differences between the Sinhala interpretation of Buddhism and Catholicism is the inevitable conflict between an oppressive state and the social justice doctrine of the modern Catholic Church.
     
    The point was exemplified within days by the assassination by Sri Lankan commandos of one of the best-loved and most prominent priests and human rights activists in the Vanni, Father Karunaratnam.
     
    His vehicle was blasted by a command-detonated landmine even as it was being towed by a recovery truck, having broken down as Father Karunaratnam returned from Sunday Mass.
     
    He was the founder and Head of the NESOHR (North East Secretariat of Human Rights), the only local Human Rights monitoring organisation in the LTTE controlled North. NESOHR has been a vocal chronicler of government aerial attacks, killings and abductions in the North East.
     
    More telling than the murder itself is the almost non-existent international response: o Other than former peace broker Norway, not a single foreign government commented on, let alone condemned, the assassination.
     
    The current tension between the Tamil Catholic Church and the Sinhala Buddhist state begins with persistent attempts, over a one-year period, by the Bishop of the Diocese of Mannar, Dr. Joseph Rajapu to have the area around the venerated Madhu Church declared a peace zone.
     
    The Madhu Church, Sri Lanka’s oldest and most prominent Catholic shrine, was at the time also one of the largest refugee sanctuaries in the Tamil north.
     
    It was also the objective of a major Sri Lankan military offensive in Mannar which began in July last year and has been inching forward amid ferocious resistance from the Tamil Tigers..
     
    According to Bishop Joseph, the LTTE had agreed for the shrine to be designated a peace zone, if the Colombo government would give a similar guarantee. However Colombo rejected the Bishop’s plea.
     
    In early 2008, the Sri Lankan military intensified its efforts to capture the Madhu Church. Its artillery barrages expanded and intensified; shells began exploding around the site.
     
    On April 2, over five thousand Tamils in government-controlled Mannar city marched in protest demanding that the Church of Madhu be declared a peace zone.
     
    As military analysts in the Sinhala South have pointed out, there is no military value in occupying the Madhu Church and there are alternative routes into the LTTE-held North.
     
    But ahead of the Eastern elections, scheduled for May 10, there was a clear propaganda benefit in capturing the symbolic Church – especially against the backdrop of the Army’s failure since July to progress in its multiple-front onslaught against the LTTE-held Vanni.
     
    Apart from the rebuilt towns of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu deep within LTTE defences, there are almost no landmark places that could be “taken” by an army to serve as for a propaganda coup - other than the Church of Our Lady of Madhu.
     
    On April 3, a day after the last of the refugees fled from the relentless shelling, the Bishop of Mannaar, ordered the serving priests and nuns to also flee and to take with them the 400-year old Icon of our Lady of Madhu. They reached Theevanpiddi, deeper in LTTE-held Tamil territory, April 4.
     
    600 school children from the nearby Roman catholic school of Adampan and Vaddakandan Tamil mixed school also fled to Theevanpiddi in the same time.
     
    According to the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation, over 12,000 internally displaced persons from the Madhu area have been relocated.
     
    For almost two months, the Army, though a short distance from the Madhu site, had been unable to close the gap due to LTTE resistance.
     
    Once the evacuations had been completed, the LTTE’s defensive units also pulled back.
     
    But to the fury of the Mahinda Rajapakse government, the occupation of an empty church was rendered meaningless by the departure of the revered Icon of Our Lady.
     
    On Sunday April 6 photographic evidence emerged of extensive damage to the Madhu complex by Army shelling, justifying the Bishop’s decision to evacuate, and illustrating the desperate efforts of the Army to capture the area.
     
    The same day, Father Karunaratnam gave a television interview on the question of the Madhu Church, saying “The Bishop of Mannaar Diocese has clearly said that this was a peace zone. Let the GoSL not cause confusion. It is a known fact that this peace zone is situated within the LTTE territory. Ranil Wickramsinghe's government may have signed the Cease Fire Agreement in 2002, … the then President Chandrika had accepted it, as did the International Community. The [Rajapkse] Government should have respected it.”
     
    Incidentally, the Bishop of Jaffna’s office also issued a formal plea that the Madhu Church be accepted as peace zone. It was clear that the Northeastern Church were sending a clear message of unity behind the Bishop of Mannar.
     
    However, within two weeks, on Sunday April 20, Sri Lanka Army commandos infiltrated LTTE-held Vanni and assassinated Father Karunaratnam, near Kilinnochi. A chilling message was being sent to Father Karunaratnam’s peers and the rest of the Tamil community.
     
    The targeted killing caused widespread grief amongst Tamils. Remembrance ceremonies and masses were held for Father Karunaratnam in the island and the Diaspora. Thousands paid homage to his remains in Kilinnochi, despite the constant threat of aerial bombing.
     
    On April 22, over a thousand people gathered in the Cathedral of Army occupied Jaffna city for a special Mass in tribute to the slain priest.
     
    Jaffna Bishop House Principal Priest, Rev. Justin Gnanapragasam who conducted the Holy Mass, said in his speech that People in the Jaffna peninsula, had for the first time since August 11 2006, when fighting resumed on the peninsula, assembled in large numbers at one place to participate in an event.
     
    On April 25 the government announced its “victorious” troops had “occupied” the Madhu Church. However the announcement was submerged by the fallout of the massive debacle the Army suffered in a major offensive in southern Jaffna on April 23.
     
    The government also declared the Church a “Security Zone” and demanded the Icon of Our Lady of Madhu be brought back. The demand was ignored by the Northeastern Church.
    On April 26 three Christian priests, including two from Tamil Nadu, were arrested and held for interrogation in Colombo.
     
    On April 27, Army Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka issued a public demand that the Icon should be brought back.
     
    A series of correspondence between the Army and the Bishop followed, along with media statements by both sides, whereby the government insisted the Madhu priests and the Icon return to its control and the Northeast Church refused.
     
    Meanwhile, the military said it “categorically and reservedly ridicules LTTE's blatant attempts to discredit and blame [the Army for] the murder of Father Karunaratnam”
     
    At the same time, state controlled media, began to emphasise that Father Karunaratnam, one of the Tamil country’s best known serving priests, was a staunch advocate of independence for Tamil Eelam as the only proper solution to the conflict.
     
    Father Karunaratnam expected to be assassinated by the government. He had told his sister in Canada in their last conversation that, following the assassination of Tamil National Alliance MP Sivanesan, also by a SLA command-detonated mine, he expected to be the next victim. 
     
    Father Karunaratnam had accepted the risk of martyrdom as so many have done before him in the Church
     
    In his last television interview before his death, he had focused on the Vatican’s policy.
     
    "As a seat of religion, Vatican seems to observe silence, in order not to politicize it further, earnestly hoping that the GoSL will change its position. As Catholics we believe in that."
     
    "During Communist revolutions, the communist armies destroyed Catholic churches in Russia, China and Poland. Vatican remained silent, in a spiritual way,” he said. “The Vatican is the apex body of Catholic religion, but it is also a Government. As a government they would have conveyed the necessary message to the GoSL, even if they had not publicized it."
     
    In 2004, the Pontifical Council of Peace and Justice completed the“ Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church”. Father Karunaratnam would have considered himself guided by it.
     
    The Social Doctrine states that a nation has a “fundamental right to existence”, to “its own language and culture, through which a people expresses and promotes ... its fundamental spiritual ‘sovereignty”', to “shape its life according to its own traditions, excluding, of course, every abuse of basic human rights and in particular the oppression of minorities”,
     
    Para 157 states that international law “rests upon the principle of equal respect for States, for each people's right to self-determination and for their free cooperation in view of the higher common good of humanity. Peace is founded not only on respect for human rights but also on respect for the rights of peoples, in particular the right to independence.”
     
    Para 504 states: “The right to use force for purposes of legitimate defence is associated with the duty to protect and help innocent victims who are not able to defend themselves from acts of aggression.”
  • The Tamil liberation struggle & the new Cold War
    Geography plays an important role (though often a silent one) in the affairs of states and nations without states. Where a state has a large internal market, the size of that internal market is itself a strategic asset. Where a state does not have a large internal market, it seems that it is often a question of location, location, location. The smaller the country, relatively more important becomes the location - and sometimes, the location itself becomes a strategic asset.
     
    The Indian Ocean is not the largest ocean in the world. It is the 3rd largest. But it has something like 47 countries around it as well as several islands.
     
    You can see them on the map. Coco island is not far from Myanmar where of course now the Chinese have a base. Then we have Andaman Islands, Maldives, Madagascar and of course in Gawdor in Pakistan and Kawar in India. And if you go down south you may even get to Diego Garcia with its US naval and air base. India itself projects something like 1200 miles into the Indian Ocean. And many Indians take the view that after all, the Indian Ocean is the Indian Ocean.
     
    The strategic importance of the Indian Ocean region has been recognized for many years. US Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan said more than a century ago, "Whoever controls the Indian Ocean dominates Asia. This ocean is the key to the seven seas in the twenty-first century, the destiny of the world will be decided in these waters." Again, the British Empire owed much to British dominance of the Indian Ocean – a dominance which Hitler sought to undermine with his U-boats during Second World War.
     
    The Indian Ocean contains an estimated 40% of the world’s oil production. And today fresh exploration continues in the Mannar seas off Sri Lanka, the Cauvery Basin off Tamil Nadu and in the seas off Myanmar. But the significance of the Indian Ocean arises not simply from the resources it has. The Indian Ocean is a critical waterway. It includes half of the world’s containerized cargo, one thirds of its bulk cargo and two thirds of its oil shipments. Its waters carry heavy traffic of petroleum products. And unlike the Atlantic Ocean, much of this traffic is to countries outside the Indian Ocean.
     
    The sea lanes of the Indian Ocean give a graphic picture of its strategic significance.
     
    China, which has been a net oil importer since 1993 is the world’s no 2 oil consumer after the United States. It achieved that status in 2004. Before that the 2nd largest oil consumer was Japan. China has accounted for as much as 40% of the world’s crude oil demand growth during the period 2000 to 2004.
     
    Access to energy resources is a very critical factor for continued Chinese economic growth. And, not surprisingly China has stepped up efforts to secure sea lanes and transport routes that are vital for its oil supplies. The geo political strategy adopted by China has been dubbed 'the string of pearls' strategy.
     
    Barry Desker, Director IDSS, wrote in 2005: "The emergence of new powers like China and India is expected to transform the regional strategic landscape in a fashion that could be as dramatic as the rise of Germany in the 19th century and the United States in the 20th century"
     
    Donald L. Berlin, Head of Security Studies, Asia Pacific Centre for Security Studies, Honolulu, writes: “the Indian ocean region has become the strategic heartland of the 21st century, dislodging Europe and North East Asia which adorned this position in the 20th century.. the developments in the Indian Ocean region are contributing to the advent of a less Western centric and a more multi-polar world."
     
    Hopefully, sufficient has been said to show that the strategic significance of the Indian Ocean region existed before the conflict in the island of Sri Lanka, that it continues to exist and that it will continue to exist even after the Tamil – Sinhala conflict in the island is resolved.
     
    Here, one matter of significance is that the dynamics of the region calls for a balance of power approach rather than a straight alliance.
     
    Adam Wolfe, Yevgeny Bendersky and Dr. Federico Bordonaro write in ‘India's Project Seabird and Indian Ocean's Balance of Power’, in July 2005: “…the dynamics of the region calls for a balance of power approach rather than a straight alliance…. The rise of India as a major power, coupled with the better-known - and frequently analyzed - Chinese rise, is changing the structure of the world system. Not only is U.S. ‘unipolar’ hegemony in the Indian Ocean facing a challenge, but the strategic triad U.S.-Western Europe-Japan, which has ruled the international political economy for the past few decades, is now also under question…We can expect the South Asian region to be one of the system's key areas to be watched in the next decade.”
     
    The balance of power in the Indian Ocean region is not a simple black and white matter. The frame is multilateral and the interactions are nuanced – and calibrated. There is a word that was coined some years ago in a different context - in the study of multinational corporations and so on. The word was co-petition. You compete in some areas but you also co-operate in other areas. When you cooperate in some areas and compete in other areas - that's co-petition. For instance India and US do have a strategic partnership in some areas. But, New Delhi is not simply a partner of China or the United States. It seeks to march to the beat of its own drummer.
     
    The question is: in what areas are the US, New Delhi and China competing with each other, and in what areas are they cooperating with each other? The US may welcome a ‘balance of power’ in Asia as a way of securing its own pre-eminence in a unipolar world (or in the terms of Condoleezza Rice, a unipolar world with a multipolar perspective). But will New Delhi and China be content with such an approach or will they be challenged by it? Is Sri Lanka an area of competition or cooperation? And, importantly, if it is an area of cooperation what is the extent of the cooperation?
     
    This may be the appropriate stage to turn to an examination of the strategic significance of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean Region.
     
    In 1947/48 Ceylon entered into a defense agreement with the United Kingdom for the use by the United Kingdom of the naval base in Trincomalee. The Defence Agreement was a condition precedent to the United Kingdom granting independence in February 1948.
     
    However, the strategic significance of Sri Lanka arises not only from Trincomalee. Its not as simple as that – we need to include Hambantota, the Voice of America installations and so on. Ramesh Somasundaram of Deakin University in his 2005 publication ‘Strategic Significance of Sri Lanka’ gives three reasons for the ‘interest of the international community’ in Sri Lanka :
     
    “(1) Sri Lanka is strategically situated, (2) It is ideally situated to be a major communication center, and (3) It has Trincomalee, described by the British Admiral Horatio Nelson as “the finest harbour in the world. Sri Lanka occupies a strategic point in the Indian Ocean, whose vast expanse covering 2,850,000 sq miles, touches the shores of the Indian subcontinent in the North; Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia in the East; Antartica in the South; and East Africa in the West.”
     
    In 1985 I was in Bhutan as a member of the Tamil delegation to the Thimpu Talks. The Research Analysis Wing of India spent some considerable time informing us of the threats that US submarines posed in the Indian Ocean and the difficulties they had and why it was important that some agreement must be achieved with Sri Lanka.
     
    The Thimpu Talks themselves failed but two years later in 1987, the Indo Sri Lanka Accord did secure for India its strategic interests. The exchange of letters between Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lanka President J.R.Jayawardene on 29 July 1987 preceding the Signing of Agreement provided inter alia that ‘Sri Lanka's agreement with foreign broadcasting organisations will be reviewed to ensure that any facilities set up by them in Sri Lanka are used solely as public broadcasting facilities and not for any military or intelligence purposes’ and that ‘Trincomalee or any other ports in Sri Lanka will not be made available for military use by any country in a manner prejudicial to India's interests.’
     
    The intervention by the United States and by India in the conflict in the island has a long history.
     
    India armed and trained Tamil militants in their struggle for Tamil Eelam. In 1998, Jyotindra Nath Dixit who served as Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka 1985 /89, Foreign Secretary in 1991/94 and National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister of India 2004/05 declared disarmingly
     
    "...Tamil militancy received (India's) support ...as a response to (Sri Lanka's).. concrete and expanded military and intelligence cooperation with the United States, Israel and Pakistan. ...The assessment was that these presences would pose a strategic threat to India and they would encourage fissiparous movements in the southern states of India. .. a process which could have found encouragement from Pakistan and the US, given India's experience regarding their policies in relation to Kashmir and the Punjab.... Inter-state relations are not governed by the logic of morality. They were and they remain an amoral phenomenon....."
     
    When these matters are mentioned, it is sometimes said that all this may have been relevant during the time of the cold war but that the world has moved on sine then. It is true that the world has moved on – but today we are in the midst of a new cold war. The United States may be the sole super power, but it lives in an ‘asymmetric’ multi lateral world where strong regional powers (including the EU, Russia, China and India) have increasing global impact. We are living in a world where the ‘asymmetry’ is progressively diminishing. This is the new cold war. It is a cold war because open warfare is to nobody’s benefit.
     
    Today, for Sri Lanka, China is a ‘benign friend’. Sudha Ramachandran warned in the Asia Times on 13 March 2007 that "China is all set to drop anchor at India's southern doorstep. An agreement has been finalized between Sri Lanka and China under which the latter will participate in the development of a port project at Hambantota on the island's south coast. ...the significance of Hambantota to China lies in its proximity to India's south coast and on the fact that it provides Beijing with presence midway in the Indian Ocean.”
     
    In March 2007, B. Muralidhar Reddy commented on the ten year Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) signed by the United States and Sri Lanka on 5 March 2007:
     
    “The ten year Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) signed by the United States and Sri Lanka on March 5, which provides for among other things logistics supplies and re-fuelling facilities, has major ramifications for the region, particularly India. For all the sophistry and spin by the Americans, the ACSA is a military deal and, on the face of it, is loaded in Washington's favour.”
     
    These then are some aspects of the international dimension of the conflict in the island of Sri Lanka. It will be fair to say that there are two conflicts in the island. One is the conflict arising from the people of Tamil Eelam struggling to free themselves from oppressive rule by an ethno-Sinhala nation masquerading as a ‘civic’ Sri Lankan nation. The other is the conflict between international actors jostling for power and influence in the Indian Ocean Region.
     
    And the record shows that these international actors are concerned to influence the resolution of the conflict in such a way that each of their own (conflicting) interests in the Indian Ocean region are advanced – or at least not undermined. But at the same time each of these international actors often engage in public diplomacy which denies the existence of their own strategic interests.
     
    The reluctance on the part of the international community to openly state their interests may be understandable. And we may also need to recognize that human rights and humanitarian law are often simply the instruments through which states intervene in the affairs of other states. We had for instance Helsinki Watch which played an important role in the old cold war. Now of course Helsinki Watch has matured into Human Rights Watch.
     
    Said that, denial by international actors, of their own (conflicting) strategic interests in Sri Lanka draws a veil over the real issues that any meaningful conflict resolution process in the island will need to address.
     
    To the extent to which we can bring these strategic interests out of the closet, we may be able to take forward the resolution of the conflict in the island in a constructive way.
     
    This will also help the Tamil people as well as the Sinhala people to understand the harsh reality of the real politick which confronts them both. And that takes me back to why I started my address with a couple of words in Sinhalese and Tamil. It was because at the end of the day, however difficult it may appear to some, it is the Tamil people and the Sinhalese people who will need to have the conversation with each other about how two independent and free peoples may associate with one another.
     
    I will end here - with something which the Leader of Tamil Eelam, Velupillai Pirapaharan, said in 1993:
     
    “Every country in this world advances its own interests. It is economic and trade interests that determine the order of the present world, not the moral law of justice nor the rights of people. International relations and diplomacy between countries are determined by such interests. Therefore we cannot expect an immediate recognition of the moral legitimacy of our cause by the international community. ... In reality, the success of our struggle depends on us, not on the world. Our success depends on our own efforts, on our own strength, on our own determination..." 
     
    (Edited)
     
    Mr. Nadesan Satyendra was a negotiator for the Tamil delegation at the Thimpu talks in 1985. A Barrister by profession, he has written and spoken extensively on Sri Lanka’s conflict for 25 years. He serves as Advisor to the Centre for Just Peace and Democracy. The full text of this article is available in a CJPD publication ‘International Dimensions of the Conflict in Sri Lanka’ (2008).
     
     
  • M&S boss assures support for Sri Lanka despite abuses
    In a visit to Sri Lanka, Marks & Spencer’s boss has hailed the country’s “ethical standards” and assured that he will he do ‘everything possible to support Sri Lanka’s application for the GSP+ concessions’.

    Chief Executive Officer, Sir Stuart Rose told Sri Lankan ministers Professor G. L. Peiris and Dr. Sarath Amunugama: "I deeply appreciate Sri Lanka’s ethical standards and her splendid performance in the apparel sector"

    Ignoring Sri Lanka’s human rights record and the European Union’s (EU) recent announcement linking Sri Lanka’s compliance to human rights and labor rights conventions, Rose extended his full support for Sri Lanka’s application for GSP+ concessions.

    "I understand how important the GSP+ scheme is for Sri Lanka. I will do everything possible to support your application for these concessions", said Rose.

    After visiting MAS Intimates Thurulie, Marks and Spencer’s’ new and Sri Lanka’s first eco-friendly manufacturing plant at MAS Fabric Park, Thulhiriya Rose said: "This is one the best factories that I ever visited"

    "There are others who merely talk, but Sri Lanka is a doer, that’s what makes the difference".

    The innovative green plant will manufacture lingerie for M&S, UK’s largest clothing retailer, which operates stores in more than 30 countries.

    Describing the factory as a trend-setter, Rose noted: ‘Sri Lanka set standards which others will and should follow".

    The launch of the eco-friendly plant is in keeping with Marks and Spencer new drive, called "Plan A", towards ethical trading and the promotion of healthy lifestyles.

    The five-year scheme will see M&S become carbon neutral, stop sending waste to landfill and extend its sustainable sourcing by 2012.

    Whilst applauding Marks and Spencer’s eco-friendly approach to business, political observers questioned Rose’s wisdom on supporting Sri Lanka, a country accused of grave human rights abuses by international rights groups.

    According to Sri Lankan daily, The Island, delighted by the unexpected boost to Sri Lanka’s GSP+ cause, Ministers Peiris and Amunugama who visited the factory with Rose congratulated him for the inspiring speech.

    Speaking at the event, Amunugama emphasized the importance Sri Lanka attaches to the GSP+ saying this scheme sustains the country’s 7% growth.

    "The GSP+ is not a give away, but a hard earned reward for managing our apparel industry exceedingly well", The Island quoted noted.

    "We rightly deserve these concessions".


  • Sri Lanka joins the ‘Iranian Club’
    The strong relationship between Iran and Sri Lanka was on show last week with the high profile visit of Iranian President to Sri Lanka and the red carpet welcome that was extended to him by the Sri Lankan state.

    Iranian President Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Colombo on a Monday, April 28 on a two-day visit to Sri Lanka as part of his South Asian tour. President Mahinda Rajapakse personally received the Iranian President at the Bandaranike International Airport and the streets of Colombo were decorated with Sri Lankan and Iranian flags. Posters with slogans reading "Traditional Asian Solidarity" "The Path to Progress" were also on display along the streets of Colombo.

    Cheque book diplomacy

    Addressing a joint news conference with President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the Presidential Secretariat, Ahmadinejad said: “Sri Lanka and Iran have agreed to cooperate in all spheres for the mutual benefit of each other,”

    Iranian President added that Iran was happy to assist a ‘long standing friend such as Sri Lanka’ and carry out ‘mutual consultation and cooperation’ and said that comprehensive cooperation between the two countries would provide security for both in their endeavour to ‘seek justice and fair play in the world.’

    With the international community working towards isolating Iran over its nuclear program and raising concerns against the human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, both countries looking for new allies.

    The Rajapakse administration in recent times has turned to the east towards countries like China, India and Iran, which unlike United States, Europe and Japan do not raise human rights issues as a condition for such assistance.
    Iran assistance in the energy sector is crucial to the Sri Lankan government at a time when it its finding it difficult to pay for its increasingly costly oil imports. The Goverenment of Ahmadinejad readily agreed to provide oil at concessional rates and invest heavily in improving Sri Lanka’s capacity to refine oil.

    Iran agreed to invest US $ 1.5 billion in energy-related projects in Sri Lanka. One of these projects is for the production of hydel power and the other to double the capacity of an existing oil refinery in Sri Lanka. Work on the construction of the hydel project started during Ahmadinejad's visit.

    Iranian engineers have already been preparing the project report for doubling the capacity of the refinery and for modifying it to enable it to refine in future Iranian crude to be supplied at concessional rates. The existing capacity is 50,000 barrels a day.

    In addition Iran is also providing low-interest loan to Sri Lanka to enable it to purchase defence-related equipment from China and Pakistan and providing Sri Lankan Army and Military Intelligence officers.

    According to analysts, the interest shown by Iran in Sri Lanka since last year is attributed to its desire to counter the Israeli influence in Sri Lanka and to use Sri Lanka as a base for monitoring the movements of US naval ships between the Pacific and the Gulf. Since Rajapakse came to power, the visit of US naval vessels and officers to Sri Lanka has increased. Even before he came to power, Israel had emerged as an important supplier of military equipment, particularly for the Sri Lankan Air Force.

    Analyst also pointed the fact that even at the risk of misunderstanding with Israel, Rajapakse chose to approach Iran and accepted its ready offer of assistance underlined the serious economic situation in which Sri Lanka found itself.


    Sri Lanka supports Nuclear Iran

    In a joint statement issued at the conclusion of Iranian President’s visit Sri Lanka said it supported the peaceful use of nuclear energy by Iran within the framework of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

    "The two sides confirmed the full and non-discriminatory implementation of Article IV of the NPT on peaceful nuclear co-operation." The statement read.

    It further said the two sides reiterated the importance of global nuclear disarmament, particularly the need for the nuclear powers to destroy their nuclear weapons, based on the decisions of the relevant international meetings.

    The communiqué also expressed the recognition of the inalienable rights and the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people, stressed the need for security and peace in Lebanon and emphasised the need for the preservation of the territorial integrity and unity of Iraq.

    The press release further said that Iran and Sri Lanka supported, as a matter of priority, the endeavours of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to restore peace and stability.


    No Preachers

    Explaining the importance of cultivating a close friendship with Iran, an aide close to Rajapakse said: “Iran is the sole supplier of crude oil for the only refinery in Sri Lanka in Sapugaskanda. The oil made available to Sri Lanka is given on easy payment basis and is a boon in a situation where we are compelled to spend exorbitant amounts fighting the Tamil Tigers”

    Meanwhile, government officials are busy reiterating why Sri Lanka prefers the company of its ‘non-preaching’ Asian cohabitants rather than the West whose critical focus on the country has only got sharper as Sri Lanka’s war spirals and its human rights record further deteriorates.

    “In Asia, there is no superiority complex. Asian leaders are not obsessed with preaching like the West is,” a senior government official said as economists point out that it is no secret that Sri Lanka has taken its war drained financial woes to Asia in a background where the emphatically anti- war West has threatened to cut aid and remove concessions.

    As military analysts point out, while Sri Lanka’s primary reason for bonding with Iran is oil, where countries such as China and Pakistan are concerned it is the military factor that motivates the relationship. With western countries as well as neighbouring India refusing to sell arms to Sri Lanka to fight the Tamil Tigers, Rajapakse has only countries such as China and Pakistan to turn to. In the past one and a half years Rajapakse has visited China twice and also India and Pakistan as well as Iran.

  • An introduction to GSP
    The Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) is a formal system of exemption from the general rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) aimed at encouraging developing countries to export by allowing their products preferential access to the markets of developed countries.

    GSP, specifically, provides exemption from the Most Favored Nation (MFN) principle that requires WTO member countries to treat the imports of all other WTO member countries no worse than they treat the imports of their "most favored" trading partner. In essence, MFN requires WTO member countries to treat imports coming from all other WTO member countries equally by imposing equal tariffs on them.

    GSP was adopted in the United Nations in 1968. According to resolution 21 (II) passed at the United Nations Conference on Trade And Development (UNCTAD) in New Delhi in 1968, the objectives of the generalized, non-reciprocal, non-discriminatory system of preferences in favour of the developing countries, including special measures in favour of the least advanced among the developing countries, are:

    (a) to increase their export earnings;

    (b) to promote their industrialization; and

    (c) to accelerate their rates of economic growth.

    Under GSP schemes of preference-giving counties, selected products originating in developing countries are granted reduced or zero tariff rates over the MFN rates.

    There are currently 13 national GSP schemes in operation. The following countries grant GSP preferences: Australia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, Estonia, the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, the Russian Federation, Switzerland, Turkey and the United States of America.

    The EU's GSP is managed by the European Commission. In managing the GSP, the Commission is assisted by the Committee on Generalised Preferences, composed of representatives of Member States and chaired by the Commission. This Committee has to be consulted before certain measures are taken. More important measures need to be supported by a qualified majority of Member States.

    The EU’s GSP programme classifies benefiting developing countries as standard beneficiary country, least developed country and GSP+ country, with countries classified as GSP+ country receiving most preferential rates including duty-free access for 7200 products.

    To benefit as a GSP+ country, the applying countries need to demonstrate that their economies are poorly diversified, and therefore dependent and vulnerable. Poor diversification and dependence is defined as meaning that the five largest sections of its GSP-covered imports to the EU must represent more than 75% of its total GSP-covered imports. GSP-covered imports from that country must also represent less than 1% of total EU imports under GSP.

    In addition to the above, must also ratify and effectively implement the 16 core conventions on human and labour rights and 7 (out of 11) of the conventions related to good governance and the protection of the environment.

    Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Georgia, Guatemala, Honduras, Sri Lanka, Republic of Moldova, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, El Salvador and Venezuela benefit from the EU’s existing GSP+ scheme which runs from 1 January 2006 to 31 December 2008.

    Countries wishing to receive GSP+ status from 2009 onwards must apply by October 2008. For future eligibility, applying countries will need to have ratified 27 international conventions on human rights, labour standards, environmental protection, and governance principles by 31 December 2008.

    Core human and labour rights UN/ILO Conventions that must be ratified and effectively implemented for GSP Plus to apply are:

    • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
    • International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights
    • International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
    • Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
    • Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
    • Convention on the Rights of the Child
    • Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
    • Minimum Age for Admission to Employment (N° 138)
    • Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour (N° 182)
    • Abolition of Forced Labour Convention (N° 105)
    • Forced Compulsory Labour Convention (N° 29)
    • Equal Remuneration of Men and Women Workers for Work of Equal Value Convention (N° 100)
    • Discrimination in Respect of Employment and Occupation Convention (N° 111)
    • Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention (N° 87)
    • Application of the Principles of the Right to Organise and to Bargain Collectively Convention (N°98)
    • International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid
    • Montreal Protocol on Substances that deplete the Ozone Layer
    • Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal
    • Stockholm Convention on persistent Organic Pollutants; Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
    • Convention on Biological Diversity
    • Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety; Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961)
    • UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances (1971); UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (1988)
    • Mexico UN Convention Against Corruption.
  • India to give $100 million soft loan to Sri Lankan defence
    ECONOMIC Times, one of India's leading business dailies, on Sunday revealed that in spite of possible "political and diplomatic ramifications", the Indian Government was "finalizing a soft loan package of $100 million for Sri Lankan defence department to buy arms and ammunition." The newspaper went one step ahead and dubbed this move "the India fund for fighting Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka."

    Citing reliable sources, the news report added that India was giving the loan at a "highly concessional interest rate of just 2%" though Sri Lanka did not come under the category of Least Developed Country which would enable it to secure such a discounted interest.

    India was also planning to give another term loan of $100 million to Sri Lanka for railway projects. The combined soft loan amount of $200 million ($100 for defence, $100 for development) was very high compared to India's total "bilateral disbursement of $500 million soft loans" for the entire fiscal year 2008, the Economic Times news report said. Moreover, the daily also added that India's move was seen as "yet another attempt to eliminate the Tamil Tigers in an indirect manner."
  • Number of Missing Sri Lankan Tamils Increasing, Human Rights Groups Say
    As violence surges in Sri Lanka, so does the number of abductions and disappearance of mostly Tamil men. That is the assessment of human rights activists and international aid groups operating in the Indian Ocean nation.

    Soli Chana, 23, is trying to find out what happened to her husband. Witnesses say three men in civilian clothes stopped him, not far from his house in Vanuniya in central Sri Lanka. They handcuffed him, shoved in a plain white van and sped away. That was a year and a half ago. He has not been heard from since.

    "She is shocked and upset, [very] upset. She made complaint to the police, the Red Cross, the Human Rights Commission and ICRC [Red Cross/Crescent] also," Chana said.

    "All they can say is, 'We will search.'"

    Thousands of other families across Sri Lanka are doing the same - making the rounds at human rights agencies to find family members who have disappeared.

    The missing and the families left behind, most of them left struggling, impoverished without their breadwinners, are caught up in a growing list of atrocities being committed by both sides of this 25-year conflict between the Sinhala-dominated Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

    The American government and others, around the world, say the LTTE is a terrorist organization.

    The numbers of the disappeared are in dispute by the Sri Lankan government, but human rights groups and foreign observer say that thousands of mostly Tamil men have been abducted in the past decade and remain missing.
    Palitha Kohona is Sri Lanka's secretary of foreign affairs. He says the government is sincere in trying to locate those who have disappeared. He says the numbers are being exaggerated by Tamil activists and international aid agencies to tarnish the government's human rights record. Kohona says he helped investigate the disappearance of 355 people from list that an American diplomat recently handed to him.

    "To us, one person disappearing is one too many," Kohona said.

    "When you have 355 it is a matter of serious concern. But, in that list, when we went through the list, there were some repetitions in it. There were 23 in that list whom we have located, up to now, and they are well and kicking. And, there are others whose names are suspiciously similar to those recorded by our immigration authorities as people who have left the country."

    He says nearly half of the 355 people on the list were accounted for and that authorities are continuing their investigation.

    Father Henry Miller is a Jesuit priest. He has a list of eight-thousand people - mostly young Tamil men - who have been abducted in the past decade. He says most of them are still missing.

    He says the Sri Lankan government is touting a recent election here as a sign that democracy is flourishing in a part of the country once controlled by the LTTE.

    The winner of that election - the first here in 14 years - was a supposedly-less-militarized political split-off of the LTTE, known as the Tamil Makkal Vidutalai Pullikal (TMVP), led by a former LTTE commander.

    For some, their victory could usher in a new era of trust between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil community.

    But Father Miller is skeptical. He says the TMVP is merely a proxy party of the government.

    And, now the government can say we have restored self-government to the people of the Batticaloa District and it has not been done," Miller said. "This is the government's program. And, with this they proclaim to the world that they have liberated and restored democratic government to the people of Batticaloa. It is a falsity."

    Father Miller says that, in the government's ongoing attempt to fight LTTE, they treat all Tamils as potential terrorists. He says that, with Sri Lanka's civil war flaring up once again in the Tamil-dominated north, that is not likely to change anytime soon.

    A March report issued by the U.S. State Department cited almost daily extrajudicial killings and attacks against civilians by the army, paramilitaries and pro-government militias in the government-controlled Jaffna Peninsula.


  • US talks to Nepal Maoists
    The United States in a significant change in its policy towards organizations included in the State Departments Foreign Terrorists Organization (FTO) list, made its first official diplomatic contact with the leader of Nepal's former rebel Maoists, BBC report in Kathmandu said.

    US ambassador to Nepal Nancy Powell met Maoist leader Prachanda on Thursday, a statement from the US embassy in Kathmandu said, according to the report.

    The US embassy statement said that Ms Powell and Prachanda, whose real name is Pushpa Kamal Dahal, discussed the outcome of last month's elections to a constituent assembly.

    The statement said Ms Powell would visit Washington soon for consultations on US-Nepal relations.

    The statement said Ms Powell encouraged the Maoist leader to ensure that the former rebels showed their commitment to the political process through their words and actions, the report said.

    The change in policy comes after former US President Jimmy Carter, speaking just after the 10 April elections, told the BBC he found America's failure to deal with the Maoists "embarrassing."

    The ultra-Marxists captured the reins of Nepal in a democratic process in the elections held on April 10, for the first time in the history of South Asia.
  • 2,000 Sri Lankan soldiers killed last year – Fonseka
    OVER two thousand Sri Lankan Army (SLA) soldiers were killed and four thousand wounded in the battles of 2007, the commander of the SLA, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka told a conference at Army Headquarters last week, the Sunday Times reported. He claimed over five thousand Tamil Tigers were also killed last year. Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan government has forbidden military officials from giving interviews and launched a hunt for those leaking details to the media. The government has instructed ambulances transporting wounded soldiers from Ratmalana airport to hospitals in Colombo not to use their sirens, the paper said.

    Lt. Gen. Fonseka was addressing Principal Staff Officers and Directors at Army Headquarters in a conference held every four months.

    In the context of government anger over military officials leaking details of battlefield setbacks to the media, he told the 90-minute conference: "We have not given this [2007 casualty figures] to the media. If anyone present wants to give it, they are free to do so."

    The Army chief, who is under media criticism for inflating claims of military successes, also spoke on eradicating corruption and the need for discipline, the paper said.

    Last month the Sri Lanka Army suffered a debacle when it attacked the LTTE’s forward defence lines (FDLs) in Jaffna.

    Whilst Lt. Gen. Fonseka claimed that 47 soldiers were killed and 126 were wounded, the Sunday Times said over a hundred soldiers were killed and 355 confirmed wounded.

    The Sunday Times, which spoke to both officers and men in the north and in Colombo, said it had “revealed what was gathered independently from reliable sources.”

    Other media reports, also quoting Sri Lankan military officials, put the toll at much higher. AFP news agency quoted military sources as saying at least 165 soldiers being killed and 20 more going missing.

    The LTTE said more than 100 troops were killed in the day long clashes on April 23 and handed back the bodies of 28 soldiers.

    Before the LTTE’s handover, facilitated by the international Red Cross, Sri Lankan press reports said the bodies of 143 soldiers had been brought to three funeral parlours in and around Colombo.

    Lt. Gen. Fonseka had told the conference at Army Headquarters that the casualties in Jaffna was not due to his fault: people who gave arms and ammunition to the Tigers should be blamed, he said.

    Meanwhile, The Sunday Times’ defence columnist, Iqbal Athas, this week said Army Headquarters sent out instructions this week to all installations forbidding personnel from taking part in radio programmes.

    The government has launched a hunt for military officials who leak details to the media, but nonetheless, “there are a vast number of officers and men who want the public to know the truth. They put themselves on the firing line to speak out in the national interest,” Athas wrote.

    “Thus, for the media as well as the Sri Lankan public who see, hear and read them, the challenges are many. Do they report non-existent victory after victory where thousands of guerrillas have perished or tell the story to the public the way it happens?” he wrote.

    “The former would make them celebrated heroes and the latter, unpatriotic villains or " rapists of the truth" as they dub those who do not sing hosannas for them.”

    Meanwhile, “another outcome of the Muhamalai debacle were the instructions sent out to ambulances bringing in casualties from the Ratmalana airport to hospitals in Colombo. They have been told to avoid the use of sirens,” he said.

    “Wailing sirens have often been an indication to residents living along the route from the airport to hospitals to discern something had gone wrong in the battle areas.”
  • Rajapakse vows again to capture North soon
    Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has vowed to end Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s (LTTE) domination in the north of the country soon and urged the people to vote for the government-backed paramilitary group in the upcoming Provincial Council elections in the east.

    "The security forces are advancing step by step in the northern theatre too. Soon the people there too would be liberated," Rajapakse said in his May Day rally on Thursday May 1 at Dehiattakandiya in Ampara district of eastern Sri Lanka.

    Rajapakse used the rally to drum up support for the paramilitary Tamil Makkal Vidhuthalai Pullikal (TMVP) led by Pillayan.

    "The Eastern populace is poised to hand over a resounding victory to the government at the May 10 Provincial Council Election to continue the momentum of the Eastern Resurgence programme," Rajapakse said.

    "We know the Easterners are a grateful people. They will show that on May 10. They will never let Pirapakaran take back the East.

    Rajapakse told the participants at the rally that a vote for the government will be a vote for peace and development whereas a vote for the Opposition will be an endorsement of LTTE leader Pirapakaran. He urged the public to support him to take the development process forward.

    Sri Lanka’s main opposition, the United National Party (UNP) is backing the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC)-led alliance.

    Rajapakse further said that this year's May Day celebrations in the East should be dedicated to the security forces who ‘spearheaded the humanitarian mission to liberate the people who were living under LTTE clutches for more than two decades’.

    He further added, a Government victory in the East would further encourage soldiers to liberate the Northern masses as well.

    Rajapaksa said the East would become the fastest developing province in Sri Lanka in the near future.
    Rajapaksa said now it was the turn of the working class to spearhead the development drive in Eastern Sri Lanka and assured all steps necessary to back the Eastern Resurgence.

    "Some have pacts with Pirapakaran to betray the East. We will never allow that. The Eastern people will never allow that," the President said.

    Over 1 million voters are eligible to vote in the elections for the eastern Provincial Council which covers Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Ampara districts, of which 40% are Tamils, 38% are Muslims and the remaining 22% are Sinhalese.


Subscribe to Diaspora