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  • What Liberation?

    Feb 19
    The author identified four dominant themes that seriously impact on the sustainability of resettlement in the Batticaloa district. These are:
    1. Lack of consultation and clarity
    2. Lack of Preparedness and Planning
    3. Restriction of Access and Mobility
    4. Protection Concerns of the Displaced and Resettled Communities
    Having looked at the first three themes in the first part of this article (published in the last issue), the author now turns to the fourth theme.

    4. Protection Concerns of the Displaced and Resettled Communities
    The climate is clearly one of fear and uncertainty. The general view held by communities and agencies is that the constantly changing politico-military dynamics of the East (with the split in the TMVP and Pillayan seizing control), has created an atmosphere of tense unpredictability. The Government, it appears, is keen to get political legitimacy for the paramilitary group.

    Tension is rife as the number of clashes within the TMVP is increasing. There is de facto control of the district by key TMVP commanders with shifting loyalties and uneasy relationship with the military and police at the ground level. After the latest intra-faction truce and according to their internal structure it appears that Pillayan now directly controls the areas between Arayampathy and Chenkaladi including the Batticaloa town while other commanders like Sinnathambi, Veera, Riyaseelan, Mangalan master and others control their own patches of territory in the district. There is a palpable fear among communities and space for civil administration, human rights and humanitarian work is alarmingly shrinking.

    This is obviously evident in Batticaloa. On the day of the ‘public’ meeting held by the TMVP (10th of December 2007) groups of civilians – including the displaced – were rounded up by armed cadres and forced to attend the meeting (which was a joint exercise by both Pillayan’s faction and Karuna’s commanders).

    At approximately 8:20 a.m. around ten/twelve armed cadres were seen herding people into CTB buses in Alankulam on the Colombo-Batticaloa Road within sight of the police and army who stood by. This was repeated during the course of the day throughout Batticaloa – people were taken from Kovils, resettled villages and even bus stations. 12 bus-loads of people – including the recently resettled were taken from Vaharai and 7 buses taken from the Badulla Road area (Batticaloa West).

    A meeting was held the day before in Pankudaveli (Batticaloa West) where the TMVP ordered that one member from each family must attend the public meeting. There are frequent reports of abduction and extortion by TMVP cadres. The construction industry in the district is one of the prime extortionary target and even the Government schemes like the world-bank funded housing program seems not to have been spared.

    Normalcy and durable and sustainable resettlement cannot happen as long as the Government turns a blind eye to the climate of fear, insecurity and terror created by the different TMVP factions of what was the Karuna Group. They carry arms in public, have offices where they summon, inquire and detain civilians as they wish. They have forcibly taken over private property and set up offices across the district and have even begun setting up more fortified establishments by the main road as in Maavadivaembu. They engage in joint cordon and search operations with the security forces (though this is more prevalent in the Ampara district than in the Batticaloa district) all in broad daylight and in complete cooperation of the Government forces.

    Given the overwhelming physical evidence in the district, bland denials may not absolve the Government of complicity. The Government must be held accountable for the violations of the TMVP/Karuna/Pillayan group who are roaming freely with arms and are engaged in serious violations including abductions, intimidation and extortion.

    The situation is worsened by the increasing tension between the Muslims and the Tamils within the District (in Arayampathi, Eravur and Valaichenai in particular). Rumours that Pillayan is supporting Muslim armed groups in order to win favour is rife and the security situation is deteriorating with the recent abductions of Muslims – including recently that of businessman Hassanar-Hayathu Mohamed from Eravur.

    The general sentiment is that the tension amongst the two communities will worsen before it gets better, particularly given the impending elections. It is widely felt that in this dimension the situation is much worse in Amparai than in Batticaloa. The impending elections will only help bring these destructive trends to the forefront as ‘democratic politics’ in the ‘liberated’ land.

    Before the split within the TMVP, families faced a clearly defined enemy, though with a loose command and control structure. Now, with many commanders vying for control, families face the dilemma of whom to suspect or even to turn to. Before the split, the TMVP acted as a sort of ‘buffer’ between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan military. Now, even the agencies are unsure of whom to contact and communicate with when faced with complaints of abductions and harassment.

    This also means that because of the presence of various factions and increasing confusion, responsibility can be easily shifted. So it is of little surprise that despite the publicised resettlement plans of the government, the culture of impunity and sense of lawlessness is widespread throughout the district. The security situation some people opined is worse for the communities now than before when you had predictable sources of threat with predictable reactions in predictable geography. Space for public gathering and advocacy is severely limited and fear, mistrust and insecurity is widespread and worsening rapidly.

    ‘Protection’ is an essential component of any resettlement intervention – most of the community members rank this as one of their top concerns. There is reluctance on the part of the government to accept a role for agencies in this sector in the same way as in shelter, water and sanitation and livelihood. Hence it has been very difficult to include this as a separate section in the resettlement plans.

    Agencies, primarily with protection mandate have not been provided access. It was an uphill struggle, agencies reported, to get protection elements incorporated into the Government’s resettlement plans – ‘it was taken to the CCHA but don’t know what happened thereafter’. Given the extent of violations reported from the resettled area it is absolutely essential to ensure that ‘Protection’ gets headline attention as a separate sector in its own right.

    The CCHA was necessitated because every issue in the areas had a security angle and a mechanism to include key decision makers from the security establishment was considered a good idea. But it appears as if the accommodation has gone to the extent to render the mechanism ineffective for immediate problem solving for operational purposes. The CCHA’s credibility as a useful body for solving protection concern is under threat.

    The following in brief are some of the ‘Protection’ concerns that were repeatedly mentioned in the district.

    • Abductions and forced recruitment
    Abductions and disappearances are still occurring – and are on the increase by TMVP, both Pillayan and Karuna groups. As Pillayan seized control of the TMVP ‘at least 25’ abductions within and around the district were recorded although Pillayan did release a number of the underage cadres. For November, there have been a total of nine cases of recruitment and re-recruitment alone.

    There have also been a number of complaints of forced recruitment and re-recruitment committed by the various commanders within the district. However, it must also be noted that most incidences of abductions and disappearances go unreported – there is a real fear of retribution if families complain to agencies. In the absence of any action taken by the military or the police who stands by as this continuous to occur, there is hardly anyone to whom the people could go to.

    • Harassment and intimidation
    Reports on harassment of IDP camps by the TMVP continue. The IDP camps in Palacholai and Savukaddy have been repeatedly harassed by armed groups at night – the former having a TMVP camp within close proximity to it. The displaced have been told not to go out after 7:00 p.m. at night – a clear indication that intimidation continues to play a significant role in the TMVP’s modus operandi. In November, one IDP was shot in Savukkady – a camp that has been repeatedly harassed by TMVP since as early as February.

    • Harassment and intimidation of humanitarian workers
    The overall climate for humanitarian work is gradually deteriorating. The morale of the staff is down given the number of killings and abductions in general of humanitarian workers island-wide. It is also sad to note that the malicious attacks on UNICEF etc at the national level and the lukewarm response of the agency is affecting the confidence levels of the staff in several humanitarian agencies in the ground. It has a ripple effect on the community who consider these organisations as having some clout to intervene on their behalf. Given the way the humanitarian community is responding to attacks – both physical and in the media – their credibility and relevance is taking a severe beating.

    The security of national staff is a serious concern – even those handing out shelter material have been subject to threats. A driver from an agency was severely beaten up by personnel (who flashed ID badges) for overtaking their vehicle in early December. There have also been incidences of the STF stopping agency vehicles and asking for lifts. Intimidation of staff is a regular occurrence with unnecessary checking of vehicles and overly-stringent checking procedures at checkpoints.

    • Looting
    Looting of shelter material in the camp coincides with the mass returns. Most of the shelter material is re-used in the return areas and the continuous looting hampers agencies’ work. 6000 roof sheeting of UNHCR’s have been stolen to date and despite repeated complaints to the police, they fail to take any action. The GA had confirmed that security for the camps will be provided before and during the resettlements but to date, no police have been sent to the area. In all, 6700 roofing sheets which could have built 490 shelters for returnees have been stolen.

    The inaction of the Police demonstrates the sense of lawlessness that permeates throughout the district. They know that looting coincides with returns but do not man the camps at nights. It is clear that the government needs the help of agencies working on the ground to execute an efficient and timely response – but this must be a symbiotic relationship. The government mechanisms must help and cooperate with agencies in order to implement an effective humanitarian response. This is clearly not happening in Batticaloa.

    • Militarization of Return Areas
    In Vaharai, the active presence of the military, the CID and the police in addition to TMVP cadres who are now occupying the Kadiraveli base formerly of LTTE, is sustaining fear and a militarised climate. Regular checks in the villages are made by all three groups – often asking the same questions and checking the same things. It is clearly uncoordinated and confusion is commonplace. Regular visits made by armed personnel is clearly intimidating and a harassment to communities trying to achieve some semblance of normalcy in their lives. Round-ups are on the increase throughout the district.

    In Vaharai, the military maintains that they have identified who the LTTE supporters are and have proceeded to round up these suspects – including women, and photograph them with special IDs. These photographs are then circulated and the suspects are immediately called when any suspicion arises. The procedures of military and police differ from one another causing more confusion.

    In Batticaloa West, after each return, there is an intense period of searches and round-ups – and in some incidences, the military have been accompanied by the TMVP. Once the entire return ‘process’ has finished, the newly resettled are often subjected to nightly checks by the military. Suspicions of LTTE connections is widespread (in Karadiyanaru and Pankudaveli for example) and the ‘culprits’ are arrested. Once released after interrogation, many are unwilling to go back to the village fearing further harassment. There is a gradual tick of ‘incidents’ allegedly by LTTE infiltrators in the area which threatens to take the situation in a downward spiral.

    There have also been incidences of military harassment. For example, in Karadiyanaru, on the 11th of December, a father was beaten up when defending his daughter who was questioned about her and her husband’s previous ties with the LTTE. In Vavunatheevu and Paddippalai, there have been complaints of harassment of women returnees by the military. A number of women are left alone in their shelters as men go elsewhere to look for work.

    Visitors staying overnight in both West Batticaloa and Vaharai are told to register themselves with the Police – or else face ‘severe consequences’. This includes construction workers and masons. An ordinary casual labourer looking to eke out a living through daily labour has to get a recommendation from the Grama Sevaka of his village endorsed by the Divisional Secretary of his division and can work only in projects of agencies that have been approved by the Government Agent and cleared by the Divisional Secretary.

    In case of house construction the beneficiary family has to take the mason to the police and register him with them attesting to the fact that he is working on their house. For an agency building houses through 8-10 teams of masons with about 40 workers this can mean a logistical night mare. Frequent delays of construction work and permanent housing is now commonplace due to the tedious paperwork.

    • Mine Clearance
    Communities have been resettled in areas where demining has not yet been completed. Vavunatheevu for example has not been completely cleared, yet families have returned to the area. Surrounding agricultural land has not been demined and farmers are restricted from cultivating their lands. This problem is also common in Vaharai where resettled villages have been cleared but reportedly not its surrounding jungles – making fishing, gathering firewood, bees honey and other means of livelihood virtually impossible.

    Since March, over a 100 UXOs have been found by communities – including in resettled areas. Villages in Kopaveli and Marapalaam have discovered UXOs and claymores – both newly resettled areas. There is a general atmosphere of confusion as agencies are given mixed information as to which areas are cleared and which are contaminated. According to the Batticaloa DS some areas have not been cleared and so, access is restricted – yet according to FSD and MAG, these areas have been de-mined.

    Delays in clearing areas and delays in procedures to obtain landmine clearance certificates have now become a regular excuse for restricting movement and access to both civilians and humanitarian actors. While the real threat exists in some areas, in some areas people believe it is being used as an excuse to restrict mobility. Either way it is incumbent on the Government to clarify.

    • Echilampatthu
    Although not in the district, a protection situation in Echilampatthu must be highlighted. On the 3rd of December 17 people from the newly resettled villages were arrested on suspicion. 4 individuals were killed in 3 days (between the 3rd and the 5th of December) by unknown groups and 2 people severely beaten. The 60-odd (and increasing) resettled families fled the area and came back to Vaaharai. But due to some reason they are yet to be registered as IDPs by the authorities. Until then, they will not receive any government assistance and are subject to frequent checks and round ups. Many have again returned to Echilampatthu out of harassment and for fear of being arrested. While in Colombo it is clearly stated that registering as IDPs is not a problem, the reality in the ground was different.


  • Kudos to wider Tamil identity
    The decision of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to select Razeen Mohamed Imam as a national list member of the Sri Lanka parliament on February 8 has been received with wide appreciation from different sections of the Tamil-speaking people, including the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress. Mr. Razeen Mohamed, 60, is a lawyer from Jaffna and has been a member of the Ilankai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (the Federal Party started by the late S.J.V Chelvanayakam) for more than 30 years. He was also earlier a member of the Jaffna Municipal Council, elected on a Federal Party ticket.

    There was a time when Muslims, especially the Muslims of North and East, were an integral part of the Tamil politics and political parties, forging a common Tamil identity.

    On the last occasion when free and fair elections took place in the pre-war North and East of Sri Lanka in 1977, and when the people of this region categorically and overwhelmingly franchised self determination of Tamils based on the Vaddukkoaddai declaration of Tamil United Liberation Front, Muslims of the region were a part and party to it.

    The spontaneous participation, contribution and sacrifices of the Muslim youth for a common Tamil cause, as members of various Tamil militant groups in the 70s and 80s are very well known.

    Misinterpretation of Tamil nationalism by sections of militancy and Tamil speaking people, conspiracy of the successive governments of Sri Lanka and inability to resolve certain ground situations especially in the East, contributed to the alienation of Muslims and culminated in the eviction of them, numbering between 15 and 20 thousand from Jaffna and other northern districts in 1990.

    The regrets signaled from the side of the LTTE and the statement made by Rauff Hakeem, the leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, that “LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan has agreed to invite all displaced Muslims to return to their own places in the North and East”, after his meeting with the latter in 2002, are a consolation.

    According to reports Mr. Razeen Mohamed has expressed his determination to work for the resettlement of the displaced Muslims back in their homes in Jaffna.

    The ball is now in the court of the Sri Lanka government, which not only controls Jaffna but has also converted the Muslim quarters of Jaffna into one of the High Security Zones for the exclusive use of its occupying Army. In this case the Army is sitting on a general interim order of the Sri Lanka judiciary, favouring resettlement of willing people in the High Security Zones.

    Tamil is traditionally the mother tongue of the vast majority of the Muslims in Sri Lanka other than the Malays. Their origins in Sri Lanka are parallel and are closely linked to the Tamil Muslims of the Coromandal Coast and of the Malabar Coast, which was part of the ancient Tamil country at the time of the advent of Islam.

    In fact, Islam reached this part of South Asia as early as in the times of the Prophet. One of the earliest mosques according to tradition was built at Thiru-vagnchaik-ka’lam, the capital Vagnchi of the Cheras, and was patronized by Chearamaan Perumaa’l, a king and saint of the Tamil-Chaiva traditions.

    Unlike most of the identities, the Tamil identity is not pivotal of ethnicity, religion or geography. Based on a classical language, the primary focus of Tamil identity, as seen from the times of its inception reflected in the Changkam literature, is Tamil language (Thamzh koo’rum nal ulaku — Tamil 'speaking' world).

    Among all the South Asian languages, being classical as well as modern, only Tamil has the rare distinction of serving the medium for all the major religions of the world – Buddhism, Jainism, Brahmanical and non-Brahmanical schools of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and even Atheism. Tamil language and identity became enriched in the process.

    Identity is an issue of complexity. A person or a community may cherish more than one identity at a time. Which one of the criteria for identity is to be primarily focused may differ from time to time.

    Those who think that the Tamil identity of Sri Lanka is primarily linked only to the Chaiva / Hindu identity do not see the fact that for the priestly echelons of their religion, Brahmin identity comes first and Tamil is only a secondary identity. This doesn’t belittle the reverent acceptance of Tamil Brahmins or contributions and commitment of them to the Tamil cause and identity.

    When we witness the elite of Jaffna, who became the Ceylonese of Malaysia and Singapore, forsaking the use of Tamil language even inside their homes within three generations of migration, the Aiyangkaar Brahmins, for whom Aiyangkaar is the primary identity, have preserved the use of Tamil and contributed to it for eight hundred years, wherever they have migrated ever since their persecution from the Tamil country by the Chola empire.

    If for the Muslims of Sri Lanka Islam is the primary identity, it should be accepted with respect. The universality and secular parameters of Tamil identity are such that the stand of Muslims is in no way needs to be a contradiction for them and others to forge a wider identity of Tamil speaking people.

  • Genocide is not a war against terrorism
    They lay lifeless. Row by row, lines upon lines, bodies of young Tamil women draped in cloths, as horrified family members search frantically for their daughters, nieces and sisters, fearing the next covering they lift up will expose the face of their loved one. I was disgusted. Disgusted with myself, disgusted with what the world had become. I was at disgust with myself, for I was behind a computer screen, in the safety of my own home. A home in a first world nation that does not have to face such conflicts. I turned my speakers off thinking without sound these images of absolute sadness would be bearable.

    But when a picture is worth one thousand words are the sounds of their agonizing cries necessary? Their cries echoed vividly in my mind: cries of why, cries out to God, cries out to those beside them in search of comfort. I could see it in their faces, their expressions enough to pierce through your heart. The tears welled up in my eyes, reducing the video to a mere blur. I could see it no longer.

    They call it a ‘War Against Terrorism.’ Sixty-five Tamil school children are deliberately targeted by the Sri Lankan government in genocidal intent and they called it a ‘War Against Terrorism.’ The Tamils of Sri Lanka fight for independence after decades of oppression and they dub it ‘terrorism.’ ‘War Against Terrorism,’ a phrase that sadly has become a household term internationally, a phrase used to describe a never-ending war against those who seek to strip us of our liberties.

    They call it a ‘War Against Terrorism.’ ‘War Against Terrorism’ a phrase being abused, perverted and taken out of context; a phrase that has become an excuse to disguise what is genocide. Under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, acts of murder committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such are considered as acts of genocide. Government-sponsored atrocities in north and east Sri Lanka are parallel to that of Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia which forced the international community to establish special committees — ethnic cleansing, starvation, murders of children; extrajudicial killings, rapes, bombardments, shelling, arbitrary arrests and detention,labour camps, ill-treatments, summary executions, collective punishment, and pillage. These atrocities, committed on a large scale and used as an instrument of oppression against the Tamil people, meet the international definition of genocide.

    The Sinhalese majority enforce such barbaric, inhumane, means of violence to conquer the Tamil homeland and impose its alien Sinahla rule on the Tamil people — a Tamil people, who by their free vote at the General Elections in 1977 had given a clear mandate for the establishment of an independent state, a Tamil people who speak a different language to that of the Sinhala people; who trace their origins to roots different to that of the Sinhala people; and who by their suffering and sacrifice fall between the cracks of a failed world.

    ‘War Against Terrorism’ —a phrase used to justify the merciless slaughter of thousands upon thousands of Tamils. Genocide — one corrupt government’s desire to wipe a race off the face of the planet. But they call it a ‘War Against Terrorism.’ Genocide is Not a War Against Terrorism

  • Stop military aid to Sri Lanka: PDK
    Several hundred activists of the Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam (PDK) marched towards the Indian Parliament February 6 morning, demanding the Indian Government to immediately stop military aid and assistance to the Government of Sri Lanka.

    As a part of the protest, the activists, including 100 women and children, dressed as wounded Tamils, marched from Jantar Mantar to Parliament Street and submitted a memorandum at the Prime Minister's office.

    PDK leaders met Indian Defence Minister A. K. Antony the following day at his residence and submitted a petition signed by one million Indian Tamils demanding that India stop all military aid to Sri Lanka. The team that met Mr. Antony consisted of PDK President Kolathur Mani, General Secretaries Viduthalai Rasendiran and Kovai Ramakirutinan and Treasurer Duraisamy.

    PDK President Kolathur Mani said that the Tamil Nadu government refused to grant permission for a rally in support of Eelam Tamils led them to hold a major demonstration in the national capital.

    He pointed out that Indian Finance Minister P Chidambaram and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee have always stressed that the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka cannot be resolved a militarily, and could only be solved through dialogue.

    Mr. Mani further said that his organization was involved in collecting one million signatures from the Tamil Nadu people to seek an end to all aid and assistance to the Sri Lankan forces by India.

    He blamed the current Sri Lankan government of President Mahinda Rajapaksefor the killing Tamil parliamentarians. He argued that the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu were hurt because of Indian support to Sri Lankan forces.

    PDK general secretaries, Viduthalai Rasendiran and Kovai Ramakirutinan also took part in the march.

    The leaders condemned the closure of the A-9 highway to Jaffna for the past two years has added to the misery of the island's Tamils who have become refugees in their own land.

    They criticized the Sri Lankan government for blocking food and medicine supplies to Tamil areas.

    The activists shouted slogans against Sri Lankan President Rajapakse for his policies which they said were an attempt to achieve the "genocide of Tamils."

  • Secret training in India for Sri Lankan intelligence
    A high-level team of officers from the Sri Lanka military intelligence corps (MIC) and army were taken stealthily into Pune in early February for advanced intelligence training at Indian Army's various high-security institutions there.

    The initial phase of the training at the National Defence Academy (NDA) finished on February 8, the Times of India newspaper reported.

    The secret visit was a precursor to the setting up of an intelligence training school in the island nation, the newspaper said.

    The team was expected to be briefed on advanced electronic warfare, command, control, communications and computer intelligence at the Military Intelligence Training School and Depot (MITSD), the only institution of the Indian Army which imparts training in all aspects of intelligence.

    The visit assumed added significance “in the backdrop of recent statements by chief of naval staff Admiral Suresh Mehta that Indian Navy and Coast Guard had shared intelligence regarding movement of LTTE Sea Tiger boats in the Palk Strait and Gulf of Mannar,” the paper reported.

    According to senior officers of directorate general of military intelligence and NDA, the three-member team from General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University (KDU), Colombo, was led by Major General S K Balasuriya, commandant and vice-chancellor of the university, and include Lieutenant Colonel ALPS Tillekeratne, commanding officer of the training wing, and W M Amardasa, acting director of the academic service.

    “Unlike other foreign countries' delegations that visit the NDA, the Lankan trio were detailed on the entire spectrum of activities of the academy,” said a senior NDA official.

    Interestingly, an eight-member team of Indian MI officers led by a major general had visited Sri Lanka in August 2007 on a reconnaissance mission for setting up the school, the Times of India added.
  • India to set up 500MW power plant in Sri Lanka
    India and Sri Lanka agreed last Wednesday on a timetable to build a 500 MW coal-fired power plant in Veloor, near Nilaweli, in the eastern Sri Lankan district of Trincomalee.

    The power plant, which is to cost $250 million, will be a joint venture between the Indian power utility giant, National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), and the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB).

    The first of the two 250 MW units will be commissioned by April 2012, and the second in July that year, according to an agreement signed here.

    The signatories to the timetable were NTPC Director (Transmission) R.K. Jain and CEB Additional General Manager (Transmission) R.J. Gunawardene.

    The ceremony was presided over by the visiting Indian Commerce Minister Jairam Ramesh and Sri Lankan Power Minister W.D.J. Seneviratne.

    As per the timetable, a joint venture agreement between NTPC and CEB will be signed in April this year. The same month, the NTPC will be given the contract to do the feasibility report. The power purchase agreement will be inked in August.

    The issue of transportation of coal will be settled by December and the award of the main plant contract will be announced in June 2009.

    'The project for which a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) was signed in December 2006, is behind schedule by an year. Therefore, India is keen on expediting it,' Ramesh said.

    There is still a lingering controversy over the location of the jetty for the imported coal. While Sri Lankan Power Minister Seneviratne said it would be located in Sampur, an area recently captured from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Ramesh said the whole logistics of coal transportation would be gone into by a team.

    India and Sri Lanka also agreed to study the possibility of integrating the power grids of the two countries. The southern Indian power grid and the Sri Lankan grid would be integrated and talks for this would take place in New Delhi next week, Ramesh said.

    The feasibility of this project would be studied with an outlay of $3 million. The two countries would share the cost 50:50. The study will be completed in six to eight months.

    India has offered Sri Lanka its expertise in clean energy as per the Kyoto Protocol.

    Ramesh told the Sri Lankan power minister that India had a non-conventional, renewable energy capacity of 5,000 MW and that some of the world's most renowned companies like Suzlon and Veritas were Indian.

    India also offered to electrify three villages in Sri Lanka with non-conventional energy as a technology demonstrator and also as a gesture of goodwill.

    Talking in more general terms, Ramesh said that he told the Sri Lankan leaders that India believed in laying a strong economic foundation to bilateral relations, and that it was not going to insist on reciprocity in economic matters.

    He said that it was in India's interest to do so because if the country did not go some distance to be accommodative unilaterally, Sri Lanka could explore other options.

    The Indian minister called on President Mahinda Rajapakse and Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama at the end of his three-day visit to the island.

  • West seeks ‘political process’ to end Sri Lanka bloodshed
    Western countries this month called for a political process as the only means to end the bloodshed in Sri Lanka.

    Sri Lanka's former colonial ruler Britain has called for a "political process" to end Sri Lanka's spiralling violence and condemned the latest wave of bombings against civilians.

    British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in a statement released to mark the country’s 60th anniversary of independence said that the Sri Lankan government's unilateral withdrawal from a ceasefire with the Liberation Tigers did not mean both parties should stop protecting civilians, reported AFP.

    “Violence can never provide an answer to Sri Lanka's problems,” Miliband said. “A sustainable solution to Sri Lanka's conflict can only emerge through a just political process involving all communities.”

    “I call for an immediate end to practices which target civilians or put them in peril,” Miliband said.

    “I urge all in Sri Lanka to take steps to safeguard the civilian population and find ways to reduce the violence.”

    “People in Sri Lanka need to find space to realize their many similarities, rather than becoming further polarized by their differences,” Miliband said.

    Separately, the US also echoed the call.

    “Only a political solution to the country’s conflict that responds to the aspirations of Sri Lanka’s Tamil and other communities offers a way out of the current cycle of escalating violence,” the US embassy in Colombo said in a statement on February 3.

    “We appeal urgently to all parties to the conflict to take every possible measure to avoid killing or injuring civilians,” the statement said.

    Last month, during a visit to India, Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown had called for the shaping of a “new world order” in which the international community intervenes where populations are being threatened by "genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes or crimes against humanity, and the state is unwilling or unable to halt or prevent it."

    The world has "a responsibility to protect" Mr. Brown said.

    Earlier, in a British Parliamentary debate on Sri Lanka, junior Foreign Minister Kim Howell called for a new ceasefire and for UN monitoring of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.

    MPs from all three main British parties agreed a UN human rights monitoring mission was needed and criticised the Sri Lankan government’s decision to abrogate the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement with the Liberation Tigers, a move which resulted in the withdrawal of international ceasefire monitors.

    Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells said the end of the ceasefire meant "we have entered a dangerous new phase in Sri Lanka."

    Britain, he said, has "to continue to work with international partners to make it clear that there cannot be a military solution, and to work for a cessation of hostilities."

    "We must press the Government of Sri Lanka to address the grievances of Tamils through a credible and sustainable political solution. We must urge the LTTE to change," he said.

    "We must work quietly and patiently behind the scenes with all the communities and with civil society in Sri Lanka to sow the seeds of a future resolution of the conflict."

    "We must encourage the diaspora to play a bigger role in the search for peace," he also said.

    Mr. Howells admitted "there is little substance around which to base negotiations," but said "the international community must clearly continue to stay engaged, stop the violence and help Sri Lanka build a credible environment for a sustainable peace process."

    "Having chosen to end the ceasefire arrangement, the Sri Lankan Government have a clear responsibility to live up to their commitment to address the grievances of the Tamil people," he said.

    "The international community will be watching carefully, and we do not want to see another false dawn," he warned.

    He said the LTTE "must renounce terrorism and demonstrate a real commitment to democratic principles if it is to be regarded internationally as a legitimate political movement."

    "Some Tamils argue that the military pursuit of self-determination is generated by a sense of despair that their grievances will never be addressed in a united Sri Lanka," he said.

    "It is vital that the Government of Sri Lanka allay those fears and give them hope."

    "For Sri Lanka to find a way forward, we need to see signs of genuine good will from the Government to any proposals for devolution that might emerge and a readiness on the part of disillusioned Tamils to contemplate alternatives to self-determination."

  • U.S. Declaration of Independence validates Tamil Statehood
    Applying the "self-evident" truths celebrated in the Declaration of Independence, the United States should recognize the right of Sri Lanka's long oppressed Tamil people to independent statehood from the racial supremacist Sinhalese.

    To deny the statehood right — sought by the Tamil people since 1976 — would mark one of the United States' most ill-conceived hours. Double standards beget enmity or contempt, a steep price even for a superpower.

    To borrow from the Declaration, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

    In 1948, Sri Lanka achieved nationhood from British colonial rule with a population of about 10 million. The commanding majority were Buddhist-Sinhalese. A Hindu-Tamil minority approximated 2 million.

    Immediately upon independence, the Sinhalese denied citizenship and disenfranchised a staggering 1 million Tamils, which reduced them to a politically impotent ink blot. There has never been a Tamil president, prime minister or head of the military.

    In the last two years, four Tamil parliamentarians under the ostensible protection of the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) have been assassinated. Sri Lanka's signature became predation, repression, and state sponsored race riots against Tamils, the first organized on May 27, 1958.

    Take the grim fate of Tamil Jayantha Gnanakone, whose story speaks for all Tamils. Beginning in 1958, his family's businesses were thrice looted and burnt by Sinhalese while police and firefighters played spectator. His best friend was burned alive and, Jayantha was forced to flee to the United States for safety. No prosecutions were forthcoming nor compensation paid.

    As an international airline pilot, Jayantha's career was stymied for balking at aping the Sinhalese. His shipping and transport business was crippled by the GOSL for protesting Tamil subjugation; and, the Parliament concocted allegations he was smuggling drugs and guns.

    The GOSL similarly manufactured a criminal charge against Jayantha's mother, likening her to Colombia's notorious Pablo Escobar. She died of a heart attack in her home caused by stress during the appeal of her conviction and life sentence. In 2005, Jayantha's brother was arrested and falsely accused of complicity in the assassination of Sri Lanka's foreign minister.

    Jayantha's homes have been regularly raided and ransacked by the police or military without warrants. His wife was arrested in 2000 on suspicion of assisting the Tamil Tigers. Even his minor children, who are U.S. citizens, have been threatened with arrest on more than one occasion while visiting Sri Lanka.

    The 1958 Sinhalese Only Act was a landmark in the history of Tamil oppression. It generally excluded or handicapped Tamils in public or private employment, education, housing or welfare. Roads, schools, hospitals and public utilities were shortchanged in Tamil areas, which reflected a Sinhalese policy of "separate and unequal" that has persisted for 50 years.

    Budget revenues have been spent exclusively on Singhala and Muslim areas; and, only three industries — cement, chemicals and paper — were founded in the Tamil region, and they have been shuttered for two decades.

    In 1961, Tamils began a nonviolent, Gandhi-like protest in favor of regional autonomy. The Sinhalese government answered with assaults on the demonstrators, mass arrests, detentions of Tamil members of Parliament, torture and shootings. The firehoses and cattle prods used by white policemen in the United States against civil rights demonstrators in the 1960s were gentle in comparison.

    In 1978, then Prime Minister Junius Jayewardene unilaterally rewrote the Sri Lankan constitution to the exclusion of Tamil representatives. It created an omnipotent presidency, an office which President Jayewardene employed to enact the 1979 Prevention of Terrorism Act. The law enables the Sinhalese police to arrest, search or punish any Tamil who might question Sinhalese supremacy without judicial review or supervision.

    In 1983, the Sinhalese government originated raced riots that culminated in the slaughter of 4,000 Tamils. No prosecutions were brought against the Sinhalese culprits. No Tamil was compensated. Crimes of violence against Tamils by Sinhalese are never pursued, reminiscent of black lynchings in the United States during Jim Crow.

    Tamils cannot resort to Sri Lankan courts for protection. There is no parallel to the United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). In 1970, for example, the GOSL inaugurated a system of standardization, which required Tamil students seeking college admission to score substantially higher marks than Sinhalese applicants.

    This abbreviated chronicle of Sri Lanka's persecution of the Tamil people easily justifies Tamil statehood, with boundaries to be negotiated. The Declaration of Independence proclaims: "[W]hen a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce [a people] under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." The Canadian Supreme Court in In re Secession of Quebec (1998) elaborated that a right to secession may arise whenever a government flouts its obligation to represent "the whole people belonging to the territory without distinction of any kind." Tamils have been treated as third-class citizens for a half-century.

    Last Friday, the Sri Lankan ambassador to the United States, Bernard Goonetilleke, sported with facts in likening the persecuted Tamils to the Confederate States of America. The states that formed the Confederacy dominated the Congress and the White House for decades before 1860. The institution of slavery had been fortified by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and the Supreme Court's decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) protecting slaveholders in Free States. The Civil War erupted when the Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter, not because of Union aggression. Is it any wonder that an ambassador has been defined as an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country?

    President Bush should not tarry in urging the GOSL to recognize Tamil statehood and to negotiate boundaries.

    Bruce Fein is a lawyer for Tamils For Justice and chairman of the American Freedom Agenda.

  • Vanni bus blast claims civilians including children
    Sri Lankan military’s Deep Penetration Unit targeted a bus ferrying children from a sports event in Vanni killing 20 people including 11 children.

    A critically injured boy receives treatment.
    On Tuesday January 29, 20 civilians, including 11 school children, a teacher of Thadchanaamaruthamadu Roman Catholic Tamil Mixed School, the driver, conductor and two hospital workers were killed and 14 wounded when a Deep Penetration Unit of Sri Lanka Army triggered a Claymore mine targeting the bus carrying school children in Madu division of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam controlled territory. Eight school children were among the wounded.

    Dr Vettinathan, a local medical official told the BBC News website: "There are about 20 casualties (in hospital)...four or five of the victims are in a serious condition. There is one doctor in the hospital."

    Bishop Rayappu Joseph told the BBC that the bus travelling near the town of Mannar was hit by a claymore mine in an area controlled by the Tamil Tigers.

    The bus was 1 km away from Madu church, after having picked up the children at Thadchanaamaruthamadu and was on its way to Paalampiddi from Madu.

    Bishop Joseph said victims of the attack had been taken to Pallamadu hospital, south-west of Mannar.

    The principal of the displaced Chinna Pandivirichchaan school, S.M.G Lambert, 46, was one of the 12 critically wounded, transferred to Muzhankaavil. He was one of the seven severely wounded patients who were later transferred to Kilinochchi hospital. Two of them succumbed to their injuries on the way. Dead bodies of the two victims were handed over to Akkaraayan hospital.

    Rev. Fr. Emilianus Pillai, from Madu Church, told TamilNet that tension prevailed at the attack site as SLA started firing artillery shells after the explosion, causing panic among the civilians who were helping the victims.

    The head of the rebels' peace secretariat, S Pulithevan, told the BBC that the children were returning from a sports meeting.
    He said that seven adults, including teachers, were among the dead and blamed the Sri Lankan military for planting a roadside bomb.
    The Sri Lankan military, however, denied any involvement.
    In a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, B. Nadesan, head of the political wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), said the army's Deep Penetration Unit had "deliberately" targeted the school bus.
    "Since the present president of Sri Lanka took office in November 2005, 2,056 Tamil civilians, including 132 Tamil children, have been massacred by the state forces," he added.

    He said the government had not only abrogated the truce it signed in 2002 with the LTTE but had "adamantly" refused to allow UN human rights monitoring in the war zone.

    Nadesan claimed that the LTTE had cooperated with Norwegian peace brokers and declared its commitment to the truce pact "100 percent".

    "It should be obvious to the international community that there is only one path open to regain the rights of the Tamil people and that is for the international community to recognise the sovereignty of the Tamil nation," Nadesan said.
  • “What can I do?” - thoughts for the Tamil Diaspora
    The plight of our people has been steadily reaching newer levels. And, after being an observer with a hands-off approach, I decided to do something about it. I became proactive - in small ways. As a mother of two young children living in Sydney, Australia and having many commitments, it was not easy to change my inaction - but I did. I firmly believe now, that if we all do our little part and started working towards a common vision, that vision will and must materialize. I realise there’s spiritual element to this as well, and of course some people are skeptical when it comes to these things. But I still wanted share my simple suggestions at the end of this article, with other ordinary people who, like I used to be, are a bit lost when it comes to how they can help.

    It all began in 1983 for me. Following the horrifying experience of the riots, I remember the first time my family settled in Jaffna. I remember the 3 day ship journey to Jaffna, the light blue waters of the KKS harbour and the village school where my family was given bread and potato curry. How lovingly the senior students – my people - served the food to us. How good the food tasted, especially after being in a crowded ship for 3 days and having experienced sea sickness.

    Children are resilient and if given the chance they bounce back. I soon forgot and overcame the bad memories thanks to my people and Jaffna. I was just a little girl and I was swept away by the simple beauty of my hometown Chavakachcheri – the lush paddy fields, the tall palmyrahs, the mango groves and the hot white sand that made me hop and jump when I tried walking barefoot to the kovil close by. Jaffna healed me and my horrific memories of the riots. Jaffna saved me in many ways. Jaffna taught me culture, the beauty in living close to nature, the importance of an ecologically sustainable living and embedded in me deep spiritual beliefs.

    Then I remember how the war started. Little by little and then all in a rush. The many atrocities that happened. I remember the first time a loved one got killed. I remember a friend who was arrested and disappeared. I remember a childhood acquaintance who was later gang-raped and murdered by Sri Lankan soldiers – became to be known as the Krishanthy Kumarasamy case.

    I remember proudly waving at Indian soldiers only to be terrified of them a few months afterwards. What a betrayal by India! But more was to come. I remember how stupidly and naively I voted for Chandrika Kumarutunga when I moved back to Colombo, having just turned 18 and got voting rights, trusting the South to deliver peace as they promised. Instead, the war intensified under Chandrika’s regime and I lost a beloved cousin of mine who had just entered University - her body blown into pieces in one of the many aerial bombings by the Sri Lankan Air Force in the North. How naïve I was in hoping that a Sinhalese government would deliver peace to the Tamil people.

    Then, now in a new millennium and in another country, I got sadder and angrier as I read the latest news or heard from people who visited Sri Lanka. I could almost feel the terror that our people are experiencing on a daily basis - It was almost palpable. We cannot trust our enemy one little bit nor should we let them get away with what they have done to us. Let our fighters carry on with what they are doing but meanwhile, I decided that I need to do my part – in whatever small ways I can.

    When we look at the Tamil Diaspora, some of us still lay our hopes on the International Community - I am not saying it’s a bad thing but it should not be the only thing. Some of us wait for some sort of miracle to happen. Some of us feel absolutely hopeless and pessimistic. Some of us feel tortured to live this way – reading the news of our homeland, feeling angry and depressed – then only to get distracted by trivial things in daily life. Only a rare few Tamils undertake the weight on their shoulders and do more than their part in helping our homeland. They are the dedicated people who though living abroad have not forgotten their duty. These people of the Tamil Diaspora are true leaders and beacons of hope.

    However, most of us do nothing. I have friends who simply sigh and change the topic or don’t talk about it anymore. Even worse, I have friends who don’t even give it a second thought. They like to believe that they have lots of rights in Australia. They thrive in the small things of daily lives and happily chat in English with their kids. One part of our future generation is being utterly traumatised in Sri Lanka, while the other part (or to be fair, the majority of other part) is growing up oblivious to what’s happening to their brethren back home.

    So I put together a simple plan on how I (a housewife and a mother) can change my habits, and then I acted on it. It was a very liberating experience for me. Small things can make a big difference. Hence, I share my thoughts with and for the people who might have adopted a “hands-off” approach (like I did before) or “looking the other way” approach.

    Act 1 - Get in touch with the North East. Help relatives and friends in North East.

    Almost all of my close relatives are living abroad. But I took some trouble to get contact details of distant relatives in Sri Lanka. I contacted my mother’s second cousin’s family in the North, whom I met only once in my life when I visited them as a child. They were just so happy that I remembered them and called. Now we are in touch at least via mail. I called a long lost relative in Batticola. For two decades, the people of the East have experienced the worst of Sinhalese brutality in terms of large scale massacres. This is due to geographical proximity as well other factors which has made them more vulnerable. My relative in Batticola was ecstatic that I called. As far as I am concerned, a two way communication was helpful to both parties. I feel connected. Also, sending a small amount of money goes a long way. In these horrific times, they need all the help that they can get. Initially, I felt ashamed that I didn’t contact these people before. But better late than never.

    Act 2 - Help the charities that do work in the North East

    About 5 years ago, I realised if I can afford to spend $20 a month on McDonalds, I can sponsor a child. So I sponsored this little girl through Foster Parents Plan. The country they chose was Bangladesh. 5 years on, I still felt so happy of my decision whenever I got a letter or picture from her. So later, I started to donate to the orphanages in Vanni directly through a friend who is personally involved with the orphanages. I allocated a small percentage of my salary for this purpose. I also started contributing in Tamil events and through Tamil organizations using common sense and a bit of trust. In doing so, I brushed aside a long felt concern - “I really need to know how and where my money is going”. A quote from one of my favourite writers comes to mind.

    “You often say, ‘I would give, but only to the deserving’.
    The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.
    They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish” – Kalil Gibran

    I felt that if we don’t give now (our time, money and energy) to our people back at home, our culture and our nationhood might perish eventually. Once I started giving my time, money and energy in small ways, I felt more confident in terms of futures results.

    Act 3 - Boycott Sri Lankan goods

    Self explanatory - just check the label of whatever you buy. For example, I stopped buying MD brand that I used to use a lot.

    Act 4 - Write to local MPs, NGOs and to the media.

    Get details of your local MP and engage them. Write to them regularly or schedule a fact to face meeting so that after a while, they get to know you and a relationship can be formed. I started writing to NGOs and the media, and was amazed at some of the responses that I got. They really like to hear from ordinary people. I feel that I doing my part educating people. This takes maybe 1 or 2 hours of my time per week. And I do believe, if many people start doing this, it could be a powerful factor.

    Act 5 - Teach our children Tamil language. Teach them the ancient and recent history of Tamil homeland.

    This is a very important point for two reasons. The next generation of children needs to be aware. They will have to carry on the struggle of rebuilding our nation once we are no longer here. Also, teaching our children our language and history is not only beneficial for our people back home, but also good for our children’s self concept, self image and identity (regardless of age).

    Act 6 - Don’t imagine the worse or NOT try something out because of an assumption.

    I have a friend who says with gloom “even if Tamil Eelam materialises it’ll be a bad state. We will destroy ourselves”. Would you give a 10 months old child a can of coke just because “he’s going to be doing that anyway when he is 18” (I actually heard a father say that and I feel sorry for both him and the kid!). This kind of logic is flawed. We can’t give up on things by imagining a bad future. You nurture and nourish a plant so that it’ll be bear good fruits. We’ll just have to heal with love and hope.


    Act 7 - Think collectively and truly identify with North East as Tamil Eelam.

    We need to think collectively and truly identify with North East as Tamil Eelam. Our thoughts and actions stemming from this identity will have far reaching consequences. Freedom is ours to take - not something that we need to ask from somebody else. Once we start believing in Tamil Eelam, it will materialize. Meanwhile, I feel better when I introduce myself as a “Tamil from the North East of Sri Lanka now referred to as Tamil Eelam by us” – a rather long winded answer to the simple question “where are you originally from?” But I still feel good saying it. I used to say “Sri Lankan”.

    We might have a few dilemmas. For example, we might not have a flag and song that is recognised by others. Recently, the Principal of my daughter’s school had a bright new idea. In order to reflect the cultural diversity at the local school, he wanted to display the different flags of the different nations the children’s families were coming from. It was an extremely nice thought! But I did not feel like giving the Sri Lankan flag nor could I give our flag with the Tiger emblem on it since it may not be perceived as a national flag. I felt really troubled and at the end had to tell the Principal that we didn’t want any representation by flags. So we do have road blocks in this area and we need to work on that but I still rather identify with our unborn nation than to be identified with Sri Lanka - even for formalities. This was an important psychic change.


    Act 8 - Positive visualisation

    Positive visualisation is not just day dreaming or just hoping, but actually visualising the final goal in mind so that we can work towards it. I have practiced this in my personal life with good results. Once I drew a picture of a goal that I wanted (a seemingly impossible goal at that time), put it in my study room, and every day reflected on it for couple of minutes. This clarified things in my mind. This helped and kept me in focus on what I wanted to achieve and what needs to be done on a daily basis - all the small steps that I had to do in order to achieve this big goal.

    Nowadays, I also visualise visiting my hometown (now the home of a big army camp) and see what has to be done from my part in order to achieve this. This last point (positive visualisation) kind of encompasses all of the above points: Visualise -> Get Proactive -> Act; Visualise -> Get Proactive -> Act. I visualise my family visiting my mother’s cousin’s family in Jaffna and having lunch with them. I visualise my kids playing together with theirs! This may seem a bit far fetched but I truly believe that the Universe will respond to my thoughts as well as my actions. I believe we can create our own future if we really want to. We just have to start off this process by being proactive first. The rest will follow.

    Some skeptics might call me a dreamer. But I rather dream than despair. I rather believe than be cynical. I rather pray and plead to the Universe, than to turn the other way and pretend everything is fine - as the Tamil saying goes “Prayers that are said for the common good always work”. I rather act and consequently feel good about myself for the small yet powerful deeds that I am doing in helping out my people. It’s all worth it in the end.

  • What Liberation?

    The author identifies four dominant themes that seriously impact on the sustainability of resettlement in the Batticaloa district. These are:

    1. Lack of consultation and clarity
    2. Lack of Preparedness and Planning
    3. Restriction of Access and Mobility
    4. Protection Concerns of the Displaced and Resettled Communities
    This first part looks at the first three, while the second and third parts of this article (to be published in the next issues) look at the fourth theme.

    Introduction

    The East is ‘liberated’. It has been so since last June when the government requested it to be celebrated with ‘patriotic joy’. Over 300,000 civilians were displaced in the process and a majority have been ‘resettled’ since then. But a significant minority still remain in the IDP or transit camps with uncertainty hanging over their future.

    This report, based on short visits and a series of discussions with a number of people in the area – including some of the displaced people themselves – is to communicate some pressing issues and concerns in this process. It aims to highlight aspects of the human rights and humanitarian situation in the District with a specific focus on the internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the newly resettled villages in Vaharai and West Batticaloa. In doing so, it hopes to inform and influence concerned policy makers and practitioners to think through solutions.

    This is not a general analysis of the political and security situation in Batticaloa. The military and STF are consolidating their recent gains, the LTTE is intent on destabilizing, the security forces are retaliating, the multiple splits in the Karuna faction and their overall ‘control and influence’ of communities by coercion, their simmering confrontations with the Muslim community and the impending local government elections - all make up for interesting times ahead.

    What happens in the next few months could have serious ramifications for the future peace process. The situation urgently calls for a thorough social, political and security analysis. But that is not the purpose of this note or the visits. Neither is it a compilation of the severe hardships and harrowing stories.

    This is primarily a collection of articulated concerns, observations and reflections of and about the ‘displaced’ and ‘resettled’. It is evident that there are several pertinent issues that need a rapid, effective response by protection and development actors advocating on behalf of these communities that are struggling to cope with simply living in the ‘liberated’ East. Several complaints and concerns were reported.

    1. Lack of consultation and clarity

    There are several plans doing the rounds in Colombo – but IDPs in the ground are completely unaware of them. Despite repeated requests the government is yet to come out with a clear policy and guidelines on what each resettling family is entitled to. Not a single family whose members have been killed or injured in the conflict in 2006 or 2007 have been given compensation (compared with the prompt dispensation of compensation to the civilian victims of the Nugegoda blast). It is absolutely essential that at least now the government clearly articulates through effective public information campaigns the entitlements of the displaced who have been resettled.

    The most precarious situation is that of the families displaced from Muttur area whose villages have been declared High Security Zones. Despite the unreasonable disproportionateness of the demarcated areas and dubious intents (where some accounts say that it is to be an economic development zone) what is most appalling is that the displaced villagers have not been told what their fate is going to be. They live in complete limbo. Similarly there have been several instances of military occupying public and private property without providing any alternatives or compensation in the ‘liberated; areas. This type of insensitivity on the part of the Government which cannot be explained by the ‘fight against terrorism’ leads to further alienation of the Tamil population.

    It was also noted that despite agreement and repeated reminders about the guiding principles for internally displaced people – the process of resettlement often fell far short of the minimum required standards. After the flagrantly forced resettlement of the Vaaharai area, the military and the STF did improve their conduct for the subsequent rounds of resettlement – but still fell short of the agreed upon standards. The hasty endorsement of some phases of the resettlement by UNHCR was also pointed out by some people as having set a bad precedent. One of the common sense suggestion by a displaced community members was – “if the return is voluntary, all they have to do is arrange for regular bus service. We long to go back to our homes. If we know public transport is available, we will go, see the place ourselves, if satisfied, come back prepare, pack and leave’. Whereas in almost all the phases of return the families never got a chance to assess the place – they were dumped there.

    The most egregious aspect was that the families returned to find that their houses had been vandalised and looted to the core. Since the LTTE fled without even taking their heavy equipment, the blame is squarely placed on the military that captured and remained in control of the area till the people returned. The list of items lost due to this looting runs into thousands of complaints in the newly established Vaaharai police station.

    Now that a majority of the people have been resettled, looking back, it leaves a bad taste about how the process was handled by the military and the civil authorities (who always are relegated to taking orders from the military).

    2. Lack of Preparedness and Planning

    It came out clearly that the Government was not prepared for this scale of displacement or for the subsequent logistics of resettlement. It could have been. Displacement is never voluntary. The displacement in the Batticaloa District was principally caused by the military operations of Sri Lanka Army in a majority of cases and LTTE in some instances, who also used trapped communities as human shields. It seems to have happened in an environment where the International Community, the UN and others had resigned to the fact, and at times condoned, that causing displacement as a by product of the ‘fight against terrorism’ is the sovereign right of the Sri Lankan Government. In this backdrop massive displacement caused by areal bombardment, relentless shelling and blockades was seen as a necessary evil and as overriding international norms on protection of civilians in armed conflict and principles of proportionality.

    But the concern aired by many was, if the Government had resolved to pursue the military strategy, it must also have been prepared to take care of its citizens who were sure to be affected. There were no such plans or resources. The military agenda of the Government matched by the counter strategies of LTTE always creates displacement and misery for civilians. In almost all the cases in the East the Government was terribly under prepared and it was left to the UN and other NGOs to rush to fill in gaping holes in the response to IDP situation. If Government is clear on its military strategy of ‘defensive offence’, ‘retaliation’ or ‘pre-emptive strikes’ they must also have a clear strategy and preparedness to take care of its own citizens who are displaced as a direct result of their action. Time and again the Government failed and left it for the external agencies to fill significant gaps. Similarly even when it came to resettlement, the Government was woefully under provided moving back people without even the basic of needs in place. More on this later, but suffice to say that the people see, and justifiably so, the state more as ‘military liberators’ than as one caring for their needs and looking after their welfare.

    It appears that civil administration mechanisms (the GA and DS) are caught off guard most of the time regarding the timing of displacement and resettlement, making it difficult to prepare in advance. In the current context it is imperative that the resettlement/reconstruction plan is completely owned, lead and coordinated by the civil authorities headed by the Government Agent and the Divisional Secretary. In the current context the civil administration in the district – mostly Tamil – seem as marginalised and helpless as the communities they support.

    3. Restriction of Access and Mobility

    Normalcy cannot return if there is undue restriction on access and mobility. Sustainable resettlement is meaningless if access is arbitrarily refused or restricted. While the security imperative does warrant some protection procedures what is currently prevalent in the East is beyond reason. Recently resettled villages in Vaaharai and Batticaloa West are subjected to layers of restrictions. There are several aspects in this that deserves mention

    Firstly, free access of goods, services and people is a sine qua non for sustainable resettlement –given the geographic and settlement characteristic of the Batticaloa district – with highly concentrated human settlements in the Eluvankarai area and vast cultivation land in the Paduvankarai area. To mark out people based on DS divisions and to have different registration process, different identity cards (in addition to the national ID) and to set in place security procedures to move from one DS division to the other is causing severe impediment to thousands of people whose daily living is dependent on crossing these boundaries. The lack of clarity as well as the constantly changing procedures brings in a great deal of uncertainty and misconception that limits mobility. In effect it traps them in ‘Bantustans’ with heavy military and paramilitary presence (and the inevitable harassment) is creating more misery. The security gains from such a hassle and harassment is not clear. The growing frustration though is very evident.

    A full six months after ‘liberation’ and capture, now to demarcate areas and to consider formerly LTTE-held territories as restricted or no-go areas defies logic. It did make some sense to stringently regulate movement across borders when some areas were controlled by the tigers. But, not any more. To restrict access into these areas for humanitarian agencies, Sri Lankan civil society and for even ordinary citizens of the district now is beyond reason. Given that the whole area is now under the control of the military, to claim that access is denied to ‘prevent infiltration’ sounds strange. Infiltration from where? Isn’t the rest of the district under the military control any way? The other reason given is to ‘prevent assistance getting into the wrong hands’. Aren’t these places cleared of ‘wrong hands’ and even if any one still remains having survived the long period of blockade, he sure must have figured out or is being sustained by other supply routes. The point is that the demarcations and restrictions do not seem to have a compelling security logic which could not be managed by the other military architecture like check points and cordon and search operations. What it ends up doing is frustrating the resettlement and humanitarian work and delaying the integration with the rest of the district and country.

    Even more baffling is when humanitarian agencies had been denied access ‘for protection reasons’ to very places where the ordinary people were resettled – some of them forcibly. The delays in access contributed to the lagged response to the resettled and more often than not the agencies were presented with crisis situation – lack of shelter, lack of water, lack of food etc- which could have been easily avoided with easy access and adequate time for suitability and needs assessment. Bureaucracy and red tape are commonplace and many agencies continue to face problems of access. Clearance procedures, when they are clear, are said to take anywhere within 48 hours to a week and only agencies working on ‘development’ are allowed access to West Batticaloa – as a result, addressing protection issues of IDPs and the resettled has become a serious concern. Access to humanitarian assistance in areas like Vellaveli, Paddippalai and Vavunatheevu was severely delayed and agencies are still subjected to cumbersome procedures in order to obtain permission for access. Having permission is no guarantee for access which also depends

  • The Thirukkural: the householder and the nation’s wealth
    In part 1 of this introduction to the 2000 year Tamil classic on ethical living, the Kural, we outlined the structure of the work as three books: the books of virtue, wealth and love. The foundational themes that cut across the books are the primal spirit (“God Primordial”), the ecosystem and virtue. The book of virtue is split into two main parts: “the way of the householder” and the “way of the renunciate” while the book of wealth is split into “Royalty”, “Ministers”, “Qualities of a country” and a general section.

    The Kural is said to be a creation of a weaver of cloth. For the Kural is a tapestry of patterns depicting the network of relationships between man and the universe. It outlines a system of ethics whose objective is harmony and balance in this network. The Kural addresses the relationships between the individual, his family, his friends, the business world, his country, other countries, nature and God, among others. The Rev. G. U Pope, one of the earliest translators of the work termed it “an integral painting of a civilization which is harmonious in itself and which possesses a clearly recognizable unity."

    The book of wealth is much concerned with the wealth of nations. It is organised around the necessary group structures and leadership required for the building of “wealth”: the section on “royalty” being entirely a treatise on leadership, whereas the “qualities” of a country are the foundational characteristics of a bountiful society. Yet the personal foundations for the group relationships explored later are laid in the “way of the householder”.

    The terms “Royalty” and “Ministers” must be read in historic context, the modern equivalent being leadership and advisors, experts and administrators. “Royalty” is nowhere defined to be hereditary. Equally the Kural does not presume permanence in a nation, rather it assumes these are fluid: it warns that nations may fail as a result of not following the principles and new nations may arise.

    And so, in this, Part 2 of our 3 part series we will first look at how some of the personal ethics outlined in the way of the householder become institutionalised where necessary into the wealth of nations.

    We take an example of the conceptual threads in the book of virtue that are woven into the book of wealth, the notion of “impartiality”.

    “Impartiality” deals with justice in a personal sense and is foundational to many themes that are taken up in the book of wealth. The chapter on impartiality in the “way of the householder” starts by describing “justice” in terms of the “modern” concept of objectivity and lack of bias:

    “Justice may be called good when it acts impartially
    towards enemies, strangers and friends”

    “To incline to neither side, like a balanced scale’s level beam,
    and thus weigh impartially is the wise one’s ornament”

    The Kural redefines personal integrity, including the integrity of experts (“advisors” as they will be called in the book of wealth) in terms of impartiality

    “Speech uttered without bias is integrity
    if no unspoken bias lurks in the heart”

    And in the context of impartiality, seeks to apply to business a principle of mutual benefit to counter-parties and society:

    “Those businessmen will prosper whose business
    protects as their own the interests of others”

    Here is also the concept that unethically acquired wealth (and investment income thereof) is forfeit:

    “However prosperous it may seem, all wealth gained
    By loss of rightness must be relinquished that very day”

    These are modern legal concepts, but in the Kural they are treated as the foundations of personal conduct, rather than institutionalised law. And to place in context the relative importance of justice to wealth:

    “Though a man is profoundly impoverished
    if he remains just the world will not regard him as poor”

    Whereas the above are all extracts from chapter 12, entitled “Impartiality” in “the way of the householder”, the theme of justice is taken up in a broader, more institutionalised fashion in the book of wealth.

    The introduction to the section on royalty is a chapter entitled “Merits of the king”. Justice is said to be one of four key qualities:

    “ He is a light among rulers who is endowed with the four merits
    of generosity, graciousness, justice and care for the people”

    But consistent personal virtue is a prerequisite of leadership as is the courage to maintain justice

    “The noble king is unswerving in virtue, restrains wrongdoing,
    and courageously maintains his honor”

    “the world is protected beneath the umbrella
    of an ethical leader who can endure words bitter to the ear”

    The Kural, written at a time when most of the world lived under the governance of arbitrary despots whose power arose from force rather than constitutional law, spends three chapters exploring the relationship between justice as the bedrock of government. These chapters are: the just reign, the unjust reign and avoidance of tyranny.

    Firstly, “the just reign” defines justice in government

    “Investigate well, show favor to none, maintain impartiality
    consult the law, then give judgment – this is justice”

    While protection from harm is the duty of leadership and government, failure in justice leads to the fall of government:

    “All the world looks to the rain clouds for sustenance
    all the people look to the King’s sceptre for protection”

    “An inaccessible ruler who listens and adjudicates inattentively
    will plummet from power and perish ..”

    It is just leadership not brutal force that is integral to victory:

    “Victory is not won by the lance
    but by the King’s sceptre, provided it is not crooked”

    While the “just reign” tells us of the virtues of justice, the following two chapters are scathing of its failures. The “unjust reign” tells us in its very first stanza:

    “More malicious than a professional murderer is the monarch
    who reigns his people with injustice and oppression”

    A leader who is intellectually lazy, corrupt or unjust forfeits his claim to loyalty:

    “Without thinking, a King rules crookedly and thus
    forfeits his subjects loyalty, together with his own fortune ..”

    But for the Kural, justice is not only intrinsic to sustaining government: its failure is calamitous in ecological terms:

    “If the King acts contrary to justice, contrary seasons
    will befall the earth and rain laden clouds will fail to come forth ..”

    Ultimately leadership that is arbitrary and unconstitutional, in short, tyrannical, is doomed to fail:

    “The tyrant who causes dread in his people
    will perish quickly and inevitably ..”

    Other prerequisites of leadership outlined in the book of wealth are: learning and wisdom (wisdom being the practical application), the assessing and seizing of opportunities - understanding time, place and resources (a form of ancient SWOT analysis where SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), the choosing and management of men, perseverance and equanimity.

    But if these are the characteristics of leadership, the objective is the building and management of a “country”. This is the third theme of the book of wealth – “the qualities of a country”.

    In the Kural, a country is not rigidly defined. It seems more akin to Thomas Paine’s definition of a group structure that arises organically because of man’s intrinsic social tendencies.

    Says Paine in the “Rights of Man” (1791): Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all the parts of civilised community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. “

    Compare the Kural’s introductory definition of a country:

    “Where unfailingly fertile fields, worthy men
    And wealthy merchants come together – that indeed is a country “

    The Kural also implicitly assumes that one is free to choose the geographical location of one’s country and hence provides guidelines:

    “Rain waters, underground waters and rivers shed from well-situated mountains,
    plus strong fortresses are features of a fine country”

    If the Kural considers healthy commerce as the foundational quality of a country, it also explains the importance of productivity gains, foreshadowing the economic paradigm shifts and scalability of modern technology:

    “A land where prosperity comes easily deserves the name country
    not one where wealth entails laborious toil“

    In the “qualities of a country” the Kural considers not only the proper means of building wealth, including the building of alliances, but also the defence of wealth: the nature of fortresses, military strength and the benefits of an army. We leave the further discussion of a country for Part 3, along with more from the book of virtue.
    For the Kural does not limit itself to such weighty topics.

    The book of love takes the familiar Sangam poetry format of quotes: “He says”, “She says”, “She says to her friend ..” etc. By way of introduction, we leave the reader with the Kural’s equivalent of the “ man-eater” pop lyric:

    (He says):

    “A Goddess, a peahen or a woman
    bedecked with jewels ? My heart is amazed ! ..“ [PS]

    “I never knew Yama before but now I know
    that it is feminine and has warring eyes …” [KK]
    (Yama being the angel of death)

    “She may have that feminine grace
    but her look sucks life out of men who gaze ..” [NV, SB]

    “Ah there goes all my might which foes dread in fight
    when I face her brows beaming bright! “ [KV, GU]


    Unattributed quotes are from the Himalayan Academy publication “Weaver’s Wisdom” (Reference 1).

    Attributions are as follows
    GU - G U Pope
    NV – NVK Ashraf
    KK - K Kannan
    KV – K Krishnasamy and V Ramkumar
    PS - P. S Sundaram
    SB - S Bharathiar

    References

    1. Weaver’s Wisdom, Ancient Precepts for a perfect life. American English translation By Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami and the monastics of the Saiva Siddhanta Order (Kauai, Hawaii), Himalayan Academy Publications (http://www.himalayanacademy.com/resources/books/weaver/)

    2. The Sacred Kural of Tiruvaluva Nayanar by Dr. G. U. Pope, Laurier Books Ltd (available at amazon.com)

    3. (Internet resources) http://www.thirukkural2005.org/
    International Thirukkural Conference 2005 (Washington)

    4. (Internet resources) Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirukkural

    5. (Internet Thirrukural Browser) http://www.cs.utk.edu/~siddhart/thirukkural/

    6. (Interent resource) Comparison of translations at http://www.geocities.com/nvashraf/kur-eng/closeindex.htm

  • Journalists live dangerously in Sri Lanka
    Sri Lankan journalists are going through a trying period. Government leaders are taking a hard line on media freedom, with even senior media persons facing death threats and murderous assaults.

    Media watchdogs, both national and international, have publicised serious incidents of intimidation by the state and other agencies directed against media organisations. But President Mahinda Rajapaksa denies any repression.

    'The media here is free. Newspapers are full of criticism against the government,' Rajapaksa pointed out recently. However, incidents of intimidation abound.

    The latest scary case was the stabbing of Suhaib M. Kassim, the associate editor of the state-owned Tamil daily 'Thinakaran' at his house here Monday.

    The watchdog Free Media Movement (FMM) said the attack on a senior journalist like Suhaib demonstrated the 'vulnerability' of journalists in 'highly militarised' Sri Lanka.

    Last week, two unidentified men stabbed journalist Lal Hemantha Athula Mawalage of the state-owned TV station 'Rupavahini' while he was on his way home.

    Mawalage had come into the limelight when he delivered a fiery speech against the controversial Deputy Labour Minister Mervyn Silva, who had stormed into the TV station and assaulted news director T.M.G. Chandrasekhara Dec 27.

    Angry TV station staff then beat up minister Silva. The incident was shown on all TV channels to the embarrassment of the Rajapaksa government.

    While the minister went scot-free, Chandrasekhara was transferred to the post of director of research. The media reported that Chandrasekhara sought the transfer 'citing threats to his life'.

    The FMM said that on Jan 7, three leading journalists with MBC TV and Radio Network that covered the Rupavahini episode were threatened with death by the underworld.

    MTV head Chevaan Daniel, Sirasa TV director Kingsley Ratnayake and its news director Susil Kedelpitiya lodged complaints with the police about the threats.

    Earlier, a young journalist with 'The Sunday Leader', Arthur Wamanan, was arrested for exposing the minister's alleged corruption.

    Two top journalists of the Jaffna-based Tamil daily 'Uthayan' are too scared to go home because they face threats. The resident editor and the news editor have had to practically live in the office since May 2006.

    'I can go out only with police escort,' news editor Kuhanathan told IANS. He would not identify the source of the threat.

    Tamil journalists who get into trouble are routinely suspected of being supporters of the Tamil Tigers. Over all, critical journalists, no matter what the ethnicity, are dubbed 'traitors'.

    Indeed, some Sinhalese journalists have been arrested for suspected links with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), leading to a new term 'Sinhala Koti' or 'Sinhalese Tigers'.

    In a letter to President Rajapaksa this month, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said the charge of 'traitor' was made against Tamil TV journalist Sri Ranga Jeyaratnam by Tamil cabinet minister Douglas Devananda.

    Army commander Lt.Gen. Sarath Fonseka told the state-owned media Jan 2 that a few scribes were indeed traitors and that they were the 'real obstacles' in the war against terror.

    Last year, the defence ministry's website had for many days carried an article making insinuations against Iqbal Athas, the defence correspondent of 'The Sunday Times'. Athas was accused of 'assisting in the psychological operations of the LTTE terrorists'.

    The CPJ told President Rajapaksa: 'Verbal, written and physical assaults on journalists are attacks on the very fabric of a democratic society. We call on you to make sure that members of your government desist from such acts.'

    This has had no impact.

    Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake said Monday that sections of the media were 'taking a sadistic delight in denigrating their motherland'.

    And in an interview to the Sinhalese daily 'Iirida Lankadeepa' last week, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa - a brother of the president - called for censorship on military news.

    'I think there is no need to report anything on the military. People do not want to know the quantity and kind of arms we acquire. This is not media freedom. I will tell without fear that if I have power I will not allow any of these things to be written.
    'Everything in this country has become prostituted. Like peace, even the media is completely prostituted,' Gotabhaya thundered after naming two leading media institutions as the principal culprits.
  • Killing and abduction of civilians increase in Jaffna
    Violence against Tamil civilians continues to escalate in the Sri Lanka military controlled Jaffna peninsula with 10 people killed and 15 injured in the last week alone.

    Most of the killings were carried out in southern Jaffna peninsula, Thenmaraadchi, close to the Forward Defence Lines at Muhamaalai. In each case unidentified armed men who carried out the attacks escaped through Sri Lanka Army’s (SLA’s) High Security Zones and checkpoints without being challenged.

    Last Saturday night gunmen riding a motorbike pursued a Tamil man, who was riding his own motorbike, along Raja Veethy, Koppay, towards Jaffna town. The gunmen sprayed the victim with bullets near the LTTE Heroes Cemetery in Koppay and fled from the scene. The man killed was identified by his wife as Francis Rohan, 26, from Chulipuram, who had been paying a visit to relatives in Kopay East when he was gunned down.

    After the victim’s body was recovered by the Grama Sevaka officer (Village level Administrator), Koppay police were notified and later handed the body to Jaffna Teaching hospital for post mortem examination.

    The previous day armed men shot and killed two civilians in Kodikaamam unleashing panic among the people in Thenmaraadchi.

    Friday morning around 7:30 a.m, a 24-year-old female was shot and killed at her house on Jaffna-Point Pedro-Kachchaay road and a 26-year-old male was gunned down, 1 km away, around 10:00 a.m on Allarai-Kachchaay road in Kodikaamam.

    The young woman killed was identified as Sivarasa Suki, 24, an unmarried woman living with her parents. The killers forcibly entered her house, near a Heroes’ Cemetery, and sprayed her with bullets, while her mother was watching. Suki's mother, who fainted in shock, was rushed to Chaavakachcheari hospital in critical condition.

    The male victim was identified as Uthayan, a family man.

    Two days prior to that, on Wednesday 30 January, Kodikaamam witnessed a massacre of three siblings by a motorbike squad allegedly operated by the SLA. Around 8.00pm, armed men on motorcycles shot and killed three siblings at Choalaiyamman Koayiladi in Manduvil in Thenmaraadchi. The attackers, alleged to be members of the SLA Field Bike Squad, surrounded the house, ordered the members of the family to go inside a room for inquiry and sprayed bullets on them, killing two, including a mother of two children. The children narrowly escaped from the bullets.

    The victims were identified as Palasundaram Baskaran, 30, Thushyanthan Paleswari, 21, mother of two, and Palasundaram Parthipan, 19. Baskaran and Paleswari were killed on the spot. Parthipan succumbed to his injuries hours later, due to the inability to get him timely medical assistance.

    The killings took place in the same area where recently three bodies of youths abducted and shot dead had been dumped by the killers.

    Whilst the killings have spiralled, abductions too have been on the riser. In the latest incident, on Monday 28 January, the families of two men lodged complaints with the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission (SLHRC) in Jaffna.

    A young family man, Balasingam Yasotharan, 21, was forcibly abducted at gun point from his house in Oorelu on Friday afternoon by two men on motorcycles, according to complaint made by his wife with SLHRC.

    Further, Selvarajah Gajendran, 31, an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) who was a labourer by profession, living in IDP camp at Oadakkarai, Changkaanai was feared abducted Thursday after leaving for work in Jaffna town, his family members noted in a complaint registered with the SLHRC. Gajendran was displaced from Kaangkeasanththurai in 1990 due to SLA offensives.

    Whilst the spate of killings and abductions have terrorised the locals, a bomb explosion on Thursday 31 January around 10:30 a.m on Aadiyapaatham Road in Thirunelveali, Jaffna, killed four civilians and injured at least fifteen.

    The injured were rushed to Jaffna Teaching hospital. There were no SLA troopers or vehicles at the spot when a claymore mine attached to a bicycle exploded, civilians in the area said.

    Three of the dead civilians were identified as Ponnuththurai Krishnakumar, 32, of Koandaavil, Sankarappillai Muththukkumar, 60, from Urumpiraay South and Thirunavukkarasu Pagnchaadcharanathan, 44, of Koandaavil East. The fourth body, in a charred and disfigured state, was proving difficult to even identify. The bomb, believed to be a claymore mine, was attached to a parked bicycle, and exploded with a deafening noise.

    The explosion took place when people travelling on the nearby Palaali main road were standing on the sides, ordered there by SLA troops who had suspended all traffic on the main road. Aadiyapaatham Road is rarely used by the SLA.

    Following the bomb blast the SLA intensified security measures, suspending traffic for hours Friday while SLA convoys used the main roads in Jaffna peninsula.

    All traffic on the main roads from Jaffna to Palaali, Point Pedro and Kaangkeasanththurai were suspended many times while all vehicles and persons entering Jaffna town were subjected to strict security checking.

    Normal procedure of allowing people to cross the roads when the SLA convoys passed was done away with Friday causing people to wait on the sides of the roads for many hours.

    SLA troops ordered all passengers out of the vehicles in the pouring rain and checked all of them meticulously.

  • 60 Years of Oppression

    Sri Lanka marked sixty years of independence from Britain this week. As such, February 4th was truly representative of this ethnocracy's sordid state of affairs. The highlight of the 'multi-ethnic' country's anniversary ceremonies was a parade by the all-Sinhala military which President Mahinda Rajapakse and his commanders reviewed amidst tight security. Elsewhere, the island was wracked by armed conflict, extra-judicial violence and humanitarian suffering. Quite appropriately, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) wasn't even invited to the state celebrations. The main opposition Sinhala parties refused to attend, though this has more to do with their envy of President Rajapakse's near messianic standing amongst the majority community than the protests of poor governance they cited. The main Muslim party, the SLMC, also stayed away: their community is now bearing the crushing deprivations of majoritarianism.

    Sri Lanka's quagmire has been aptly described as 'a crisis of the state.' But what is not easily accepted by the international community, in its impatience to bring peace to the island, is that this crisis is the cause and not the consequence of three decades of conflict. Today's abysmal state of affairs is merely an intensification of chauvinist dynamics that, having developed beneath the surface before the colonial handover, erupted into the open soon after the British left. This is not to blame 'ancient hatreds' but to argue that Britain's concentration of power in Sinhala hands enabled a chauvinist project to masquerade as nation-building.

    In discussing this, we quote here, with utmost respect, from the work of numerous scholars, whose disparate writings over the years on Sri Lanka's crisis, have largely been ignored in the ahistoric, formulaic and ultimately futile international efforts to re-impose, as 'peace', Sinhala domination of the island and the Tamils.

    To begin with, the state is a colonial construct: whilst there is scholarly disagreement as to pre-colonial history, the imposition of a single administrative structure for the entire island was incontestably a British colonial decision, one which came after centuries of incremental (Portuguese, Dutch and British) conquests of its parts. Nonetheless, at independence in 1948, Sri Lanka, with high human development indicators and well-developed infrastructure, was expected - by the colonial power - to become a model democracy. Sri Lanka instead descended into ethnic strife, crisis and vicious conflict.
    As such, today's abysmal state of affairs is merely an intensification of chauvinist dynamics that, having developed beneath the surface during colonial handover, erupted into the open soon after the British left. Which is why in 1956, Sinhala leaders were readily able to seek election by appealing to Sinhala chauvinist sentiment. What is important about the introduction of 'Sinhala Only' in 1956 is not its discriminatory effect, but how it was emblematic of the mindset of the Sinhala majority, exemplified by the popular support it enjoyed.

    It is noteworthy that it was democratic logic of the 'will of the majority' that legitimised this and subsequent acts of discrimination. The justification was, as the chauvinists still insist, the Tamils were 'privileged' by the colonial power - though it is not clear why the British should have loved us more than the Sinhalese. Meanwhile it is quietly forgotten that the missionary schools (which turned out the English-speaking natives for the colonial administration) were readily accepted in the Tamil areas and resisted in the Sinhala south.

    It is in the first three decades of Sinhala majoritarian rule, rather than in the past thirty years of armed conflict, that the present-day impediments to building a 'liberal peace' in Sri Lanka became entrenched. Even by the mid seventies, before the armed conflict had begun, Sri Lanka 'had regressed to an illiberal, ethnocentric regime bent on Sinhala superordination and Tamil subjugation.' A policy of recruiting only Sinhalese into the military was introduced in 1962, the beginning of today's ethnically pure army. And it was state-sponsored Sinhala colonisation that led Tamils to fear 'they may become a minority in their own provinces.' That the demographic dilution of Tamil-majority areas 'would render any devolution of powers as a solution to the ethnic conflict less effective' was not lost on the Tamils, even as they agitated, peacefully, for an end to the discrimination. This is why the slogan of 'traditional homelands,' is first and foremost a political claim meant to ensure the security of the Tamils and is integrally linked to our demands for autonomy and independence.

    The passing of the republican constitution in 1972- apart from changing the name from 'Ceylon' to the Sinhala-preferred 'Sri Lanka' - removed the safeguards of the previous British- supplied constitution, gave a pre-eminent position to Buddhism, in addition to the Sinhala language, and most importantly, concentrated power further in the Sinhala-dominated legislature. As such, amidst contemporary international insistence that Tamil demands must be pursued through democratic mechanisms, it should be remembered that it was the failure of democratic processes, for reasons that have become more entrenched today, that both the demand for independence and later armed conflict emerged.
    Thus, while antagonistic ethnic mobilization was not an inevitable outcome after 1948, 'what ultimately transpired went beyond what any self-respecting minority would tolerate.' Moreover, the period since independence has been 'punctuated by bouts of annihilatory violence directed against the Tamils in 1956, 1958, 1977, 1981 and 1983' in which thousands of Tamils, including women and children were massacred, Tamil property was destroyed, and hundreds of thousands made refugees.' These periodic explosions of violence against Tamils represent efforts to put them back in their places on grounds they have become too assertive and need to be taught a lesson, as President J. R. Jayawardene bluntly stated in 1983.

    It is the insistent ignoring of this post-colonial history that has resulted in the abject failure of international efforts to encourage, foster and ultimately impose a 'solution' on Sri Lanka. 'Decades of potent socialization through familial, religious, educational, and media practices have resulted in a Sinhala Buddhist nationalist hegemony that spans the political, socio-economic and cultural landscape of Sri Lanka.'
    However, the international community continues to insist on abstract and manifestly untenable characterizations of the now intractable conflict. Rather than recognize the resilience of entrenched racism within the centralized and fortified Sri Lanka state, sporadic and laughable efforts to knit 'ethnic harmony' amongst people in parts of the island are combined with much pontification on the appropriateness or not of various constitutional models and, more importantly, 'what the extremist Tamil Tigers will settle for.'
    As for the Tamils, our ambitions, like tho-se of any decent people are to live free and peacefully with our neighbours. We seek not to restore some ancient glory or fulfil some manifest destiny. We seek not the subjugation of another people or assertion of any racial supremacy. Our demand for the independent state of Eelam is not a quest for 'ethnic purity' but for the irrevocable and irreducible est-ablishment of our security and dignity. After 60 years of unending oppression and violent repression, we are convinced more than ever of this truth. And, whatever suffering the Sinhala state and its international allies inflict on us, we are not going to give up now.

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