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  • Double Exposure

    Mar 13
    This week Sri Lanka unleashed a massive bombardment of Tamil Tiger-controlled parts of Batticaloa. The targets were not LTTE camps, but Tamil villages. Within days 150,000 Tamils have been driven out of their homes, seeking safety in areas where the shells are not following - those held by the government. They join another 80,000 Tamils in the district and 150,000 elsewhere that the Colombo government has blasted from their homes since April last year. The targeting of Tamil villages and towns is not new. Every Sri Lankan President, beginning with J. R. Jayawardene in the early 80's has punished the Tamils for their defiance of Sinhala rule. President Mahinda Rajapakse's cruelty is not novel.
     
    International aid agencies and NGOs have expressed alarm and are pleading for financial assistance. The Sri Lankan state, which starved and bombarded the Tamils of Sampur and Vaharai throughout much of last year, is unconcerned by the humanitarian crisis unfolding this time in western Batticaloa. But here is the rub. The international community has endorsed this collective punishment. The rhetoric of the 'war on terror' legitimizes the deprivations being visited on our people. The deliberate inaction by the international community is brought into stark relief by events in the east. For once the international community is a visible witness to what Sri Lanka is doing to our people. During President Chandrika Kumaratunga's ruthless 'war for peace' the international community endorsed and assisted the state's campaign of collective punishment. But this time it is different. The international community, led by the very actors who preached non-violence and negotiation to us for the past few years, has a grandstand view.
     
    For many years now the Tamil Diaspora has actively sought the support of the international community for their struggle. This has been particularly so since the 2002 Ceasefire. International support was sought not only for the political demand of Tamil self-determination, but for practical steps towards Tamil wellbeing: to restrain the state's chauvinism, to end the impunity enjoyed by the Sinhala security forces, to ensure international aid was equitably distributed across the island, and so on. Across the world our people have lobbied government leaders as well as media and NGOs. We have been received and listened to. The sufferings of our people were sympathized with. We were told that the matters we raised would be taken up with the Sri Lankan state.
     
    In our hearts we knew this would not happen. The selfish interests of international actors are not served by pressuring the state on our behalf, but by courting the state and sacrificing us. That is why throughout the past three decades Sri Lanka's security forces were able to murder, disappear and rape with brazen impunity. It was only when the Sri Lankan military exhausted itself in the 'war for peace' (but not before spurring the LTTE's ascendancy) that the international community decided to take our interests into consideration. But that was not to ensure our future, but to blunt our progress towards self-rule.
     
    Those Tamils who denounced the Norwegian peace process as a project of containment, designed to weaken and emasculate the LTTE, were dismissed as sightless hardliners wedded to violence. But they have been vindicated. Nothing gives their analysis greater resonance than the complicity of the international community in the horrors the Tamils are being put through by the Sri Lankan state today. There is no media blackout or lack of information which we can tell ourselves was the reason the world stood by during the 'war for peace' until the Tigers defeated the Sinhala military. Nor is there confusion about what the Tamils want. Nor why there is a major war in the island. Everything has been explained at length. The facts and figures have been placed before the world.
     
    It was only the sense of the insurmountability of the LTTE's military power that produced the Norwegian peace process. It is a sense the LTTE can be defeated that has ended it. The rhetoric is that the interests of the Tamils are separate to the interests of the LTTE. But nothing reveals the invalidity of that premise than how, in the cause of defeating the Tigers, it is the Tamils on whom pain is primarily inflicted. We know all the talk of a political solution being needed is nonsense: it cannot be offered at the end of a bayonet. And we know under what circumstances the international community will again insist Sri Lanka negotiates a peace with the Tamils.
  • 150,000 Tamils flee Sri Lankan bombardment
    International relief agencies expressed alarm Monday at the rising number of civilians forced to flee fighting between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers, and said populated areas were endangered by continued shelling.
    As the number of civilians displaced due to the Sri Lanka military’s renewed efforts to move into LTTE territory in the Batticaloa district increased to over 150,000, international aid agencies urged both sides to ensure their protection and comply with international human rights law.
    The attack began last Thursday when the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched heavy artillery barrage towards LTTE controlled territories in Batticaloa district, as the Special Task Force (STF) began a two pronged ground offensive from Chenkalady and Pulukunawa.
    The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Country Team, which is chaired by the UN Resident Coordinator, expressed concern at the number of internally displaced, warning that this was “creating further pressure on an already difficult situation that will require more resources and capacity from all actors.”
    “As fighting continues, we are also worried for the safety and protection of all civilians, as reports indicate that shelling is occurring from and to, highly populated areas,” the IASC said in a press release.
    The ICRC spokesman in Sri Lanka, Davide Vignati, told Voice of America shortages of food and water are emerging at overcrowded refugee camps since the new refugees arrived. But, he says, the situation has not yet reached the crisis stage.
    "This new number of displaced civilians bring(s) the total number up to almost 120,000 displaced people presently sheltering in Batticaloa district," Vignati said Tuesday.
    "The main problem for the time being is food. New tents and shelter camps should be set up in the coming days to accommodate this new population."
    Aid workers in Batticaloa said Saturday that schools and other public buildings were being opened to help accommodate the new influx of refugees.
    “Most of them are under trees,” said Basil Sylvester, district officer for the main aid agency umbrella group, the Consortium for Humanitarian Agencies in Batticaloa.
    “When they get to Batticaloa, they don't know what to do. Some are in schools and churches. Many are staying with relations and friends.”
    But others said that aid supplies were already low, particularly water.
    “If in the next few days several other thousands are coming, then of course we have a problem,” Marcal Luethi, a protection officer with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Batticaloa, told Reuters.
    "We are extremely alarmed at the new level of displaced," Reuters quoted U.N. mission spokeswoman Orla Clinton as saying. "It's just going to add more pressure to an already very difficult situation."
    On Sunday, a Tamil lawmaker appealed for international intervention in the conflict.
    “The artillery shells fired by the military are falling inside civilian settlements and this is forcing the people to flee,” said Senadhiraja Jeyanandamoorthy, a member of Parliament from Batticaloa district representing the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).
    “The government is not providing them with facilities, therefore, the international community should come forward to stop this,” he said.
    Military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe denied that civilian areas were being targeted.
    “The Tigers use the civilians as human shields,” he said. “They (refugees) want to get out of there and come to safer places.”
    No independent account of the death toll was available, but civilians in the area said they could hear a heavy exchange of artillery and mortar fire.
    On Thursday all the gateways to the LTTE controlled areas in Batticaloa district – Paddiruppu, Vavunathivu, Chenkalady Black and Kiran bridges and Kurumanvely, Ampilanthurai, Manmunai ferries – were closed by the SLA.
    Only the displaced were allowed into the government controlled areas, being carefully screened on the way in. The SLA had also cut all mobile and wireless telephone connections.
    The SLA was trying to relocate those displaced in an earlier exodus – when government troops attacked the LTTE in Vaharai – back to their homes further north, Reuters reported, saying that would free up camps to accommodate new refugees.
    "They are doing their best to push the Vaharai people out immediately," Reuters quoted Brigadier Samarasinghe as saying. "They are setting up new camps in Batticaloa."
    Calling on both sides to immediately ensure the protection of civilians in these areas, the IASC Team also urged them to comply with their international human rights and humanitarian law obligations, as expressed in the Security Council resolutions on the protection of civilians and the guiding principles on internal displacement.
  • Three-pronged strategy to undermine Tamils
    There is every possibility that the Government of Australia will ban the Tigers. The Sri Lanka government is lobbying Canberra using the usual cocktail of issues – child soldiers, constraints imposed by the LTTE on movement of Tamil civilians and the attacks on civilian targets.
     
    The Tamil lobby in Australia is countering these allegations by presenting the horrendous human rights record of the Sri Lankan government, thereby claiming that adequate attention has not being paid by the international community to the suffering of the Tamils; that the Tigers perform an important function by the Tamil people; a proscription by the Australian government would only exacerbate tensions between communities in Sri Lanka.
     
    Though there is no certainty as to who will win this contest, it clarifies issues (if they needed clarification at all). Moves by Australia towards imposing this ban come at a time when Tamils in Sri Lanka are confronted by government- and paramilitary-inspired atrocities. Extra-judicial killing, disappearances, arrests and extortion both in the Northeast and Colombo have reached an explosive point.
     
    However, Tamils have no recourse to justice because the rule of law is near absent, while the legal system is undermined by security-related legislation such as emergency regulations and the PTA.
     
    Worse, the lack of political will among the governing core of the country – President Mahinda Rajapakse and his advisors – has resurrected the political environment of the early 1990s under President R. Premadasa, of absolute impunity enjoyed by those working for the president and his cohorts (and not necessarily the government), to do as they please.
     
    Meanwhile, the Vaharai operation is seen by the government and sections of the international community that gave it tacit support despite paying lip-service to “human rights violations,” as a successful military move in dislodging the LTTE.
     
    What is interesting though is, strictly speaking, the military component of the confrontation was minimal. Though there were skirmishes and ground engagements by infantry, most of fighting was confined to artillery duels and aerial bombardment by the SLAF.
     
    What was more important was the privation the Tamil population of Vaharai – both the IDPs fleeing from the Trincomalee District and residents of the area – was subjected to. Though aerial bombardment was used to hit civilian targets, including the environs of Vaharai Hospital and a school in Kathiraveli, it is not a tactic unknown in the 20-year-old war in Sri Lanka.
     
    What was new was the government’s willingness to starve a civilian population to its knees, deprive it of medicine, fuel and access, while the international community turned a blind eye to these atrocities. In other words, starvation of the civilian population was made an accepted counterinsurgency tactic in the war in Sri Lanka.
     
    Meanwhile, the use of Tamil civilians as human shields by the LTTE, which the government deplores as a human rights violation wherever it campaigns, is now being practiced by the government. Forcible relocation is underway to designated areas in the Trincomalee District, of Tamils that fled from Trincomalee to Vaharai and then to Batticaloa.
     
    About 4000 Tamils are earmarked to be resettled in the Kiliveddi area in Trincomalee. It is important to note that most of these people are not from Kiliveddi but Muttur. Obviously it cannot be difficult to resettle them in Muttur because the Muslim families displaced from there have been allowed to return to their homes.
     
    Tamils of course are not being permitted to return because they are deemed a security threat in Muttur that borders the high security zone (HSZ) by the coast of Sampoor.
     
    These Tamil families expressed deep reservation about going to Kiliveddi but significant numbers have been relocated – that is forcibly. The army arrived at the welfare centres IDPs were staying in Trincomalee town and threatened them with arrest if they did not consent to be relocated. As the government allocated site for relocation was not ready, the forced returnees were first sent to a school in Kiliveddi. Now these hapless people have been pressurised to leave the school for temporary shelters the UNHCR are putting up (they issued a position paper declaring these returns as forced returns).
     
    Tamils feel disturbed because the Kiliveddy area is highly populated with little room or opportunities for new settlers, and worse, near the HSZ surrounding the Kallar and Somapura camps. Their fears are well founded: they are forced to resettle in Kiliveddi precisely because they have to protect these camps. This group of civilians, numbering over one thousand, will form a human wall around the camps and act as a civilian shield to the military contingent stationed there. The moment the LTTE shells the area, the government will allege the Tigers are attacking Tamil civilians.
     
    All this only goes to show that Canberra is considering proscription of the LTTE at a time when the Tamil population is engaged in a desperate struggle for survival under the murderous regime in Colombo.
     
    If the past is taken as a guide, the result of banning the Tigers has been skewed. It has caused dismay among Tamil civilians by what they perceive is a lack of sensitivity on the part of the international community to their woes, while it exasperates the LTTE, because it dents its political legitimacy.
     
    But governments in Colombo have regarded LTTE proscriptions as an imprimatur to pursue the military option to settle the ethnic problem.
     
    The international community’s stock reply has been that bans are against the LTTE, not the Tamils. This argument sucks because the roots of the ethnic war in Sri Lanka, is not that of the Sinhala-dominated state against the LTTE; it is the Sinhala-dominated state against the Tamil people.
     
    The LTTE (and other militant organisations) emerged because the state was not fulfilling its function of protecting its population (or a section of it) but was actively targeting it.
     
    Since then, the state’s targeting of Tamils has declined or grown depending on the strength of Tamil armed militancy to withstand government forces. Today, it is the military balance – fear by the government and the Sinhala population of a backlash – that has kept the state from turning the screws tighter on the Tamils.
     
    If the Sinhala-dominated governing elite were inherently fair and was not reacting to the military capabilities of the Tigers, how come that every significant peace process has followed a major military onslaught by the Tigers (barring the Indo-Lanka Accord that was externally imposed)? In 1989-1990 it followed the LTTE’s capture of the Northeast once the IPKF withdrew; 1994-1995 after debacles at Pooneryan and the ill-fated Operation Yal Devi; in 2002 at the wake of a string of defeats that began with capture of the Wanni, overrunning of the Elephant Pass camp and attack on the SLAF’s Katunayake base.
     
    Proscription of the LTTE by different countries and regional organisations has been imposed with the fell purpose of de-legitimising the Tigers by questioning their political credentials and demonising them as a mere terrorist outfit.
     
    If after doing all that the international community can guarantee the security of the Tamil people or pressurise the Sri Lankan state to do so, it might be acceptable. But lack of commitment to such standards is quite evident in that the state cannot even ensure humane treatment to Tamil refugees in camps in the government-controlled areas!
     
    The line is therefore very clear: the target is the LTTE, but if we cannot get the Tigers through military engagement we will destroy the civilian population by starving and killing it slowly, while of course paying lip-service to humanitarian law, human rights standards and other piffle international diplomacy employs.
     
    All this goes to show that Canberra, like other members of the international community, is not acting in the interests of conflict transformation. Its actions are partly due to domestic political pressures upon the conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard.
     
    But the more important reason is that Australia has treaty ties with the US, which places great burden on the Australian government to be in consonance with the foreign policy of the world sole superpower.
     
    While positions of certain western powers have hardened, there is a perceptible change in India’s stand on the Sri Lankan question. Ever since the CFA was mooted, paving the way for increasing international involvement, India tried to play a lone hand in Sri Lankan affairs. Seeing the Indian Ocean as its backyard it remained largely aloof from being part of the co-chairs who symbolise western power projection into Sri Lankan affairs.
     
    But of late, New Delhi’s stance seems to be wavering. On the one hand it appears to understand that Colombo’s chauvinistic Sinhala-led political leadership and the anti-LTTE Tamil groups such as the EPDP, the Karuna faction and TULF leader V. Anandasangari are finding it difficult to deliver a lasting political solution to the Tamil question: which means bringing a weakened Tiger to the table to accept sharing power with Colombo.
     
    At the same time, the presence of refugees in Tamil Nadu is putting pressure on Tamil political parties in India – both in the state assembly as well as those propping up the union government in New Delhi – to restrain the Sri Lanka government’s killing spree.
     
    India’s interest in cooperating with the West is augmented by Colombo’s dalliance with Islamabad and Beijing to buy military hardware, which is something New Delhi is reluctant to sell Sri Lanka due to pressure by Tamil Nadu.
     
    It appears that the present scenario will remain for the next six months or so, during which time the international community and India will, very probably, try out a combination of the following strategies.
     
    First, see that sufficient military pressure is brought to contain the Tigers within the Wanni. This is the motive behind the government carrying out a war of attrition on the LTTE areas: shelling Kumburupiddy, upping military engagements in Vavuniya and carrying out operations in Thoppigala. If liberally supplied with hardware Colombo is confident of keeping the LTTE quiet. In the mean time pressure will be brought on the Tigers internationally by proscriptions and undermining their worldwide network in other ways.
     
    Second, misery will continue to be heaped on the Tamils through systematic human rights abuse, starvation and military attacks on civilians. This will reduce the population to its knees, create disenchantment between it and the LTTE and bring about a situation where any glimmer of hope would be welcome.
     
    Third, a glimmer of hope for the Tamils will be kept alive by the political package crafted by the All Party Conference. Though Minister Tissa Vithana has been pretending the APC is an ‘independent’ exercise, Tamils know it is a Sinhala government-driven initiative with marginal input from the Muslims and the Tamil EPDP. The experts group of the APC is, in the name of ‘southern consensus,’ putting together a watered down version of devolution and trying to sell it to the Tamils. If the UNP too takes part in the exercise it could be seen as an initiative of the Sinhala ruling class, but the UNP remains aloof. However, regardless of whether it has UNP support or not, the political package will be presented to the Tamils as a fait accompli. And needless to say, it is unlikely to be the basis of which negotiations could begin.

    Therefore, as of now, the Sri Lanka government and the international community have driven the Tamils to the wall by pushing a military solution. What is dangled as a political way out (devolution package) is a joke. This has only forced the Tamils to look at precisely the solution that the international community does not want them to – that the LTTE brakes out of the shackles of containment to reconfigure the present politico-military balance and then talk to a Sinhala leadership, hopefully a reconstituted one.

    (Edited)

  • Paramilitary terror escalates in East
    Army-backed paramilitaries are infiltrating overcrowded refugee camps in Sri Lanka's eastern Batticaloa district and abducting residents while extorting money from Tamil businessmen in the capital, Colombo, reports said.
     
    In a statement citing what it calls reliable sources, Amnesty International this week said that men wearing uniforms of the Karuna group are roaming the camps, and even distributing relief goods.
     
    Meanwhile, even Sri Lanka’s deputy minister for Vocational Training and Industrial Education, P. Radhakrishnan protested that at least 30 Tamil business persons were approached by paramilitary operatives identifying themselves as Karuna Group who had demanded 5 million Sri Lankan rupees from each.
     
    Taking up the matter on behalf of those affected, Mr Radhakrishnan had lodged a complaint with the Sri Lankan Police and escalated the matter to Inspector General of Police Mr victor Perera and Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapakse, who is also a brother of President Mahinda Rajapakse.
     
    However no action has been taken by the authorities to investigate the matter, the Minister said fuelling doubts that elements of the government are colluding with the paramilitary group’s plan to extort money.
     
    The Sri Lankan military launched a new offensive against the LTTE in the eastern province last weekend using indiscriminate shelling and air raids on Tamil villages and triggering a large exodus.
     
    Humanitarian agencies say over 130,000 people have fled their homes from LTTE controlled territory into government controlled territory taking refuge in schools and places of worship.
     
    Purna Sen, Asia Pacific Direct at Amnesty International accusing the paramilitary group of infiltrating refugee camps said "We are hearing reports of armed men, wearing the uniforms of the Karuna faction, roaming the camps and even distributing relief goods.”
     
    “The Karuna faction appears to operate throughout Batticaloa town with the complicity of the Sri Lankan authorities," Sen said.
     
    "The people who have been forced to flee the fighting are in an extremely vulnerable position: they have left behind their livelihoods and their homes, they may not know the area and they are likely to be very scared,”
     
    “The government has a responsibility to ensure that camps are safe and civilian in nature -- it is unacceptable for men with guns to be wandering around as if they're in control."
     
    Amnesty cited an attempt by paramilitary operatives arriving in a white van to abduct a 15 year old boy near the a refugee camp in the presence of Sri Lankan Army soldiers who did not step in to help. The attempt was foiled when the boy’s screams attracted the locals which led to the abductors fleeing the scene.
     
    In recent months a number of international organisations have accused the Sri Lankan security forces of colluding with paramilitary groups and committing grave human right violations.
     
    In January 2007, US based Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged that the Karuna Group was forcing hundreds of children and young adults to serve as soldiers and said the paramilitaries appear to act with complicity of the authorities.
     
    Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW said “The government is fully aware of the abductions but allows them to happen because it’s eager for an ally against the Tamil Tigers.”  
     
    In November 2006, following a fact finding mission to Northeast, United Nations Special Envoy Mr Alan Rock concluded that paramilitary groups assisted by the government forces are engaged in forcible recruitment of child soldiers.
     
    “The Karuna faction abducts and recruits children into its forces. It does so exclusively in the eastern districts of Sri Lanka. Since May 2006, the number of abductions has increased sharply. The Karuna faction abductions took place exclusively in Government-controlled areas,” Rocks observed.
     
    “The fact that the Karuna faction has abducted so many children in Government-controlled areas in the eastern districts of Sri Lanka raises the question why the Government has not more effectively protected those children, investigated the complaints made by the children’s families, and secured the release and return of the children from the Karuna faction camps that are located in areas under Government control,” the UN envoy asked.
     
    ” Based on the facts and circumstances set out in this report, I have concluded that certain elements of the Sri Lankan security forces are complicit in the abduction of children by the Karuna faction, and that at least some elements of the security forces have facilitated and sometimes participated in those abductions. ”
  • ‘We did not even take our clothes’
    All they wanted was to go home.

    But as one man in a camp noted, their `future is a big question mark', as Sri Lanka is once again on the brink of a bloody war.

    Over 200,000 people have been displaced by the recent spate of violence in the north and east of the country, between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the government.

    As many as 75,000 people have been internally displaced and driven into camps, when the Sri Lankan Army attacked Vakarai, a pocket of LTTE controlled land on Sri Lanka's eastern coast.

    "We did not even take clothes or food. Nor did we have time to lock our house. We have lost everything," says N. Manjuladevi with a weary smile.

    Manjuladevi and her family, along with thousands of others, sought refuge at a camp in Batticaloa after fleeing heavy shelling in Vakarai. She came in mid December, with her family and her 7-day old baby.

    "It is almost two months now in the camp," she winces.

    "At first we did not want to flee, leaving behind our hard-earned belongings. Everyday shelling and air strikes made people very frightened, and when eight of our neighbours died, we decided to move," she says.

    After crossing a lagoon, they had to walk through jungles for two days before reaching government controlled areas.

    As the camps are congested with tents too close to each other, families are not yet allowed to cook for themselves, because of fire risks.

    "It is too hot inside tents. I do not know what to do during rains, with a baby … I miss our house, but I am still afraid to go back," she says.

    Heat is fierce in these low tents congested in Manmunai North site. Water and sanitation facilities are only basic. Their hardships are endless, the misery continues.

    Displaced people are uncertain and afraid about returning home. In addition they have no idea if their homes are safe or destroyed.

    Many anticipate that it will be months before they can even think about moving back home, and many are still shaken by the violence that caused them to flee their homes.

    Although the camps are intended to be short term, too many displaced persons live in them for months.

    The squalid, overcrowded camp situations often lead to psycho-social problems, and subsistence conditions remain critical, particularly regarding access to basic social services such as clean water and sanitation, shelter, education and health care.

    It is therefore important to take prompt action to improve the sites and its-facilities and to ensure that those who live in the camps are protected and assisted with a special focus on the groups most at risk: women and children.

    With a crying need for vital assistance for effective camp management, Norwegian Refugee Council extended its camp management activities to address the needs of the newly displaced populations in some 50 camps in seven DS divisions in Batticaloa.

    NRC is well known in the humanitarian sector for its expertise in camp management following the agency's training programme for government authorities, NGOs, the UN and other organisations, implemented in several districts in the country to assist people displaced by the 2004 tsunami.

    "The standard of living in the camps is also often extremely poor and there is a pressing need for empowering camp residents to maintain their temporary shelter as much as for emergency assistance and," explains Natalia Pascual, Programme Coordinator for Camp Management Training in Batticaloa.

    The project does not involve direct administration of the camps by NRC, but rather focuses on gathering information to address gaps and improve protection and facilities, while also strengthening the capacity of existing camp leadership structures to ensure adequate service provision.

    Well trained camp managers in the field play a critical role in fulfilling the fundamental rights of displaced people living in camps.

    NRC provides comprehensive training in camp management to over 175 staff from NGOs, government authorities (GS and DS), camp management agencies, IDP committees and host community.

    They are further trained on-site in more practical manner to meet basic needs and gaps.

    Sanitation, protection and aid distribution have all been major issues in these IDP camps over the past two months and before launching the programme, NRC trainers visited sites and met with camp leaders.

    The programme, sponsored by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is designed to provide service providers in camps with a better understanding of their roles and responsibilities in improving conditions and delivering services to camp populations.

    The NRC programme included provision of a camp management toolkit and case studies relating to site design, protection, community participation and camp maintenance.

    NRC assists in forming IDP committees in those camps where no community structures are yet in place, and also coordinates and arranges General Coordination meetings at divisional level with government authorities, camp mangers and host of other service providers.

    NRC ensures efficient and timely delivery of all services in accordance with international standards through coordination, identification of gaps and monitoring as well as by avoiding duplication.

    This has led to an increased focus on camp security and improved coordination of the collaboration between residents and on-site assistance organisations.

    Most of the agencies working as camp managers are with little or no experience in camp management, they are quite grateful to NRC for comprehensive, capacity building trainings.

    There is much improvement we see among those who have participated in the training workshops, it is very encouraging to see them applying what they learn in their work," says Natalia.

    Peace and calm must seem like a distant memory to Manjuladevi and many of those waiting in Batticaloa, but they can now look forward to better coordinated and effective service delivery in camps with the help of NRC's camp management trainings.

  • Return to sender
    WE'VE had the Pacific solution - the farcical policy of ferrying boatpeople to neighbouring countries - but the paradises of Nauru and Manus Island have proved too tempting, so we are getting the Southeast Asian solution, as refugee advocate and lawyer David Manne calls it.

    The Austrlaian Government wants to send 83 Sri Lankans the navy picked up last week and dropped off at Christmas Island back to Indonesia, where they embarked. Yet it has a detention centre to accommodate them on Christmas Island and is spending $400 million building a new one.

    There has been a hitch, though, in carrying through the Government's bright idea. The Indonesians, after talking to Australian officials, said they would be quite happy to accept the Sri Lankans; in fact, they would go one better and put them on the next plane back to Sri Lanka.

    The information available to date is that the young Tamils in the group come from the east of the country. This is what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said in a report last December on the deteriorating situation there: "Harassment, intimidation, arrest, detention, torture, abduction and killing ... are frequently reported to be inflicted on Tamils from the north and east."

    When it judges the political situation warrants it, Australia has had no compunction about breaching the refugee convention.
    But we have not yet gone so far as to send asylum-seekers back to the country they left, at least not before assessing whether they were refugees.

    To his credit, Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews has ruled out doing so in the case of the Sri Lankans. One plausible explanation for the misunderstanding is that Australian officials suggested that if the boatpeople were returned to Indonesia before they had a chance to ask Australia for protection as refugees, then it would be up to the Indonesians what they did with them. After all, the navy regularly turns boats in international waters heading for Australia back to Indonesia.

    Perhaps Indonesia was reassured by the comments of Sri Lankan ambassador to Indonesia Janaka Perera, who said the boatpeople were probably economic migrants who had nothing to fear. But Perera's involvement breaches the fundamental tenet of refugee law that the country from which asylum-seekers flee should play no part in deciding their future.

    Worse, he is a former major-general in the Sri Lankan Army accused by the Tamils of responsibility for mass murders. The Government says there has been no change in policy and it is right in the sense that the real policy is deterrence at any cost.

    Presumably, it fears a wave of boatpeople from Sri Lanka following the breakdown of the ceasefire agreement between the Government and the Tamil Tigers and the uprooting of more than 200,000 people since the start of last year.

    The signal Australia is sending is that, refugees or not, these latest asylum-seekers will not be coming here. But if it cannot pass off its problem to Indonesia, it may have to take them, as it did most of the Afghan and Iraqi refugees shipped off to Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

    However, there is a precedent for the Government ruling out refugees coming here.

    Eight Burmese who landed on Ashmore Reef last August and were taken to Nauru received letters in December saying that if they agreed to go back to Malaysia, the Government would allow them to stay for two years and to work.

    Not that this was the only option: they could stay on Nauru and have their claims processed. There was just one qualification: "Unlike previous groups, the Australian Governmnent has decided that, even if you are found to be a refugee, you will not be issued with a visa to Australia from Nauru." The letters added that Australia would look at resettlement in a third country, "which may take some time".

    Talk about Hobson's choice. The Burmese are from the Rohingya ethnic group who are persecuted and treated as slaves in Burma. That has not stopped Malaysia sending these people back to Burma in recent years.

    Manne, who is representing the asylum-seekers, says Malaysia has one of the worst records for returning refugees to the country from which they fled and for persecuting them in Malaysia.
    Not surprisingly, seven of the eight have decided to stay on Nauru, while the eighth is considering returning only out of concern for his two children.

    So much for our obligations under the refugee convention.

    It is clear where Australia's priorities lie. Under pressure from Liberal dissidents, the Howard Government in 2005 introduced a more humane way of treating asylum-seekers in mainland detention camps, although retaining the harsh principle of indefinite mandatory detention.

    Last year, after over-reacting to Indonesian threats prompted by allowing 42 Papuans to stay as refugees, the Government pre-empted a backbench revolt by not going ahead with legislation that extended the Pacific solution to asylum-seekers who landed anywhere in Australia, not just on offshore islands.

    But with the slightest provocation, the Government will swing back to putting deterrence ahead of humanitarian considerations.

    Deterrence has had some success in slowing the flow of boatpeople but its effect has been greatly exaggerated.

    All Western countries have experienced a decline in refugee movements in recent years because conditions in the countries from which they fled have improved.

    Deterrence is all about politics, not policy. The proof of that lies in one stark fact: more people fly into Australia to claim refugee status than come by boat. By the Government's definition, these people are just as much illegals: they jump the queue by entering Australia under false pretences, usually on a visitor visa, with the intention of staying here as refugees. Yet the Government does not lock them up in detention centres and treat them as second-class citizens if it finds they are refugees.

    It is boat people who trigger the political paranoia about defending our borders.

    But the point is not how they come here but whether Australia, as a country that purports to uphold the aspirations of the refugee convention, is prepared to properly protect people who have fled persecution and death.
  • Acrimony flares as US says diplomats not LTTE target
    Amid growing acrimony within the Sri Lankan government over the LTTE mortar attack Tuesday on military helicopters carrying foreign ambassadors and UN officials to Batticaloa district, the American ambassador to Sri Lanka, Robert O’Blake, contradicted Colombo’s assertion that the Tigers had tried to assassinate the diplomats.

    Meanwhile Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary says the diplomats should share the blame for the near-disaster for asking to visit Batticaloa. He slammed as “interference” attempts by foreign dignitaries and NGOs to visit the war torn Northeast.

    Two Sri Lankan military helicopters ferried several international diplomats, including the Ambassadors to the United States, Germany, Italy and Japan along with several UN officials to the restive Batticaloa district.

    However an LTTE mortar attack struck the military airfield and stadium converted into a military base as the helicopters and a fixed wing aircraft carrying more officials landed there.

    Italian Ambassador Pio Mariani was slightly wounded by a piece of shrapnel which lodged in his scalp while US Ambassador Robert O’Blake’s arm was grazed by a stone or piece of shrapnel.

    The shelling ceased when a UN official alerted LTTE headquarters in Kilinochchi.

    The Tigers said customary operational protocol whereby the government notifies them of impending flights into the war-torn Northeast by international officials was not followed.

    The Sri Lankan government admitted the LTTE had not been notified but denounced the shelling as a deliberate attempt to kill the Ambassadors.

    However, speaking to the Sunday Times, Mr. O’Blake said: “while I do not believe the LTTE intended to target diplomats and UN officials, the United States strongly condemns all terrorism and calls on the LTTE to renounce terrorism and violence.”

    The LTTE attack has embarrassed the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse, which had been making political capital in the south on the basis of a series of successful military offensives over the past few months which it claimed had cleared the LTTE from the east.

    A senior diplomat who was part of the delegation, expressing his wish to be anonymous, told The Nation newspaper: “It was a careless and reckless operation [by the government]. Everything which could go wrong did go wrong. This was a very foolish thing. It was very embarrassing for the Sri Lankan government.”

    The incident is now evolving into a diplomatic and domestic row with the Foreign and Defence Ministries saying that the Human Rights and Disaster Management Ministry had not heeded their advice on the diplomats’ trip.

    “Defence Ministry officials say even though they approved the trip they had advised against it from the very beginning,” The Nation newspaper said.

    Army Commander, Lt. Gen Sarath Fonseka advised Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe against this particular tour “since the ground environment was not conducive for such VIP movement,” the paper said.

    Minister for Foreign Affairs, Rohitha Bogollagama, who had to rush back from China where he had arrived Monday as part of President Rajapakse’s 100-strong delegation, criticized the diplomats for not following “traditional procedure.”

    According to Mr. Bogollagama, any diplomat leaving the capital city of a country must seek the clearance of the Foreign Ministry and in this instance, permission had only been obtained from Sri Lanka’s Defence Ministry, he was quoted as saying.

    Minister Samarasinghe, denying that he was advised against the particular trip said he would have cancelled the tour if that were the case. He also refuted Mr. Bogollagama’s claims that the Foreign Ministry was not briefed, citing the presence of the ministry’s Additional Secretary at the planning meeting.

    Meanwhile Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said that the diplomats should also share the blame for the incident since they wanted to visit the Northeast.

    “I’m not responsible for this [incident] since I’m always against these INGOs, NGOs and even the diplomatic missions interfering [in the Northeast],” Mr. Gotabhaya told The Nation.

    “I have told them not to travel to these areas but they don’t listen. When I tell them this I’m accused of many things. They say I’m against the Tamil people and do not allow these people to go to these areas and that I’m covering up,” he said.

    Mr. Gotabhaya says he had refused authorization for the American Ambassador to go to Mannar on several occasions.

    “I have advised the Netherland’s Ambassador against travelling to certain areas in the Ampara district. When I say this some of them think that I’m hiding things from them” he added.

    “When the President went to Vakarai, he took that risk,” Mr. Gotabhaya, who is also President Rajapakse’s brother, said.

    “Likewise if these people want to go to these areas they should be ready to take certain risk also.”
  • Police chief admits military, police involved in abductions
    Sri Lankan security forces are involved in abductions of civilians for ransom, the country’s Police Chief admitted Monday, saying a ‘large number’ of officers and troops had been arrested on charges of abduction and extortion. However Police Inspector General Victor Perera also asserted that “organised groups” were conducting abductions and killings “to embarrass the government.”

    Among 433 people arrested since September over the abductions, a large number were either policemen, soldiers or deserters from the police and armed forces, Perera was quoted by AFP as saying.

    But he gave no breakdown of those arrested.

    The kidnappings of wealthy businesspeople or their relatives for ransom has become widespread in the past year.

    The victims are mainly Tamils, Muslims or Upcountry Tamils and some Sinhalese, monitoring groups say.

    In some instances ransoms had been paid abroad, Perera told reporters Monday.

    Reporters say there are suspicions of the collusion of senior government officials in the kidnappings for ransom.

    Especially terrifying for the victims and their families, these abductions are taking place amid soaring numbers of disappearances and extra-judicial killings, with increasing numbers of bodies being found dumped.

    Local and international human rights groups and some governments have expressed concern at abductions and killings which have shot up since the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse stepped up its military campaign against the Tamil Tigers last year.

    Perera admitted the government was under international pressure over the deteriorating human rights situation.

    "There is a lot of attention by foreign organisations on the human rights situation here and these killings and abductions cause big problems for the government internationally," Perera told the AFP.

    “We suspect that these crimes are being committed by organized groups to embarrass the government,” Associated Press quoted Perera as saying.

    Perera said his officials are trying to resolve the killings and several abductions and offered "unlimited money" as a reward for information leading to the arrest of those involved in kidnappings.

    Meanwhile top police detective Asoka Wijetilleke also said elements in the service were working together with "underworld gangs" to abduct, extort money and kill people, but there could be other groups also operating with impunity.

    "The magnitude of the problem is yet to be assessed. There are... groups which include ex-servicemen, serving soldiers and policemen and underworld gangs," Wijetilleke told AFP.

    He said there had been arrests, but added: "that does not mean we have fully and completely investigated the whole thing."

    Wijetilleke said the police were yet to complete investigations into the involvement of their own men in the extra-judicial killings and abductions, while authorities were yet to start investigations into "other groups."

    The comments by the police chief and investigators come as the five year old daughter of a popular Tamil businessman was abducted Monday in Negombo, with the abductors demanding ransom to release her.

    And five bullet-riddled bodies of unidentified men turned up in the north central district of Anuradhapura.

    This follows a similar discovery of five bodies near the capital Colombo Saturday and a sixth body found at the same site Monday.

    The bodies, found in a marsh at Kandana, 15 km north of Colombo, were too badly decomposed to be identified, police said. They suspect that the bodies had been dumped in the marshy land after being executed in other areas.
  • Australia under pressure over Tamil asylum seekers
    Australia will undermine international agreements to protect refugees if it sends a group of Sri Lankan asylum seekers, all Tamils, who were sailing for Australia back to Indonesia – their last port of call before leaving for Christmas Island – critics warned.

    An Australian naval ship intercepted the 83 Sri Lankans and 2 Indonesians in international waters last week heading for Australia.

    They are being held on Christmas Island while Canberra decised whether to process them off shore, as asylum seekers typically are, or return them to Indonesia.

    But Australia can only return them if Indonesian authorities agreed to apply United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) protocols – which say the men should not be sent back to Sri Lanka if there was a risk they would face persecution.

    The UNHCR warned in December that the security situation in Sri Lanka's north and east was so volatile that refugees from those areas, particularly ethnic Tamils, faced serious dangers and persecution.

    Indonesia, which is not a signatory to the UNHCR protocols, has indicated that the Tamils would be deported to Sri Lanka immediately, regardless of any concerns for their well-being.

    Australia does have alternatives: it still maintains camps for asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea and on the tiny South Pacific island of Nauru, established in 2001 as part of a tougher border protection regime.

    Australia’s conservative government, which takes one of the world’s toughest stands against illegal immigration, said a range of options was being examined but that the men would not be sent back to a country where they would face persecution.

    “Preliminary discussions have commenced with both Indonesia and Nauru,” Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said.

    “While the government is considering options, clearly no action would be taken which would breach our international obligations,” he said.

    The Sydney Morning Herald had reported that a secret deal was being struck with Jakarta to send the asylum seekers back to Sri Lanka via Indonesia.

    The newspaper said talks took place between Indonesian and Australian law enforcement and immigration officials in Jakarta last Friday, two days after the boat was intercepted.

    The Herald quoted Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Indonesia, Major-General (retd) Janaka Perera, as saying that Australia and Indonesia had agreed to assist in the repatriation of the group back to Sri Lanka.

    The men on Christmas Island say they fled Sri Lanka as they feared being targeted by Sinhala-dominated security forces because of their Tamil ethnicity.

    Minister Andrews said he had been told the two Indonesians were not making claims for protection and wanted to return to Indonesia.

    Most of the men being held are in their 20s. One is 17 and is in separate accommodation outside the detention centre and being handled under special guidelines because of his age.

    Sri Lankan officials insist the men need not fear being repatriated.

    Major-General (retd) Perera said the Tamils would have nothing to fear if they were sent home and added that he would guarantee their safety.

    "Sri Lanka's position is that they have traveled illegally to another country and they should be returned to Sri Lanka," he said.

    Both Australia and Indonesia had stated they would assist the repatriation, he said.

    When asked if the Tamils would be able to apply for asylum in Indonesia, Major-General (retd) Perera told ABC radio: “Asylum for what? On what basis? For economic reasons?”

    He insisted Sri Lanka could guarantee the men's safety if they were sent back to Sri Lanka.

    "Yes, of course. I mean why should we persecute our own people?" he said.

    Major-General (retd) Perera is considered a war criminal by Tamils, as troops under his command have been responsible for numerous human rights abuses including massacres of civilians, torture, summary executions and disappearances.

    Australian Greens party leader Bob Brown said Canberra may be acting illegally if it sent the asylum seekers back to Indonesia under these circumstances.

    He questioned the involvement of the Ambassador Perera in the reported deal to send the men back to Sri Lanka, where the war between government forces and the Liberation Tigers has escalated in recent months.

    "How could we be arranging with him [Perera] for the potential illegal repatriation of these asylum seekers?" Senator Brown asked parliament.

    "It would be an outrageous thing for the government to do. They should be brought within Australia's immigration laws and given the rights that are available under those immigration laws."

    "Otherwise this country will not only be breaking international law, it'll be turning its back on the very basis of United Nations protection for refugees fleeing violence."

    Democrats senator Andrew Bartlett said the men should be given a favourable hearing, particularly in light of reports some may be Tamil people who could be targeted by Sri Lankan government forces.

    "There should be no doubt at all about the reasonable prospect that these are genuine claims," he said.
  • LTTE forces on high alert

    Sri Lanka’s armed forces are massing troops and have weapons for further ground offensives against the Tigers while continuing their bombardment of LTTE-controlled areas and the LTTE has put its forces in Vanni on high alert.

    "We are aware that the Sri Lanka Army has amassed military hardware close to Manalaru in preparation for a major offensive towards Mullaitivu area,” Mr. S. P. Tamilselvan, Head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, said Monday.

    “The consequence of this offensive will be a catastrophic bloodbath across Sri Lanka," he said.

    “We warn that Colombo is courting national disaster by misinterpreting our patience for military weakness,” he said.

    “Despite provocations from Colombo, we have desisted from engaging offensively against the Sri Lankan forces. We have exercised tolerance at high cost. We sincerely believe that the International Community has realized our tolerance has reached its limits.”

    Mr. Tamilselvan was speaking to reporters after meeting Norwegian Ambassador Hans Brattskar in Kilinochchi Monday.

    “Our forces have been placed on high alert across Vanni,” he said. “Colombo would plunge the entire island into a bloody war by engaging its troops in this dangerous exercise.”

    Apart from the buildup in Manal Aru, correspondents say the Army is massing weapons and troops in Muhamalai in the Jaffna peninsula and also at Vavuniya and Omanthai.

    The military’s hectic preparations come as the fifth anniversary of the 2002 ceasefire, which exists only on paper now, was marked by vehement protests by Sinhala nationalists urging hardline President Mahinda Rajapakse to tear up the agreement.

    The Sri Lankan military has already declared its intent to clear the eastern province of the LTTE before attacking the Vanni, a large swathe of territory the Tigers control in the island’s north.

    Emboldened by a series of retreats by the Tigers in the face of its offensives in the east over the past eight months, the Sri Lankan government has announced plans to attack Thoppigala where long-standing LTTE bases are located in thick jungles.

    At the same time the military is moving vast quantities of weapons and ammunition to forward areas close to the Muhamalai frontline in the Jaffna peninsula and is doing the same near Omanthai in Vavuniya district.

    Muhamalai and Omanthai are the two main entry points to the LTTE-controlled Vanni region, which President Rajapakse vowed in a speech to mark Independence Day, Feb 4, to capture within the year.

    In Jaffna the military has extended hours of curfew. In addition to the 11-hour night curfew, during the day civilians are barred from major roads comprising supply routes to the Muhamalai frontline from the Palaly base complex.

    The military has also imposed a peninsula wide ban on fishing until further notice.

    Tuesday last week the Army began moving heavy weapons including at least fifteen Main Battle Tanks (MBTs) to the Muhamalai forward areas. Weapons and troops have been moving to the area continuously for several days, reports said.

    Meanwhile the Sunday Times reported a continuing military build-up by the LTTE in and around the Jaffna peninsula also.

    Newly trained LTTE cadres were being deployed in rear defences and other localities while regular cadres were being moved to frontline defended localities at Muhamalai, the paper said.

    In the Batticaloa district, the military’s announcement that ‘the fall of Thoppigala is imminent’ has triggered the flight of several thousand Tamils into government-controlled areas.

    An estimated 70,000 people who fled earlier Sri Lankan offensives are already struggling in squalid refugee camps.

    In the run up to the publicly declared push for Toppigala, Sri Lankan troops have also begun limited operations against LTTE positions south west of Trincomalee.

    Artillery and helicopter gunships have attacked LTTE camps in the jungles near the massive eastern naval base.

    The military has stepped up artillery bombardment and airstrikes on western parts of Batticaloa district and the Vanni.

    Villages in the LTTE-held hinterland west of the lagoon that separates it from government-controlled town are being bombarded regularly, displacing ever-increasing numbers of civilians.

    Amid daily artillery and Multi-Barrel Rocket Launcher (MBRL) bombardments, Air Force jets are bomb areas further south in Vanni.

    The Tigers are shelling Sri Lankan positions in Jaffna and Batticaloa in response.

    This week a group of foreign Ambassadors visiting Batticaloa narrowly escaped LTTE shells which hit the military base their helicopter landed on.

    US Ambassador Robert Blake and Italian Ambassador Pio Mariani,were slightly wounded when four shells exploded near the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) helicopter they had alighted from. Reports said Mr. Blake’s arm was grazed by a stone or shrapnel and Mr. Mariani suffered a small cut to his scalp.

    The LTTE said Sri Lanka had failed to notify it in advance of the movement of foreign diplomats into the Northeast warzones as is customary practice and had launched artillery attacks from the airfield prompting its counterfire.

  • The LTTE makes its case

    The statement of the LTTE marking the unhappy 5th Anniversary of the CFA is a noteworthy document, coming as it does at this juncture of the current conflict cycle. It is no doubt, a partisan account, but it represents a rather well stated case.

    It seeks to give a comprehensive account of events of the past six years or so; engages international humanitarian law in its critique of the conduct of the government and the international community; and reiterates assumptive principles of process such as parity of status, balance of power, and international guarantees (and also, by sleight of hand, ‘authentic representative’ as opposed to ‘sole representative’) that underpin the CFA of 2002.

    It also contains a succinct restatement of the historical dimensions of the Tamil struggle through peace means to armed conflict; and indicates in outline the substantive parameters of a negotiated settlement acceptable to the LTTE by reference to other international peace agreements.

    In the absence of Lakshman Kadirgamar, it is difficult to imagine whether the response of the government, if there is one, would meet the LTTE’s document on the same intellectual plane, but that is to anticipate events.

    In any event, it is the latter set of issues relating to substance that are more interesting.

    Clearly, the LTTE wants a resolution to its self-determination claim that goes the way of secession, or graduated secession and earned sovereignty as its invocation of the Machakos Protocol from the Sudan peace process and the Ahtisaari proposals for Kosovo seems to indicate.

    Theirs is a freedom struggle for a territory and people entitled to self-determination as articulated in common Article 1 of the human rights Covenants of 1966 and customary international law.

    If that was not enough, having met with a repetitive history of duplicity and rejection with regard to federal autonomy, they are now in a position to assert sovereign statehood by virtue of control over territory and population and capacity to enter into international agreements.

    The LTTE is the ‘authentic representative’ by virtue of not only the indirect democratic mandates gained by the TNA, but also by having delivered to the Tamil homeland the trappings of a de facto State.

    All this is fine as the articulation of a position. But in practice, there are several obstacles that may prove very difficult to overcome in the LTTE’s quest to place itself in the position of the SPLM/A in Southern Sudan or the KLA in Kosovo.

    As a matter of international law, the preponderance of the debate on self-determination is about the development of the right to internal self-determination within existing States in meeting collective claims such as those of the Tamils of North-eastern Sri Lanka.

    Unilateral secession is without question actively discouraged in international law.

    In turn, this is an aspect of the ongoing development of democracy as a principle of international law, wherein internal self-determination is advanced as inherent to emerging entitlements of democratic self-government within States.

    This is where the 2003 Oslo Declaration with its reference to internal self-determination was an outstanding contribution to good sense as a framework for peace in Sri Lanka, but which both parties abandoned on zero sum calculations.

    In this context, the LTTE’s own conduct with regard to human rights, democracy and political pluralism in the Northeast creates difficulties for itself in engaging international law in its cause.

    On the other hand, as the examples of Southern Sudan and Kosovo demonstrate, international politics is more often than not, more important in strategising secession than rigid concepts of international law.

    Nothing in international law entitles the Kosovars or the Southern Sudanese to the strategic autonomy and progressive sovereignty deals they have achieved, but for the odium and international revulsion that Serbian nationalists and Khartoum Arab-Islamists had brought upon themselves by their treatment of the former.

    The adroitness of the LTTE statement lies precisely here.

    What appears to be a plaintive lament about the international community’s abandonment of the Tamils is in fact a strategically skilful and legally astute ploy designed to exploit the fundamental weakness of the Colombo regime.

    That is, Colombo’s reliance on the notoriously fickle support of the international community in the pursuit of a military solution that is accompanied by serious and systematic human rights violations and no ideas on a political settlement.

    Staying this course on the part of Colombo, would have a very high probability of legitimising the case for a level of autonomy so extraordinary that even if the LTTE never quite circumvents the geopolitical considerations in realising full legal sovereign statehood, the Northeast would certainly reach a kind of state-like character ipso facto.

    The LTTE therefore has studied its situation in comparative context and learnt the lessons well.

    If there is such a thing as a policy-making mind in this administration, it would do well to keep these considerations in mind.

    Asanga Welikala is a Research Associate with the Legal & Constitutional Unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), Colombo. The views expressed here are the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of CPA.

    The full text of the LTTE’s statement is available at http://www.ltteps.org/?view=1877&folder=17

  • Militarization in Sri Lanka

    More than two hundred journalists, trade union workers demonstrated at the Fort Railway Station in central Colombo on February 6 to condemn the growing harassment and intimidation of the media and left wing activists through killings, abductions and death threats.

    On the Feb 5, 2007, the Sri Lankan army intelligence kidnapped Mr. Senaviratna, Mr. Sisira and Mr. Serasinghe. The first two are trade union activists. Mr. Serasinghe is the owner of a typesetting shop and is a left wing activist.

    Mr Senaviratna and Mr Serasinghe were abducted at work; Mr Sisira was abducted at home. There was no warning; they were not read their rights; they were simply taken away.

    A 'confession' was forced; they were forced to confess their involvement with the recent bombings in the south of Sri Lanka; they were forced to confess to links with the LTTE.

    Through such forced 'confessions', the Sri Lankan state is trying to destroy all left wing and working class activism and to criminalise left wing activists in the popular press.

    As President Mahinda Rajapakse has intensified the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), his government and the military have imposed what amounts to a regime of de facto censorship.

    In December, Rajapakse reintroduced and extended the notorious Prevention and Prohibition of Terrorist Activities legislation that allows for the lengthy detention without trial of alleged "terrorists". New regulations have extended the law to allow for the prosecution of anyone, including journalists and media organisations, on the vague charge of "supporting" terrorism.

    President Rajapakse, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse and army chief Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka have called meetings of media representatives on several occasions to warn them against criticising the war on the grounds that it will affect national security and the morale of the security forces.

    There is little doubt that many of the attacks on journalists and left wing activists have been carried out either by the security forces or associated chauvinist thugs.

    For the most part, the Sri Lankan media establishment has lined up behind the renewed civil war and acts as little more than a mouthpiece for the government's chauvinist propaganda.

    Rajapakse is distinctly nervous that any critical reporting of the war, rampant official corruption, worsening living standards and attacks on democratic rights will only inflame popular discontent, including in the military's ranks.

    That is the reason for the escalating crackdown on the media and left wing activism.

  • False Hope

    When the Liberation Tigers and the Sri Lankan government signed the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) five years ago, they justifiably triggered a euphoric wave of optimism across the island. The guns had of course been silent for two months already – the LTTE’s Christmas truce had been promptly reciprocated by the UNF government (newly elected with a nod and a wink to the Tamils from the Tigers). Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But when it was unveiled, the CFA had a magical air of finality about it. The international community lavishly praised the truce and called for talks. Norwegian shuttle diplomacy – and not a little input - helped draft it. And, as in all agreements, both the government and the LTTE gained and lost by the ceasefire. But, and this is the crucial truth, both sides were satisfied enough to sign it. They even agreed to international monitoring of their conduct.

    Five years on, as the hardpressed staff of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) pointed out last week, bloody battles are once again being fought in the Northeast - alongside a dirty war of terrifying abductions and vicious murders. Since President Mahinda Rajapakse assumed power the simmering ‘shadow war’ between Sri Lanka’s military intelligence and the LTTE has exploded into a major conflict. It is often said that the truce exists only on paper now. In practical terms, this is true. Yet the CFA still has massive potency. Neither side is prepared to serve the two-week notice to quit. That alone attests to the powerful symbolism of the CFA. The agreement is more than a technocratic set of rules. It represents the very principle that negotiation, not violence, must finally settle political questions; that peace is better than war. To abrogate the CFA is to repudiate this. Which is why both the state and the LTTE refuse to do so. It is also why the warmongering Sinhala nationalists have demanded the CFA be torn up from the moment it was inked.

    The CFA has been pilloried from the outset. Chandrika Kumaratunga, the President whose abortive ‘war for peace’ concluded with the truce was its most powerful critic. Yet she never dared exercise her considerable Presidential powers to abrogate it. Her chagrin that Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe usurped her authority and signed the CFA was tempered by a recognition of the extent of international backing for the truce and the mood amongst most Sri Lankans. The question then is why the CFA is now being ignored so blatantly by both sides?

    There are many reasons why the CFA failed to fulfill its promise and pave the way to a negotiated peace. There are other reasons, some of which are related, why it collapsed into renewed war. Naturally, depending on one’s political loyalties, blame is apportioned differently. But one thing is quite clear. In the past five years, international support for the CFA has tangibly faded. Nothing symbolizes this more starkly than the international silence that marked the truce’s fifth anniversary this month. Norway’s lone voice trotted out an obligatory salute and a plea for the ceasefire to be honoured. Meanwhile there is a shameful thundering silence from that mighty institution which appointed itself to manage Sri Lanka’s transition to peace: the Co-Chairs. When the United States, European Union and Japan joined Norway in 2002/3 to underwrite the peace process, they put a pile of money on the table and imposed conditionalities on both parties. But unable to micromanage the outcome they wanted, they simply abandoned the peace-building project. Frustrated at the LTTE’s refusal to follow the marked out route to disarmament, they condemned the movement. They also abandoned the conditionalities and gave the money to the Sri Lankan state anyway.

    Meanwhile, a peculiar ‘counting’ of violations was introduced as a much-quoted scale of wickedness by which to judge the two parties. We wonder how many violations the killing of 50 children in an airstrike constitutes? How does this compare with the recruitment and subsequent release of 50 under-18s? Can we numerate the continued occupation by the military of the homes of 30,000 Tamil families, even now, five years on? Yet we are emphatically told that the LTTE violated the truce ‘more’ than the government. Whilst not the most important aspect of Sri Lanka’s fiasco, the impact of the SLMM’s methodology on respect for the CFA and especially its own standing, should not be underestimated. How much outrage, really, was provoked when Sri Lankan artillery barrages compelled SLMM chief to huddle in bunkers. Not once, but twice.

    Most importantly the CFA’s collapse last year can be linked directly to the international community changing its mind on the efficacy of military force. Whilst maintaining the mantra that ‘there is no military solution,’ the international community has set about helping Sri Lanka unabashedly pursue a military victory over the LTTE. Of course the justificatory logic was that the Sri Lankan state had to be helped to defend itself against the LTTE – which is unquestioningly deemed the aggressor in this ‘internal’ war. The premise that underpinned the CFA (that there are two belligerents) was discarded. Amongst the one-sided condemnations, the exasperating international bias went from being a disrupting influence in the Norwegian peace process to being the underpinning principle of a new round of conflict: President Mahinda Rajapakse would not have resumed a full-scale war against the LTTE without being assured of international support.

    Undeniably, both the LTTE and state’s armed forces have breached the CFA. However both sides have specific and compelling reasons to court international support and sympathy: the state to retain its diplomatic, military and, above all, financial support; the LTTE to pursue political legitimacy and make a case for governance. Therefore, as long as the international community was committed to opposing the use of military force to settle Sri Lanka’s political question, there could be no war. Low intensity violence would continue and occasionally flare, but there would be no return to open conflict.

    Yet last year the government launched a full-scale war. The suicide bomb attack on Army Chief Sarath Fonseka last April was the casus belli. Yet almost exactly three years earlier, when the military attacked and sank an LTTE ship in March 2003, restraint, not retaliation was demanded – and exercised. In June 2003, an LTTE oil tanker was similarly destroyed. In each case, a dozen LTTE cadres, including at least four commanders were killed. Yet the truce held. It is precisely because the international community has given President Rajapakse a green light to militarily destroy the LTTE that the ceasefire collapsed so spectacularly last year.

    The ramifications of this internationally endorsed new ‘war for peace’ are exactly the same as the last one. Hundreds of thousands of Tamils will be displaced. Our people will endure starvation and disease amid international embargoes as the world maintains a studied silence – irrespective of Diaspora lobbying. Large numbers will of die or be maimed. And it will continue until either the Tamils end their opposition to Sinhala rule or a new balance of forces emerges from the battlefield our homeland has once again become.

  • Violence round up – week ending 11 February

    11 February

    ● Police in Valikamam East recovered the bodies of two men with gunshot wounds and torture marks. Chelliah Mylvaganam, 53, and Navaratnam Arultheepan, 27, were abducted from their homes in Siruppiddy by armed men driving a white van half an hour before being killed.

    ● Sri Lanka Government forces in a cordon and search operation arrested three upcountry Tamil youths, Madavan Naguleswaran, Madavan Maheswaran and Uthayakumar of Hatton, who were waiting at Kandy railway station to travel to Colombo.

    ● About forty-five persons were taken into custody by the police in cordon and search operations in Chilaw. Although the ethnicity of the arrested were not fully revealed, residents in Chilaw said only some of the arrested are Tamil. Many of the arrested were accused of engaging in criminal activities in the area.

    ● In Mylankadu, Chunnakam, Jaffna, armed men in a white van abducted Nagalingam Yoganathan, 45, father of three.

    ● Rajalingam Suresh, 19, was abducted from his residence in Mulli Road, Ariyalai Jaffna, by men in a white van.

    ● Armed persons shot dead N. Gunadasa near Vipulananda School in Pandarikulam, Vavuniya, after hiring his auto.

    10 February

    ● Armed men shot dead a trader at Aiyankerny in Eravur, Batticaloa. The killers called Maheswaran Uthayasekaran, 32, of Kommanthurai, a father of two, out of his house as he was having dinner saying they wanted to buy a phone card and shot him. He was rushed to hospital where he succumbed to his wounds.

    09 February

    ● The train service between Dematagoda and Maradana in Colombo was halted for several hours following a tip off that an anonymous parcel was lying on the track between the stations. The SLA bomb disposal squad rushed to the site and stopped all public movements in the area. Railway authorities were warned not to allow trains on the track till the investigations were over. On examination security forces found no explosive in the parcel – only some pieces of paper.

    ● Sri Lanka Government forces arrested 11 Tamil civilians during cordon and search operations in Munthal, Uddapu and Munneswaram areas in Chilaw. The detainees are from Killinochchi, Jaffna, Vavuniya and Mullaitivu in the Tamil dominated northeast province. Police said they were taken into custody as they failed to produce legal documents to prove their identity and credible reasons for their stay in the locality.

    ● Two SLA soldiers were injured when gunmen fired at a foot patrol in Nellukulam, Vavuniya. Sri Lanka Military high command strengthened security and increased the number of road patrols amidst escalating violence in Vavuniya district.

    ● A Tamil youth, who recently returned from working abroad, was shot dead in Madduvil North, Thenmaradchi, Jaffna. Gunmen stopped Rasaratnam Pushparajah, 30, from Musiri in Madduvil North, as he was riding his motorbike, shot him dead at point blank range, and absconded on his bike, which they abandoned a few kilometres away. Police found five gunshot wounds on Pushparajah's body.

    ● Gunmen shot dead a teacher in Pattanichchur Puliyankulam, Vavuniya, making him the sixth person to be killed by armed men in Vavuniya in February. Thambirajah Thileepan, 40, was a teacher at the Vavuniya Poonthottam Government Mixed School. Of the six victims killed by armed men in Vavuniya this month, four were identified as civilians, one was a SLA officer, and the last was a home-guard.

    ● Pulmoddai police recovered the body of Sinniah Palaniappan, 59, along the beach in Pulmoddai village, Trincomalee. There were injuries on the body but the exact cause of death was not revealed.

    08 February

    ● Several SLA troopers were feared killed in a claymore attack on a bus carrying soldiers along Palaly Road, Jaffna, less than 50 meters from Urelu SLA camp. Palaly military command did not release official details on the attack. The damaged bus, belonging to the Ceylon Transport Board, was taken inside Urelu camp, which is a key SLA camp and serves as the main camp of the SLA intelligence wing.

    ● A husband and wife, parents of two children, were shot dead in Maharambaikkulam, Vavuniya. Aarumukam Sakthivelai, 47, and his wife, Maheswaray Sakthivelai, 42, were shot in the early hours while they were sleeping.

    ● Seven STF troopers and three civilians were injured in a mortar attack from LTTE held areas on the Vavunathivu SLA camp. The SLA fired mortars in retaliation. A new STF camp is being constructed near the current SLA camp.

    ● Armed men abducted a fisherman at Santhiveli, Eravur, and shot him dead later in the day near his house. Myilvaganam Ravichandran, 33, is the neighbour of a Hindu priest, Chelliah Parameshwara Kurrukal, shot dead the previous day, allegedly by armed men attached to SLA military intelligence.

    ● Three civilians, fearing threat to their lives from Sri Lankan armed forces and allied paramilitaries, took refuge with the Jaffna SLHRC, who handed them over to the Jaffna prison officials to be kept in protective custody. Prison officials have warned of a possible humanitarian crisis in the prison as youths seeking protection, and criminals are kept in the same facility. Jaffna prison, which is already in a deplorable condition without adequate facilities, will struggle to accommodate any additional youths, prison officials said.

    07 February

    ● SLA troopers lying in ambush along an interior road in Thatchanthoppu Pillayar temple area at Karaveddy, Vadamaradchi, Jaffna, opened fire on a youth, killing him on the spot. However, military reports from Colombo said the SLA killed a youth who had attempted to hurl a hand grenade at the troopers.

    ● Armed paramilitaries visited the house of Kiddinan Kirushnarasa, 34, a civilian in Paththini Amman Kovilady, Valvettiththurai, Vadamaradchy, and forcibly took him away.

    ● A shell exploded near the Navalar Community Development Centre in Velanai, on the island of Kayts off the Jaffna peninsula, forcing the villagers to scatter in panic. No one was injured in the explosion, but some nearby buildings sustained minor damage.

    ● Ramachandran Jeyachandran, 33, an auto-rickshaw driver and father of two, was shot dead at Kooman kulam, Vavuniya. Jeyachandran had previously lost a leg during the war.

    ● SLA troopers of a field motorcycle unit opened fire on a young farmer at Mirusuvil in Thenmaradchi, Jaffna. Kurnaathy Muhunthan, 24, of Kudavian, Varani, was seriously injured in the shooting.

    ● SLN marines shot and seriously injured a man driving a tractor in Ward 4, Velanai east, Jaffna, allegedly for not giving way to SLN marines on a motorcycle behind the tractor. The SLN, however, said that the firing was a warning shot and was not intended to harm Kailayapillai Balachandran, 47.

    ● A Hindu priest, who had been forcefully taken to Vaharai from Santhiveli by the SLA to garland Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse during his visit to Vaharai on February 3, was shot and killed by armed men allegedly attached to SLA military intelligence. Chelliah Parameshwara Kurukkal, a father of three, was shot near his house, a few meters from the Santhiveli SLA camp. He had been taken to Vaharai by the military under the pretext of performing a pooja and made to garland the visiting president. Santhiveli residents alleged that the priest, who was unhappy over the forced pooja in Vaharai, has been victimized by the military intelligence. Dignitaries of all faiths have been forced to be present at the opening ceremonies of various paramilitary offices in Batticaloa and Amparai during recent months.

    ● The body of an unidentified male was found washed ashore in the Salaipaiaru seacoast in Kuchchaveli, Trincomalee.

    ● Six Tamil youths were arrested in Dankotuwa in a cordon and search operation by the Sri Lankan forces. All were employed in a bakery and are natives of upcountry and eastern province. Police said they were taken into custody as they failed to prove their identity and the reason for staying in the area.

    06 February

    ● A hand grenade explosion in Colombo wounded 18 at an exhibition when a STF trooper was demonstrating how to use the devise. Two STF personnel, 2 Buddhist monks, 4 females and 2 children were among the injured at the military exhibition at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall. Colombo police said the explosion, which took place inside a STF exhibition stall, was accidental. The exhibition was organised by the government to mark Sri Lanka’s 59th Independence Day.

    ● SLAF MI-12 helicopters fired rockets in Kadawanaikulam and Morawewa areas of Trincomalee for more than 30 minutes. Military sources in Colombo claimed the attack was aimed at a concentration of LTTE cadres in Kadawanaikulam, close to Kalmuttiyankulam reservoir where a SLN camp is located. The town is also close to Morawewa where a SLAF camp is located.

    ● Armed men shot dead two youths in Kankeyan Odai area, Kathankudy, Batticaloa. Preliminary police investigations revealed that Kirupairatnam Sathurik, 24 and Sivaramalingam Govintharaj, 23 had been abducted and killed.

    ● Armed men abducted a married man from Kuruchi Four Tamil village in Eravur, Batticaloa. Veerapan Uthayakumar, 36, a father of two, is a native of Hatton who had been a resident of Kurichi Four Tamil village for six years. He was abducted on his way to the shop from his home.

    ● Armed persons, who identified themselves as SLA soldiers, took Sinnaththurai Vijayaruban, 23, of Kadduvan Road, Mallakam in Valikamam, for questioning in the presence of his parents. Vijayaruban's whereabouts are unknown.

    ● Unidentified men abducted Louis Moraes Satkunanathan, 59, retired Grama Sevaka Officer and father of three from Sinnakadai in Mannar town, with his motorbike as he was going along Mannar-Talaimannar main road to supervise construction work he had undertaken in Talaimannar.

    ● Anestine Kathirkumar, 31, and Christie Balendran Croos, 29, were abducted when they were returning home on motorbike on Mannar-Talaimannar main road after buying provisions at Mannar bazaar. The two fishermen are residents of Pesalai.

    05 February

    ● Three Sinhala friends, all leftist journalists or activists were abducted in Colombo. Leftist activists have alleged that the three friends were kidnapped by an abduction squad operated by the Sri Lankan military.

    ● A SLA officer was killed and a trooper injured when armed persons attacked a road patrol unit at Pandarikulam road in Vepankulam, Vavuniya. The body of the officer, Captain Dammika Kumara, was taken to hospital and then the SLA camp, while the trooper was rushed to Vavuniya Military hospital. The SLA claimed the ambush was launched by LTTE cadres who escaped.

    ● The SLA said three troopers were injured in an attack by the LTTE at Macanar road in Sector 5, Vavuniya. Vavuniya police claimed that an LTTE cadre was killed in SLA retaliation.

    ● The decomposed body of a young man, believed to be about 25, washed ashore at Karaithivu beach, Samanthurai, Amparai. The body had gunshot wounds, its hands tied behind and its throat tightly bound by rope. The unidentified body was buried at the site due to its decomposed state.

    ● Sri Lankan government security forces arrested 42 Tamils, including female students, in a cordon and search operation in Kohuwela, Colombo. Police allege those arrested failed to prove their identity and the purpose of their stay in the area, but relatives said the police refused to release the detainees even after these details were supplied.

    ● Thirteen upcountry Tamils were arrested in Dankotuwa in a cordon and search operation by Sri Lankan forces. Although Police allege the detainees were taken into custody as they failed to produce their identity and reasons for their stay in the area, relatives said they were employed in Dankotuwa and that they had submitted legal documents to prove their identity.

    ● Seven upcountry Tamils working in a coir factory were taken into custody by government security forces in a search operation in Nattandiya, Negombo.

    ● Armed men shot dead a Tamil, believed to be a resident of Killiveddy, Serunuwara, Trincomalee, at Kantalai railway station. He had gone to Kantalai, accompanied by his mother, to go to Batticaloa by train. He was shot while coming out of the station rest room.

    ● A SLN sailor was seriously injured in grenade attack on a group on security duty at Pesalai, Mannar. About four thousand Pesalai residents sought refuge in the local church soon after the grenade attack, fearing increasing violence.

    ● Two unidentified youths were killed and one civilian critically injured when LTTE cadres and members of the paramilitary Karuna group engaged in a fire fight in Kaluthavalai, Kaluwanchikkudy, Batticaloa. S. Jegajothirajah, 50, the Depot Manager of Kaluwanchikkudy Peoplised Transport Board, was injured while travelling in a bus along the main road to Colombo.

    ● A Home Guard trooper was killed in an attack on the 18th guard post at Kurumankadu, Vavuniya. The Home Guards, paramilitary fighters deployed in the Sinhala border villages of the northern and eastern areas, are trained by the SLA and police. The Home Guards Service was formed in 1985 as a supplementary force to support and assist the three forces and the police by protecting border villages and the main supply routes.

    ● Men dressed in military fatigues abducted Selliah Siventhiran, 25, from his home in Madduvil East, Chavakachcheri, Thenmarachchi, Jaffna.

  • Violence round up – week ending 18 February

    18 February

    ● SLA soldiers shot dead a final year Art faculty student of Jaffna University close to the SLA 52-4 Brigade Head Quarters and near his house in Iyattalai, Varani, Thenmaradchi. Krishnan Kamalathas 24, was shot dead while he was going towards a private tutory to teach classes (see separate story).

    ● A SLN sailor was killed and nineteen others injured when the bus transporting a group of sailors from Habarana to Trincomalee met with an accident at Kantalai. The sailors were returning to report to the Trincomalee navy headquarters after vacation when the bus carrying them ran off the road.

    ● A Muslim civilian was killed and a Tamil man injured when police fired indiscriminately following a grenade attack by armed men at Chenkalady Police Post in Eravur, Batticaloa. Mohammad Cassim, 60, of Kaththankudy, who died, and Samithamby Thanabalasingam, 44, of Batticaloa, who was injured, were both bystanders when the police started firing.

    ● Armed men shot and seriously injured Kanapathipillai Thiyagarajah alias Ananda, 67, at Central Camp in Amparai. The armed men called him out of his house and searched his house before shooting him.

    17 February

    ● Two SLA soldiers of the 51-2 brigade were killed and 12 troopers wounded in a road side claymore ambush along the A9, 300 meters from the Jaffna District Secretariat and inside a SLA High Security Zone. A child, believed to be around 5, was rushed to hospital with shrapnel wounds, but died at the hospital. SLA soldiers opened fire, cordoned off the area and launched a search operation. Three civilians were wounded. The injured soldiers were identified as Soorasinghe, 32 and Premadasa, 42. The injured civilians were identified as A. Chithra, 24, of Ariyalai, K. Mohan, 46, and E. Jesuthasan, 55.

    ● One civilian was killed and two injured when the SLA opened fire in Kumankulam, Vavuniya, but Vavuniya Police said they received no information about the incident. Sinnarajah Suresh, 18, was killed, and Kumar Raguvaran, 17, and Logeswaran, 36, were injured.

    ● Assailants triggered a claymore mine in Pandarikulam, but no injuries to SLA soldiers or Police officers were reported. Residents of Pandarikulam said SLA soldiers fired indiscriminately for 30 minutes after the attack, but no one was injured.

    ● A male body with gunshot injuries recovered from Uppuveli, Trincomalee, was identified as Sivalingam Senthooran of Aathimoddai village along Trincomalee-Nilaveli road. His body was found blindfolded and with hands tied behind and he had been shot dead by unidentified persons. His wife said three unidentified persons went to her house Friday night and abducted him.

    16 February

    ● SLAF bombers attacked Muhamalai, Kilali and Vadamaradchi East as the SLA launched a heavy artillery barrage using Multi Barrel Rocket Launchers. Four SLAF bombers dropped more than 20 bombs, while the SLA stepped up its artillery barrage on the two separate FDL positions, one from the northern FDL towards Muhamalai, Kilali and Vadamaradchi east and the other from Manalaru SLA camp in Mullaitivu towards LTTE held areas.

    ● The SLN attacked two fishermen, fishing in deep seas from Vadamaradchy east coast, and arrested both with their boats. Two other fishermen witnessed the incident and fled to safety. The arrested fishermen, Karunakaran Jegathesan, 27, from Vathirayan, and Sivanantharajah Sureshkumar, 30, from Maruthankerni, were internally displaced from Vadamarachchy East region and lived temporarily at Puthu Maththalan in Mullaithivu.

    ● An attempt by Jaffna Police to send youths who surrendered to police fearing for their lives from SLA and paramilitaries working with SLA, to rehabilitation centres in the South, was stopped by the intervention of the Jaffna District Judge. The Police tried to send the youths to rehabilitation centres in south for further interrogation and "rehabilitation." Their parents took the matter to Jaffna Court, and the judge, with the support of the Sri Lanka Attorney General, ordered the police to keep them in Jaffna. Although people who fear for their lives seek refuge in prisons, prisons themselves are not safe in Sri Lanka. On 23 and 25 July 1983, Sinhala prisoners at Welikada Prison beat 53 Tamil political prisoners to death. On 25 October 2000, 25 Tamil detainees were hacked to death and 16 others were seriously wounded when hundreds of Sinhala villagers assisted by Police attacked the Bindunuwewa detention centre.

    ● Kandy Police and SLA soldiers arrested 14 civilians, including nine Tamils, three Muslims and a Sinhalese, in a cordon and search operation following a tip off that a bomb had been placed in the Kandy bus stand. The SLA bomb disposal squad rushed to the site, but no bomb was found. Police took the civilians into custody as they failed to prove their identity and the purpose for the stay in the area. Of the three Muslims one is a woman. The Tamil suspects are all natives of Jaffna or Vavuniya, and were taken into custody when they were returning to their temporary residences after attending Maha Sivarathiri poojah at the Hindu Temple in Kandy town. The police arrested them even after they showed their national identity cards to prove their identity.

    ● Vavuniya Police said armed men gunned down a former PLOTE cadre, Kumaraswamy, in Thirunavatkulam in Vavuniya.

    15 February

    ● Three LTTE cadres and a Home Guard were killed, and two other Home Guards wounded in a fire fight at a remote boarder village in Amparai. The policemen and Home Guards manning Komattalawa sentry point foiled an LTTE attack, killing three attackers. The Police recovered the three bodies and two T-56 assaulted rifles' Amparai police said, but the LTTE has not commented on the incident.

    ● Moratuwa Police took into custody 19 Tamils, all of them from areas of NorthEast, in a midnight to dawn cordon and search operation in the Soysapura Flat area in Moratuwa, Colombo. The police said the suspects, aged between 19 and 40, were taken into custody as they failed to produce legal documents to prove their identity and the reasons for the stay in the locality.

    ● The Colombo Chief Magistrate ordered the release of 18 Tamil civilians arrested on February 9 in a cordon and search operation in Borella and Mirihana, Colombo, after police said there was no evidence to implicate the suspects in any offence. The Sri Lanka government troops and police took the civilians into custody on suspicion and they were detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and interrogated.

    ● A decapitated body washed ashore at Nadukkudah in Mannar. Fishermen in Pesalai witnessed more than four dead bodies, packed inside polypropylene fertilizer bags, floating in the sea. More than 10 persons had been reported missing in Pesalai area in the previous 20 days, according to the Mannar SLHRC. Fishermen from Vankalai, Thalvupadu and Southbar reported bodies floating at sea to the Sri Lankan Police, but were told that they had to report to the SLN as the police would only handle bodies once they reach the shore.

    ● A journalist working as Vadamaradchi correspondent for two Tamil dailies, Thinakural and Valampuri, went missing after ending his private tuition class. Subramaniam Ramachandran, 37, a father of two, who also runs the private education institute at Arasady, Karaveddy, Vadamaradchi, went missing after he closed his institute and was on his way home on his bicycle. Ramachandran, described as an "energetic correspondent," by the editorial staff of Yarl Thinakural, worked for the two dailies for 5 years since the signing of the Cease Fire Agreement in 2002. He is a native of Thunnalai in Karaveddy, Vadmaradchi.

    14 February

    ● Ten SLA soldiers were injured when more than forty shells fired by the LTTE hit their camp in Meesalai, Jaffna. SLA command did not release details of the attack and casualties. Shells were also directed towards several other key camps in Kodikamam and Meesalai. An elderly pedestrian, C. Kulasekaram, 64, from Allarai North, Kodikamam, was seriously injured and several civilians sustained minor injuries when a shell fell near the main road in Kodikamam during a crowded market.

    ● Armed men shot dead Somapala Wijepalan in Anpuvallipuram, Trincomalee. No other details about the victim or the motivation for the killing were released.

    ● The SLA conducted a cordon and search operation in Vankalai, Mannar, following an attack on the sentry point the previous night. The sentry was attacked with small arms by a group of three who travelled in a boat by sea. The SLA said the attackers had fled from the shore, leaving the boat, when they retaliated. Soldiers had recovered two T56 rifles, two hand grenades and five magazines with live bullets from the boat they captured.

    ● The SLN in Delft, an islet of Jaffna, issued a directive banning fishing and using boats on the Delft Sea between 6:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Ninety percent of the population of Delft depend on fishing for their livelihood, and are seriously affected by the ban. Delft, under the control of SLN and SLN-backed paramilitaries, has until now escaped SLN restrictions on fishing.

    ● Armed men in a white van, alleged to be members of Karuna Group, abducted five youths from the Central camp in Amparai over two days. The parents of T. Srithas, 17, Thambipillai Sritharan, 18, Tharumarajah Thayaparan, 20, all from Sangapura area, lodged complaints with Central camp police. Parents of the other two abducted youths are hesitating about making complaints as they fear retaliation.

    ● A special police team from the Criminal Investigation Department arrested three Tamil teachers in Ragala, Nuwara Eliya and took them to Colombo for interrogation. Police said the three were arrested on information from one of the three Sinhala journalists, arrested earlier in Colombo, on charges of having received arms training from the LTTE. Vaithilingam Mahendran of Alkaranoya Barathi Vidyalayam, Suthanthirakesari Sugasenan of Konaipitty Tamil Vidyalayam and Rajaretnam Jeyaseelan of Mahauwa Tamil Vidyalayam, are all said to be members of the New Democratic Party (NDP). The national organizer of the NDP appealed to Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse to release the teachers, saying they were innocent. Meanwhile, the police arrested two Sinhalese civilians in Ratnapura in Uva Province also for having connections with three Sinhala journalists.

    13 February

    ● Gunmen shot and killed Ariyaratna Silva, a Dehiwela-Mount Lavinia Municipal Council member of the main opposition UNP, inside his office in Dehiwela, a suburb of Colombo.

    ● Two youths from Sirupiddy, Valigamam east, Jaffna, fearing threat to their lives from the government armed forces and allied paramilitaries, sought safety at the SLHRC and were placed under the protective custody in Jaffna prison. The parents said that armed persons were searching for their sons at nights following an incident where the bodies of two men abducted from their homes in Sirupiddy were found dumped in Nilaavarai. The parents were scared that their sons' lives were also in danger, and sought safety with the help of the SLHRC.

    ● Armed men on a motorcycle chased a youth and shot him dead as he was returning from Kodikamam town to Kachchai along the road behind Kodikamam police station in Thenmaradchi, Jaffna. Kasipillai Vasanthakumar, 17, had more than six gunshot wounds on his dead body.

    ● Gunmen shot dead a man driving his tractor along Navatkuli-Kerativu road, one hundred metres from the Navatkuli SLA camp in Thenmaradchi, Jaffna. Rasathurai Thavanesan, 26, a father of one, from Thachanthopu in Kaithady, had been stopped by his assailants, who spoke to him before opening fire.

    ● Six troopers were injured in a mortar attack by the LTTE on the Vavunativu STF camp. The STF retaliated but information on LTTE casualties was not released.

    ● Two family men, one aged 34, from Kalvayal in Chavakacheri in Thenmaradchi, and the other aged 32, from Kokuvil area in Jaffna, fearing threat to their lives from Sri Lanka armed forces and allied paramilitaries sought safety at the SLHRC and were placed under protective custody in Jaffna prison.

    ● Sri Lanka Police recovered a decomposed male body from a well in Vaharai. The body was bound inside a sack. The SLA has not permitted former residents to resettle in Vaharai after LTTE cadres withdrew from the region and the SLA took control last month. Only the armed forces and allied paramilitaries are currently in the area.

    ● Karuna group armed paramilitaries in military fatigues waylaid a Colombo bound civilian bus from Kathankudy, Batticaloa, and robbed Rs. 1,500,000 rupees, several national identity cards, 15 hand phones and jewellery from the passengers. The armed robbery took place between Mavadi SLA camp and Murakodanchenai SLA camp, near which there is an office of the Karuna group. The bus had begun its journey from Kathankudy to Colombo with 45 passengers and was waylaid near Sithandy Murugan temple junction in Eravur. Police said that small vans had been robbed at the same place, but this robbery was the biggest.

    12 February

    ● Six Sri SLAF Kfir bombers dropped 18 bombs in LTTE controlled Visvamadu, Mullaithivu, Vanni, near civilian settlements.

    ● Sri Lanka government security forces conducted a cordon and search operation covering fishing hamlets in Kallaruwa, Pudavaikattu, Pulmoddai and other coastal areas of Kuchchaveli, Trincomalee town.

     

    ● Sri Lanka military reports from Colombo claimed that they had destroyed one of the two LTTE boats sailing towards Pulmoddai from Mullaitivu, and taken the other boat into custody. The LTTE did not comment on the claim.

    ● Two gunmen pretending to be customers entered a meat stall in Chavakacheri Modern public market and shot rapidly with pistols, killing an employee on the spot and seriously injuring another, who later succumbed to his wounds. The victims were identified as Rajendram Tharsan, 22 of Madduvil, Chavakacheri and Sellathamby Selvarupan, 27 of Allary.

    ● The bodies of two unidentified men were recovered by police at two different locations in Colombo. One body was found at Kettarama bridge area and the other at Galkissa seashore.

    ● A Jaffna employee of the international humanitarian de-mining organization, Halo Trust, was reported "missing" since Friday. Nagarasa Narenthiran, 27, of Temple road, Nallur went to work as usual to the head office of Halo Trust at Nallur Cross road, Friday morning, his wife told the SLHRC in Jaffna, but never returned home. Eleven Halo Trust workers have been either reported "missing" or killed during the past 6 months.

    ● Kanapathippillai Kirushnapavan, 35, a family man, who went to see his abandoned house situated near a SLA camp in Thondamanaru in Vadamarachchy, has not returned home. His wife told the SLHRC officials that his motorbike, the house key and some clothes were seen at the entrance to the house.

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