If structural changes are what the West aims in the island of Sri Lanka through IMF and GSP+ loans, those cannot be achieved without first emotionally rehabilitating the Eelam Tamils.

 

Emotional rehabilitation, which is fundamental to all other rehabilitation is possible only when the West openly acknowledges Eelam Tamils as a nation and their cause as a national liberation struggle, says TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.

 

“Tamils are deeply hurt by IMF and Indian assistance to Colombo failing to take note of this fact, the commentator said, adding that the GSP+ should not make the same mistake.

 

By abstaining the IMF voting the West has indirectly helped the approval of the loan to Colombo.

 

Now there are proposals that the EU should consider GSP+ assistance too.

 

The call for investigation of war crimes may serve political purposes of the West but this will not address the fundamental expectations of Eelam Tamils, the commentator said.

 

His further comments follow:

 

The West has to consider the long history of betrayal and the explicit ways in which the Sinhala state has embarked upon the structural genocide of Eelam Tamils.

 

The long legacy of international failure, spanning over half a century, in not recognising the genocidal oppression in the island and the nationalist dimensions of the struggle of Eelam Tamils have immensely contributed to the present mess.

 

When nothing is resolved but only gone deep into a military subjugation, the attitude of the West and India in pretending that the war is over, national question of Eelam Tamils doesn’t exist anymore and now the way out is to promote the ‘victors’, will only resume war at some stage.

 

International recognition of the nationhood of Eelam Tamils and guaranteeing its self-determination is the only way possible in the context of the island to save a nation from genocide and for any stability in the island aspired by the powers.

 

Such a recognition and guarantee emotionally rehabilitating the war-torn Tamils could only lead them into a healthy political process, if that is what the powers want.

 

The diaspora has a responsibility in reminding that it is positively addressing the Tamil national question and not cosmetic calls for human rights that is integral to the interests of the West in the island.

Sri Lanka's President and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, Mahinda Rajapaksa, on the occasion of Esala Perahera, the Sri Lankan Buddhist festival that commemorates the scared tooth of Buddha, has granted an special amnesty for 1,933 Sri Lanka Army (SLA) deserters including SLA officers released from several prisons, Sri Lankan police authorities said on Tuesday, July 28 .

270 SLA soldiers and 14 officers were released from Welikada. 3 officers and 30 soldiers from Boosa and 27 soldiers from Galle were released under the Perahera amnesty granted to them.

 

Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan military offered another amnesty to the tens of thousands deserters.

 

Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said troops who were absent without leave could report back to their units and be officially discharged without penalty.

 

"They must bring all their documents and return whatever is due to the army and then they will be granted an honourable discharge," Nanayakkara told AFP.

 

In 2001, the army had about 51,000 deserters on its books. According to a Sri Lankan Ministry of Justice and Law Reforms official, there are over  65,000 deserters at large.

 

The latest amnesty offers comes 2 months after government forces ended the island's bloody civil war. Despite the end of the fighting, the military wants to recruit new troops to fill vacancies and to be deployed in areas of the north and east captured from the Tamil Tigers.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has appointed more military top brass to a number of top and strategic positions in the government and promoted more officers including three Brigadiers to the rank of Major Generals and 46 Colonels as Brigadiers.

 

As part of Government’s move to offer senior posts to military officials, Major General Asoka Thoradeniya of the Military Police has been appointed as Chairman of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, Major General A R A T Soysa has been appointed managing director of the Ceylon Petroluem Storage Terminals, Artillery General, V R Silva, has been appointed Commissioner General of Prisons and Brig Udaya Perera, former Director or Army Operations, has been made Deputy High Commissioner in Malaysia.

 

These latest appointments follows, the appointment of former navy chief, Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda, as Secretary of the Highways Ministry, Major General G A Chandrasiri, as Governor of the Northern Province and Major General Jagath Dias as Deputy High Commissioner to Germany.

 

The appointment of military men to top civil posts shows Rajapakse’s growing dependency on the military to run the country according to analysts.

 

In addition to military men being appointed top civil posts, there have also been numerous promotions since the end of war.

 

Former General Officer of Command (GOC) of the 55 Division, Brigadier Prasanna Silva, present 53 Division GOC, Brigadier Chagi Gallage and Director Operations of Army Head Quarters, Brigadier Shavendra Silva are the latest officers to be promoted as Major Generals, sources in Colombo said.

These officers had served in Vanni war front during the military operations against the Liberation Tigers.

45 year old Brigadier Shavendra Silva was the youngest military officer to be promoted to the rank of Major General. Meanwhile, 46 Colonels who served during the war at the front have been promoted to the rank of Brigadier.

A few weeks ago major changes took place in the SLA with the appointment of the new Army Commander.

Jaffna Commander Major General Mendaka Samarasinghe took over as Chief of Staff Army Headquarters.

Major General Jammika Liyanage took over as Commandant of SLA Volunteer Force while Major General Aruna Jayatilake assumed duties as Adjutant General Army Headquarters.

Major General Rajitha Silva took over as Commander Jaffna.

The New York-based group Human Rights Watch on Tuesday pressed for an international probe into the killings in Sri Lanka of 17 local employees of a French charity three years ago.

 

HRW marked the anniversary of the execution-style murders of the Action Against Hunger (ACF) workers in Sri Lanka's northeastern town of Muttur with a scathing attack on the country's leaders.

 

The group accused the government of grossly mishandling the investigation into the deaths of local employees of the Action Against Hunger group.

 

"Since the ACF massacre, the (President Mahinda) Rajapakse government has put on an elaborate song and dance to bedazzle the international community into believing justice is being done," said HRW director James Ross.

 

"It's time the UN and concerned governments say 'the show is over' and put into place a serious international inquiry."

 

"Instead of doing all it can to get justice for this horrific crime, the Sri Lankan government is further traumatising the victims' families by trying to shift the blame to others."

 

ACF itself has demanded an international investigation after a government probe failed to identify any suspects.

 

The call came last month after a Sri Lankan investigation cleared the military of killing the 17 employees of the charity, but ordered more compensation for the families of the victims.

 

HRW said that an international inquiry was needed into the murders. Sixteen of the victims were ethnic Tamils.

 

Thirteen men and four women who worked on water sanitation and farm projects for ACF were found shot dead in an area where government troops and the Liberation Tigers were fighting.

 

Nordic peace monitors at the time blamed the killings – the worst attack on aid workers since the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003 – on government forces.

 

The government has denied any role.

 

The commission blamed the killings on either the Tamil Tigers or auxiliary police known as home guards. Its full report to President Mahinda Rajapaksa remains unpublished.

 

But HRW says that this report was based primarily on "limited witness testimony" from people who said that the armed forces were not in the vicinity at the time.

 

Excerpts from the commission's final report posted on the Sri Lankan Ministry of Defense website sharply criticize the role of local organizations in the ACF inquiry.

 

These organizations provided legal support for witnesses and made a number of written submissions on the case, HRW noted in a press release.

 

The commission stated that the "main function" of seven named nongovernmental organizations was to "attempt to discredit every possible institution and authority of this country before the Commission, and attempt to hold one party responsible for the gruesome crime.... They appeared not to ascertain the truth but to engage in a fault finding exercise of the security forces of Sri Lanka."

 

The commission said the groups adopted "a suspiciously narrow outlook" and engaged in a "preconceived plan or conspiracy to discredit the Commission ... for the consumption of some of the international organizations."

 

Human Rights Watch said that such accusations, made in the current context of continuing threats and physical assaults against media and civil society groups labeled "traitorous" or otherwise anti-government, place individuals and organizations at serious risk.

 

Colombo appointed 11 foreign diplomats and dignitaries to supervise the probe, but they pulled out in April 2008 saying the investigation did not meet minimum international standards.

 

"On the third anniversary of the murder of 17 aid workers, the Sri Lankan government is no closer to uncovering the truth or prosecuting those responsible," said Ross.

 

"Instead, the government is using the atrocity to threaten local rights groups, intimidate the victims' families, and score political points against the French government."

Sri Lanka has claimed it played a key role in preventing the suspension of Fiji from the Commonwealth forum at the Extraordinary Meeting of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), held in London, to discuss the recent political developments in Fiji.

 

Sri Lanka opposed the contention that Fiji should be expelled from Commonwealth of Nations and prevailed upon the CMAG with some other nations to reach a consensus decision to give the country enough time to revert back to a fully fledged democracy at a meeting in London, according to a Sri Lankan news website.

“Sri Lanka took a position expressing the declared policy of President Mahinda Rajapaksa that no sanctions or expulsions should be imposed on any nation as such conditions would create immense difficulties to the innocent people”, said Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama told a reporter after the CMAG meeting held at the Marlbourough House in London.

The Foreign Ministry said Bogollagama emphasised that suspension of Fiji, as suggested by some member states, would not be beneficial to its people and would not be helpful in pressuring the military government.

 

“Referring to Sri Lanka’s policy as outlined by the President in the international fora that Sri Lanka is against imposition of economic or other sanctions on countries as such conditions would create immense difficulties to the innocent people.”

 

The statement said that Bogollagama reiterated that it is the duty of the Commonwealth to continue its dialogue with the interim government of Fiji and pursue democratic reforms in that country. 

Whilst Sri Lanka’s government hailed its securing of an IMF loan for $2.6bn last week as a ‘victory’ and as indication of international support for its political and economic policies, the reality is the reverse. Sri Lanka has been compelled to accept not only painful economic and quasi-political obligations, but also the kind of external supervision the ultra-Sinhala nationalist regime routinely rails against. Moreover, whilst the IMF loan is ostensibly to revive Sri Lanka’s economy, its first purpose is to ensure the government keeps up with repayments to prior foreign lenders. In short, Sri Lanka can borrow from the IMF to pay back its creditors but has to undertake harsh economic reforms - under IMF supervision - for the breathing space.

 

On July 24, the IMF approved a 20-month Stand-By Arrangement for Sri Lanka for US$2.6 billion, of which US$322 million will become immediately available.

 

Central Bank chairman, Ajith Niward Cabraal was quoted as saying that the IMF’s decision is a “big victory” and a “huge boost in confidence” for Sri lanka.

 

According to this logic, the IMF has decided to lend Sri Lanka the money because so many countries on its board support the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse and its policies.

 

“The IMF has accepted the Mahinda Chinthanaya policy for the country’s economic development,” Mr. Cabraal told the press.

 

As Mr. Takatoshi Kato, the IMF deputy managing director and acting chairman of the board, put it: "the government should take advantage of the opportunity created by the end of the conflict to ensure national reconciliation, restore macroeconomic stability, and promote strong and durable growth."

 

These beguilingly abstract words entail significant consequences for the Rajapske regime and the island’s near future.

 

A Global Focus

 

The IMF is the ‘lender of last resort’ for states that are unable to secure credit on the international market.

 

Formed after WW2, the IMF’s raison d’etre is ensuring global economic stability i.e. to ensure states’ mismanagement of their economies does not damage the global financial system.

 

In the past sixty years, the IMF has become a powerful proponent and enabler of neoliberalism, an ideology now adopted widely (and often reluctantly), that advocates the supremacy of markets and the minimizing of state interference in them.

 

This month’s $2.6bn loan to Sri Lanka is part of a global strategy being unrolled by the IMF to stabilize and bolster the global financial markets still shuddering from the global credit crisis of 2008.

 

Whilst there has been vocal criticism of Sri Lanka’s brutality towards the island’s Tamil population by Western states, the IMF’s priority is ensuring the global financial markets continue to lend and are not further unsettled by borrowers defaulting.

 

In this context, whilst the United States, Britain and France – along with Germany and Argentina – are reported to have abstained from voting for the loan, thereby signaling their disapproval of the Rajapskse regime, they certainly did not actively seek to block the funds.

 

Lender of Last Resort

 

Following the turmoil which began last year, several countries around the world have been reluctantly lining up to accept the IMF’s stringent terms for its support to get out of their predicaments.

 

It is only at times of acute crisis that countries have accepted the IMF’s punishing conditionalities. For example, several countries in East Asia were compelled to go to the IMF after the financial crisis that swept through the region and thereafter across the world of 1998.

 

Sri Lanka is presently heavily in debt to foreign lenders, a condition made acute as the Rajapakse regime has been borrowing furiously on international markets to finance its high-intensity and bloody military onslaught against the Tamil Tigers.

 

Even by December 2008, Standard and Poor, the global ratings agency cut Sri Lanka’s credit rating to five levels below investment grade, citing mounting government debt.

 

At least two recent attempts by the Rajapske government to issue sovereign bonds produced lackluster interest from international markets. Even Colombo’s declaration of victory over the LTTE failed to spur interest in Sri Lanka’s bonds – at a time when Emerging Market issues were soaring.

 

Conditions

 

It is in this context, despite its public bravado that the Colombo government has been compelled to accept the portfolio of conditions that the ‘lender of last resort’, has imposed.

 

The $2.6bn Stand-By Arrangement is effectively a large credit card that can be used for specific purposes - and that only so long as Colombo is adhering to certain forms of conduct. While $322m is immediately available, the rest will be phased in, subject to the IMF’s quarterly reviews. An IMF team is due in Sri Lanka soon.

 

To begin with, Sri Lanka must prioritize the repayment of foreign debt – a promise Colombo tucked away in its letter of intent (LoI); paragraph 12, titled ‘greater flexibility in the exchange rate’, declares: “the Government is committed to staying current on all its external debt obligations.”

 

Secondly, Sri Lanka promises not to borrow more than $1.75bn in the next 20 months (paragraph 7). Colombo will also not intensify existing foreign exchange restrictions or introduce any new restrictions or multiple currency practices.

 

All this serves to ensure foreign lenders can extricate themselves from Sri Lanka and that the country will gradually become less of a threat (by way of potential defaults, say) to the global financial markets than it presently is.

 

As IMF deputy managing director Kato put it, one of the purposes of the loan is to ensure “restore [Sri Lanka’s] fiscal and external viability.”

 

Painful Future

 

But if borrowings are limited this way, in the absence of strong earnings, it is state spending that must be cut and it is in shaping domestic policy that the IMF’s medicine promises to be most bitter.

 

Amongst the agreements the IMF has forced from the Rajapkse regime are:

·        To aim to contain 2009 central government deficit to 7 percent and to reduce the overall deficit to 5 percent of GDP by 2011 (from 7.7 percent in 2008). That means military spending will have to be curbed.

·        To end the substantial state subsidies to state-owned commercial enterprises. Specifically, the Ceylon Electricity Board and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation will have to break even, without state subsidy, by end-2011.]

·        To increase tax revenue by at least 2 percent of GDP in 2011 with measures to broaden the revenue base, significantly reduce tax exemptions, and improve tax enforcement.

 

The consequences are clear; as one foreign headline put it: “Sri Lanka’s citizens will feel pinch.” In short, with subsidies ending, prices will go up.

 

Moreover, Sri Lanka has to cut its staggering military spending. In order to defeat the LTTE, the Rajapakse regime expanded the army to over 160,000 soldiers. By way of comparison, Britain’s army is 100,000 strong.

 

Quite apart from serving to dominate the island’s Tamil-speaking Northeast, the almost all-Sinhala army serves as indirect subsidy – by way of soldiers’ lavish salaries – for large sections of the rural Sinhala population.

 

Now that Sri Lanka has declared the war over, the IMF expects the military to be cut back. The future, according to the IMF’s neoliberal model, rests on private entrepreneurship, not state subsidies.

 

All of this is the exact reverse of ‘Mahinda Chintana’ (‘Mahinda’s thinking’), the ultra-Sinhala nationalist manifesto put forward by the Rajapske for his presidential campaign.

 

Rather than private entrepreneurship, the economic developmental model laid out in Mahinda Chintana turns on Sinhala-nationalism’s veneration of the Sinhala peasant – of the ‘sons of the soil’ living by the temple, the tank and the paddy field.

 

President Rajapakse has been pictured ploughing furrows behind a pair of buffalo and visiting sites where the subsistence farming is encouraged – the vision embodied in the leader (king) himself.

 

Politics of Economics

 

Despite the supposed separation of economic and politics claimed by neoliberalism that the IMF’s calculations work on, the ethnopolitical crisis gripping Sri Lanka cannot be ignored.

 

To this end, the IMF’s contribution to ending Sri Lanka’s repression of the Tamils appears as economic, rather than political, demands.

 

As IMF acting chairman Kato put it, the bank’s loan seeks to “address the significant reconstruction needs of the conflict-affected areas, thereby laying the basis for future higher economic growth.”

 

In other words, quite apart from the beginning economic reforms on which the IMF newly-extended support depends, Sri Lanka also has to end its internment of hundreds of thousands of Tamils in military-run, overcrowded and diseased camps.

 

To secure the loan Sri Lanka has had promise that its priority – once the ongoing foreign debt obligations are met – is to resettle 70-80 percent of the interned Tamils by the end of 2009.

 

Few observers, however, expect this to be honored. Indeed, with the ink not yet dry on the loan agreement, the government has already reduced resettlement to 60%.

 

In reality, 2009 will in all likelihood end with the majority of Tamils locked up in the squalid camps.

 

Moreover, Sri Lanka has sought to justify using future donor funds for its continued militarizing of the Northeast: as the letter of intent states, a “key element of the reconstruction plan include restoration of law and order…”

 

Supervision

 

So what if Sri Lanka ignores the promises it has made to secure the IMF loan?

 

One analysis, by Reuters news agency, suggests “initially, the IMF is likely to be flexible, taking into consideration Sri Lanka's post-war situation. However, continued failures to meet conditions will compel the lender to stop disbursement of the loans.”

 

The IMF discontinued a previous loan programme due to Sri Lanka's failure in adhering to its conditions in 2001, the agency pointed out.

 

That loan had been extended to President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s regime, which – despite its rhetoric ‘of the left’ – pursued the neoliberal agenda, some analysts say, more successfully than the pro-market opposition.

 

The question, then, is how firm the IMF will be with the Rajapakse regime, especially on resettling the incarcerated Tamils as a condition for future disbursements.

 

As Human Rights Watch has protested, given Sri Lanka’s track record, the iMF loan is “a reward for bad behavior, not an incentive to improve.”

 

Defending its loan against criticism, the IMF said this week it was in regular contact with humanitarian groups and diplomats over human rights worries.

 

Certainly, the terms of the loan – with its quarterly reviews and continuous IMF oversight – provide for powerful international leverage on the now beholden Sri Lankan state.

 

The point is underlined by the government’s agreement that if the global economy worsens and hurts Sri lanka’s exports, remittances and capital flows, it will consult the IMF on the appropriate policy response.

 

Moreover, the saga of Sri Lanka’s loan from the IMF has shown that politics and economics are intertwined. Economic developmental ideology itself – neoliberalism and Mahinda Chintana – is deeply political.

 

It has also shown that geopolitical analysis based on competing spheres of influence has its limits in a globalised 21st century.

 

No state, no matter how economically well off, can step in as the lender of last resort for another. That remains the sole preserve of the IMF – with its bitter medicine.

Despite the end of hostilities, children in Sri Lanka continue to be at risk of forced recruitment, arbitrary detention and other human rights abuses, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers (Coalition) said on Tuesday, 28 July.

                         

In a new briefing to the Security Council Working Group (Working Group) on Children and Armed Conflict, the Coalition urged the Sri Lankan authorities to act immediately to protect conflict-affected children.

 

Children are among dozens of people who have been detained by security forces in internally

displaced person (IDP) camps in Vavuniya, apparently for their alleged links to the Liberation

Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

 

In one case in June 2009, a group of four or five girls and boys from a camp in Menik Farm were reportedly detained and questioned by members of the Sri Lankan military. One of the girls admitted that she had been with the LTTE for two days.

 

The children were subsequently taken away and there has been no news of them since.

 

“The families of children taken by the security forces from detention camps have no idea where they are – if they are in detention, have been taken to rehabilitation centres or have disappeared ” said the Director of the Coali tion, Victoria Forbes Adam.

 

Given the background of large-scale disappearances in Sri Lanka, there are grave fears that some of the reported incidents of children and adults being removed from IDP camps may represent enforced disappearances.

 

“There are simple steps that can be taken to enhance the security of children in IDP camps including allowing unhindered access to independent human rights monitors and maintaining a centralized register of all persons in the camps. Families should also be informed of where their children have been taken and their access to them should be facilitated ” said Victoria Forbes Adam.

 

The Coalition has received reports of continued abductions for ransom and forced recruitment of children by pro-government armed groups.

 

Unverified reports indicate that young boys in rehabilitation centres in Vavuniya have been forced to join pro-government armed groups including the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP)and Tamil People’s Liberation Front (TMVP).

 

They are now reportedly collecting ‘protection money’ from merchants and traders in Vavuniya town.

 

There are also sporadic reports of child recruitment in Batticaloa district by the TMVP and cadres loyal to the former TMVP leader, V. Muralitharan, known as Karuna.

 

“Armed groups are clearly operating with the support of the security forces who are allowing them access to IDP camps and centres for surrendees and using them to identify individuals formerly associated with the LTTE. The Sri Lankan authorities must act immediately to prevent armed groups from entering facilities where children are housed and must investigate reports of ongoing abductions and recruitment by them ” said Victoria Forbes Adam.

 

An entrenched culture of impunity in Sri Lanka facilitates ongoing abuses against children.

 

In 2007 the government initiated an investigation into elements of the armed forces suspected of complicity in the forced recruitment of children by the TMVP. Twenty-three months later it has yet to be completed.

 

In the meantime, Karuna, the former head of the TMVP, has been made a government minister. Karuna also stands accused of recruiting thousands of child soldiers when he was an LTTE commander prior to his split with the group in 2004. No known action has been taken against any member of the security forces or of any armed group suspected of child abductions or forced recruitment.

 

Intense recruitment of children by the LTTE during the final phase of the conflict has created serious challenges for the release and reintegration of underage recruits.

 

While the government has set up a framework to provide support for children leaving armed groups through the establishment of accommodation and rehabilitation centres, the efforts fall short of internationally recognized best practice.

 

Under the framework, there are concerns that former child soldiers may be held in custody for up to one year without clear grounds.

 

Further, there are concerns about the inadequate access of these children to their families; the incomplete separation of children from adults; and the security of children in the centres.

 

“The end of the 25 -year long conflict represents a unique opportunity to release and reintegrate all former child soldiers and to assist thousands of other conflict-affected children in Sri Lanka. It will take concerted and coordinated efforts by the Sri Lankan authorities and the international community to ensure that this opportunity is not squandered.”

Despite Sri Lanka touting the approval of the IMF loan as a resounding vote of confidence in Sri Lanka and some Sri Lanka and India based analysts projecting it as a boost for investor confidence, there has been no significant investment flow into the country according to market watchers.

 

Following the approval of the US dollars 2.5 billion stand by loan by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the largest amount of resources ever given to Sri Lanka by the global financial institution, Minister of Export Development and International Trade Prof. G.L. Peiris touted it as a clear indication of the IMF’s confidence in the government’s economic management capabilities and predicted ‘very considerable advantages to Sri Lanka’.

 

Joining the Sri lankan government in painting a rosy picture were UK-based banks HSBC and Standard Chartered. Both gushed about the IMF loan, without any reference to ongoing internment of Tamils  or the gross human rights abuses the Sri Lankan government has committed.

 

The IMF loan "is a significant positive for Sri Lanka’s external liquidity position and should further boost sentiment toward the country," Standard Chartered’s Mumbai-based analyst Priyanka Chakravarty wrote in a research report.

 

"It is noteworthy that the final IMF loan amount is appreciably higher than originally discussed."

Nick Nicolaou, chief executive officer of HSBC Sri Lanka, pitched that "the IMF endorsement provides confidence to overseas investors... Sri Lanka has an excellent story to tell."

 

However, in reality the IMF loan has not helped Sri Lankan attract investors as it had hoped.

 

Traders say foreign funds were waiting to see the government's approach in attracting investors from western countries as Sri Lanka's relations with the West took a hit in the closing months of the war and immediately afterward.

 

"Investor sentiment was low," said Prashan Fernando, executive director at Acuity Stockbrokers.

"Foreign investors are not stepping in as expected. They might be waiting to see the full impact of IMF loan conditions on the exchange rate."

 

Analysts said despite the central bank's maintaining of a steady exchange rate, foreign investors are still not convinced it will prevent gradual depreciation of the rupee.

 

IMF approved the loan On July 24 to help the country weather the global financial crisis and build up its low reserves, while rebuilding the north after a 25-year civil war.

 

With no significant invest flow, Sri Lanka is considering a $500 million sovereign bond issue among possible fundraising options.

 

"We are considering several options, one of which could be a $500 million bond, it could be a syndicated loan, it could be an extension of the bills and bonds that we have already opened out for foreigners," , central bank governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal told Reuters.

During the recent military campaign in Sri Lanka, this newspaper was broadly sympathetic to the Sri Lankan government's goal of confronting and subduing the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, also known as the Tamil Tigers), the guerilla-cum-terrorist force seeking to carve out a Tamil homeland in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka. As in any war, there were civilian casualties – but we urged our readers to keep in mind the fact that the LTTE was using hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians as human shields, and so it – not the government – was primarily responsible for their deaths.

 

But the war in Sri Lanka is now over: The Tamil Tigers' last remaining forces were destroyed by the Sri Lankan military in May, and the group's leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was killed.

 

Sri Lanka is no longer a country under siege, as it had been since the rise of the Tigers in the 1980s. Rather, it is now becoming a "normal" country -- albeit one whose peace is fragile, and whose Tamil minority is restive.

 

This means that Sri Lanka must now be judged by the human-rights standards that typically govern developing countries. And by those standards, the country's recent conduct should be of great concern. According to UN figures, over 280,000 people -- about 10% of the country's Tamil population -- are still being detained in 30 military-guarded camps. While we do not believe the overheated theory currently making the rounds among Canadian Tamils that the Sri Lankan government is seeking to ethnically cleanse the nation, Colombo's actions have fed Tamil suspicions that they are destined to remain second-class citizens.

 

As journalists, we also are particularly appalled at the brutal treatment of reporters in Sri Lanka -- especially those who happen to critique the country's military. Over the last decade, about 20 journalists have been killed -- often by murderers linked to the government, the military or their supporters. In many cases, the murders were unsolved, and the government seems to have done precious little to unravel the crimes: Sri Lanka placed fifth on the recent Impunity Index circulated by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Only Iraq, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Colombia do less to track down those who murder journalists.

 

Even aside from these killings, there is little in the way of media freedom for critics of the government: Tamil activists and their allies have been threatened with prosecution under the country's "Prevention of Terrorism Act," or accused of the catch-all term of "treachery."

 

Sadly, most people in the West don't seem to care much about all this – even those activists who proclaim themselves up in arms over events in Honduras, western China and Iran. The silence from CUPE, left-wing churches, Naomi Klein, campus activists and all the other folks who boycott Israel at the first sound of gunfire in Lebanon or Gaza is especially puzzling: The human-rights abuses and overall death toll in Sri Lanka are orders of magnitude above those witnessed in the recent Sri Lanka fighting. Press freedom, moreover, is vigilantly protected in Israel, a country where the most vicious criticism of the state, and even of Zionism itself, routinely appears in the country's media.

 

So why is it that Israel is the world's bete noire while Sri Lanka was recently commended by the UN Human Rights Council following its victory over the LTTE? Apparently, some humans' human rights count for more than others.

 

Given its large Tamil population and commitment to human rights, Canada is the right country to ensure that the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils is on the world's radar screen. The war in that country is over. Colombo no longer has any excuse for its brutal policies.

With all the people from Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu and Mannar districts crammed into the camps in Vavuniya, space is a premium. Rather than being ‘internally displaced persons’ these people are in reality ‘internally displaced prisoners’.

 

The camps are large open prisons where suspicion is encouraged, all rights denied and human rights abuses occur in the open, with no indication that any attempts are being made to change the circumstances in which these people are constrained.

 

The Manik Farm complex is the second largest city on the island of Sri Lanka, after the capital Colombo. Locally the story is that more camps are to be built, and more people are still being transported into the camps from outside.

 

The estimated 280,000 inmates of Manik Farm camp – and there are no accurate figures of how many people are in each camp or who they are – are housed in six zones, three on either side of a central passage. The names of the people detained are not recorded, and thus there is no accountability for the people detained.

 

The zones are named after Tamil politicians of the past – Kadirgamar, Arunachalam, Ramanathan, etc. One zone remains unnamed as the name of a sixth Tamil politician deemed suitable enough could not be found.

 

Each zone is self-contained and all inmates are prevented from leaving their zone or interacting with relatives in another zone unless they have the permission of the Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence.

 

Inside the zones, 2-3 families are housed in each temporary dwelling. This is ten to fifteen individuals, many of them adults, crammed into a small tent. There is absolutely no privacy and solitude is only a dream.

 

Food and water

 

Visitors to the camps get simple meals of rice and dhal or rice and beetroot. The residents get even less, and at times are lucky if they get one meal a day. At other times, they get three meals, leading to a complete lack of certainty about what sustenance the people will have at any given time.

 

Certainly no effort is made to provide nutritious or balanced meals. Some people are attempting to grow their own plants outside their tents, but these disappear quickly and are not sufficient for their needs.

 

But if the food is restricted, the water is atrocious. There is never enough water for people to drink and many have been forced to drink from the bathing pools. The lack of sanitation however means that these are basically breading grounds for bacteria and this is one of the major causes of the rampant spread of diseases through the camps. Malnutrition, chicken pox, diarrhoea, malaria, respiratory infections and skin diseases are common, spreading rapidly through the tight swarm of people.  Deaths are common.

 

Toilets consist of large open pits with planks across to squat on and removal of waste is nonexistent. Children have been known to fall into the toilet pits – the scene from the movie ‘Slum Dog Millionaire’ has new significance in these camps. Many of these children die, for there is no way out of these pits, unlike in the movie.

 

Suspicion and fear

 

The Tamils are suspicious of each other. Divides between Tamils from various regions, religion or castes are being encouraged so as to break down the sense of Tamil unity. People are distrustful of everyone they don’t know, as everyone is a potential whistle-blower, passing on true – or false – information in order to advance their cause, or because they don’t like an individual.  

 

Anyone attempting to cross from one camp to another – for example to see relatives – is shot. One example was a mother and father who attempted to see their children who were being held in another zone. They were shot and the bodies allowed to lie where they lay, exposed to the children looking on from the neighbouring zone.

 

The dominant feeling in the camp is one of despair.

 

Rampant rape

 

Rape is common in the camps, and is carried out by the soldiers ‘guarding’ the camps. With toilets at the periphery, women who go to use the facilities  are easily dragged away and raped.

 

Women and girls identified as having had a connection with the Liberation Tigers are held separately at Ponmedu (the men and boys are held at the Tamil Mahavidyalayam in Chettikulam, also separated from the rest of the population). Every night a bus arrives at Ponmedu and about ten women are taken out and returned in a ruffled state the next day.

 

This is done quite openly, and is common knowledge among those in the camps and those who have had access.   

 

Lack of access

 

The International Red Cross has been asked to reduce their operations in Sri Lanka while non-governmental organisations are still not allowed in to camps.

 

The only people allowed into the camps are local religious organisations and aid groups from what are considered ‘friendly countries’ – countries that militarily or economically supported the Sri Lankan government in its war against the Liberation Tigers. For example, visitors from India have been allowed inside the camps.

 

Religious groups are encouraged to visit the camps, but they are often ill equipped to deal with the practicalities of large scale displacement and the psychological impacts of this on the people.

 

The only local doctors working in the camps are from the Independent Medical Practitioners Association. Accommodation is provided in tents for clinics, but there is no privacy for individual patients. All patients have organic medical problems and mental illnesses have been reported, but no records of this are available.

 

There is no shortage of medicines, donated by agencies or drug firms, but often these include drugs not commonly used, which can do harm or cause death if used inappropriately. There is no pharmacy so patients are reliant on what drugs the local doctors can provide.

 

There are no facilities in the local hospital. An ill patient who needed surgery was delayed for six hours in the camp and then disappeared, with no news of his progress brought back to the people in the camp. 

 

Locals feel the camps are likely to continue indefinitely with foreign financial help – they were certainly built with international aid. But they also warn that if the situation continues, the people are bound to either rebel or kill themselves.

The Sri Lankan government is putting pressure on the families of murdered aid workers to seek compensation from the charity that had employed the 17 individuals at the time of their murder.

                       

The families were sent letters by the Sri Lankan government, which seek more compensation from Action Contra la Faim (ACF), reported the BBC.

 

The authorities deny the letters exist, but the BBC reports that it has seen copies of them.

 

The relatives have told the BBC that they do not want to press for more compensation from the French charity.

 

There was an outcry when the 17 aid workers were killed in 2006. The aid staff - all but one of them ethnic Tamils - were working on tsunami relief projects in the north-eastern town of Muttur when they were killed on 4 August 2006.

 

Critics say Sri Lanka has a long history of failing to prosecute rights abuses.

 

Nordic monitors overseeing a truce in the country's civil war at the time blamed security forces, who denied the charge.

 

Earlier this month, Sri Lanka's top human rights panel cleared the army, pinning the killings on Tamil Tiger (LTTE) or Muslim home guards.

 

The commission of inquiry also said compensation already paid to victims' families of about 400,000 Sri Lanka rupees (about $3,480) was "totally inadequate".

 

A number of relatives of the murdered aid workers say they do not want to sign the government's letters, while others have refused to comment due to what their lawyers described as fear of intimidation, the BBC reported.

 

"Money will not help us. We cannot get our relatives back anyway," one family member of the victims told the BBC.

 

The BBC claimed to have seen three letters seeking more compensation from ACF, reporting that the letters were handed to the victims' families on 19 July at a government administration office in the eastern town of Trincomalee. They were due to be signed and handed back by Saturday 25 July.

 

One letter was addressed to the French ambassador in Sri Lanka, a second to the country's attorney general.

 

"We the heirs of the deceased are aware of the interest France and the French government has taken in human rights aspects especially in the... commission of inquiry into the killing in Muttur of 17 aid workers," the letter addressed to the French ambassador said.

 

"Therefore we trust that the French government will take necessary steps to oversee the payment of due compensation to the kinsmen/ women of the deceased."

 

A third letter seen by the BBC commended President Rajapaksa for investigating the killings.

 

"We are extremely grateful to Your Excellency for appointing a commission of inquiry and ensuring that justice prevailed," the letter said.

 

"We agree with the findings of the commission that the deaths were caused by the LTTE and the compensation as determined must be paid by ACF," it said.

 

A senior government official denied any knowledge of such letters being issued.

 

Rajiva Wijesinghe, secretary to the ministry of human rights and disaster management, told BBC Sinhala that ACF had done a "very bad thing" by "forcing" its staff to work close to the battlefield.

 

"Some workers were even denied leave by ACF. They were forced to go towards the battlefield while many other aid workers were leaving the area," he said.

 

He added that the compensation paid by ACF "for their own wrongdoing" was inadequate.

 

There was no immediate response from the charity, which has accused Sri Lanka's government of lacking the will to find those responsible for murdering its staff.

 

It is not clear whether any of the families has returned the signed documents to the authorities.

First they were captives of a conflict in which their freedom and security was thwarted at every turn.  Now huge numbers of the Tamil population of Sri Lanka find themselves trapped again, unseen for the most part and wholly unprotected.

 

The conflict may officially be over, but the battle to reach the victims is not.  Aid agencies, the media and even the Red Cross have all been denied access to the military-run camps where an estimated 300,000 civilians are languishing in dangerously impoverished, hostile conditions.

 

The Sri Lankan government maintains that it will resettle those currently interned, describing its battle against the Tamil Tigers as "a humanitarian operation to safeguard the people of the area".  But the reality is far different.

 

The UN has accused the Sri Lankan government of waging "a war without witnesses". While those still locked inside the camps are prevented from speaking out, the testimonies of those who were fortunate to survive provide ample testimony to a worsening humanitarian crisis.

 

Since 2006, when the peace process was finally abandoned and northern Sri Lanka was once again gripped by conflict, waves of survivors have sought help from the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (MF). In 2005, before the e re-escalation of the conflict, just 50 people were referred. By 2008, that number had almost quadrupled to 187.

 

Stories of rape, sexual abuse, burnings with hot irons and long periods of solitary confinement are commonplace. All parties to the conflict, from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to the police and paramilitary groups, have been implicated. The Sri Lankan army is particularly notable for its appetite for torture. Yet the army has evaded an investigation into its actions during the war and since, in the military-run camps now being operated in the north.

 

One of many young Tamil men to have survived the notorious military-run Joseph Camp in Vavuniya is fretful about the fate that may have met the family he was forced to leave behind when he fled Sri Lanka last year. He was detained by the military during one of many sweeps that the authorities made of Tamil Tiger controlled areas, picking up young people regardless of whether they had any active involvement with the LTTE.

 

He was beaten and sexually abused almost daily for the two months he was held. He was never allowed out of the bare cell in which he was kept, but he vividly recalls hearing the screams of other Tamils, particularly women, being tortured.

 

Just one week ago, he spoke to a close friend who is still detained in an army camp in the north, who told him of life in the barbed-wire surrounded camps, where there is practically no food and people are treated like animals: "Tamils are dying and disappearing, this is a genocide that the government is aiding and abetting and nobody has lifted a finger to help while our people are being butchered.

 

"We need the whole world to put pressure on the Sri Lankan government to give access to foreign countries otherwise most of the people will be killed before anyone sees. They should give access to the war zone to see how many people have been buried there and to witness what life has been like for so long amidst all this destruction.

 

"I don't believe anything the government says now about protecting the Tamils - after the experience that I had when I hadn't even committed a crime, I cannot believe them now."

 

Any aspirations that the younger generation of Tamils had to build jobs, careers and families, feel lost to them. Their only memories are of violence and war. If they are to be given a chance to rebuild a future, "the world must be allowed in to see and the Tamils must be freed from the camps and allowed to return to their houses".

 

But those exiled to the UK only hear horror stories via phone calls from people in Sri Lanka and messages relayed through the Tamil community in the UK, of young people being abducted from the camps and of suggestions that the army is still intent on wiping out the Tamil population.

 

Another young woman recalls the brutality of the camps, the incessant torture which saw her whipped with canes, kept in solitary confinement, burnt with cigarettes and suffocated with a petrol-soaked bag for more than two months. She too is filled with dread thinking about what may have happened to the family she has had no contact with since she escaped to the UK last year:

 

"Other women who were arrested at the same time as me are still in the camps, who knows how many are living and how many are dead."

 

Exiled from their country and with their families feared trapped in the camps or worse, a small group of Tamils have come together in a therapeutic group established at the MF to form links between a people whose connections to all that they held dear have been severed by war.

 

By far what galvanises their resolve more than anything else is the determination to counter the Sri Lankan government's attempts to deny reports of torture and ill-treatment. One young man says: "There are so many more people like us, we are not the only ones, and yet the international community doesn't really know the truth." Another woman says: "This really happened to me, why shouldn't the government know it?"

 

With the people of Sri Lanka increasingly cut off from the outside world, it is now more important than ever that the outside world demands to be allowed in, to provide help that is so obviously needed and to see the uncensored reality.

 

The head of an all party panel set up by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to seek an ever elusive southern consensus on the Tamil national question and buy time to conduct war has said the panel has come up with a home grown solution with no absolute devolution.

 

Science and Technology Minister, Prof. Tissa Vitharana whos is also the chairman of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) told local media "It is an indigenous method that would work out a solution for our country. However, there would not be absolute devolution of power"

 

Vitharana also announced that the panel’s proposals will not fall in line with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which is a result of the 1987 Indo-Lanka agreement and therefore not ‘home grown’.

 

Whilst many international actors including the United States see the 13^th amendment as a first step for Sri Lanka sharing power with the Tamils, the Rajapakse administration is not interested in the 13^th amendment which is already in the Sri Lankan constitution and requires only the implementation.

 

Rajapakse administration’s intentions on the 13^th amendment were made clear when it demerged the North-eastern province despite protests from India.

 

According to Vitharana, the APRC proposes the abolishing of the Executive Presidency and reverting to the Westminster system. It also proposes the setting up of a Commission that functions under the purview of the central government to determine and monitor policies with regard to land and water.

 

The APRC has looked at the formation of a village committee system and a second chamber consisting of representatives from the nine provinces, according got its chairman.

 

Vitharana explained that following a series of discussions, the APRC has prepared a draft of its final proposals that would be submitted for endorsement from the parties that were represented in the APRC.

 

The first copy of the draft is to be presented to Rajapakse, who is the head of the SLFP, for his observations.

"After the President is handed over the first draft, the other parties that were in the APRC would be given copies of the draft to receive the views

of their respective party leaders," Vitharana said.

 

Once the APRC receives the observations made by each party, it would be discussed and the final report would be prepared with the signatures of all member parties.

 

The APRC was appointed in 2006 to work out a power devolution formula to resolve the national question.

The APRC is attended by only two opposition political parties, the SLMC and the Democratic People’s Front from the opposition. The main opposition UNP, the JVP and the TNA do not attend the APRC sessions.

So far it had had over 100 deliberations with no significant progress.

The Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) said Wednesday, July 29 that it received complaints that three candidates of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) contesting the election to the Vavuniyaa urban Council have been issued with death threats.

The candidates are V.Paranjothy, N.Mathiharan and P.Sellathurai, according to a press release by the CMEV. The candidates of the TNA have been contesting the Vavuniyaa polls under the banner of Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchchi (ITAK) in “HOUSE” symbol.

 

Meanwhile, TNA Jaffna district parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran alleged that the ruling party contestants in Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election had forcibly confiscated more than 1500 voting cards from residents in Kozhumpuththurai, Ariyaalai and Eachchamoaddai area in Jaffna, in a press meet held in his Jaffna office Saturday, August 1.

 

TNA parliamentarians Gejendrakumar Ponnambalam and Solomon Cyril along with ITAK chief candidate Mudiyappu Remedias attended the press meet.

 

“Ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) persons who go house by house compare the voting cards with the voters list and forcibly take away cards saying that they will be used to vote for the ITAK ‘House’ symbol if left with the residents,” Suresh Premachandran said.

“40% of the 1,00,400 registered voters in JMC area have been displaced and it is their votes that are going to be rigged and the JMC election on 8 August will be certainly one filled with malpractices and rigging,” he added.

“We will make public the names of persons going around confiscating voting cards in the press meet that is to be held in Jaffna when our parliamentary leader Sampanthan comes to Jaffna next week,” he informed.

“We are also aware of arrangements being made to bring down people from the islets of Jaffna in buses for the purpose of impersonation,” he said.

Meanwhile, Douglas Devananda, Minister and General Secretary of Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) denied anything to do with the persons confiscating the voting cards, in a press release Saturday, August 1.

 

Jaffna University Students’ Union (JUSU), in a recent press release, has appealed the people to vote for TK House symbol saying that only those who care for the Vanni displaced persons and their wellbeing should be returned as their representatives.