Sri Lanka

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  • Sri Lanka and the dark side of democracy

    Dec 23

    On an official visit to Sri Lanka, not long after the 1983 state-backed pogrom against the Tamils, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher hailed the country as a “five star democracy”. Her host on that visit was, of course, the pro-West President J. R. Jayawardene.

     

    Although Tamils were horrified by her endorsement of a government that had recently participated in “acts of genocide” – as the International Commission of Jurists described the July 1983 massacres – in one important sense, she was right: the governments of Sri Lanka have generally reflected the collective will of the majority Sinhalese.

     

    From the disenfranchisement of the Upcountry Tamils in 1948 to the all out war against the Tamil homeland in 2008, Sri Lankan governments have responded to the sentiments of the Sinhala majority.

     

    Note that during the thirty years of mob violence up to 1983 and, especially, thirty years of all out war afterwards, over a hundred thousand Tamils have died in massacres by Sinhala thugs and, later, Sinhala soldiers, air strikes, artillery and naval shelling of schools, churches, temples and hospitals, sinking of refugee boats, and so on. Thousands have been arrested and disappeared, raped, tortured or shot on the streets.

     

    Yet not one person has been convicted for these crimes in sixty years.

     

    Today, even as formally Sri Lanka joins Sudan and the Congo as one of the world’s eight red alert areas for genocide, the Sinhalese people overwhelmingly support the Rajapakse government and its violence. So much so that the government is considering calling early elections to consolidate its power base.

     

    According to a poll by private research group, TNS Lanka, over 75% of people were firmly in favour of military action to answer the Tamil question.

     

    While western policy makers insist that the military offensives are about ‘terrorism’, not the status of the Tamils, the top flight Sri Lankan leadership see no such distinction.

     

    A few months ago, Sri Lanka’s top military officer, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka explained to The Telegraph newspaper: “I strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our people...We being the majority of the country, 75%, we will never give in and we have the right to protect this country... They can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things."

     

    In short, the island belongs to the Sinhalese, the Tamils may live in it as long as they act their place and do not demand their own identity or equality to the Sinhalese (“undue things”).

     

    Interestingly, some of the liberal think tanks in Colombo huffed and puffed. But even they merely questioned whether the military should pronounce on matters politic and avoided the central question here.

     

    Moreover, Lt. Gen. Fonseka was merely articulating the aspirations of his people and his soldiers. Indeed, the place of the Tamils in Sri Lanka has been the central political question in Sri Lanka since independence, as reflected by the disenfranchisement of the Upcountry Tamils and ‘Sinhala Only’.

     

    This column has argued in a recent series of articles that drew on notable theorists of genocide how Sri Lanka’s policies towards the Tamils amount to precisely that, the wiping out of a people and their identity.

     

    The arguments won’t be repeated here, for reasons of space, but it suffices to say that the present war, being waged by President Mahinda Rajapakse and being backed by the main Sinhala opposition parties, is a continuation of the state’s efforts to erase the Tamil political, economic and physical presence on the island.

     

    The point here, however, is that each of the steps undertaken by Sri Lankan leaders in this regard always had the overwhelming support of the Sinhala majority.

     

    This is why, despite the crushing economic conditions, the slow disintegration of non-military state institutions (health, education, etc) and the increasing international pressure, the Rajapakse administration enjoys extraordinary popular support for its war.

     

    The majority of Sinhalese believe the island belongs to their people and the Tamils are unwelcome invaders who may remain provided they know their place as second class citizens.

     

    Sri Lanka’s first post-independence Prime Minister, D. S. Senanayake, still known as the “Father of Sri Lanka”, made this clear as early as July 1937: "we must realise that the Sinhalese are the rightful sons of this fair country, and that we must organise ourselves into a determined body and even risk our lives in doing it service. The minorities choose to believe that we are not trustworthy.”

     

    Ceylon’s first post-independence (UNP) government, under Premier Senanayake, enacted the 1948 and 1949 citizenship legislation that deprived a million Upcountry Tamil people of citizenship, regardless of whether they had been born in the island or brought down by the British from India. After many years of statelessness, over half of these unfortunates were ultimately deported “back” to India. 

     

    The point is that this policy was enacted on the basis of these people’s ethnicity. Although its defenders have since tried to portray the Citizenship Bill as class war rather than a race war, the citizenship legislation referred explicitly to ancestry (ethnicity), not economics.

     

    As Tamil Senator and Queen’s Counsel S. Nadesan winding up the debate on the Ceylon Citizenship Bill said on 15 September 1948, "... the Government wants to exclude as much of the (plantation Tamil) population as is possible from becoming citizens of this country ... On the unqualified statement made that Ceylon has the right, as every other country, to determine the composition of its population. When Germany under Hitler, started to de-citizenise the Jews, every civilised country in the world condemned it. Hitler said that he has absolute power to determine the composition of the population of Germany; and he did determine that to his own satisfaction.”

     

    In 1956, the UNP was defeated by the SLFP. Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike came to power on a single promise to the voters: that if he was elected, he would make Sinhala, instead of English, the official language of the country. The SLFP won by a landslide.

     

    Thus, far from being an oddity, Lt. Gen Fonseka’s views on Sri Lankan citizenship have a long pedigree in mainstream Sinhalese election politics.

     

    The West has struggled to accept the self-evident reality that the Sinhala majority vote on racial issues first and everything else second.

     

    Some Western commentators suggest that Sri Lanka’s problem stems from the repression of the English speaking media. They imply that the Sinhalese people would not support such policies if they were more open debate.

     

    “What Sri Lanka needs is a serious and open debate about where this war is leading the nation,” writes Peter Foster of The Telegraph. “The Government's relentless crushing of debate means that it's hard to see how Sri Lanka's next General Election (which my sources predict might be called soon, particularly if there's a victory in the north) can be free and fair.”

     

    But this attitude is extraordinarily elitist: it implies the Sinhala people do not know what they are doing vis-à-vis the ethnic question, that they do not know what kind of politicians they “should” elect or support, that they are not educated enough (exposed to “serious debate”) to make decisions.

     

    This perspective fails to grasp scholar Michael Mann’s central point: genocide is the dark side of democracy.

     

    Genocide is a direct result of the democratic process; it is not an exception or some failure of the process. Improving the democratic process does not prevent genocide if genocide is, in fact, the will of the majority.

     

    Given Mann’s hypothesis, the unbroken chain of racism that runs through successive governments – the elected representatives of the Sinhala people (regardless of political party) – is unsurprising.

     

    It is unsurprising that today all main Sinhalese parties – the SLFP, UNP and JVP - support the genocidal war: all these parties, not just the ultra-nationalist JVP, cater to the Sinhala electoral constituency.

     

    This, lest it be forgotten, is democracy at work. Sinhala leaders have always successfully used anti-Tamil rhetoric to win Sinhala votes.

     

    For example, SLFP leader Bandaranaike openly stated the logic for the Sinhala Only Act: “with their books and culture and will and strength characteristic of their race, the Tamils (if parity were given) would soon rise to exert their dominant power over us.”

     

    Although Banadaraike brought the Sinhala Only Act into being, it was the opposition UNP leader (later President) Jayawardene who had first called for it. In his own words, “the great fear I had was that Sinhalese, a language spoken by only 3 million in the whole world, would suffer if Tamil was also placed on an equal footing with Sinhalese.”

     

    In 1957, Jayawardene, who became Sri Lanka’s President in 1977, declared: "the time has come for the whole Sinhala race which has existed for 2500 years, jealously safeguarding their language and religion, to fight without giving any quarter to save their birthright... I will lead the campaign."

     

    Consequently both the SLFP and the opposition UNP, the two main Sinhalese parties voted for the Sinhala Only Act. The SLFP and UNP have both always agreed on the subordinate place of the Tamils, although as scholar Amita Shastri noted in 2004, the two main Sinhala parties, increasingly sensitive to international opinion, were becoming “careful how they expressed themselves on the ethnic issue.”

     

    It is worth noting that today, the UNP – hailed by the international community since 2001 as ‘pro-peace’ – is not opposing Rajapakse’s visibly vicious war: only the very small left-wing Sinhala parties are openly calling for peace.

     

    It is also worth noting that the 2001 victory of the ‘pro-peace’ UNP alliance was on the strength of the overwhelming votes by Muslims, Upcountry Tamils and Tamils outside the Northeast: the majority of Sinhalese, despite the crushing economic pain, voted for the hardline SLFP and JVP.

     

    In the Presidential elections of 2005, the majority of Sinhalese voted for Mahinda Rajapakse over Ranil Wickremesinghe (who, it was argued, had betrayed the country by seeking peace with the Tamils).

     

    Just days before the July 1983 pogrom, President Jayawardene’s, whose UNP had swept to power on a landslide, infamously declared in a radio broadcast: "I am not worried about the opinion of the Tamil people... now we cannot think of them, not about their lives or their opinion... the more you put pressure in the north, the happier the Sinhala people will be here... Really if I starve the Tamils out, the Sinhala people will be happy."

     

    Jayawardene’s regime was a darling of the liberal, democratic West. Note British Premier Thatcher’s warm words above. The practice of the West ignoring the manifest racism of Sinhala leaders has been consistent.

     

    In the nineties, SLFP President Chandrika Kumaratunga, lauded by the West as a liberal, as a human rights champion, as a democrat, grumbled on South African television, "They [Tamils] are wanting a separate state – a minority community which is not the original people of the country." 

     

    Those Western commentators lamenting the lack of awareness amongst Sinhala voters forget that these Sinhala leaders have been educated in the West. SWRD Bandaranaike and Jayawardene were graduates of Oxford University, Dudley Senanayake of Cambridge, Kumaratunge of the Sorbonne.

     

    There is no evidence to suggest more open debate amongst the Sinhalese will lead to more tolerance, though this is the dogmatic view of Western commentators. “Debate” presupposes rationality and liberal values: racism is not seen as rational.

     

    However, every step of the genocide – deprivation of citizenship, ethnic cleansing of Tamil areas, pogroms, legislated seizure (by state acquisition of Tamil-owned land and businesses) – has been endorsed and presaged by the democratic process and the support of the Sinhalese People.

     

    Indeed, these steps have been supported by the West too. Every Sri Lankan leader, irrespective of their support for anti-Tamil actions, has been able to draw considerable Western aid: military, economic and political.

     

    A common refrain amongst international commentators is that the brutality in Sri Lanka today is a peculiarity of the Rajapakse administration. Change the regime, change the politics, they say. This may be true when it comes to foreign policy: the UNP has traditionally been pro-West, the SLFP pro-China.

     

    However, a closer look at the specificities of the conduct over the past sixty years of both UNP and SLFP-led governments outlines how, for the Tamils, it has been a question not between two parties, but between a West backed, media savvy genocide (the UNP’s) or a brazen, China/Iran-backed one (of the SLFP).

     

    Sri Lanka, one of eight countries on the New York-based Genocide Prevention Project’s red alert list, is a living example of the “dark side” of democracy.

     

    The island’s conflict is one of the last race wars of the 21st century, a violent manifestation of the “problem of the other” as President-Elect Barak Obama has described it. Until this is accepted, there will be no solution, only bloodshed and suffering.

  • Ideological Blindness
    The past few weeks have seen some of the bloodiest fighting in Sri Lanka since President Mahinda Rajapakse began his war to crush the Tamil rebellion. The Sri Lanka Army's massive multi-pronged offensive against the Kilinochchi-Elephant Pass area last week resulted in the third and largest debacle in as many weeks there. Over a thousand dead and wounded Sinhala soldiers were removed from the battlefield in four days. Heavy fighting is continuing. In the meantime, the Sinhala government has stepped up its bombardment of population centers in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu. Houses and refugee camps are being destroyed and livestock slaughtered by cluster munitions and high explosive shells.
     
    Yet the international community remains unmoved, hoping for and awaiting Rajapakse's military triumph. Some international voices are, meanwhile, blaming the LTTE for the Tamils' plight. Human Rights Watch, for example, declared last week the LTTE is "responsible for much of the suffering of civilians in Vanni". Less intemperate commentary holds the Tamils "to be caught between" the LTTE and the Sri Lankan forces.
     
    This is not merely a matter of international actors being ill informed or unaware as to the ground situation. Rather, it is a question of ideological blinkers, of a specific interpretation of the situation. Whilst the Tamils see a racist Sinhala-dominated state seeking to impose its military dominance and wipe out their identity and scatter their people, actors like HRW see a 'war against terrorism' being waged amid 'poor governance'. In other words, rather than attributing a strategic intent to the state's many actions of violence and discrimination, they see a 'lack of capacity' or 'need for reform'.
     
    Thus whilst Tamil people see the impossibility in of securing equality between themselves and the Sinhalese people in a single country - just like between the Kosovars and the Serbs, HRW et al, assume this is accepted amongst the island's population. All that is required is to establish a system of governance to reflect this. Western actors thus see any solution as beginning with the shoring up of the Sri Lankan state - first - and then 'reforming' it. Which is why, over the past decades, they continued to pump money, weapons and political support into the Sri Lankan state, despite the continued suffering of the Tamils.
     
    Even when the Sinhala leadership openly declare their contempt for the Tamils, and the Sinhala people repeatedly declare their support for its policies, Western policy makers and practitioners, unflinchingly convinced of their 'single united and democratic Sri Lanka' vision, refuse to pay attention. They argue that many Tamils live amongst the Sinhalese - though they can't explain why so many are desperately trying to flee the island nor why there are no Tamils amongst those who declare Sri Lanka safe for Tamils. The millions of dollars poured since 2002 (at least) into 'peacebuilding', 'democratization', 'state reform', 'ethnic reconciliation', and so on have come to absolutely nought, as reflected by the wave of euphoria and racism that has erupted amongst the Sinhala since President Rajapakse began his war. The Tamils have tried, in myriad ways, to explain that the various deprivations they endure in Sri Lanka stems from a racial hierarchy institutionalized in the state. But HRW et al are not listening.
     
    For the West, it is the LTTE that is the problem in Sri Lanka. Trapped in a racism of their own, which blinds them to any politics that doesn't accord with their view of how peoples of the South ought to conduct themselves, Western actors will never take Sinhala nationalism seriously, not even when it manifests itself as openly as in present-day Sri Lanka. Indeed, the Sinhalese leadership knows this well enough and has exploited this ideological blindness, adopting the rhetoric of 'human rights', 'democracy', the need for state and market 'reform' and so on. HRW et al have never taken up the notion of racist oppression in Sri Lanka. Limiting their concern to 'impunity' and 'rule of law' arguments, they see the Sinhala state as a flawed, but viable democracy.
     
    In short, they are never going to support the Tamils, but will always back the Sinhala state. Which is why, even today, it is the LTTE that obsesses them. Tamils have repeatedly sought to make the argument that this is genocide, but not once has any Western actor stood up for us against the Sinhala state. Which is why it has come down to the battlefield. Only when the Sinhala state despairs of overcoming Tamils' resistance to Sinhala hegemony will we have our freedom. Amidst ongoing genocide, criticism of the LTTE and support for our Sinhala oppressors are one and the same.
  • Tamil Nadu leaders condemn derogatory talk of Fonseka

    Political leaders of Tamil Nadu condemned Sri Lanka Army Chief Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka for his derogatory comments on Tamil Nadu leaders in an interview to a Sri Lankan state-owned newspaper.

     

    The Sri Lankan army chief had labelled Tamil Nadu leaders, who were seeking a ceasefire in Sri Lanka, as 'political jokers' and accused them of being 'corrupt'.

     

    Fonseka's comments to the Sunday Observer newspaper followed an all party delegation to New Delhi headed by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi seeking a ceasefire in Sri Lanka.

     

    Fonseka had expressed confidence that the Indian government "is not interested in a ceasefire in Sri Lanka" as it has listed the LTTE as a terrorist organisation.

     

    He said that the Indian Government would never influence Sri Lanka to restore the ceasefire with the LTTE and it would not listen to the "political jokers" of Tamil Nadu whose "survival depends on the LTTE".

     

    When asked by the newspaper reporter about allegations of Sri Lankan security forces' disregard for civilian casualties, Fonseka replied: "These allegations are made only by the corrupt politicians in Tamil Nadu who have been bribed by the LTTE. Though they are very much aware that the civilians are not getting killed in any of these military operations they try to utter some words on behalf of the LTTE as their survival depends on the LTTE."

     

    "This is the time for them to realise the truth. And they should also realise their attempts to save the LTTE would not be successful as the LTTE is on the brink of extinction. Most importantly, they should realise that LTTE is an internal problem of Sri Lanka and need to honour the sovereignty of Sri Lanka."

     

    Warning that the LTTE's separate state ideology is a "threat" to India, the Sri Lankan Army chief said: "If you consider the overall thing, the LTTE's separate state ideology is a threat to India, because this ideology will spread in Tamil Nadu too. It is now proved by Tamil Nadu by staging protests against the Indian government and seeking help to take the side of the LTTE".

     

    This is not the first time for the SLA commander to come up with such remarks.

     

    In an interview to Canada's National Post in September this year, Sarath Fonseka had said he "strongly believed that Sri Lanka belongs to Sinhalese," and that the other communities "must not try to, under the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things."

     

    The SLA commander failed to extend a public apology despite his comments drawning protest from many political quarters.

     

    Meanwhile, Pattali Makkal Katchi founder S. Ramadoss and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi president Thol. Thirumavalavan urged the Indian government to change its foreign policy on Sri Lanka. The government should recognise the establishment of Tamil Eelam, which alone would be the durable solution to the ethnic question, the leaders argued.

  • Sri Lanka bleeds - with no peace in sight

    Sri Lanka's dragging ethnic conflict is at a decisive phase, with the military determined to crush the Tamil Tigers and the LTTE adamantly refusing to give up.

     

    Having captured the eastern province from the LTTE in 2007 after nearly two decades, Sri Lanka is inching towards taking control of Kilinochchi, a small northern town that has been the LTTE political hub.

     

    The army has captured a vast track of LTTE territories from Omanthai to Mankulam in the north and from Mannar to Pooneryn on the northwestern coastal belt - for the first time after a decade.

     

    The LTTE is using all its might to stop the advancing military.

     

    The year 2008 dawned on a violent note when opposition MP T. Maheshwaran was gunned down by gunmen during New Year prayers in a Hindu temple in the Sri Lankan capital.

     

    On the eve of the Sinhala-Tamil New Year in April, cabinet minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle was killed in a suicide bomb attack outside Colombo, for which the Tigers were blamed.

     

    There have been claymore mine attacks targeting buses carrying both military personnel and civilians elsewhere in the island. The military has been blamed for similar attacks in LTTE areas.

     

    Another minister, D.M. Dassanayake, and a Tamil MP sympathetic to the LTTE, S. Sivanesan, were killed in tit-for-tat killings.

     

    Confident of a military victory, the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa formally spiked on Jan 16 the Norway-brokered ceasefire agreement signed with the LTTE in 2002.

     

    This not only saw the ceasefire monitoring mission pack their bags but marked a virtual end to peace moves by Norway.

     

    This happened a few days after Sri Lanka faced a diplomatic blow when it lost its voting rights at the UN human rights body.

     

    The holding of the maiden provincial council elections in the eastern province after seizing it from the LTTE was seen as a major political event. This was won by the group that broke away from the LTTE in 2004 - and a former child soldier became chief minister of the province.

     

    The LTTE announced a unilateral ceasefire ahead of the SAARC summit in Colombo in early August, but the government rejected the offer, saying it will fight on.

     

    President Rajapaksa made several foreign trips this year. He went to China and addressed the UN General Assembly besides going to Turkey, India and the Maldives.

     

    The year saw a few foreign heads of state, including Presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Mahmoud Abbas of Palestine and Maumoon Abdul Gayoom of the Maldives - who has since lost power - journeying to Sri Lanka.

     

    An Indian delegation led by National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan and comprising the defence secretary and the foreign secretary made a previously unannounced visit to Colombo in June.

     

    Following a chat with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President Rajapaksa sent his brother Basil Rajapaksa as a special envoy to New Delhi in October to brief Indian leaders about the steps his government has taken to protect the civilians trapped in the war zone.

     

    An Indian ship carrying 1,700 tonnes of food and other items for Tamil civilians in the north reached Colombo Nov 16. The goods were handed over to the Red Cross to be distributed among the needy in the war zone.

     

    In early September, the LTTE staged a major pre-dawn ground and air assault on an army-air force base in Vavuniya, 250 km north of Colombo. It wounded two Indian radar technicians - embarrassing New Delhi.

     

    Addressing an all-party meeting, Rajapaksa urged the LTTE to surrender its weapons and enter the democratic process to avoid a military defeat.

     

    LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran responded Nov 27, vowing to carry on the separatist campaign despite facing "an intense war as never before". Extending an olive branch, he called India a "superpower" and urged it to lift the ban on his group.

     

    Prabhakaran showed he can fight - on and on.

     

    The Tigers are offering fierce resistance to the military around Kilinochchi. But if the town does fall, it would be a major loss to the LTTE and a huge politico-military victory to the government.

     

    However, even if that happens, analysts warn that Sri Lanka's ethnic war will be far from over.

     

    That the government is bracing for more fighting next year was evident when it allocated 177 billion rupees (1.6 billion dollars) for defence in 2009, up from 166 billion rupees in 2008.

     

    Despite their shrinking terrain, LTTE cadres are offering stiff resistance.

     

    With the military saying that the LTTE is throwing its hardcore fighters into the battles, the horrific fighting that has forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee their homes is sure to drag on.

  • The high price of Sri Lanka’s war

    AS the government's war against the LTTE enters the bloodiest phase in the country's history, our research has found that the costly war of attrition is irreparably scarring an entire generation of Sri Lanka's youth.

     

    The Sunday Leader has obtained a draft copy of a study circulated for peer review by Dr. Rohan M. Jayatunge and army psychiatrists that provides some insights into the trauma that soldiers faced after combat before 2008, a year in which over 1,200 soldiers have been killed from just six divisions.

     

    According to the scientific study, there is a severe spread of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) amongst soldiers who have served in combat in the north and east and survived to tell the tale.

     

    The paper, titled Psychological Management Of Combat Stress - A Study Based On Sri Lankan Combatants, reveals that over 17,000 soldiers were killed in combat up to 2001, and interestingly enough, it also claims a similar number of LTTE cadres killed in the same period, indicating a 1:1 kill ratio.

     

    Further, the army claims to have killed over 9,000 Tigers in 2008 to date. Coupled with media reports of over 350 civilians killed in combat this year, Eelam War IV has cost Sri Lanka over 10,500 lives in 2008, the highest number of people killed in any one year during the conflict's 25 year history.

     

    It must be remembered that even these figures are only accurate up until the end of October, when the military officially stopped giving out casualty figures for its own losses or those of the LTTE for "security reasons."

     

    In the last month however, it is well known that gruelling battles have taken place with heavy casualties on both sides as the army pushes harder to surround and capture Killinochchi, and bridge the gap between its forces in Muhamalai and those on the northern tip of the country's mainland.

    Fighting

     

    In one particularly fierce three day bout of fighting, Defence Watch Spokesman and SLFP (M) Parliamentarian Mangala Samaraweera told journalists that over 200 soldiers had been killed in fighting, between November 15 and 18 alone.

     

    Never in any one month this year has the government ever admitted that it lost more than 200 soldiers, thus the increase in intensity of the combat action in the month of November, with the budget debate looming, and many deadlines having been missed for the capture of Killinochchi, is alarming.

     

    The Sunday Leader's journalists researched the available data on conflict related deaths in Sri Lanka since 1994 and the data confirms that the country has just endured the bloodiest year in its 25 year history of waging and surviving war.

     

    The second bloodiest year in the conflict was 1995, when Jaffna was recaptured by the army, with the deaths of approximately 5,000 soldiers and LTTE cadres in total. This is less than half as many as had been killed by November 2008, when the army's casualty count began to skyrocket as losses peaked by coincidence on President Rajapakse's birthday, just days after he awarded a one year  extension to Army Commander Sarath Fonseka.

     

    We have no choice but to await with baited breath the final tally of men, women and children who would have been laid to rest this year by the war. What is remarkable is that the government has managed to hide the human cost of the battle by maintaining tight control of what is published in the media.

     

    Campaign

    However, several excerpts from the yet-unpublished military trauma report show that this war is not as glamorous as the government makes it out to be in its glitzy recruitment and propaganda campaign. Rarely enough do we stop to think of the trauma undergone by the families of soldiers who lost loved ones in this campaign, and never at all does the level of stress undergone by war survivors occur to anyone.

     

    The report highlights the experience of a 32 year old lance corporal who witnessed a fellow soldier die in a landmine explosion. "Even though he managed to escape without a single injury, he saw how his friend died in the blast. His depressive features appeared as survival guilt, self blame, hopelessness, grief and bereavement."

    There is also another account of a private who witnessed his best friend, another soldier in his unit, being killed in a sniper attack. "After the confirmation" of the death, the private "was ordered to bury the body," but felt that the body was warm to the touch, possibly due to hot weather.

     

    "After some years he had an irrational feeling that he buried the man alive," the report said, before spiralling into depression. The report is jam-packed with similar instances of surviving soldiers having their lives wrecked for good by what they experienced in the 'glorious' liberation crusade.

     

    Explode

    A lieutenant who witnessed seven soldiers explode due to an incoming enemy mortar and became schizophrenic, a sergeant who lost a leg and became violent and addicted to cannabis, and a captain who served for 20 years being "exposed to heavy combat" who felt a "misfit to civil society" and found it "uneasy to work with civilians," are the stories scattered throughout the study.

     

    All of these examples are from soldiers who were in combat prior to 2008, which has now turned out to be the most deadly year in the history of the war by the government's own statistical killing claims.

     

    Slain

    Most importantly, this was before the armed forces were committed to a war of attrition over a year-long campaign in which over 1,200 of their own were slain and over 7,000 permanently maimed and scarred.  At least some senior officers will recall and recant the fact that several hundred soldiers did not have to die to capture Pooneryn in 1992, and also that the capture was inconsequential as the base was recaptured by the LTTE but one year later.

     

    They will also remember that Killinochchi was captured by the army in 1996 without 1,000 soldiers dying trying, and that Madhu - and its now infamous shrine - was also captured in 1999.

     

    In that campaign as in this one, the army held Jaffna and attempted to corner the LTTE into the Mullaitivu jungles, before they sprang out of nowhere and wreaked havoc across the island, seizing both Madhu and Killinochchi - and everything in between - in a blitzkrieg of Nazi proportions.

     

    Although the Tigers may not have such a capability any longer, they need not strike so hard in order to cripple the country, a fact that has now been lost on every major political party in the country including the UNP, which just announced its tacit support for the war in its bloodiest ever phase.

     

    The Tigers need do little more than let the country drag itself further into debt with the cost of its war, while believing they are closer to success, and inflict maximum casualties upon the army and terrorise Colombo with suicide bombs, to bring Sri Lanka to a position where barely a country will turn to help.

     

    With every nation in the world reeling from the shockwaves of the global economic crisis it is unlikely that there will be any country willing to come to the aid of an island that is pursuing an internationally condemned war of attrition and territory as its first priority.

     

    Devastating

    The recent accusations that the air force has been using cluster bombs against civilian targets in the Wanni, would also prove devastating if it can be proven. To its credit, the government has denied the allegation, and the LTTE and its proxies have been unable to find any evidence of actual unexploded cluster 'bomblets' that such weapons always leave behind.

     

    Alongside the revelation made by Mangala Samaraweera in parliament that the air force has dropped over 14 kilotonnes of explosives in the Wanni this year, if cluster bombs were to be used, Sri Lanka's air force would set a second world record.

     

    The SLAF already holds the unenviable record of being the first, only and thus most frequent dropper of bombs on its own citizens, and the government would gain little from being seen in the eyes of the world as having used cluster munitions on a refugee camp as alleged by some NGOs and the LTTE.

     

    Factors such as this are what bring memories of how the United States lost the war in Vietnam not in the Viet Cong jungles but in the living rooms of Americans at home who witnessed the brutality that the war inflicted to all sides, and pressured that government to abandon Vietnam.

    The lines that the army is now holding are stretched across several hundred kilometres and with every advance the terrain becomes more favourable to the LTTE due to their familiarity with the combat environment.

     

    As the campaign gets longer, the troops on the frontline will become wearier and a lot of them must already be under immense psychological stress from prolonged exposure to combat conditions. The study of military combat stress says as much.

     

    "The percentage of study subjects whose responses met the screening criteria for major depression, generalised anxiety, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was significantly higher after serving" in the north and east.

     

    Shot

    "There was a strong reported relation between combat experiences such as being shot at, handling dead bodies, knowing someone who was killed or killing the enemy, and the prevalence of PTSD," the study concluded, adding finally that there was "a significant risk of mental health problems especially regarding combat related PTSD."

     

    These are exactly the kind of poor conditions that the late Major General Janaka Perera warned would imperil the military campaign should it drag on for months through the monsoon and beyond.

     

    In order to maintain its popularity and war fever in the south, the government would have to prevent the LTTE from repeating their Eelam War III performance of materialising out of the Mullaitivu jungles and smashing through army lines like so many dominoes.

     

    For the sake of the next thousand soldiers who are now on the front line, we can only hope that the military leadership is as competent at protecting its own as it is at marketing and fighting wars of words and propaganda.

      

     

     

     

    Date    
    Official 
    Quote
    May 28, 2007 
    Lt. Gen.  Sarath Fonseka
    "The LTTE has 4,000 cadres in the north. They are not its best cadres. If they lose 2,000 cadres, they are finished."
    December 30, 2007
    Lt. Gen.  Sarath Fonseka
    "LTTE has 3,000 cadres remaining. Military plans to kill them within six months. Our daily target is to kill at least 10 LTTE terrorists."
    January 11, 2008
    Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka
    "My term of office is coming to an end this year and I will not leave this war to the succeeding army commander."
    February 10, 2008
    Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka
    "They are an organised force with a lot of experience. They have thousands of fighters.  I do not conduct the war looking at deadlines and timeframes. The LTTE has around 5,000 fighters. This time when we take Kilinochchi, we will not leave it after a while. But we must realise that the offensive is going to take time."
    February 19, 2008
    Mahinda Rajapakse
    "We would have cleared them out of the remaining areas long ago but we also had to ensure no civilians were killed. I would say, in a year and a half, we might be able to do it."
    February 22, 2008
    Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara
    "But we have never said that we will finish them off. We have never set deadlines. We are fighting a terrorist organisation, not a conventional war." "The more we weaken them, then the more they will come into negotiations. It is not possible to wipe them out."
    June 2008 
    Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka
    "4,000 - 5000 Tigers remain."
     "They have lost that capability, although they are fighting with us, not in the same manner like earlier. They had the defensive lines, we couldn't move even one km for two or three months. That kind of resistance is not there any more."
    "May be a maximum of one year from now onwards the LTTE should lose large areas." "They should not be able to maintain their present control over the population, to be able to resist the army in the way they are resisting now. They would have to lose all that capability."
     "Even if we finish the war, capture the whole of the north, still the LTTE might have some members joining them."
     "There are people who believe in Tamil nationalism. The LTTE might survive another even two decades with about 1,000 cadres.  But we will not be fighting in the same manner. It might continue as an insurgency forever."
     
    September 12, 2008
    Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka
    11,000 Tigers killed since July 2006.  Only 4,000 Tigers remain.

     

     

  • Rebel in the family
    Vinothini Rajendran's 11th-floor apartment is decorated with plastic flowers, a poster of Lord Krishna and framed photos of the little brother she left behind in Sri Lanka.
    It has been years since she saw him. He never writes or calls, but she accepts that is just the way it is when your brother is Velupillai Pirapaharan.
     
    "It must be God's wish that he should become such a man," says Mrs. Rajendran, who immigrated to Canada more than a decade ago and lives with her husband, Bala, in a modest apartment in east Toronto.
     
    Despite being the sister of the Supreme Commander of the LTTE, Mrs. Rajendran has lived incognito in Toronto since 1997, but she agreed to tell her story to the National Post.
     
    For 25 years, her brother has led the LTTE, or Tamil Tigers, in a civil war in Sri Lanka. His objective: independence for the ethnic Tamil minority.
     
    Sri Lanka has vowed to kill Pirapaharan and wipe out the Tamil Tigers over the next few months. Last week, the military said it was within "kissing distance" of the LTTE stronghold, Killinochchi, but Mrs. Rajendran says her brother is in no danger.
    "They won't be able to catch him," she says.
     
    Pirapaharan, 54, is the son of a middle-class bureaucrat who served in Sri Lanka's post-colonial government.
     
    Mrs. Rajendran describes her father as "very kind and soft talking." He was highly disciplined. He never took bribes and abstained from all vices, alcohol and cigarettes included. He worked as a district land officer and volunteered as a trustee at the local temple.
     
    "He was a religious-minded man, a Hindu," she says.
     
    The family lived in Valvettithurai, a coastal village on Sri Lanka's northern Jaffna peninsula, in a small house with a veranda and a banana tree, enclosed within a fenced compound.
     
    Vinothini was the third-born child. She was two years old when Pirapaharan was born at Jaffna Hospital on Nov. 26, 1954.
     
    "As a child, I was the pet and the darling of the family," Pirapaharan told the magazine Velichcham in 1994. "My childhood was spent in the small circle of a lonely, quiet house." Vinothini would play with her baby brother, and fight with him.
     
    "He was as normal as any boy," she says.
     
    "Normal, only he was reading a lot.” The house was full of books. Their mother was ‘a voracious reader,’ Mrs. Rajendran says. They would borrow books from friends or the library.
     
    Like his mother, Pirapaharan devoured history books, particularly stories about the Indian fighters who fought the British for independence.
    "It was the reading of such books that laid the foundation for my life as a revolutionary," he once said.
     
    The Tamil-dominated northern region of Sri Lanka is a dry zone; much of the soil is ill suited to farming. "So the people depended on education and government jobs," Mr. Rajendran explained.
     
    But following independence from Britain in 1948, the island's ethnic Sinhalese majority tried to limit Tamil access to universities and civil service jobs. Tamil youths grew disillusioned with the government and turned to militancy.
     
    Around the same time Pirapaharan took up arms, his father spoke to a friend and they agreed that Vinothini and Bala would marry. The family erected a temporary building in their compound to accommodate wedding guests and shelter them from the sun and rain. The ladies prepared vegetarian dishes in the kitchen. No invitations were required; everyone knew they were welcome.
     
    Pirapaharan was the best man. As is customary, he came by the groom's house the day before the wedding to pay his respects. "He was a very quiet man," Mr. Rajendran says.
    "He was smiling and his eyes were piercing. He was lean."
     
    A few months later, Pirapaharan formed the Tamil New Tigers, or TNT, to wage an armed struggle against the Sri Lankan state security forces. The group would later evolve into the Tamil Tigers.
     
    "At that time, we knew he was doing something, but we didn't know it was so serious," Mr. Rajendran says.
     
    They thought he was only putting up political posters. They only learned of his paramilitary activities when police came calling at the family home in 1972. Pirapaharan slipped out the back and disappeared.
     
    "After that he stopped coming to the house," Mrs. Rajendran says.
    Pirapaharan told the Indian journalist Anita Pratap that, "As soon as the Tiger movement was formed, I went underground and lost contact with my family ... They are reconciled to my existence as a guerrilla fighter."
     
    The Rajendrans were living in the capital, Colombo, when Pirapaharan ignited the civil war with an ambush attack against Sri Lankan soldiers. Mr. Rajendran promptly lost his job at an import-export firm; his employer found out about the family connection and didn't want any trouble.
     
    "I was asked to leave," he says.
     
    They spent a week at a refugee camp and then sailed back to Jaffna. Six months later, Mr. Rajendran went to Jeddah to work as a deckhand on a ship on the Red Sea. Mrs. Rajendran stayed in Jaffna, but the police gave her a hard time about her notorious brother so the family decided to leave for India.
     
    Thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils had sought refuge around Madras. The Rajendrans registered with the police and rented a house. Mr. Rajendran taught English and ran a consultancy service that helped Tamils submit applications to immigrate to Canada and Australia.
     
    Pirapaharan was also exiled in India at the time, operating from a Madras safe house. The Rajendrans saw him there at a family function, a cousin's wedding.
     
    "He came in a jeep with four or five boys," Mr. Rajendran says.
    They saw him again just before he returned to Sri Lanka. "He talked to us and said he is going."
     
    Tired of refugee life in southern India, the Rajendrans travelled to Canada, arriving on Oct. 27, 1997. They have returned to Sri Lanka only once, in 2003, to help Mrs. Rajendran's parents move back to Sri Lanka from India. It was the first time she had seen her homeland in almost two decades. The north was a desolate landscape of ruined buildings, destroyed by incessant shelling. The lush gardens of her youth had gone to weeds.
     
    A red-and-yellow Tamil Tigers flag hangs in her living room in Toronto, but Mrs. Rajendran says she is not politically active. Neither she nor her husband attends Tamil community events in Toronto, with the exception of Heroes Day, the annual commemoration of fallen Tigers.
     
    Mrs. Rajendran does not work; her English is awkward. Her husband works part-time at a furniture store. His hands shake like he is nervous, but he explains he has Parkinson's Disease.
     
    A poster of the Hindu hero Arjuna hangs on the wall. The Tamil script below tells a story from the Bhagavad Gita about a conversation between Lord Krishna and Arjuna, who is reluctant to go to war.
     
    "Arjuna says, how can I fight my relatives?" Mr. Rajendran explains. "Then Krishna says, it is your duty. I am the God and I am telling you, you do it. Then he decides to fight."
     
    It was one of Pirapaharan's favourite childhood stories.
    Every so often, Mrs. Rajendran gets a letter from her parents in Killinochchi, but she has had no contact with her younger brother since coming to Canada. She only hears stories about him.
     
    She believes he will not give up his fight for Tamil independence. Because he started it, he feels obliged to see it through, she says.
     
    "Once he accepts something, he always finishes it," she says.
     
    "Father was like that.
     
    (edited)
  • Kilinochchi: The Kiss Of Death

    "Kilinochchi within kissing distance".

     

    So said the disinformation warriors of Lt.Gen.Sarath Fonseka, the Sri Lankan Army Commander, more than a week ago.

    It has been a long and fatal kiss--more for the Army than for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). It has been a long kiss of death for the young hastily-trained Sinhalese recruits to the Sri Lankan Army who were rushed to the battle front by the General in his keenness to keep his promise of  “In Kilinochchi before the New Year”.

    Similar to the promise which Gen.Douglas McArthur, commanding the allied troops in South Korea during the Korean war, repeatedly made to the US troops fighting against the North Korean and Chinese Armies.

    "To home before Christmas", he used to promise.

    Christmas came and Christmas went, but the North Koreans and the Chinese fought fiercely. McArthur's promises were repeatedly belied.'Which Christmas?" people started asking sarcastically.

    Ultimately, there were neither victors nor losers in the war. It ended in a stalemate after the loss of thousands of lives on both sides.

    In bitter fighting on the outskirts of Kilinochchi since the beginning of this week, the SL Army and the LTTE have sustained heavy casualties. As normally happens in military conflicts, both sides are playing down their own casualties and exaggerating those of the adversary. However, the claims of the LTTE seem to be nearer the truth than those of the Army.

    The LTTE claims to have killed 170 soldiers of the SL Army, but the Army insists that only 25 of its soldiers have been killed. However, the LTTE has been able to release the photographs of at least 36 soldiers killed, thereby proving that the fatalities sustained by the Army are many more than the 25 admitted by it.

    Reliable accounts show that both sides have been fighting fiercely and losing many young people. The Army has lost many more arms and ammunition and other equipment than the LTTE. The fighting has been a bonanza for the LTTE, which has been able to replenish its dwindling stocks of arms and ammunition.

    The odds are still against the LTTE. It has well-trained and well-motivated cadres, who have been fighting with great determination, but it is running short of arms and ammunition despite the seizures from the Army. It has no air cover against the repeated air strikes by the Sri Lankan Air Force.

    The SL Army has the advantage of numbers and arms and ammunition procured with funds from China and Iran, but its soldiers are not as well-motivated and as well-trained as those of the LTTE.

    The LTTE had shifted its offices from Kilinochchi many weeks ago in anticipation of the battle. Kilinochchi has now nothing but the death traps for the SL Army laid by the LTTE. The LTTE knows where those death-traps are, but not the Army. This gives an advantage to the LTTE.

    The battle being fought for Kilinochchi is a combined miniature version of the battles of Stalingrad in the erstwhile USSR and El Alamein in North Africa. At Stalingrad, the Soviet Army beat back the Nazis after inflicting repeated heavy casualties on them. At El Alamein, the allied troops commanded by Gen. Bernard Montgomery (later a Field Marshal) beat back the advancing Nazi Army commanded by Gen.Rommel with heavy casualties. These two battles marked the turning points in the Second World War.

    Making a statement on the defeat of Rommel's army at El Alamein, Sir Winston Churchill, the then British Prime Minister, told the House of Commons: " There was no victory before Al Alamein. There will be no defeat after El Alamein." He was proved right.

    Will Kilinochchi prove a similar turning point in the battle being fought between the SL Army and the LTTE? If the LTTE loses the battle, it could mark the beginning of its end as an insurgent force, but not as a terrorist organisation. If the SL Army wins, it will be a Pyrrhic victory. 

    B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai

  • Army suffers another debacle in Vanni

    The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighters in Kilinochchi and Killali have killed at least 600 Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers and wounded another 1600 in five separate clashes in the past five weeks alone.

     

    In its latest attempt to advance towards LTTE held Kilinochchi in Vanni battlefront, SLA suffered heavy casualties with more than

    100 soldiers killed and at least 250 wounded.

     

    LTTE fighters inflicted the heavy casualties on Sri Lankan on Monday, December 22 when they repulsed a fresh offensive push, said Puleedevan quoting LTTE's field commanders.

     

    Heavy fighting raged from 5:30 to 12:45 when the SLA attempted to advance from Uruththirapuram towards Kilinochchi and Iranaimadu.

     

    Several corpses of the SLA soldiers were seen in the battlefield and the Tigers were engaged in seizing arms and ammunitions after routing the offensive on two fronts, Mr. Puleedevan further said.


    The fresh offensive push comes after the Tigers claimed that the SLA suffered 60 deaths and more than 150 wounded in a preemptive strike by their offensive forces on Saturday, December 20.

     

    Few days earlier, on Tuesday, December 16, SLA suffered heavy casualties with at least 250 soldiers killed and 750 injured when it deployed 7000 soldiers and launched a multi-front push towards Kilinochchi through Malayaalapuram, Kunchupparanthan, Murikandi and Pulikkulam. 

     

    In the heavy battle that raged throughout the day till 4:00 p.m. along a wide stretch of the frontiers in Vanni, LTTE forces inflicted heavy casualties on the SLA troopers and recovered 28 dead bodies of the SLA soldiers.

     

    On the same day LTTE defensive forces also thwarted an attempt by SLA to breakthrough Kilaali Forward Defence Line (FDL) in Jaffna peninsula, killing 40 SLA soldiers and wounding more than 120.

     

    The SLA launched its offensive push at 1:30 a.m and after 9 hours of heavy fighting, the SLA was forced to pull back its troops, with heavy casualties, at 10:30 a.m.

     

    8 bodies of SLA soldiers were recovered in Kilaali, bringing the total number of dead bodies recovered by the LTTE that today to 36.

     

    Photographs of the dead bodies of the Sri Lankan soldiers, recovered by the LTTE, has lately exposed Colombo's use of fresh recruits from the south in the intensive battle front in Kilinochchi. The latest photo has also revealed that Colombo is victimising Sinhalese children in its offensive front in Vanni.

    The Tigers said they have seized several weapons in the clearing mission.

    Third debacle

     

    The latest is the third major reversal SLA has suffered within a space of one month in the Vanni battlefront.

     

    "This is the third debacle of the SLA in Kilinochchi district within the past few weeks," S. Puleedevan, the director of LTTE's Peace Secretariat told TamilNet.

    On Wednesday December 10, a two-pronged SLA offensive on Kilinochchi was pushed back by LTTE fighters after heavy fighting in Puthumurippu in the west of Kilinochchi and Ariviyal Nakar in which over 120 Sri Lankan soldiers were killed in action and more than 280 were wounded.

     

    In late November, at least 75 SLA soldiers were killed and 160 wounded when LTTE forces beat back attempts by Sri Lankan military advance towards Kilinochchi through Naloor on Poonari-Paranthan road.

  • Fresh army recruit becomes POW

    A Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldier who has been captured by the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) in Kilaali on 09 December has revealed that he was attached to Sinha Regiment and sent to the forefront of the offensive immediately after completing his military training at Diyathalawa Army Training Centre on 25 November.

     

    The Prisoner of War (PoW), who was allowed to talk to media on Saturday while he was admitted at Ki'linochchi hospital, said he had studied up to 7th standard and joined the SLA considering the economic benefits, but did not expect that he would be sent to the battle front immediately.

     

    He was sent to training on 25 August 2008 with 659 new recruits. Following his three months training, which completed on 25 November 2008, Mr. Ranasinghe was dispatched to the Sinha Regiment and sent to the forefront at Ki'laali in North.

    During the night of 09 December, he was sent to the offensive and asked to move forward at 2:30 a.m. After heavy LTTE resistance, he was asked to withdraw, but was wounded and lied their for nearly 12 hours from 6:30 a.m., without no one from SLA coming to rescue him.

    The Tigers who found him at 7:00 p.m., gave water and some first aid, before sending him for further medical treatment.

  • Sri Lanka Tourism in the Doldrums

    With the sun glistening on waves that gently lap its clean sandy beaches and coral reefs, Hikkaduwa is the perfect tourist paradise. But there is one thing missing -tourists.

    Arrivals have been poor and the first ten months of the year recorded a nine percent drop as compared to 2007.

    Hotel owners and managers mainly blame the country’s tense security situation for the poor showing by an industry that brought in 300 million US dollars in 2007 and was the fourth largest foreign income generator.

    The global financial meltdown and the late November terror attacks on two luxury hotels in Mumbai, India, have made an already bad situation worse.

    At his beachfront small hotel along the Hikkaduwa beach Ajith Fernando stares at the empty dining tables and the deck chairs and braces himself for a really bad four months ahead.

    "This is the start of the season and I have only three rooms occupied. Last year by this time we had enough guests to at least break even," the owner of the ten-room hotel told IPS.

    He has already begun cutting overheads. Several of his deluxe rooms are closed, the air-conditioners covered with dust jackets. "Can’t maintain them, the only tourists who come are low spenders, they don’t want rooms at 25 dollars a day, they go for the 10 dollar or 15 dollar rooms,’’ he said. He has reduced his staff from 10 to six and expects to lay off more.

    Further down the same beach D. Leelaratne, who sells traditional wood carvings, has hung up his tools and has not had a customer in days. "Look at the road and the beach... at this time the area should be teeming with tourists, but there is no one, no one."

    It is not only the small timers that are feeling the pinch, even larger deluxe hotels are trying to cope with plummeting guest arrivals. "The problems created by the global financial crisis have been aggravated by the Mumbai attacks," Dayal Fernando, general manager of the luxury Amaya Resort at Hikkaduwa, said.

    Economists calculate that there has been a drop of at least ten percent in income generated by tourism this year and the effects will be felt acutely by the daily wage earners who rely on the trade.

    According to the World Travel and Tourism Council’s estimates for 2008, travel and tourism together were expected to contribute 2.9 billion dollars to the economy and account for one in every 15 jobs (or 567,000 jobs). This is considered vital at a time when the country is diverting a major chunk of its resources to the civil war in the north.

    This month, the government announced plans to spend a sixth of the budget for 2009 on defence in a bid to crush the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which has been waging a war to secure the secession of the Tamil dominated north and east of the island.

    After military captured the eastern province from LTTE, the government has been seeking a 1.8 billion dollar aid package aimed at bringing investment to the area and reviving tourism. But the country suffers from a lowered international credit rating and rising external debts arising from the adverse security situation and lowered global demands for its main exports -- tea, rubber and textiles.

    "The global financial crisis is taking a toll on the balance of payments of Sri Lanka," economist Muttukrishna Sarvananthan at the E. Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University told IPS.

    “Because tourism provides livelihoods to hundreds of thousands of people in the interior parts of Sri Lanka (particularly along the southern coast) especially in terms of providing employment in the hotels and resorts, and provides markets for locally produced vegetables, fruits and handicrafts, and an array of services such as local transport, the impact on ordinary people will be considerable,’’ Sarvananthan said.

    On the southern beaches the effects are palpable. At Unawatunna, the cove famous for its calm waters and its UNESCO heritage site status, Nishan Suranga stares hopefully from behind red-framed dark glasses for ptoential custom. He works as a guide, boat hirer and guest house operator, but there seems to be little demand for any of these services.

    "The locals fill the beach," he told IPS. "But, they are not our clients; they don’t buy food or rent rooms, they never want guides... we are fast going under."

    At a scuba diving school in Unawatunna, two youth are lazing about on the sand, staring at the sea. The tourist season coincides with the winter in Europe, the bumper months being the quarter between December and April. Most businesses run at a loss for the rest of the year.

    "That is the way it works. For four months we have more than we can handle, then there is a very little," Chaminda Ekenayake, one of the youths who works at Barracuda Diving, said.

    "Last season (December 2007 - April 2008) we had some guests and we could run for the rest of the year. If this season does not pick up we will have to close our operations,’’ Ekenayake said. Where he was making at least 50 dollars per day, this season he has to look around for people who may be interested in scuba diving.

    The few tourists around seem to be on budgets. "We had the Japanese here sometime back, but after the financial crisis began they stopped coming. Then the Russians came but they don’t spend much,’’ Ekenayake said. ‘’The Israelis are the same... you can’t blame them if they have tight situations back home."

    Though no large scale layoffs are reported yet, the smaller establishments have closed shop. The guesthouse next to Fernando’s, on the main surf area in Hikkaduwa, is padlocked. "The guy who was running this could not deal with the rent and the utility bills, he closed up and the owner of the property says he does not want to risk his own money, trying to run it," Ekenayake said.

    Unfortunately for Fernando, and many others like him, there is no such thing as a bailout package. "I invested at least 40,000 dollars on this operation after the tsunami, and if the season tanks, I will automatically close shop."

    His wife and two kids look at him intently as he speaks. The wife is at the hotel to help out following the staff cuts. The kids are there because of school holidays and are the only ones eating at the tables.

    "This is an industry that can cave in on its own overheads if there are no guests," Fernando said. "It is not easy to run a hotel."

  • Sri Lanka exports to India down, Pakistan up

    Whilst Sri Lanka’s exports to India dropped 13%, the island’s exports to Pakistan has grown by 31%according to a Sri Lankan trade expert.

     

    Last year, Sri Lanka’s exports to India have dropped to $346 million despite a seven per cent growth in the Indian economy during the period.

    In the same period, Sri Lanka’s exports to Pakistan grew by 31 per cent despite the fact that Pakistan has been having a tough time, both politically and economically, Rohantha Athukorala, former chairman of the Sri Lanka Export Development Board was quoted as saying.

    Whilst the Sri Lanka-Pakistan bilateral trade is still very small in comparison with Sri Lanka-India trade and Sri Lanka’s exports to Pakistan are just $50 million, Athukorale raised concerns for about exports to India have been declining steadily in the past three years.

    Sri Lanka’s main exports are garments and tea, but both do not find a foothold in the Indian market.

    India has increased its quota from three million garment pieces a year to seven million, but this is not reflected in trade statistics.

  • Sri Lanka in "Genocide Red Alert" watch list

    Sri Lanka has been named as a country where genocide and other mass atrocities are underway or risk breaking out.

                              

    The New York-based Genocide Prevention Project, in a report published December 9, includes Sri Lanka as one of eight "red alert" countries.

     

    The report also includes a comprehensive list of 33 countries where genocide is a possibility.

     

    The report was published to mark the 60th anniversary of the United Nation's convention on the prevention of genocide, and 20th anniversary of the ratification of the treaty by the United States.

     

    "Red alert" countries include Afghanistan, and Iraq alongside regions currently experiencing genocidal conflict such as Sudan's Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

     

    These and Myanmar, Pakistan, Somalia and Sri Lanka all made the list's top eight because they appear in each of the five "expert" indexes.

     

    The next 25 "orange alert" countries appear in at least three of the indexes. They include China, Colombia, Philippines and Indonesia as places where ongoing or simmering violence could flare to genocidal proportions.

     

    "It is possible to identify early indicators of mass atrocity crimes. But what happens now is the international community sees what's going on, gets paralyzed and, if it acts, really only acts after the fact," said Jill Savitt, project executive director.

    Savitt states three factors that are likely to change the "political will" lacking in the past.

     

    First, the stated determination of Susan Rice, U.S. president-elect Barack Obama's choice for U.S. ambassador to the UN, to prevent future genocides after witnessing the after-effects of the 1994 Rwanda slaughter.

     

    Second, current discussion around the 60th anniversary of the genocide prevention convention, which calls on countries to prevent and punish actions of genocide.

     

    And third, the public "guilt" over what occurred in Rwanda and Bosnia, and what Savitt called public "hunger for a response" to the Darfur crisis.

     

    Meanwhile, a task force led by Madeleine K Albright, former Secretary of State, and an advisor to Obama and Clinton, released a report on world genocide threats which will likely be used by the Obama administration as a guide post to prevent developing genocides.

     

    "Preventing genocide is an achievable goal," the Albright report, released on December 8, says.

     

    "Genocide is not the inevitable result of ancient hatreds or irrational leaders. It requires planning and is carried out systematically. There are ways to recognize signs and symptoms, and viable options to prevent it at every turn if we are committed and prepared," the Washington Post said, quoting from the Albright report.

  • Genocide charges against Sri Lanka officials ready – Fein

    Bruce Fein, a former U.S. Deputy Associate Attorney General and currently Counsel for a US Tamil group said in an interview mid December that a 400+ page model indictment charging Sri Lanka officials for genocide against Tamils will be ready to be submitted to the U.S. Justice Department first week of January.

     

    He added that the document describes the motivational context, catalogues crimes, and constructs legal arguments establishing culpability of a U.S. citizen and a US greencard holder for the crime of genocide against Tamils in Sri Lanka under the U.S. Genocide Accountability Act (18 U.S.C. 1091).

     

    Fein is currently counsel for Tamils Against Genocide, a US based group.

     

    TamilNet: Can you describe the legal process your group has chosen to bring Sarath Fonseka and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to justice in US courts?

     

    Fein: The United States Genocide Accountability Act of 2007 (GAA) makes Fonseka and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa subject to a genocide prosecution in United States courts even though the genocidal acts against Tamils occurred in Sri Lanka.

     

    The United States may constitutionally assert extra-territorial jurisdiction over a certain category of universally condemned crimes, which include genocide and torture. The United States recently brought a torture prosecution against the son of Liberia’s Charles Taylor for torture perpetrated in Liberia. They are criminally culpable under the doctrine of command responsibility for criminal acts of their subordinates which they should have known about and prevented or neglected to punish after-the-fact.

     

    TAG [Tamils Against Genocide] has virtually completed a model federal grand jury indictment of Fonseka and Rajapaksa charging violations of the GAA. The facts demonstrating genocide have been compiled from TAG’s independent research and investigations. The two were selected as defendants in lieu of President Mahinda Rajapaksa because Gotabhaya Rajapakse is a US citizen and Sarath Fonseka is a permanent resident alien for whom the United States is responsible as moral, political, and legal matter.

     

    The model indictment will be presented to the new United States Attorney General appointed by President Obama and the new Secretary of State. The two appointees hold the keys to a genocide prosecution, which only the government can initiate.

     

    TamilNet: Do U.S. courts have jurisdiction over acts violating international law or U.S. domestic law in Sri Lanka's sovereign territory?

     

    Fein: The model indictment describes the culture of genocide in Sri Lanka built on the doctrine of Sinhalese Buddhist supremacy celebrated in the Mahavamsa, the teachings of Dharmapala, and the exhortations of contemporary Buddhist monks.

     

    The indictment then collects three categories of genocidal acts intended to destroy Tamil groups in whole or in part in various villages or municipalities in the northeast based on ethnicity or religion: extra-judicial killings, including disappearances; serious bodily injury; and, creating conditions of life intended to cause the physical destruction of Tamil groups, for example, starvation, malnutrition, impaired medical care or medicines, never-ending physical, economic, or physical insecurity, massive and repeated internal displacements, or Sinhalese Buddhist colonization.

     

    The genocidal acts TAG has chronicled in the draft indictment surpasses by far the genocidal evidence in the charges against former Bosnian leader Radovan Karadzic.

     

    TamilNet: In the U.S., criminal indictments can only be initiated by the Department of Justice. What is TAG's next step to convince the Justice Department to begin a grand jury investigation?

     

    Fein: TAG will seek to enlist the support of Members of the House and Senate to champion the genocide indictment with the Attorney General and Secretary of State through letters, confirmation hearings, and otherwise. TAG will also seek congressional hearings on the ongoing Sri Lankan genocide. It will also publish articles and meet with editorial boards of newspapers to rally public United States support for the genocide indictments.

     

    TamilNet: Is the international climate conducive for your legal action, and do you think Obama administration with Eric Holder as the new attorney general will be inclined to support this effort?

     

    Fein: The genocide of Sri Lanka’s Tamils has now become mainstream thinking in Tamil Nadu, Malaysia, South Africa, and elsewhere. It explains in part Sri Lanka’s eviction from the United Nations Human Rights Council. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have also been vocal detractors of Sri Lanka’s human rights atrocities.

     

    Further, the New York-based Genocide Prevention Project has included Sri Lanka as one of the eight "red alert" countries where genocide and other mass atrocities are underway or risk breaking out. Also, the Obama administration was handed a policy report on genocide with specific recommendations from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. This is likely to bring Sri Lanka’s genocide into U.S. focus.

     

    TamilNet: Besides the U.S.Group, who else is supporting your legal action?

     

    Fein: TAG has received support from U.K. expatriates, and Australia. We welcome the support of other individuals or organizations. But TAG will not waver from its exclusive feasible goal of genocide indictments and prosecutions of Fonseka and Rajapaksa in the United States undistracted by a United Nations organized plebiscite on Tamil independence, or a prosecution before the International Criminal Court. TAG has one goal and one goal only.

     

    TamilNet: Are you pursuing any other legal avenues, and if so, can you elaborate?

     

    Fein: The Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA) authorizes any person or their legal representatives to bring a civil suit for damages against any other person complicity in their extra-judicial killing or torture under color of foreign law wherever the wrongdoing occurs. The advantage of a civil suit is that the initiative does not require the approval or support of the U.S. government. Once adequate funding for the litigation is secure, the contemplated TVPA suits would involve representatives of the murdered Trinco five students and of the seventeen murdered Action Against Hunger workers. Damages could exceed $50 million. As with the GAA, the TPVA applies extra-territorially to wrongdoing perpetrated in Sri Lanka by Sri Lankans against Sri Lankans.

     

    TamilNet: What is your response to the note on the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) website by the Sri Lankan Secretary General Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha on the model genocide indictment against Sri Lanka officials?

     

    Fein:

    On December 15, 2008, Professor Rajiva Wijesinha, Secretary General, Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process, an echo chamber instrumentality of the Government of Sri Lanka, sallied forth on his website (www.peaceinsrilanka.org) with an awesome arsenal of irrelevancies and non sequiturs to confute my model genocide indictment.

     

    The Professor’s sophistry builds on the casuistry taught to every first year law student: If the law is against you, argue the facts; if the facts are against you, argue the law; and, if the law and the facts are against you, confuse the issue. Accordingly, Professor Wijesinha’s delivers an indictment against the LTTE as a purported defense to the Rajapaksa-Fonseka genocides. The genocide prosecution sought against Sudanese President Omar Bashir has rejected such a defense theory to a charge of genocide. In addressing the model genocide indictment I have prepared, this is what Professor Wijesinha adduces to persuade the reader to return a verdict of not guilty: not a single word or fact.

     

    Indeed, the Professor never denies the Rajapaksa-Fonseka genocides. He simply bloviates: “Fein may see himself as an expert in pressing the right buttons, but [Tamils Against Genocide] should rethink squandering its funds on such characters.”

     

    I challenge Professor Wijesinha or any official in the Government of Sri Lanka to debate me over the model genocide indictment at any time and in any venue of his or their choosing, including Colombo. I promise to arrive armed only with the truth; but my opponent may choose to come protected by the Sri Lankan Army and Pillaiyan. I am eager for a reply to my debate challenge. Silence will speak volumes of guilt.

  • Plight of Sri Lanka's war widows

    "My husband was a fisherman. About three years ago, when he returned from a fishing trip, somebody checked his identity card and shot him dead," says Jeyarulai Puwanendran, weeping.

     

    The single mother, 23, is a resident of Kiran, Batticaloa, in Sri Lanka's eastern region.

     

    "I have a four-year-old daughter. I don't get help from the government or anybody else. My parents are the ones who look after me and my daughter. My father is a labourer. They have six other children apart from me," she says.

     

    Ms Puwanendran is among an estimated 33,000 women who have been widowed in Eastern Province during nearly three decades of war between the government forces and the Liberation Tigers.

     

    Similar stories can be heard all over the east. The case of 30-year-old Vadivel Shanthi, a mother of three young children in a camp for displaced people in Batticaloa, is typical.

     

    Her family left their home in Trincomalee district after her husband, a farmer, was shot dead by unidentified people.

     

    "One day my husband went to the paddy field but did not return. After seven days his decomposed body was found in a paddy field. I was left with no option other than to hand over two of our children to an orphanage," she says.

     

    Women's rights activists argue that widows are still suffering despite the government recapturing the east from the Tamil Tigers more than a year ago.

     

    Visaka Dharmadasa, of the Association of War Affected Women (AWAW) recently visited the region.

     

    She says that fear still prevails in the region and killings continue despite government claims that the area is safer now.

     

    The husband of 24-year-old mother Karthiga, Selvaratnam Ramesh, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen at their home in Valaichchenai, Batticaloa, on 27 November.

     

    "It was about 7.30pm in the evening. I was at home with my husband. Suddenly I heard a sound like a cracker exploding. When I looked at my husband, he was on the floor with gun wounds," she said.

     

    "My husband was a mason. We did not have a penny when he was killed. I have a seven-year-old daughter and I am now seven months pregnant. I don't know how to get on with my life," she says.

     

    Although the government has identified the problem, activists say it lacks the commitment to help these women to rebuild their lives.

     

    A spokeswoman for the chief minister of Eastern Province is reported to have told the AWAW that while the provincial council recognises the urgency it does not have funds to implement projects to help it.

     

    "She expressed serious disappointment that no money was allocated, though many projects are planned to uplift the lives of these women," said AWAW spokeswoman Visaka Dharmadasa.

     

    The government, however, sees things differently.

     

    According to Nation Building Minister Susantha Punchinilame, action is being taken to help widows, the overwhelming majority of whom are under 30.

     

    Basil Rajapaksa, the younger brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, is a senior adviser to the president on a plan to provide more assistance to the bereaved women in the east.

     

    "Actually this problem was only recently highlighted and we are currently conducting a study on the situation and the figures relating to widows," he says.

     

    "The authorities are committed to helping thousands of widows," Mr Rajapaksa says.

     

    "We are working to help them find opportunities for self-employment, foreign jobs and jobs in the livestock and agricultural sector."

     

    Mr Rajapaksa insists that the government is co-ordinating with the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) on development work.

     

    "This year, for example, the EPC approved the biggest development budget from the money offered by the government and the foreign donations transferred through the government," he says.

     

    Mr Rajapaksa says he hopes that the provincial authority will receive more funds as the EPC re-establishes a financial and tax system in the area and many currently defunct industries restart work.

     

    But critics such as Ms Dharmadasa argue that there are few positive developments in recent months for widows in the east.

     

    Widows are seriously affected by the war, she says, and are left to cope without official help.
  • Sri Lanka compared to Somalia

    A UN official in northern Sri Lanka has said that conditions for displaced people in LTTE-held areas are "as basic as in Somalia".

     

    John Campbell, from the World Food Programme (WFP), told the BBC Sinhala service that conditions were "as basic as can be" and "much less than ideal".

     

    Campbell was speaking from the LTTE-held village of Tharmapuram. The area is close to recent heavy fighting between the Tamil Tiger and the Sri Lankan army.

     

    Independent journalists are prevented by the government from travelling to war-hit areas of the country - the WFP is one of the few foreign agencies allowed to deliver aid to the area.

     

    Campbell said that many of internally displaced people in Tharmapuram were living in flimsy shelters soaked by recent heavy rainfall.

     

    "They are extremely uncomfortable in waterlogged camps and depending almost entirely on international aid for food," Campbell told the BBC.

     

    Sri Lankan officials say that the rain has also brought much of the fighting in the north to a halt and that only "intermittent skirmishes" between the Tamil Tigers and the army have recently taken place.

     

    Campbell insisted that displaced people were getting enough food, despite their miserable living conditions.

     

    "It is basic as it can be. I haven't seen anything so basic since when I was in Somalia."

     

    Somalia has been without an effective central government since President Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. Years of fighting in the African nation between rival warlords and an inability to deal with famine and disease have led to the deaths of up to one million people.

     

    The UN estimates that there are about 230,000 displaced people throughout LTTE-held areas in the north of Sri Lanka.

     

    A UN aid convoy - comprising of 50 trucks - arrived in the area after December 9 being given clearance by the Tigers and the Sri Lankan military.

     

    Campbell told the BBC that the supplies included rice, flour and school equipment.

     

    He said that the convoy was only the seventh to bring food to LTTE-held areas in the past two months.

     

    The Sri Lankan government responded with a major outcry and a demand for an apology. WFP country director for Sri Lanka, Adnan Khan, was immediately summoned to the Defence Ministry where he made a personal apology on behalf of the errant official.

     

    Khan, later said Campbell was giving a "personal opinion" and that such "statements given by staff members do not necessarily reflect the official policy of WFP".

     

    He added that WFP was working in cooperation with the government and was "fully committed to continue the weekly dispatches of convoys to the Vanni" region.

     

    He also told The Sunday Times that the WFP would look into every aspect of the incident, and take necessary action against the official, adding that he may even be suspended from operating in the country.

     

    “However everything depends on the outcome of the ongoing internal inquiry,” Mr. Khan said.

     

    The WFP later said in a statement that its mandate was to provide food and assistance to those in need and that statements made by staff members do not necessarily reflect the official policy of the organisation.

     

    Following the incident the WFP has put a gag on its staff and in future only a few selected officials at the very top will be allowed to make statements to the media, Khan further said.

     

    British journalist Peter Foster, in his column in UK Telegraph, said Campbell stepped unwittingly into the minefield of Sri Lankan politics.

     

    "This piece of mealy-mouthism [of Khan] reflects the invidious position of all aid agencies in Sri Lanka, and particularly the UN which I know from personal contacts has a rocky relationship with the Sri Lankan government," he said.

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