TAMIL NATIONAL HEROES DAY 25-JULY-2006

23rd Anniversary of Genocide 83, Fifty three Tamil prisoners were murdered whilst in government custody, The Holocaust Continues.

31 July 2006

Loss of Lives and Loss of Face; SL Army back to Base (Latest Update)

Sri Lanka Armed Forces withdrew back to base with heavy loss of man and material when their three-pronged attack was pulverised by the confronting cadre of the LTTE under the command of General Sornam on the ground. The SL army withdrew with 15 dead and 50 seriously wounded on its side. The loss on the LTTE side was, 3 dead and 2 injured.Of the dead on the government side, two were high-ranking officers.The SL army commenced its move from Trincomalee towards Mavilaru at 8.00am Monday. No sooner they entered the LTTE area, they faced stiff resistance and by mid-day, retreat was the only option for it.

SL Air Force helped the army move underprotective air-cover and offensive air-attack. Kfir, MIG and military helicopters and multi-barrelled launchers were profusely used by the SL Army. LTTE's artillery return was prompt and ferocious.The SL Army made its move from a canal off Kallaru, north of Mavilaru but was met by an LTTE contingentwhich paralysed the army move.

The second move was made from Kallaru towards Eachilampattu in the East  and the third army contingent started from Thirumangalam lying West of Kallaru. Both moves were decisively defeated by the Tigers and the army retreated to its point of origin, although the Government insists the army has moved closer to the reservoir. The original position of the SL army camp is  5 miles away from the Mavilaru position.

SLMM  Inactive

The Headquarters of the SLMM has instructed its officials not to visit Mavilaru or any place in Tamil areas till the Government Forces stop aerial bombardment. SLMM officials said they were in the vicinity of aerial attack on Saturday in the LTTE area as they were holding a meeting with civilian leaders and the the LTTE including Elilan, after informing the Army of their whereabouts. The SL Army's disregard to the safety of the SLMM officals has compelled the Headquarters to take this safety decision, an official said.

Regional Political Leader

Elilan, the LTTE's Regional Political Leader, Trincomalee has pointed out that the Mavilaru Reservoir sluice is within the LTTE controlled area as recognised by the Cease Fire Agreement and any move by the Sri Lankan Forces to reach it through the LTTE land would mean violation of the CFA and would naturally be resisted vehemently by the LTTE cadre.It would also be treated as a natural declaration of war, Elilan warned.

Appeal by Opposition UNP

The Opposition party has appealed to the Government as well as the LTTE to respect the CFA and refrain from resumption of war. The UNP has pointed out that the artillaery attack by the LTTE or the aerial bombardment by the Government might damage the reservoir and this could spell disaster for the entire area. The Opposition has also pointed out to the foolishness of the government and the JVP in pointing out that the LTTE was violating the Geneva Convention of 1977 observed between States. By Quoting the Convention, the government was offering State Recognition to the LTTE, the UNP leadership has pointed out.

Fighting breaks out in Sri Lanka

Heavy fighting broke out between Sri Lankan government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels early Monday as Sri Lankan troops fought to end a rebel blockade of reservoir water to government-held eastern Batticaloa district, military and government sources said.The fighting erupted after Sri Lankan troops launched an offensive to end a rebel blockade of water to some 30,000 acres of paddy land in the government-held eastern Batticaloa district, the sources said. The blockade is on the border that divides two eastern district -- Trincomalee and Batticaloa -- and cuts the water flow to about 30,000 acres of paddy land, the sources said.

Military sources said Sri Lankan troops met heavy rebel resistance, but there was not immediate word on casualties.The fighting marked the first time government troops and rebels have engaged in a full frontal battle since a cease-fire began four years ago.The rebels' water blockade began along the Mavil Aru irrigation cut on July 20. Six days later, the Sri Lanka Air Force began four days of bombing against rebel positions, using Israeli-made Kfir jets. One air raid hit the rebel's headquarters in Karadiyanaru, near the eastern town of Batticaloa.

Military sources said more than 40 rebel troops were killed and the district's military commander was wounded, but the rebels played down the incident and made no mention of it in their Web sites.Sri Lanka's northeast is divided into government-controlled and rebel-held areas. The sluice gate is in a rebel-held area.The rebels began fighting for an independent Tamil homeland in 1983, accusing the majority Sinhalese of discrimination.Months of violence, including clashes between government forces and the rebels, have killed about 800 people, The Associated Press reported. The violence also has battered the fragile 2002 cease-fire, which was meant to end two decades of fighting that claimed the lives of about 65,000 people.

Sri Lanka Army Shelling On Pallai And Elepahant Pass

Sri Lanka Government Armed Forces have started artillery attack on Pallai and Elephant Pass in Tamil Areas under LTTE controlled areas with total disregard to the Cease Fire Agreement concluded under the facilitation of the International community through Norway.The Shelling commenced Monday afternoon.Earlier in the day, the Army installations at Nagarkovil in Vadamaradchi East conducted an hour-long artillary attack on the areas under LTTE control in Vadamaradchi.

SLA movement defeated on two fronts - Ilanthirayan

Sri Lanka Army (SLA) began moving grond troops from two SLA bases towards Mavil Aaru sluice gate Monday morning, supported by Multi - Barrel Rocket Launcher, artillery fire and aerial bombardment from Kfir and MIG jets towards Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam controlled area in Mavil Aaru. The SLA troops were defeated by the Tigers, according to Ilanthirayan, the military spokesman of the Tigers. LTTE defence was being carried out under the supervision of LTTE's Trincomalee District Special Commander Col. Sornam, Mr. Ilanthirayan said. SLA troopers launched a troop movement from Thirumangalam SLA camp towards Ankodai in LTTE controlled area, but the move was defeated at Valkottu by the Tigers, amidst indiscrimate bombing by Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Kfir jets and MIG bombers.

"They [the SLA] could not move far, even a kilometer from Thirumangalam camp," Ilanthirayan said confirming intensive clash between ground troops from the both sides.In the meantime, another move, made from Kallaru SLA camp eastwards in the direction of Eachilampattu, was also defeated, he said. "Heavy resistance was yielded by the defence forces of the Tigers under the supervision of Col. Sornam," Ilanthirayan said. Meanwhile, Colombo military sources said in Monday's fight two SLA soldiers were killed and six others were injured. The injured were first admitted to the Serunuwara government hospital and later transferred to the Polonnaruwa hospital.

Schools in the Serunuwara division were closed and shops were shut down as tension prevails in the area, police sources said.Keheliya Rambukwella, the Sri Lankan Minister and Defence Ministry spokesman in Colombo said that SLA troops were advancing towards Mavil Aaru. "The movement of troops is reportedly slow due to mines and attack of the LTTE," Mr. Rambukwella told media Monday.

Finland rejects Sri Lanka’s accusations of pandering to terrorists

Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs has rejected accusations by the government of Sri Lanka over the decision to withdraw Finnish cease fire monitors from the island. Sri Lanka has said that the move amounts to pandering to terrorists.  Marita Maunola, administrative assistant at the Foreign Ministry’s political section, emphasised that withdrawing the monitors does not constitute a statement of opinion; she said that it is simply a question of following the policy line that Finland has taken, according to which all parties must accept the presence of the monitors and guarantee their safety.
     
Finland and Denmark announced on Friday that they would take their cease fire monitors out of Sri Lanka. The decision was based on the move by the European Union to add the Tamil Tigers’ LTTE organisation to the list of terrorist organisations. In response, the Tamil Tigers demanded that the EU monitors leave the country.The Sri Lankan government opposes the move, saying that it is based on a unilateral demand by the Tamil Tigers.

30 July 2006

Sri Lanka troops advance on Tigers

Sri Lankan troops launched their first deliberate advance on Tamil Tiger rebels since a 2002 ceasefire on Sunday, moving to secure a rebel-held water supply as government jets bombed suspected groups of Tiger fighters.More than 800 people have been killed so far this year, with the closing of a water channel from an eastern rebel-held area to government-held farms prompting a surge in violence in recent days including air and artillery strikes.

On Sunday, ground forces were sent in to secure irrigation for the ethnic majority Sinhalese farms in the area, south of the northeastern port of Trincomalee. The government said troops then came under mortar fire from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) but no-one was hurt.

"The LTTE are trying to move reinforcements to the area," government minister and spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said. "We are not bombing the roads or the bridges but areas where we believe their fighters are. This is purely a humanitarian operation."

The army said the advance was continuing but that soldiers were having to pick their way through minefields. The rest of the island appeared quiet.

"SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES"

In recent months, the mainstream Tigers and breakaway ex-rebels the Karuna group have raided each other's positions in the east, and a clash between the rebels and army earlier in July killed 12. But there has been little serious infantry action.

Both the government and the Tigers claim control over the site of the reservoir, which lies in an area where the border between the foes is ill-defined. However the ground reality is that the Tigers control the area, military sources said.

The Tigers, want a separate ethnic Tamil homeland and pulled out of peace talks in April, deny shutting the sluice gate themselves and say it was done by local Tamil civilians angry at the government. The Tigers said they had no details on any new clashes. Earlier, local Tiger political leader S. Elilan said the rebels had not yet observed any movement, but warned the army against entering their territory.

"If the military intend to advance into our area then they will see the consequences in a very strong manner," he told Reuters.

Diplomats fear that without new talks and with world attention focused on Lebanon, Sri Lanka could spiral back into a full-scale two decade-old civil war that has already killed more than 65,000 people on an island also hit by the 2004 tsunami.

JVP MP who went to open sluice gate heckled and chased away

Trincomalee district Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna parliamentarian Jayantha Wijesekara was heckled and chased away by the people staging a protest demanding the opening of Mawilaru sluice closed by the LTTE when he arrived at the scene of the protest.When the JVP parliamentarian arrived at the Kallar junction around 10.00 this morning, the crowd booed him saying that they saw him only today after the election. The crowd had jeered and booed him for about 15 minutes until he left the area.It is also reported that Wijesekara had arrived at the Kallar camp yesterday and spend the night there.

Govt. encourages diplomats to talk to LTTE in Kilinochchi

The government has decided to encourage interested foreign parties to visit Kilinochchi and talk to the LTTE directly bypassing the Foreign Ministry. The Foreign Ministry had earlier expressed concern at various arms of the government overlooking protocol and dealing directly with foreign dignitaries bypassing the Ministry. The government's decision to encourage interested foreign parties to meet with the LTTE in Kilinochchi is aimed at bringing the Tigers back to the table. The government is also encouraged by the silence maintained by the JVP and JHU over such visits, informed sources said.

The JVP and JHU took to the streets protesting visits by foreign dignitaries to Kilinochchi during the UNP rule between 2002-2004 and charged it eroded the country's sovereignty. Early July, former Sinn Fein Chief Negotiator and Irish Minister Martin McGuinness visited Kilinochchi and met with LTTE Political Wing Leader S. P. Tamilselvan and announced it was a 'huge mistake' for the EU leaders to demonise the LTTE and the political leaders of the LTTE. He said it was a mistake for the EU to ban the LTTE. The visit of McGuinness was organised by President's Coordinating Secretary Sajin Vass Gunawardena and the Foreign Ministry was not involved in it.

On Friday, a British diplomatic delegation led by Deputy High Commissioner, Lesley Craig visited Kilinochchi and met with Tamilselvan where the deteriorating security situation and LTTE's September 1 deadline for SLMM monitors from EU countries to withdraw were discussed among other matters. Associated with Craig at the talks were Second Secretary for Political Affairs John Culley, Political and Press Officer Nilakshan Swarnarajah and Programme Assistant D. Sirisena. LTTE is banned in Britain.

Contacted by The Sunday Leader, Foreign Ministry Secretary, H. M. S. Palihakkara said all queries should be referred to the Government Peace Secretariat and declined further comment. Peace Secretariat Head, Palitha Kohona however said the visit of the British diplomats to Kilinochchi was done with their knowledge. "Usually embassies do undertake visits and let us know as a courtesy. They make their own arrangements," he said.

Asked whether the government did not express any concern at the visit considering the LTTE being a banned organisation in Britain, Kohona said, "Should not that be a concern to the British High Commission rather than the Government?" He said the government has continued to maintain that interested foreign parties should talk to the LTTE. Kohona confirmed that "the Foreign Ministry was not involved in any of this."

"The normal procedure is for SCOPP to be advised. Certainly I knew about Lesley's visit and she told us the previous week she was planning to go and sent us a fax giving the times etc.," Kohona also said. However, Kohona said the SCOPP was not involved in the visit of McGuinness and that it was done by a different arm of the government.

SL Air Force bombed LTTE Thenaham base in East

Eight Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) members, 2 offiicals and 6 cadres, were killed and four wounded when Sri Lanka Air Force bombed Liberation Tigers' Thenaham Conference Centre in Karadiyanaru, 24 kilometers northwest of Batticaloa. Thenaham was the LTTE's headquarters in Batticaloa District earlier. Later, it was made guest house and was being used as Conference Centre by the Tigers. Foreign diplomats and SLMM officials were received by the Tigers at Thenaham. SLAF bombers attacked the LTTE run Thenaham between 11:30 and 12:00 Saturday. Batticaloa Head of Tamileelam War Hero's Affairs, Thamilchelvan mama and Batticaloa Coordinator of Village Development Scheme Ariharan were among the dead, according to LTTE Batticaloa Political Head Daya Mohan. Kfir jets dropped 12 bombs in three rounds, destroying the Conference Centre.Kavi, Mathusuthan, Chensudar, Uravan, Sujeevan and Lokithan were LTTE cadres killed in the attack, according to Mr. Daya Mohan.The LTTE officials were having a preparatory meeting ahead of a public event scheduled to be held Saturday.

Meanwhile Army Chief of Staff General Nanda Mallawarachchi was in Trincomallee to direct ground troops to resolve the water crisis after the Tigers closed the Mawilaru sluice gates. The LTTE on July 20 forcibly closed the sluice gate of the Mawilaru Anicut that provides water to Seruwila, Muttur and Eachchilampattu areas in the Trincomalee District, thus preventing the flow of water that sustains over 15,000 families and irrigates approximately 30,000 acres of paddy land. The people in these villages are dependent on the water supplied by the Mawilaru Anicut for drinking and agriculture purposes.

JHU MPs Venerable Athuraliye Ratana thera and Akmeemana Dayaratana thera along with villagers in the affected Serunuwara marched down the Allai-Kantalai road towards Mawilaru yesterday morning. However they were not allowed to move beyond Kallaru junction by the Army. On hearing the incident General Mallawarachchi dispatched 22 Division Commander Major General Mendaka Samarasinghe to Kallaru to brief the protesting monks.

General Mallawarachchi had given a personal assurance through Major General Samarasinghe to the JHU monks that the military would attend to the matter and restore water supply within the next 24 hours. Meanwhile the LTTE had complained to the SLMM in Batticaloa about the Karadiyanaru incident. The government said that the air strikes were aimed at destroying a new air strip the LTTE was building in Mullaitivu. However military sources said that some of the air strikes were to support a contingent of ground troops who had moved into the Mawilaru area.

Defence Spokesman Minister Keheliya Rambukwella told The Nation that airstrikes will continue until the air strip is completely destroyed. It was observed that construction activity was taking place on an unauthorized airstrip at a location in the Mullaitivu district. Further investigation had revealed that the forest had been cleared and an unpaved airstrip constructed at this facility. Minister Rambukwella also said that troops had entered un-demarcated area in Vakarai and will continue to forge ahead until sluice gates are reopened despite attacks from Tigers.

Nallur Murugan Temple annual festival begins

The twenty-five day annual festival of the historic Nallur Kandasamy Temple in Jaffna began 30 July Sunday 10:30 a.m. with the Sacred Flag hoisting ceremony (Kodi Etram). The Sacred Flag for the ceremony was brought to the temple premises from Gurunathar temple located close to the Sattanathar temple Saturday morning in a procession of devotees.The festival will culminate in Theertham (Water cutting) on the penultimate day, followed by Poonkavanam on the last day of the month long festival.

Although the annual festival in the vastly renovated Temple turns Jaffna into a virtual spiritual town, this year the mood is likely to be subdued due to the unstable security climate in Jaffna. The daily festival events are to conclude before 5:00 p.m. everyday, temple administrators said.Temple adminstrators have appealed to the devotees to avoid engaging in acitivities around the temple premises that will draw the attention of security forces.

Although the traditional volunteer groups, St Johns Ambulance brigade, and scouts from nearby high schools will be present during the festivals to provide support to devotees and regulate devotee movements, temple adminstrators raised concerns on the co-operation the volunteer groups will receive from the Sri Lanka security forces, temple sources said.

Historians say that the history of the Nallur temple is closely intertwined with the history of Jaffna. Prof.Gunrarasa of Jaffna University in his book on the Temple says that the Temple was originally constructed in a place called Kurukal Valavu in A.D 948. The temple was destroyed in AD 1450 during the invasion of the Sinhalese King Shenpakaperumal (Sapumal Kumaraya).

The same king resurrected the temple and the environments in Muthiraichanthai in 1467. The temple was again destroyed at its foundation by Portugese commander Philip De Olivereira in 1621. The Dutch rebuilt a Christian Church at the same premises. In 1734 Krishnaiyar Suppier established a smaller shrine in Muthiraichanthi in rememberance of the destroyed Kandaswami temple.

29 July 2006

Sri Lanka bombs Tigers for fourth day; monitors in crisis

Sri Lankan Air Force jets bombed Tamil Tiger positions in the island's restive east for a fourth day on Saturday in a battle over water supplies, the rebels said, as Nordic truce monitors faced crisis after member-nations quit. Military officials said an operation to clear access to a sluice gate, which they accuse the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of blocking to choke water supplies to Sinhalese farmers on government land, was underway but gave no details. A Reuters photographer in the eastern district of Trincomalee heard the bombers fly overhead and heard the explosions.

"The army started shelling us this morning, and then the bombers arrived," said S. Elilan, head of the Tigers' political wing in the district. "They bombed near the water tank, but people have already moved away from there, so there were no injuries." Elilan said rebel fighters chased away army ground troops as the sides battled with mortars on Friday, but the military denied ground troops had approached the area from a camp 3 miles (5 km) away. Hardline Buddhist monks in saffron robes who who hate the Tigers and are allied to President Mahinda Rajapakse are trying to reach the sluice gate themselves.

Many observers fear the fighting could spiral out of control, rupture a 2002 truce and restart a two-decade civil war that has already killed more than 65,000 people. Analysts and diplomats worry an exodus of truce monitors from Finland and Denmark after the rebels issued an ultimatum in the face of a European Union terror ban could create a dangerous vacuum and make the situation even more volatile. The Tigers demanded monitors from European Union states Sweden, Finland and Denmark quit the 5-nation Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) by September 1 after the EU listed them as terrorists alongside al Qaeda.

The Finns and Danes said they had been left with no choice but to remove 22 monitors between them in the absence of security guarantees. Sweden has not yet decided. Their exit will badly hamper the mission at a time when it is monitoring the bloodiest period since the ceasefire. More than 800 people, most of them civilians, have been killed so far this year. "With these countries out, it reduces the mission by more than a third and is a serious task to solve," said SLMM spokesman Thorfinnur Omarsson. "We will wait to get a final decision from Sweden. Then it is in the hands of Norway and Iceland." "It's a question of how we can have the manpower to keep the operation functioning," he added. "One option is to get additional countries involved."

Sri Lanka's strained peace process is deadlocked. The Tigers have pulled out of peace talks indefinitely, Rajapakse has rejected their demand for a separate Tamil homeland outright, and analysts and diplomats widely fear it could take years to seal a final peace deal.

Kalmunai MC deplores attack on Lebanon, Palestine

The Kalmunai Municipal Council (KMC) Friday at its monthly meeting unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the indiscriminate attack by the State of Israel on Lebanon and Palestine. Mr.K.M.A Razak, councillor of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) proposed the motion and seconded by Mr.Henry Mahendran, Deputy Leader of TELO & leader of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchchi (ITAK) members in the council, sources said. Mr. A.R.Ajmeer, Mayor presided the KMC monthly meeting for the first time. He did not attend the inaugural meeting of the KMC when it was convened last month.

Mayor Mr.Ajmeer said his council would take all steps to promote healthy relationship between two communities Muslims and Tamils and also would implement development works without any difference to any community.He added that he also lost his mother in the 2004 tsunami and he would see that rehabilitation of tsunami affected families would be carried out effectively and efficiently without giving any room for indiscrimination and irregularities, sources said.

S Lanka criticises monitors' exit 
 
The Sri Lankan government has criticised the decision by Denmark and Finland to withdraw their ceasefire monitors from the state. A spokesman reportedly said they would resist any moves to reconstitute the mission (SLMM) without being consulted. The states' decision followed a demand by the Tamil Tigers that EU states quit the mission, after the EU listed the rebels as a terrorist group. The truce has been severely undermined in the recent upsurge of violence. More than 700 people have been killed since the beginning of the year, with many civilians among the casualties.

'Unilateral move'

The rebels demanded the pull-out because they said individuals from EU member states could no longer be neutral in observing the four-year-old ceasefire. The Tigers said the monitors should leave by 1 September - which Finland and Denmark have agreed to do. Sweden - the only other EU state in the monitoring mission - said its teams would stay on for now. Government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said Colombo had yet to be formally informed of the Danish and Finnish decision, but was "against any unilateral move". "There is a ceasefire agreement and according to that any decision to change the SLMM must be done through consultations with all," he said, quoted by the Agence France Presse news agency. The three EU states provide 40 of the 57 monitors on the team. Norway and Iceland have said they cannot fill the gaps alone.

Sri Lanka rickshaw explodes at rebel checkpoint

A three-wheeled autorickshaw with one person aboard exploded in a possible suicide attack on a Tamil Tiger rebel checkpoint in eastern Sri Lanka on Friday, ceasefire monitors said.The Nordic-staffed Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission said the vehicle had blown up on the rebel front-line. A military source said they believed it might be a suicide attack.“The driver was in the three-wheeler when it blew up,” said the monitoring mission’s spokesman Robert Nielsson, adding that he had no details of other casualties. “We are on the scene now.”The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) confirmed an explosion but had no details.More than 800 people have died so far this year in violence between the Tigers, the army and breakaway ex-rebels the Karuna group who the LTTE say are now army-backed.

Nandana Gunatilake's absence catches Sri Lanka media's attention

The absence of a Kalutara district parliamentarian and politbureau member of the People's Liberation Front (JVP) grabbed media attention at the press conference held at the party office to announce that the JVP had come forward to form a broad front to confront the present situation. JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe, General Secretary Tilvin Silva, Information Secretary Wimal Weerawansa and members of the politbureau Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Lal Kantha were present at the meeting.

Leading JVPer Nandana Gunatilake, who did not attend, was the party's presidential candidate for the 2000 presidential election. Possible defection of the senior JVPer was discussed in political circles after he met President Rajapaksa without the party's approval. Meanwhile, the government rejected the JVP's claim at the media meeting that the ‘Mahinda Chinthana’ is gradually becoming inadequate. The JVP also blasted the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission at the press briefing and said it should be expelled from the country.

British diplomat meets LTTE leaders in Kilinochchi

Britain said yesterday a dialogue was necessary if progress was to be made towards a sustainable peace settlement in Sri Lanka and urged both parties to fulfill their commitments made at Geneva. The comment was made by Deputy High Commissioner Lesley Craig when she met LTTE Political Wing Leader S.P.Thamilselvan in Kilinochchi.British High Commission spokesperson said: “We stressed the importance of bringing an end to the killings, intimidation, acts of violence and abductions. The commitments made at Geneva should be fulfilled by both parties and the cease-fire adhered to”.

“We stressed the need to dialogue. It was imperative that the parties engaged in talks at all levels in order to solve problems, overcome misunderstandings and build trust and confidence. A dialogue was necessary if progress was to be made towards a sustainable peace settlement which addressed the aspirations of all communities in Sri Lanka.”The meeting was an opportunity to discuss the current situation, its impact on civilians and the role of the international community, they said. The spokesman also said they had raised concerns about the continuing high levels of violence including the issue of child soldiers. “We reaffirmed our support for the vital work of the Norwegian facilitators and the important role of the SLMM,” the spokesperson said.

Another UNP parliamentarian joins the Sri Lanka government

United National Party (UNP) Anuradhapura District Member of Parliament W.B. Ekanayaka joined the Sri Lanka government yesterday as the Deputy Minister of Highways. Mr. Ekanayaka is the fifth UNP MP to join the government with portfolios in support of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Ekanayaka took oaths as the Deputy Minister and officially accepted his duties yesterday. His crossover was a long-expected one, delayed by pressure from the UNP leadership to prevent the government from “fishing” for its parliamentarians.

WPPF quits All Party Conference

Western Province People's Front (WPPF) leader, Mano Ganeshan, said Friday that his party is quitting the All Party Representatives group, political sources in Colombo said. "We joined the APC on the basis of exploring ways for the communities in Sri Lanka to live together. We now realize that the APC is an elaborate drama to fool the International Community," Mr Ganesan said."We cannot be participants in an effort that denigrates the rights of the Tamil people to share in sovereignty and political power of Sri Lanka," Mr Ganesan added.

All Party Conference (APC) was initiated by Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse to explore constitutional reforms, but many political observers and LTTE have questioned the bona fides of the Sri Lanka's President in mooting the process.Observers point out that strident anti-federalists of the calibre of H.L.de Silva and Mr Gomin Dayasiri, forming the core of the expert panel formed to advise the APC, the APC has little chance of making any progress towards peace.

Japan begins survey of Mannar bridge, causeway

The Government of Japan (GOJ) commenced survey work on the basic design of the Mannar Bridge and causeway, through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) on Thursday, a spokesman for JICA said.The basic design ready to be completed in December 2006, for the approval of GOJ and construction is expected to commence in September 2007.The Mannar Bridge is 140 metres long together with a causeway, 3.5km in length. It is the only access to the Mannar Island, by road from the mainland. The Centre span of the bridge was blasted in July 1990, and was replaced with a bailey bridge, as a temporary measure to ensure the supply of essential goods to 41,700 people living in the Mannar Island.

Improvements to the bridge and access road between Mannar and the mainland will increase the efficiency of the marketing of fish resulting in an increase of income of fishing communities.The bridge will be constructed on grant aid from the GOJ and is part of the reconstruction programme of seven bridges identified by bridge development master plan of JICA. The construction of the Manampitiya Bridge is currently in progress, also under grant aid from Japan, the spokesman added.

Three Sri Lankan homeguards killed in Claymore ambush

Three homeguards, riding in a motorbike, were killed in a Claymore ambush on Vavuniya Kebitigollawe Road around 6:45 p.m. Friday, Police said. The homeguards were returning home after duty in a single motorbike when they were hit by the explosion.They were identified as G.Sunil Gunawardena, Saman Kumara Dissanayake and Bandage Thillakartna.Home Guards are drawn mostly from Sinhala villages close to the Tamil border in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka.Home Guards, officialy known as Home Guards Service, was formed in 1984 as a supplementary force to assist Sri Lanka Army, Navy, Air Force and police.They are trained, armed and deployed under the direct supervision of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA).

Can India trust the Sri Lankan President?
 
On November 18 last year, then Sri Lankan prime minister Mahinda Rajapakse got a rather pleasant 60th birthday gift: News that he had been elected as the President of the island nation. Just two years before that, he was not even counted among the important candidates in the race for the top post.Sri Lanka Freedom Party supremo and then president Chandrika Kumaratunga never helped Rajapakse's career. But he bagged the coveted post with a combination of circumstances, his hawkish stance against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and solid backing from the Buddhist monks' party Jathika Hela Urumaya and the Marxist-nationalist party Janatha Vimukti Peramuna.

In just one year, Rajapakse is at the centre stage of the 23-year-old ongoing struggle against the LTTE for supremacy in North and East Sri Lanka.The world's eyes are on President Rajapakse, because his nation again wants neighbouring India to help cage the Tigers, once and for all.In the presidential elections, the support of voters in south Sri Lanka was crucial to Rajapakse defeating United National Party candidate Ranil Wickramasinghe, a former prime minister.Plugging into the hawkish mood of his core voters, Rajapakse took the help of some nationalist Sinhala Buddhist monks, who are ever ready to vehemently oppose the LTTE and its leader, Vellupillai Prabhakaran.

Rajapakse did token campaigning in Tamil areas like Vavuniya in northern Sri Lanka, but his focus was on popular Sinhala sentiment.Southern Sri Lanka is a stronghold of Sinhala chauvinists who have become impatient with the LTTE's terror politics. These Sinhala chauvinists want a full-blown war. And they are asking India to lend its military might -- mainly sophisticated radars and fighter jets -- to crush the LTTE."You can't expect us to fight a first-rate war with a third world army," a Rajapakse confidante admitted to rediff.com

In the last six months, 3,500 Tamil refugees have arrived on Indian shores from Sri Lanka. New Delhi is debating whether Rajapakse, the politician, can be trusted; and to what extent.President Rajapakse has not even completed a year in office. So, it is too early to arrive at a final judgment. But some pointers have emerged, which make it clear that New Delhi's task of dealing with Sri Lanka's ethnic problem, which is of great strategic concern to India, will continue to be fraught with hurdles.

The rise of Rajapakse

Rajapakse's rise signifies the 'capture' of power within the Sri Lanka Freedom Party by the lower strata of Sinhalese society.He is neither a member of the Kandy-based powerful elite nor from the Bandaranaike clan who have had a grip over Sri Lankan politics and business for nearly half a century.Rajapakse -- who was born in south Sri Lanka's Hambantota district, whose voters are engaged by nationalist leaders of all hues -- is a Left-of-Centre political leader.His father D A Rajapakse was a friend of then Sri Lankan prime minister S W R D Bandaranaike and a cofounder of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party.

D A Rajapakse was elected to parliament from Beliatta in Hambantota between 1947 and 1965. Mahinda Rajapakse has been winning from the same area since the 1970s.Then president Chandrika Kumaratunga made him a minister in 1994 and 2001, but he did not get any high-profile job. Between 2001 and 2004, he was the leader of the Opposition. In April 2004, after the United People's Freedom Alliance won a parliamentary election, Kumaratunga appointed Rajapakse as prime minister.Rajapakse's political strength is his mass base; he is a street-savvy politician who can connect with voters.

He is aware that his strength lies in his distance from the ruling elite. His campaign slogan was 'Apey Mahinda' (Our Own Mahinda).His grassroot politics helped when his day of reckoning came in 2004. He outran Lakshman Kadirgamar in the race to the prime minister's post.Unlike then President Ranasinghe Premadasa's temporary success in the United National Party, Rajapakse is more ambitious to leave his mark on Sri Lankan politics.

The other President

Rajapakse's profile has some interesting facets. The Vishwa Bharati university in Santiniketan, West Bengal, has honoured him as Professor Emeritus for his active participation in human rights issues.He was a regular visitor to the Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra, a human rights non-governmental organisation in Dehradun, Uttaranchal.For a while now, Rajapakse leads the Sri Lankan Committee for Solidarity with Palestine. He had close ties with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. When Rajapakse met an Indian media team at his home on July 20, he expressed pain over Israel's bombings of Lebanon and complained that the West was silent over the killing of innocents.

Indirectly, he pointed out that if he had emulated Israel's offensive on the Hezbollah bases and gone to war with the LTTE to weed them out of northern and eastern Sri Lanka, India and European countries would have protested strongly and intervened.It is obvious that he will have to deal with India before he 'finalises' his plan and approach to deal with the LTTE.

The hawk versus the dove

Because he has won election after election from the strongholds of Sinhalese chauvinism, he has to take those people along in his course of action vis-a-vis the LTTE.In this grave time of undeclared war in his country, he has already risked his credibility and neutrality by appointing H L de Silva, a hardliner lawyer, to chair the 15-member multi-ethnic experts' panel.

H L de Silva is also appearing for the Marxist-nationalist party JVP to plead the case in the Sri Lankan supreme court against the temporary de-merger of the North and East as a single administrative unit. The merger of the North and the East is one of the basic demands of the Sri Lankan Tamils and was accepted in the 1987 India-Sri Lanka accord signed by then Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and then Sri Lankan President J R Jayawardene.

At same time, the lure of power compels President Rajapakse to become flexible, reasonable and serve the larger interest of Sri Lanka. The factors working against that is his dependency on the JVP and the Buddhist monks' party JHU. That is the challenge before him.

India is taking its time to weigh the situation before taking sides.

Indian diplomats are aware that right now, Rajapakse is not in a position to take bold steps in seeking a solution to the LTTE problem. Both supporting parties are capable of derailing any process.Some leaders belonging to the elite within Rakapakse's party would like him to see him fail.Many observers in Colombo believe the president is toying with the idea of dissolving the assembly -- where he is dependent on these hawkish parties -- and trying to cash in on his goodwill to get a majority.Aware of his limitations, Rajapakse has impatiently reached out to Prabkhakaran with all sorts of mediators, including two Sri Lankan Tamil editors.Rajapakse's prime demand to India is to bring Prabhakaran out of his hideouts. The day Prabhakaran sits across his table, the LTTE supremo's mystique and his clout will vanish, the president reckons.

Critics' Complaints

Rajapakse's initial approach has not left Sri Lanka's well-wishers happy. Since he took over as president, about 750 civilians, LTTE men and security personnel have been killed.His critics describe him as an irreversible hawk and blame him for the deadlock in the Norway-facilitated peace process. During his election campaign he openly advocated that the Norwegians should quit the peace talks, the critics complain.In person, the president doesn't look a hardliner. He gives the impression of a man with reasonable flexibility. His positive vibes with India may be born out of necessity, but even Prabhakaran had to concede that the president is a practical man.

Importantly, Sri Lankan Tamils have noticed that Rajapakse is not talking about a federal set-up. Most observers agree that such a set-up -- which India strongly advocates -- would be the ideal solution for the island nation.Before the election, Rajapakse was talking about a 'unitary' constitution to unite divided Sri Lankans.As an Indian diplomat pointed out, India is the only country seeking for a federal solution to Sri Lanka's ethnic problem. All other regional players and well-wishers are not concerned about the long-term outcome. Most European countries are trying for peace in the short term.

Here lies the weak link of Rajapakse's politics.

He advocates a solution in Sri Lankan colours, which would be acceptable to all communities -- the Sinhalese, the Tamils and the Muslims. Now, he has appointed an All Party Committee which will decide what could be offered to Prabhakaran so that he ends the bloody conflict with his own nation.Many experts believe that it is a time-consuming process and there is only a very remote chance of Rajapakse succeeding in arriving at a consensus.But that does not mean he will not try. He is young (by heads of State standards), active and would like to spring some surprise on Prabhakaran.When the Indian media team met President Rajapakse in Colombo, he tried hard to convince the Indians that he is a man conscious of history who can deliver enduring peace -- if India remains on his side.

28 July 2006

Finland to pull observers from Sri Lanka ahead of Tigers' deadline
 
Finland is to recall its observers from Sri Lanka on security grounds before the September 1 deadline set by Tamil Tiger rebels for all European Union ceasefire monitors to leave, the Finnish foreign ministry said on Friday."Based on the fact that the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) are not going to guarantee the monitors' safety after September 1, we will recall our observers by then," ministry spokeswoman Marita Maunola told AFP.

The Tamil Tigers demanded that observers from the three EU countries monitoring their ceasefire with the army -- Denmark, Finland and Sweden -- leave the country after the 25-nation bloc added the LTTE to its list of "terrorist" organisations in May. The remaining members of the observer mission come from non-EU states Iceland and Norway.

Two policemen shot dead in Trincomalee

Two policemen were shot dead by unidentified men at Poompuhar in Palaiyootu, a suburb, about 3 k.m. off Trincomalee town, around 12.15 p.m, Friday. They were identified as Sergeant Sarath and constable Jesurajah, police sources said.Both were rushed to Trincomalee general hospital immediately after the attack but later succumbed to injuries on admission, medical sources said.The security forces launched a cordon and search operation in the area. Tension prevailed in the area. Shops were closed and roads and lanes in the area have been deserted, sources said.

Tiger rebels killed in air strike 
 
Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels say six fighters have been killed in air strikes in the country's north-east. The pro-rebel TamilNet website quoted a Tiger leader saying five rebels and three civilians were also wounded. The military said the bombing was aimed at stopping the Tigers building an airstrip in Mullaitivu district. The government and the Tamil Tigers are formally committed to a 2002 ceasefire, but fighting has killed hundreds of people this year. Rebel leader S Elilan told TamilNet the six rebels were killed when the air force bombed a rebel camp close to a water facility.

Defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella told the BBC the air raid was a precise and targeted attack. "We have photographs of construction of an airstrip," he said. "This is an infringement of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country and can cause a threat to the region." It is not clear how much damage was done to the site. On Wednesday, the air force bombed an area of Trincomalee district in a dispute about water supplies. The government said raids were aimed at ending a rebel blockade of water supplies, but the Tigers said Tamil civilians had blocked the water supplies in a dispute with the government over irrigation.

In other developments, army commander Lt Gen Sarath Fonseka has returned to Sri Lanka after receiving treatment in Singapore for injuries suffered in April's Tamil Tiger suicide attack on army headquarters in Colombo that left eight people dead. Lt Gen Fonseka "has resumed his duties as commander of the army", the government website reported.

Ratwatte sues for divorce

Former Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte had filed a divorce case before the Colombo District Court alleging malicious desertion.In the application for divorce against Ms. Ramani Imbuldeniya, Mr. Ratwatte of Rajagirya Gardens, Nawala complained that Ms. Imbulgdeniya had gone on a foreign tour in May 2005 without informing him. In his application Mr. Ratwatte claimed that after her arrival in Sri Lanka, friends and relatives had tried to reunite them but failed.They were married on May 30, 1996 when Mr. Ratwatte was 56 years old and Ms. Imbuldeniya was 51.

SLAF Kfir bombers attack Mullaithivu village

Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Kfir bombers Thursday morning dropped bombs from high altitude near a civilian settlement, Keppapulavu, 7.3 km west of Mullaithivu, around 9:30 a.m. Thursday morning. A Sri Lankan reconnaisance plane was also observed, civilian sources said. In the meantime, Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) boats were observed around 1 km from the shore in Mullaithivu.

Lieutenant and doctor arrested in a rest home

A Sinhala lieutenant of the army and a Tamil woman doctor who were taken into police custody while occupying a room in a rest home in Anuradhapura town were remanded till July 31 by the Anuradhapura Magistrate Wasantha Jinadasa.Police informed Court by a “B” report that they were checking whether the arrestees were connected to terrorist activities and requested that they be remanded.A special police team had arrested them yesterday early morning and produced in court.The lieutenant is attached to an army camp in Jaffna and the doctor is a resident in Chetticulam, Vavuniya.

Lawyers appearing for the two submitted that they were lovers and as such they had stayed in the hotel. He requested they be released on bail.The Magistrate refused to grant bail because of the security situation in the country and remanded them.The Magistrate ordered the Colombo Crime Division to submit a full report on the doctor and ordered the military police for a report on the lieutenant. Anuradhapura SP, McCorthy Perera is directing further investigatons.

Former president of Fisheries Society shot dead

Former president of a Fisheries Society in Pt.Pedro was shot dead at his home in Supparmadam by unidentified men riding a motorbike, around 7.30 a.m., Thursday. The incident occured about 100 metres from Sri Lanka Army's 52-4 Brigade Camp.Kandaiah Sithravadivel,59, was an active contributor to development of Fisheries Societies in Pt.Pedro, sources said.Last week, the president of the Fisheries Society was abducted men in white van.

Politically motivated killings on the rise reveals HRC report

A report by the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has said that there is an imperative need to review emergency regulations without delay to minimize human rights violations at the hands of the police and security forces especially during conflict situations.The report dated March 31, 2006 has been forwarded to President Mahinda Rajapakse and is signed by former judge T. Suntheralingam.Suntheralingam was appointed Special Rapporteur on Conflict Related Human Rights Violations by the Human Rights Commission in Sri Lanka.

In his observations on conflict related human rights violations, Suntheralingam has said the spate of politically motivated killings and incidents of human rights violations continued even after the Presidential Election in November 2005."Perhaps some of the appointments made to the defence structure soon after the new President assumed office could possibly have prompted these incidents.

The appointment of General Sarath Fonseka as the Army Commander and Ratnasiri Wickremanayake as the Prime Minister, both of whom are known for their chauvinistic views and the appointment of H.M.G.B Kotakadeniya a former Deputy Inspector General of Police, who was later the Secretary of the JHU, as the adviser on police matters at the Defence Ministry, sent signals that the state was getting ready to confront the militants and move away from seeking a peaceful settlement on the conflict," the report said.

The report added that while majority of the killings in the east were reportedly committed by the LTTE, the Karuna group could also be held responsible for many of them.Some of the killings were also attributed to a third group like the EPDP etc. while there were allegations against the military too for such incidents, the report adds.Suntheralingam in his observations further said that although the IGP and the Army Commander had issued statements to the contrary, the fact that at the meeting in Geneva in February 2006, the government delegation had agreed to disarm the paramilitary groups operating in the country was ample proof of their existence.

"Even the SLMM had confirmed this fact. In view of this factor it is hard to fix responsibility for some of the killings to one group or the other," the report said.The report added that following the killing of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar on August 15, 2005, the then government thought it necessary to activate the emergency regulations on the pretext that there had arisen a need to strengthen the hands of the police and the security forces to contain the escalation of violence in the country.

However, subsequent events proved that it did not help in stemming the increase of violence, instead it led to an increase in the incidence of human rights violations in the country in general and in the north and east, in particular, the report said.

LTTE will give up soon: Indian top cop

Extolling the Sri Lankan government for its efforts to control the present crisis in the island, India's super cop and counter-terror expert, KPS Gill, says that the LTTE will soon give up its fight."With international pressure mounting and the European Union banning the group, the Tigers will soon have to bow down," Gill, who is credited with flushing out terrorism from Punjab, told HindustanTimes.Com."You cannot support terror in any part of the world and that has been realised globally," he said.A surge in violence since the end of 2005 has inflamed the situation in Sri Lanka.

Ever since the abortive suicide bomber attack on Army Chief Lt Gen Sarath Fonseka, killings by both sides have increased threatening to take beautiful Serendib back to war again. Gill suggests strong action against terror."Terror has to be dealt with firmly. The war against terror has to be sustained and fought every minute of the day."After the withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in March 1990, Gill was invited to Sri Lanka to advise the government on VVIP security.During his visit in 2000, the counter-terror expert met the then President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who was very impressed with the top cop's anti-militancy work in Punjab.

On the constant allegation that the Sri Lankan security forces were committing excesses on civilians and killing them wantonly, Gill said: "It is one of the techniques of terror to spread such stories about the security forces. This is done to affect the opinion of the general masses and the LTTE did this very successfully."In an earlier interview to HindustanTimes.com, Gill had stressed that the IPKF experience was not a sour one.Had the peacekeepers stayed on for six more months, the situation would have returned to normal in Sri Lanka, he said.

27 July 2006

SLAF conduct air raids in east
 
The Sri Lankan Air Force carried out air raids on Tamil Tiger rebel held area in the east. The government say the attacks are to facilitate the opening of an anicut to supply water to 15000 families. Earlier the Tamil Tigers were accused of closing the water supply to the area irrigated through Maavil Aru canal.Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) spokesman Paul Bjerke told the BBC that the bombing happened in South of Muttur in the Trincomalee district.Planning and Implementation Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said the attacks were "intended to help irrigation engineers gain access to the Maavil Aru canal".

Military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe quoting the Sri Lanka Air Force said that the attacks were against suspected Tamil Tiger positions "in and around Verugal area".Officials accuse the Tigers of blocking sluice gates of the canal located in the rebel held area and preventing the irrigation of thousands of acres of farmland.

Farmers protest

Villagers and farmers led by the Chief Buddhist prelate of the east Seruwila Saranakiththi thero held a protest on Tuesday demanding the government to get the sluice gates open.The SLMM spokesman said that the LTTE has handed over a letter addressed to the government stating conditions to open the sluice gates."I don't want to go into details of the demands," said spokesman Bjerke adding that it is "up to the government to discuss the suggessions".According to the the government peace secretariat the Maavil Aru sluice gates provide water to 35,000 acres of paddy fields.

War Crimes

the government say the Tamil Tigers are preventing free flow of water to over 15000 families.In a statement issued by the government it says, "It is recognised that denial of water to civilians and hostile acts against infrastructure indispensable to the survival of civilian population constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity."

Bauer here to fix SLMM crisis

Norway's special envoy Jon Hanssen Bauer is due here this week in a bid to resolve the crisis affecting the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) following the LTTE's demand for the ouster of its European Union members, the Government announced yesterday. Defence spokesman Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said efforts are being made at various levels to reach an agreement on the truce monitors' issue, since the LTTE wanted the EU members pulled out from the Mission following the ban imposed on the outfit by the 25-nation EU in June.

Addressing the weekly security news briefing, the Minister said discussions were held between Peace Secretariat officials and ambassadors of the four Nordic countries Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland in Colombo yesterday. "But all our efforts have ended on a negative note so far," Rambukwella who is also the Minister for Plan Implementation said. "Last week special Swedish envoy Andres Oljelund met the LTTE leadership in Killinochchi but we were told that the talks were not a success," he said, adding that the LTTE was still demanding removal of EU monitors before the next month is out.

He said in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) the parties reached in 2002 February, it was decided to employ nationals from five Nordic countries including Iceland as monitors. "Both the MoU and the CFA provide space for modification and revisions," he said, insisting that any modifications and revisions should be arrived after multilateral negotiations. "Any unilateral decision would make the agreement null and void," the Minister explained.

"We are sticking to our earlier stance and we have no reason to send EU monitors away," he said, but added that the Government was ready to negotiate. Following the EU ban, the LTTE called for the removal of 37 monitors from three EU countries. If the EU members are forced to leave as demanded by the LTTE before the end of this month it would leave the 60 strong monitoring body with less than 25 members from Norway and Iceland, the two non-EU Nordic countries in the mission.

Akashi will come if Prabhakaran agrees to meet him

Japanese special envoy Yasushi Akashi will come to Sri Lanka next month, only if LTTE Leader Velupillai Prabhakaran agrees to meet him, a Japanese Embassy spokesman said.He said that if the LTTE leader refused to meet Mr. Akashi, the Japanese government would go ahead with its decision to ban LTTE fund raising activities and freeze LTTE assets in Japan.The spokesman said the embassy would contact Mr. Prabhakaran shortly to arrange a meeting with Mr. Akashi.

He said that Mr. Akashi was also scheduled to meet President Rajapaksa and UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe among others.“But all depends on the LTTE’s reaction, as Mr. Akashi has already had discussions with the LTTE’s political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan and other Tiger leaders”, he said.Early this week Japanese diplomats said Mr. Akashi would visit Sri Lanka for another effort at persuading the LTTE to resume peace talks with the government.   

SLMM monitors should be sent packing, but govt has no backbone to do it

The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission monitors should definitely be expelled from Sri lanka but the government has no backbone for that, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna leader Somawansa Amarasinghe said in a press briefing in Colombo yesterday.When asked by a journalist whether the JVP had taken up the issue with the President, he replied that thus far they had not discussed the issue with the President but added that they hope to do so in future.

The JVP politburo has decided to form a broad alliance to defeat foreign conspiracies to divide the country, to strengthen the economy of the country and to combat terrorism Amarasinghe said while adding that talks will be held with all parties for this purpose and had already conducted talks with the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. He pledged to brief the media on these talks in the future. When asked whether there is a need for a United Nations peace keeping force, the JVP leader ruled out the possibility and stressed that he believed 100% that our security forces and the police can defeat terrorism.

Two killed in Sri Lanka violence

Two roadside bombs went off in northern Sri Lanka on Thursday, killing a newspaper vendor and wounding a soldier and a civilian, the military said. Military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe blamed the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam for the consecutive blasts in Jaffna Peninsula, a predominantly Tamil area. Samarasinghe said the target of the bombs was a Sri Lankan military patrol, but the first one killed the newspaper vendor. The second one wounded one soldier and one civilian, he said.

Separately, another civilian was killed in Point Pedro, which serves as a small harbor in Jaffna Peninsula, said an official at the Defence Ministry's Media Unit in Colombo. The victim was shot in the head, said the official, who cannot be named because of military regulations. The attacks were the latest in a surge of violence involving government troops and the rebels, threatening to destroy a 2002 cease-fire and return the island to full-scale civil war.

Armed gang frees Sri Lankan prisoners

An armed gang freed two prisoners, both Sri Lankan Tamils, from police escort, while they were being taken back in a bus to Tiruchi Central Prison from here on Wednesday. The group sped away in a van that was following the bus. An escort policemen foiled the attempt made by two more prisoners to escape. Following the daring incident, the police sounded an alert and launched a hunt to track down the prisoners as well as their rescuers. Six special police teams have been formed. Vehicle checks and checking of lodges have been intensified.

According to police sources, Selvakumar, Imtiaz Ahmed, Sozhan and Settu, all involved in narcotic smuggling cases in various places, were produced before the Essential Commodities Court at Pudukottai. Two policemen were escorting them. Just as the vehicle left the bus stand, five to six persons boarded the vehicle. When it was approaching Mathur, six armed persons approached the driver and forced him to stop the vehicle. They also inflicted injuries on him. They then sprayed chilli powder on the escort policemen and took away Selva Kumar and Imtiaz Ahmed. Inspector-General of Police, Central Zone, M.S. Jaffar Sait, and senior police officers rushed to the spot and conducted enquiries. The Keeranur police have registered a case.

DPU Claymore hits MPCS lorry in Mannar, 2 wounded

A lorry belonging to Madhu Multi-Purpose Co-operative Society (MPCS) was attacked by a Claymore mine placed inside the LTTE held Panichchankulam in the Mannar district Wednesday morning around 11.30 a.m. The driver and cleaner of the lorry were injured. The Claymore mine was allegedly placed by the Deep Penetration Unit (DPU) of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), civil sources said.The lorry was transporting huller and other related materials for the rice mill currently under construction at Sinnavalayankaddu with the financial support of the UNDP at that time of incident from Aandankulam.

Sinnavalayankaddu and Aandankulam are located in the LTTE held region.Panichchankulam is located about 25 km off north of Madhu.The driver of the lorry Sahayanathan Lambert, 44, father of four, sustained injuries and dispatched to Killinochchi hospital.Cleaner of the lorry, Annasamy Sebastiampillai, 48, sustained minor injuries.

Australia moves to ban the LTTE

The Government is working with the Australian authorities to get the LTTE banned in the country, owing to its failure to return to the negotiating table. The LTTE was, at one time, listed as a terrorist group in Australia but was later removed from the list, in support of the peace process which commenced in 2002.Government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said that Australian government representatives had got in touch with him to gather further information on the violent acts committed by the rebels in recent times.The Daily Mirror learns that the Australian Government is at present working on a blueprint to blacklist the LTTE which was recently banned in the EU and Canada.It is also learnt Japan has also hinted at freezing LTTE assets, to pressurize the rebels to give up violence and return to negotiations.

Tamil gang leader quietly turfed

A man described by Toronto Police as a gang leader and a "trained assassin" has been secretly deported to his native Sri Lanka after an eight-year court battle to stay in Canada. In 1998, Niranjan Claude Fabian, 38, was deemed a danger to the public because he was a member of the Tamil Tigers terrorist group. Officials had been trying since then to deport Fabian, a member of the VVT, a Tamil gang active in the Toronto area. "Those who undermine the safety of our communities are not welcome in Canada," Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said yesterday.

PUT ON AIRPLANE   

Patrizia Giolti, of the Canada Border Services Agency, confirmed that Fabian had been deported by her officers, but would not say what country he had been sent to, citing concern for his security. However, Canadian police officials and reports in Tamil newspapers confirmed the gang leader was escorted onto a commercial flight to Sri Lanka last Friday. Before leaving last week, Fabian is reported to have said his "blood will be on the Canadian public's hands" if he is captured or killed in Sri Lanka. He was jailed for 16 months in 1998 for fraud, counselling to commit murder and possessing a forged passport.

LED CLASHES

Toronto Police have confirmed Fabian was the third-in-command of the VVT. He spearheaded a series of clashes with the rival AK Kannan gang which resulted in the deaths of at least 12 people in the Toronto area in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The two gangs have been feuding for years over turf and the lucrative illicit drug market. Fabian was described by police as a "trained assassin" for the Tamil Tigers. That allegation was never tested in court.

26 July 2006

Tamils recall Black July Thousands gather in Hyde Park remembrance

Tamils gather at Hyde Park, London, to mark 23rd anniversary of Black July 1983 Genocide The crowd was addressed by several speakers, including Selvam Adaikalanathan,TELO Leader & TNA MP and Karen Parker, an internationally respected Human Rights lawyer.Mr. Parker criticised the extensive human rights abuses which have taken place throughout this year. Pointing out Sri Lanka was an island in conflict she said rights abuses in times of conflict are also war crimes.

Mr. Adaikalanathan praised the Tamil diaspora for their unstinting support for the people of the Northeast during the times of conflict.However he said that the Diaspora must help build up the emerging state in the Northeast, just as it had stood shoulder to shoulder with the Tamil liberation struggle.The Sri Lankan state was seeking ways to crush the Tamil people and the malevolent intent behind the July 1983 riots continued today amid disappearances, killings, bombings and so on.

Pointing out how Sinhala jailors and inmates in Welikade jail massacred Tamil prisoners including TELO leader Kittumani and Thangathurai, Mr, Adaikalanathan, who presently leads the TELO party, said the defiance with which the Tamil people resisted Sinhala aggression then was the same today.“You, the expatriates, helped stave off annihilation during the conflict. You helped us survive the economic embargo the Sinhala state imposed on the Tamils.”He criticised the EU and other bans of the Liberation Tigers as onesided and hypocritical.

“Look at the reasons the international community gives for banning the LTTE. I ask you, does not what the LTTE is accused of pale into insignificance compared to the actions of the Sri Lankan state? Yet the condemn the LTTE and praise the state.”“Look at what is happening in Middle East today. Look at the enormous civilian suffering and destruction being visited by Israel’s military. But the international community refuses to condemn that. Is this fair?”

“We, the Tamils, have a just cause. We have every right to rule ourselves in our homeland. On what basis can they deny us this right? On what basis can the international community condemn our struggle as terrorism?”“If we are to overcome our obstacles, we must be strong. We must stand united under one flag. We must do so until there is a place in the world every Tamil can look to as home, until Tamil Eelam is realised.”

The crowd was addressed by Mr. A. C. Shanthan of the British Tamil Association.“We are gathered here to remember the thousands of people brutally killed in the July 1983 pogrom,” he said.“We remember how Kuttumani and others had the eyes gouged out for wanting to see Tamil Eelam before they died. We remember how thousands of people were horrifically destroyed.”

“That event was a turning point. We came to realise that the Sinhala state was determined to wipe us out as a people. Not only us, but the international community became aware of the nature of the state.”It was also a turning point because many thousands joined the liberation struggle. And India came forward to help arm and train them and to support the Tamil struggle.”

“There are two major achievements after 23 years of struggle. First, we have seen the liberation of 70% of our homeland. Secondly, a Tamil state is emerging in our homeland.”“Still our struggle is not over. The new government of Mahinda Rajapske has been in power for six months. In that time, over five hundred Tamil civilians have been murdered. Things are getting worse every day. Horrific atrocities are taking place. Four thousand people have fled to India.”

“It is after Mahinda came to power that Army-backed paramilitaries expanded and escalated their atrocities against the Tamil people.”“The international community does not seem to appreciate the plight of our people. Instead of helping to end the suffering and in pressuring the Sri Lanka government, it is denouncing the Tamil struggle as terrorism. The EU and Canada have recently banned the Liberation Tigers.”

“But in Canada, in Europe, everywhere our people are united in demanding an end to these bans,” he said to growing applause.“We are gathered here today to send a message to the international community: you cannot split the Tigers and the Tamil people. They are united in their cause of liberation,” he said to enthusiastic clapping.

How many lives were sacrificed before government entered a federal solution?-UNP

If the government does not need the support of the United National Party to find a solution to the national problem, the UNP should not be involved in the issue, party Assistant General Secretary Tissa Attanayake said. If the government can achieve a solution without the UNP, the party will extend its unconditional support to the government without sabotaging it, he noted.He was reacting to claims made by the JVP and the Jathika Hela Urumaya playing down the Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe's recent visit to India and talks with the Indian authorities as an LTTE propaganda exercise.

Attanayake questioned as to why the government seeks the support of the UNP, when government allies disparage talks Wickremesinghe had with Indian leaders. The President has told he BBC that a solution to the North and East problem would be a federal solution and Attanayake questioned how many lives were sacrificed by the government before the government adopted this stand.

Man shot dead, another injured in Vavuniya

A young man was shot dead and another was injured in two seperate incidents, Wednesday morning in Vavuniya, police in the northern town said.Ramasamy Jeyakody,40, an employee at the Vavuniya Urban Council was shot dead at Vepankulam by unidentified men around 8 a.m., at Vepankulam, the police said. Vepankulam is 3 k.m., northwest of Vavuniya.Separately, a youth was shot and seriously injured at Katkuli, a suburb of Vavuniya town, around 10.45 a.m., the police said.He was admitted at the Vabuniya hospital.

Milinda attacks UNP politburo and pulls out

The UNP’s controversial frontliner Milinda Moragoda yesterday resigned from the party’s Political Affairs Committee saying the committee was a forum by which the public was made aware of divisions and discontentment within the party.In his resignation letter, to UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe Mr. Moragoda said the party’s new policy making body was created on the insistence of a few on an ad hoc basis to provide an alternative forum for discussing and resolving various problematic issues.

“Unfortunately, the composition of the Committee and the attempts by some of its members to broaden its functions, has led the committee to become dysfunctional, and detrimental to the party’s interests. The Committee has become the means by which the public is made aware of divisions and discontentment within the party, exacerbating problems, and leading many including myself, to question its usefulness. I had hoped that, in time, a more constructive atmosphere would evolve and enable me to make a modest contribution to its work,” Mr. Moragoda said.

UNHCR chief visits war-torn S.Lanka, to meet rebels

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres visited Sri Lanka's war-torn northeast on Wednesday to assess the plight of thousands of internally displaced and meet the Tamil Tiger rebels.Guterres' visit comes against a backdrop of escalating violence between the military and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which many fear could rupture a 2002 ceasefire and open a new chapter of a two-decade civil war that has killed over 65,000 people.It also comes days ahead of a new visit by Norwegian special peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer amid fresh diplomatic efforts to break a deadlock in talks between the foes, the government said.

"The purpose of (Guterres') visit is to meet displaced people in the north and east of the country and hear first-hand their concerns and needs," UN refugee agency UNHCR said in a statement."He is to meet local officials as well as members of the LTTE to discuss humanitarian issues related to displaced people."UNHCR estimates there are around 315,000 long-term internally displaced in Sri Lanka due to the protracted conflict, 67,000 of whom live in camps and around 247,000 of whom live with relatives and friends.

There are another 125,000 Sri Lankan refugees abroad, 68,000 of them in neighbouring India.Unarmed Nordic truce monitors say a rash of clashes and attacks have killed more than 800 people so far this year -- most of them civilians. Tens of thousands more have been displaced due to renewed fighting in recent months, several thousand of whom have paid smugglers to ferry them to India.

DAILY VIOLENCE

Sporadic violence continued on Wednesday, when a police constable was shot and injured at a checkpoint in the northwestern district of Mannar. That attack in turn came after two policemen were injured in a grenade attack in the north on Tuesday.The attacks were a fresh reminder of the anti-Tamil riots in July 1983, triggered after the Tigers killed 13 soldiers that marked the start of civil war.

The scars of that war are deep. Many civilians in the northern army-held Jaffna peninsula are too scared to venture out after dark because of nightly shootings and attacks.Ordinary Tamils resent what they see as an army occupation of Jaffna -- their cultural heartland -- where vast tracts of prime farmland are cordoned off as military high security zones and still peppered with landmines.

Some openly back the Tigers, who have been listed as a terrorist group by the United States, Britain, India, Canada and the European Union."I lost my father in 1988 due to shelling. I was just two years old," said 18-year-old student Kuganathan Navaratnam, standing outside a Jaffna bank."I am studying well. I would love to join the LTTE, but I can't leave my mother and sister," he added. "There will only be a war if it is started by the government."

Analysts fear it could take years to cement a lasting peace.The Tigers demand a separate homeland in the north and east, where they already run a de facto state, which President Mahinda Rajapakse has flatly rejected.

Army Chief resumes duties

Army Commander Sarath Fonseka resumed duties yesterday after his return from Singapore where he underwent medical treatment, the military said.Military Spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said the Army Chief arrived in Colombo yesterday evening. “Soon after his return, he resumed duties in his post as the Commander of the Army”, Brigadier Samarasinghe said adding that his health condition was satisfactory.Lt. Gen. Fonseka was flown to Singapore a few weeks ago for further medical treatment following the failed LTTE suicide blast inside the Army Headquarters on April 25.

The Ceylon Petroleum Storage Terminals Ltd strike was called off

Two days of trade union action by the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) were called off this evening after the Sri Lankan government assured the strikers that their demand would be addressed within two weeks. Sources said the decision came after a discussion between trade union officials and presidential advisor on trade unions Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra this evening. The government assured union officials that their demand to remove the newly appointed chairman of Ceylon Petroleum Corporation Storage Terminals Ltd, Asantha de Mel, would be addressed. Due to the two days of trade union action, thousands of vehicle owners were stranded without fuel and public transport came to a standstill

Karuna faction bans Tamil newspapers

The renegade Karuna faction has banned the circulation of “The Thinakkural” and 'The Sudaroli' Tamil newspapers in Batticaloa. As a result the publishers have suspended their circulation in Batticaloa from Yesterday. However Karuna faction sources said that they have not imposed such a ban.

Threat to Magistrate: Action against three soldiers

Jaffna Magistrate, E. T. Vignarajah on Monday, ordered psychiatric tests for the three army personnel accused of threatening Additional Magistrate Srinithi Nanthisekaran with death, after police officers told courts they had doubts about the mental stability of the soldiers, TamilNet reported.The magistrate also directed the Jaffna Army Commander to take steps to identify any other soldiers who may be suffering from any mental instability and take remedial action, TamilNet said.Military Police officers told courts that disciplinary action was taken against the three accused solders by suspending their promotions.

The Jaffna Commander A Chandrasiri sent to courts a report in Sinhala stating that as instructed by the Magistrate on July 4 the three accused Army soldiers have been transferred to other positions where they would not come into contact with the public, TamilNet said. The Jaffna District Magistrate pointed out to the Major General that the language of courts in North and East was Tamil and warned that if any report was submitted to the courts in Sinhala in future, he would reject the report, TamiNet said.

JHU demands India's statement on Buddhagaya Bo tree

The Jahika Hela Urumaya (JHU) is demanding that the Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka Nirupama Rao issue a statement on what really happened to the branch of the Buddhagaya Bo tree. "The media has carried conflicting stories. We don’t know what has happened," General Secretary of the JHU Ven. Dr. Omalpe Sobitha Thera said.A branch of the Sri Maha Bodhi tree at Buddhagaya (Bodhgaya) India, under which the Buddha attained enlightenment, was found cut on Thursday (20). Botanists said the branch had been cut some two days ago. However, thereafter, some media reports said that the cut was not a new one. "We want a statement from the Indian High Commissioner on what really happened to the branch of the Bo tree," Sobitha Thera said.

India should play a more influential role in Sri Lanka's peace process - Akashi

Japanese special envoy Yasushi Akashi, who is set to visit Sri Lanka next month, has urged India to play a more influential role in Sri Lanka's peace process. Akashi told a media agency, “I attached great importance for the role India does play and can play in the future in Sri Lanka. “Because of their experience of the 1980s, Indians are obviously very careful,” Akashi said. “But [India's] stake [in] Sri Lankan stability is unmistakable.... India has a lot of knowledge and experience about Sri Lanka, and Sri Lankan leaders are well aware of that. So we are anxious that India plays a more influential role in Sri Lanka.”

Tamils recall Black July-TORONTO SUN
Hundreds died in Sri Lankan massacres in 1983

The memory of hundreds of Sri Lankan Tamils killed during the Black July of 1983 was kept alive last night as survivors gathered at Dundas Square. "Everyone here was a victim or related to victims of Black July," Yogeswaran Kumar said of the time when the Sri Lankan government launched a vicious nationwide anti-Tamil campaign that left hundreds dead and thousands homeless. Kumar was an accounting student in the capital city of Colombo when the terror was unleashed. His roommate was killed in the house where they lived and he survived because government soldiers were told he was Muslim. "One word saved my life," said Kumar, who is still incredulous at what turned out to be his good fortune.

FAMILY SURVIVED  

Thankarajah Ponniah's family survived to move to Canada where they were began a new life because the Sri Lankan government had burned everything they owned. Ponniah, now 77, said he went back to his Sri Lankan home in 1992 -- a year after moving to Canada -- to join his daughter, but their home had been bulldozed and everything was gone. "A soldier told me to go back to Canada," Ponniah remembered. "And I did, because I didn't have a reason to stay there." Now he tells his grandchildren about where their family came from and the days of terror and chaos they survived to start a new life for them. Ponniah's family is among 300,000 Canadians of Sri Lankan heritage now living in this country. "I am always the first to raise the flag on Canada Day," Ponniah said proudly. "Canada is a beautiful place for accommodating us."

New Delhi should change Lanka policy: Nedumaran
 
Tamizhar Desiya Iyyakkam (TDI) leader Pazha Nedumaran on Tuesday demanded that the Centre should change its approach and policy towards Sri Lanka and the Tamils of the island nation.Addressing a press conference here, he said the Manmohan Singh government, which was following the principles of late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, and already proved a failure, would not do any good to India or the Sri Lankan Tamils.Stating that Sri Lanka could never be loyal to India, Nedumaran pointed out that the cancellation of oil tanker lease given to India and taking over it by the Sri Lankan government last week was an act against the Indian government.

He said the Union Government, which supported the initiatives taken by Norway to bring peace in the island nation should stop supply of arms to Sri Lanka.Since Sri Lanka was not surrounded by an enemy country, it was very clear that the arms would be used for killing innocent Tamils in the island nation, he said, adding that India should understand this and stop supply of arms to Sri Lanka.While the Union Government allowed elected Sinhalese representatives to come to India and explained the situation to the ministers, similar gestures should also be shown to the Tamil representatives also.Then only India would be able to know the real picture prevailing in Sri Lanka, he added.He said the relief being provided by the Centre to the refugees from Sri Lanka was insufficient.

25 July 2006

Remember Them 23 years ago, The Black July of 1983

Fifty three Tamil political prisoners Massacre in Welikade Prison

It was on 25th and 27th July 1983, total of [(35) + (18 ) = 53 Tamil political prisoners were killed with impunity and the Sri Lanka government led by President J.R.Jayewardene remained as a passive observers of the whole sordid affair."Selvarajah Yogachandran, popularly known as Kuttimuni(TELO Secretary General ), a nominated member of the Sri Lankan Parliament...,one of the 52 prisoners killed in the maximum security Welikade prison in Colombo (on July 25) was forced to kneel in his cell, where he was under solitary confinement, by his assailants and ordered to pray to them. When he refused, he was taunted by his tormentors about his last wish, when he was sentenced to death. He had willed that his eyes be donated to some one so that at least that person would see an independent Tamil Eelam. The assailants then gouged his eyes...He was then stabbed to death and his testicles were wrenched from his body. This was confirmed by one of the doctors who had conducted the postmortem of the first group of 35 prisoners." Then President J.R.Jayewardene expressed no sorrow or grief for what had happened either at the Welikade high security prison or in the country. Unfortunately he never had any words of sympathy for those killed at the hands of the marauding assassins, but he by his words and deeds indicated that the anti-Tamils violence of the “Black July” was the fitting retribution to the death of the 13 Sinhala soldiers on 23 July 1983.

In the anti-Tamil pogrom of July 1983 thousands of Tamils were killed by mobs which waylaid them. Vehicles suspected of carrying Tamils were set ablaze with the occupants inside, Tamil pedestrians were killed on sight, and entire Tamil neighbourhoods were torched. Within days Colombo came to resemble a war zone, as Tamil-owned factories shops and homes were burnt to the ground, and the skyline marked by pillars of smoke. The violence soon spread to other cities.

There was of course, no attempt on the part of the authorities to stem the violence and it soon became impossible to persist with the canard that the violence was a spontaneous backlash to the killing of thirteen soldiers by Tamil guerrillas in the north. It was soon apparent that the anti-Tamil violence was a blatant attempt by the authorities to indicate to the Tamil guerrillas the vulnerability of Tamils in the south. The speeches made by parliamentarians belonging to the ruling UNP just prior to and soon after the attack, the findings by several independent agencies, and eyewitness accounts, leave little in doubt. The violence was nothing less than a state-orchestrated pogrom.

Just two weeks before the attacks on Tamil people and property, President J R Jayawardne was quoted by the  (London) Daily Telegraph of 11 July 1983 as saying

“I am not worried about the opinion of the Tamil people.. now we cannot think of them, not about their lives or their opinion ... Really if I starve the Tamils out, the Sinhala people will be happy”.

Nothing was heard from the President for 5 days into the pogrom, and when he appeared on television it was to say that the attacks were “not a product of urban mobs but a mass movement of the generality of the Sinhalese people and that “the time had come to accede to the clamour and the national respect of the Sinhalese people”.

The London Times of 5th August reported how “…Army personnel actively encouraged arson and the looting of Tamil business establishments and homes in Colombo” and how “absolutely no action was taken to apprehend or prevent the criminal elements involved in these activities. In many instances army personnel participated in the looting of shops.”

On 28th July, Indira Gandhi, the Indian Prime Minister telephoned the Sri Lankan President to express her concern about the fate of the Tamils and convey her decision to send her External Minister, Narasimha Rao on a fact finding mission. It was a veiled threat designed to show that India would not remain unconcerned in view of its own substantial Tamil population, which was becoming increasingly restive by the events in Sri Lanka. In the light of the Indian role in Pakistan’s civil war in 1969, resulting in the birth of Bangladesh, the Sri Lankan government could ill-afford to ignore this message from its powerful neighbour

The Government touted various conspiracy theories in a hurried and clumsy attempt to shift the blame, and distance itself from the perpetrators of the violence. Government spokesmen thereafter spoke of an anti-Government plot, a communist conspiracy, and foreign involvement, to explain the unchecked anti-Tamil violence of the previous weeks. Ananda Tissa de Alwis, a prominent member of the government saw in the violence, the hand of the KGB, while the President spoke of the possibility of the events being engineered by sections of the armed forces, and of a Naxalite plot, at the same time. The virulently anti-Tamil and anti-Indian Cyril Matthew saw only “the dirty hand of India”.

''A tourist told yesterday how she watched in horror as a Sinhala mob deliberately burned alive a bus load of Tamils... Mrs.Eli Skarstein, back home in Stavanger, Norway, told how she and her 15 year old daughter, Kristin, witnessed one massacre. 'A mini bus full of Tamils were forced to stop in front of us in Colombo' she said. A Sinhalese mob poured petrol over the bus and set it on fire. They blocked the car door and prevented the Tamils from leaving the vehicle. 'Hundreds of spectators watched as about 20 Tamils were burned to death'. Mrs. Skarstein added: 'We can't believe the official casualty figures. Hundreds may be thousands must have been killed already." (London Daily Express, 29th August 1983)

"Motorists were dragged from their cars to be stoned and beaten with sticks during racial violence in Colombo, the Sri Lanka capital yesterday (24 July). Others were cut down with knifes and axes. Mobs of Sinhala youth rampaged through the streets, ransacking homes, shops and offices, looting them and setting them ablaze, as they sought out members of the Tamil ethnic minority... A Sri Lankan friend told me by telephone last night how he had watched horrified earlier in the day as a mob attacked a Tamil cyclist riding near Colombo's eye hospital, a few hundred yards from the home of Junius Jayawardene, the nations 76 year old President. The cyclist was hauled from his bike, drenched with petrol and set alight. As he ran screaming down the street, the mob set on him again and hacked him down with jungle knifes.." (London Daily Telegraph, 26 July 1983)

''Pillars of smoke and flame rose over the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo yesterday as mobs attacked the minority Tamil community and looted their homes and stores...Some of the worst rioting erupted in the morning only 200 yards away from President Jayawardene's house... All over the city by mid-morning lorries jammed with young men shouting anti Tamil slogans, were moving into Tamil areas and into shopping centres picking out Tamil shops... Petrol was siphoned from cars into buckets and plastic bowls to speed the work of arson.. By noon Colombo resembled a city after a bombing raid. Smoke obscured the sun, main roads were blocked by burnt out vehicles.. The rioting surged into the heart of the city. In area after area Sinhalese rioters systematically picked out Tamil homes and shops, whether occupied or empty, and looted and destroyed them...'' (Guardian, 26 July 1983)

''Eye witnesses and victims reported that on the streets cars were stopped by gangs and the people inside were asked whether they were Sinhalese or Tamil. Some Sinhalese words are extremely difficult for people who do not speak the language fluently to pronounce, people were tested by being made to pronounce these words. The mobs were also demanding to see identity cards to establish whether or not people were Tamils... People identified as Tamils as a result of the questioning were told to get out of their cars and their cars were set alight... In cases where any resistance was offered, killings were likely to take place... It was reported by many people that in some instances students from Buddhist schools followed on behind the first rioters and that some Buddhist monks were seen amongst the gangs'' (Patricia Hyndman, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of New South Wales and Secretary, Lawasia Human Rights Standing Committee Report -Democracy in Peril, June 1985)Tamil owned businesses account for between 50 and 60 percent of the commercial life of the capital and they have been destroyed - scientifically extracted from among their neighbours and burned." (The London Times, 2 August 1983)

23 July 2006

India urges Federalism

“Ms. Gandhi has in a cryptic way conveyed the message to Wickremesinghe, that India regrets having taken a backseat in the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict over the past 15 years, leaving room for other interested parties. It is now clear that New Delhi would play a more pro-active role and not leave too much room for other players.”

Exactly 25 years to this date on July 23, 1981, the UNP, with its five- sixth majority in Parliament, mooted and debated a no-confidence motion against the Leader of Opposition Apapillai Amirthalingham. The TULF walked out in protest after Amirthalingam was heckled and not allowed to make a personal submission.SLFP deputy leader Maitripala Senanayake urged the Speaker to rule the motion out of order as such a move did not fall within the powers of Parliament. The rest of the opposition- the SLFP and the lone CP member Sarath Muttetuwegama- walked out of Parliament amidst a huge uproar exactly a quarter century ago.

It was TULF leader Amirthalingham who had initially mooted a no-confidence motion against the UNP government after the state-sponsored violence and mayhem in Jaffna in the run up to the District Development Council elections the previous month. Mind you, that was the very year Sri Lanka was celebrating 50 years of universal adult franchise. The golden jubilee of franchise and democracy was marred in Jaffna then. Today we mark the silver jubilee of a clear case of undemocratic rule where the steamroller majority was used to move a vote of no confidence on the Opposition Leader.

The UNP debated the motion sans the opposition.Majoritarian rule was entrenched by that time. Even the attempt to decentralize on district basis failed. What was given with one hand was attempted to be taken back this time with blood-stained hand. Two government ministers were at hand and over 500 policemen were dispatched to Jaffna to subvert democracy by intimidation. There was unrest and in the process three policemen were shot, and the police rioted with arson and killings. There was even an attempt to arrest the Leader of the Opposition on the eve of elections. The SLFP boycotted the polls and the previous year walked out during the debate on the District Development Council Bill.

The SLFP also opposed the 13th Amendment and the Provincial Council Bill in 1987 and boycotted the first PC polls the following year. History does repeat itself, they say. How true!The JVP launched its second uprising using the 1987 Indo-Lanka Peace Accord that provided for provincial councils. Ironically, it is the SLFP and the JVP that is in control of all the councils, barring the defunct North and East PCs.The North-East provincial council was a failure because the LTTE opposed it and the UNP government, under President Ranasinghe Premadasa, undermined the operation.

In exactly a week we would be stepping into the 20th year since the July 29, 1987 Accord was signed by Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.During a meeting with Jayewardene’s nephew, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe this week, Congress Leader Ms. Sonia Gandhi made it clear that the ethnic conflict should be resolved within the parameters of the 1987 Accord, lest there be other complexities. She also observed that there was no need to waste time looking for new models. India is clear about one thing! That any solution could not go beyond the Indian quasi-federal system.

Ms. Gandhi’s remarks make it clear that the Indian government does not agree to the JVP’s unit of devolution, the district. In fact during Wickremesinghe’s last meeting with Ms. Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in April this year, both leaders separately stressed that the time had come for devolving power, leaving the extremists and the chauvinistic groups behind. Dr. Singh spoke of a federal form of government. So it was clear that what India has in mind is a coming together of the two main Southern parties towards finding a political solution.

The General Secretary of the Marxist Communist party in India was also of the view that a federal form of government would be able to solve the ethnic crisis. He made this observation during his last meeting with Wickremesinghe. This relegates the JVP to the level of a chauvinistic group rather than a Marxist group. India is also miffed with the JVP, cultivated by the previous High Commissioner Nirupam Sen. This is particularly so because of the JVP gravitation towards China from the run up to the last general elections. We shall discuss the China axis of power and India’s worries later on in this column.

The LTTE is insisting that the provincial council was inadequate and federalism was the alternative to a separate state. Very recently LTTE’s ideologue Anton Balasingham remarked during a New Delhi Television (NDTV) interview that if the Indian form of federalism was offered in 1987, then the LTTE would have accepted it. Ms. Gandhi’s remarks that it was a waste of time looking at other models make it clear that the Indian Government does not want Swiss, Canadian and other models the LTTE and others were looking at. The Indian government has consistently maintained that foreign models should not be imposed on Sri Lanka. This limits the role of the larger international community and Wickremesinghe’s reference to the Tokyo and Oslo declarations may have been out of place.

Throughout the UNF peace process, India was not happy with the Japanese involvement even as Japan was keen on getting a toe-hold in South Asia via Sri Lanka.Ms. Gandhi has in a cryptic way conveyed the message to Wickremesinghe, that India regrets having taken a backseat in the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict over the past 15 years, leaving room for other interested parties. It is also clear that New Delhi would play a more pro-active role and not leave too much room for other players.

India has not taken kindly to the decision of Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera to allow the Chinese to operate from the Hambantota port. Hambantota is one of the deepest harbours in the world. Samaraweera and President Rajapakse were not successful in their previous visits to india while Wickremesinghe as Opposition leader was given right royal treatment. It could be to make amends for previous actions that saw the downfall of Wickremesinghe. In any case Wickremesinge, reeling under a major leadership crisis within his party, needed a moral booster.

Samaraweera who granted the Chinese a role in the Hambantota port recently was in India on an urgent invitation forcing him to cut short a trip to Helsinki. This time around India had a positive message for him about Indian involvement in ensuring a political solution to the ethnic conflict. Sri Lanka was set to end an agreement with a Norwegian Oil exploration company and commence an agreement for oil exploration with an Indian and Chinese company as part of its balancing action.

The Chinese interest in the Indian Ocean and recent remarks on these lines by Chinese leaders have been taken seriously by India. China’s growing importance in the Indian Ocean and the growth of Iran as a strong naval power in the oil-rich Persian Gulf that abuts on the Indian Ocean, are posing a threat to the international system that is dominated by the West, according to an article in the July 2006 issue of the Northeastern Monthly. The article is titled, “Conflict: India, U.S, China and Iran; or why the Sri Lanka crisis has to be resolved soon.”

The long-term strategy of China is to oppose the US in Asia as well as in other parts of the world says Zen Jon Ling a former Chinese diplomat now domiciled in Australia. According to Zen, China is wary of US foreign policy, which preserves friendly ties between them while making containment moves at the same time. He says China is therefore using its naval presence in Myanmar (Burma), the Maldives, Pakistan and Iran in order to establish its dominance and power in the Indian Ocean region.

The biggest current world news is about the action in Lebanon where Israel, an ally of the US, has continued its air raids on Beirut, killing hundreds of civilians. This follows the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah. Ground troops are also invading Lebanon. The reaction far outweighs the capture of two soldiers and some say Lebanon is the ideal gateway to launch an attack on Iran. While many world leaders feel the action was unwarranted, US President George Bush has failed to make a reasonable statement. The leaders at the G8 meeting in St. Petersburg failed to come up with a meaningful statement on the Israel action in Lebanon.

JVP to join Govt.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is to join the Government, after talks currently under way to formulate a Common Minimum Programme (CMP), are concluded.Government and JVP leaders have already had three rounds of talks so far to work out areas that should be covered by the proposed CMP. It is expected to include a joint approach towards resolving the ethnic issue, dealing with the international community and tackling economic issues. President Mahinda Rajapaksa led the Government side during the three rounds of talks held at “Temple Trees” on July 14, 19 and 20. With him were SLFP General Secretary Maithripala Sirisena, Ministers Nimal Siripala de Silva, Susil Premajayantha and Parliamentarian Dullas Allahapperuma.

The JVP team was headed by its leader Somawansa Amerasinghe and comprised General Secretary Tilvin Silva, Parliamentary Group leader Wimal Weerawansa and Anura Dissanayake. President Rajapaksa made clear during the talks that the support and backing from the JVP, as a partner in the Government, would go a long way in achieving the ideals his Government stood for. JVP leader Amerasinghe made clear his party wanted to ensure that there was a clear cut programme of action agreed upon. Hence the move to agree on a Common Minimum Programme. Mr. Amerasinghe wants to go public with such a CMP at a news conference soon after an accord is reached during talks with President Rajapaksa and other Government leaders.

Although the issue of cabinet portfolios to the JVP members has still not been discussed, The Sunday Times learns that President Rajapaksa may offer them four ministries. A cabinet reshuffle that is to take effect after the Government and the JVP reaches accord on a CMP will see the emergence of 36 ministries, according to highly-placed government sources. The next round of talks to reach finality on the CMP is to be held at Janadipathi Mandiraya. President Rajapaksa moved in there yesterday. This was after a pirith ceremony on Friday night followed by a dana yesterday.

Rukman UNP Chairman?

Kegalle District UNP MP, Rukman Senanayake is tipped to be appointed as UNP Chairman on Tuesday when the Political Affairs Committee meets under the Chairmanship of party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. Party sources disclosed that the majority of MPs have recommended Senanayake's nomination to the post with incumbent Malik Samarawickreme due to tender his resignation. Rukman is one of the seniormost members now in the party having entered parliament in 1973 after the demise of his uncle,the late Dudley Senanayake. Party sources said that Rukman had the full backing of the UNP leader and his Deputy, Karu Jayasuriya too in the move to elevate him as party Chairman.

SB resists move to make Rukman UNP chairman
 
An effort by UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe to make Rukman Senanayake, MP, the UNP’s chairman was shot down by the party’s national organiser, S. B. Dissanayake, who indicated that he would contest Senanayake for the job if such a move was attempted.Well informed political sources said that Wickremesinghe had invited Dissanayake for a meeting at Siri Kotha on Monday evening and when Dissanayake got there he found Malik Samarawickrema, the incumbent party chairman, and Tissa Attanayake, the assistant secretary, already closeted with the leader.

Samarawickrema had bowled the googly asking Dissanayake, "should we not appoint Rukman Senanayake as party chairman?’’Dissanayake had resisted this suggestion saying that there was already a decision that Karu Jayasuriya should be the party chairman and handle UNP reforms and wanted to know why there was a sudden change of thinking. Wickremesinghe and Samarawickrema had presented the case for appointing Senanayake chairman but Dissanayake was not biting. He had said that if this was the case he would also throw his own hat into the ring.

An year’s extension for Major General Mallawaratchchi
 
The term of office of Major General Nanda Mallawaratchchi, now acting Commander of the Sri Lanka Army, is to be extended by one year. It is to take effect in the coming week through a Gazette notification.The decision to do so, The Sunday Times learns, has been taken by President Mahinda Rajapakasa, who is also Minister of Defence and Commander-in-chief of the armed forces.Maj. Gen. Mallawaratchchi, if he is not granted an extension of service, will have to retire on August 2 this year upon reaching 55 years, the age of retirement. Extensions of service of senior officers, beyond the age of 55, have been granted in the past too. This was under special circumstances.

One such instance was the extension of the service of Major General (now retired) Neil Dias. He reached 55, the age of retirement, on June 14, 2000. However, former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, through a Gazette notification (1136/7) dated June 13 2000 extended his term for six months. Similarly, Major General (now retired as General) Lionel Balagalle was to have retired on April 12, 2001. Through a Gazette notification (1179/21) dated April 12 2001 his term was extended till December 31, 2001- a period of eight months and 18 days.

The extension of service for Maj. Gen. Mallawaratchchi would mean he will serve in his substantive post as Chief of Staff of the Army for a further year. He was appointed acting Commander of the Army on July 7. This was two months and 11 days after the Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka was injured when a female suicide bomber infiltrated Army Headquarters and carried out an attack on his motorcade. He will function in this acting capacity until the return of Lt. Gen. Fonseka who is still undergoing treatment in a Singapore hospital.

Despite periodic media reports of Lt. Gen. Fonseka's return to Army Headquarters, it has been delayed. As a result, the passing out parade and related ceremonies of a team of officer cadets at the Military Academy in Diyatalawa was put off at least on three different occasions. It was held yesterday in the absence of Lt. Gen. Fonseka. Taking his place was acting Commander Maj. Gen. Mallawaratchchi.Maj. Gen. Mallawaratchchi assumed office as Chief of Staff of the Army on December 26, 2004. Born on August 3, 1951, his career in the Army has spanned 34 years. This was after he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Sri Lanka Light Infantry in 1972.

FEATURE-Killings, horror rise in Sri Lanka's war zone

THIRAIMADU, Sri Lanka, July 23 (Reuters) - Bodies dumped in wells, dead children hung from rafters and underage boys abducted to fight.During two decades of civil war, such atrocities were commonplace in Sri Lanka but a ceasefire since 2002 halted the worst of the attacks on children.Now, with violence rising, nightmare tales and gory pictures are again emerging from the island's war-battered north and east. But apportioning blame is hard and global interest limited.In addition, many of these areas were badly battered by the deadly 2004 tsunami, and the nation's combatants are finding fertile ground in camps for survivors of the disaster.

In the island's east, temporary relief camps like Thiraimadu were hastily built but these have to proved to be easy places for children to be abducted to be trained as soldiers."Some people come for boys and take them away," Indrajh Piyaraj, 24, told Reuters as he returned from washing. "Some come back but refuse to say what happened. They said their faces were covered with cloth and they didn't know where they were taken."Not everyone gets away from abductions alive.In a nearby village close to the front line of rebel Tamil Tiger territory, a few burnt scraps of cloth and discoloured sand mark where three young men were shot and burned.After the funeral, the family refused to say who they believe killed the men for fear of retribution. Villagers were also too scared to say.

BLAME GAME

Near an army camp in the north in May, a family showed Reuters where they had dug away the earth around their front door to remove blood and brains after unidentified gunmen shot dead a father in front of his young children.In northwestern Mannar district, photos showed a family slaughtered in their home, the bodies -- including those of young children -- left hanging from the roof. The army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) blamed each other.With more than 700 people dead so far this year, almost all of them in the past three months, apportioning blame in each case is almost impossible.

The government and the rebels, who want a separate homeland in the island's north and east for minority Tamils, publish lurid pictures. Each claim