Solution To The University Crisis: A View From An Academic

By Amal S. Kumarage -

Prof. Amal S. Kumarage

Mr CA Chandraprema in his article published in the SundayIslandof 19^th August has dedicated two paragraphs to my detailed response to his previous criticism of the current trade union action of academics. Even though he states that his faith in academia has been restored after reading my article, I find that his faith is still wavering as it has not stopped his dismissal of the key issues and usual endorsement of Government view. I was however encouraged enough to write a further article to address the concern he has raised why ‘senior academics’ were not involved in negotiations and in drafting the FUTA demands.

Missing the Issue by asking ‘Who’ instead of ‘What”

Sri Lankan society has steadily been conditioned to filter any information based on who says it rather than what is said. From branding all dissent as ‘unpatriotic’, all criticism as ‘politically intent’ and even opinion as ‘unnecessary’, society has been conditioned to listen to and believe in a single source as opposed to appreciating different views. This sadly, in spite of our long legacy of education, reflects the lack of a truly educated populace. In the context of the current trade union action, the attempts at dismissing FUTA as extreme and painting all universities and academics as clowns in a circus are attempts at yet again distancing the populace from one of the last bastions of resistance to popular political ideology that seems bent on making people accept explanation without inquiry and leadership without accountability. Many responses to my earlier article called it ‘realistic’ and ‘moderate’. Thus I stand on that confirmation to propose the following as a direction towards solving the university crisis.

Slipping and Sliding: Irresponsible Stewardship

The Table 1 shows funding for full time undergraduate courses for the last 3 years where detailed figures are available.

     Read More

Family members of misplaced person stage protest in Vavuniya 
[ Thursday, 30 August 2012, 12:28.31 PM GMT +05:30 ]To commemorate the international misplace person day organizers of the local and the international human rights organizations organized special protest in front of the Vavuniya bus depot today.Protesters urge the government to release the name list of misplaced persons in the country.
Members of the Tamil National Alliance and the Democratic People Front refused to take part in this protest.

On the international misplaced persons day victims urge to hold special investigations on misplaced persons under the direction of united nation.
Family members of misplaced persons in Vavuniya were present at this protest.
Family members of the misplace persons stress to grant opportunity to meet UN panel.
Family members of the misplaced persons, Human rights house, Mannar People organizations and several other movements organized this protest. 
Large crowd gathered at the protest and urge to release their husband and children. They also stress to release information’s about their loved one.
Hundreds of people were present at the protest stage in front of the Vavuniya bus depot today.
Protesters stated Lankan government is the only responsible for the disappearance of their relatives.
At last protesters marched up to the Vavuniya cultural center. Many leaders delivered speech at the meeting.
Organizers stated this protest was organised by none government organizations in the district. 

World marks day of the missing

August 29, 2012 8:54 am  •  Associated Press

FILE - This a Monday, April 30, 2007 file photo of Argentina's Mothers of Plaza de Mayo hold torches as they rally with torches to mark the 30th anniversary of their first protest around Buenos Aires Plaza de Mayo to demand the return of their disappeared children on April 30, 1977. Tens of thousands of people throughout the world are listed as missing in armed conflicts and after illegal arrests, detentions, abduction or any other form of deprivation of human rights and liberty. On the International Day of the Disappeared on Thursday Aug.30, 2012 the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) called on all governments to provide answers to families on the fate and whereabouts of the missing persons.(AP Photo/Eduardo Di Baia, File)

Tens of thousands of people around the world are missing today because of armed conflicts or human rights abuses such as abductions and illegal arrests and detentions.

As it prepares to mark the International Day of the Disappeared on Thursday, the International Commission on Missing Persons urged governments to provide families with answers about the fates and whereabouts of their missing loved ones. Human rights groups called such disappearances a crime against humanity that must be stopped.

WHO IS A MISSING PERSON?

Individuals reported missing because of in-country or international armed conflicts, or disturbances that require action by a neutral and independent body. Also, people who have been taken into custody by officials who refuse to publicly acknowledge that or conceal the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared persons.

WHICH ARE THE MOST PROMINENT CASES?

ARGENTINA _ Some 13,000 people are officially considered missing, thanks to the 1976-83 dictatorship in the military junta's campaign to eliminate political dissenters. Human rights groups say that number is 30,000. People were kidnapped, thrown in the back of trucks and taken to clandestine torture camps. Many were drugged, chained and thrown alive from airplanes into the Rio de la Plata river. A "Never Again" commission formed shortly after Argentina's democracy was restored in 1983 documented thousands of crimes against humanity during the military regime, but hardly any of the violators were prosecuted until Nestor Kirchner was elected president 20 years later.

BOSNIA _ Bosnian Serb troops overran the U.N.-protected enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995, killing an estimated 8,000 people. Most of the Bosnian Muslim men and boys were executed and buried in mass graves. Serbs tried to hide the crime by digging up the graves and distributing the remains in several other secret sites. The process led to the bones of the same people being found in several graves, or not found at all. More than 10,000 people, out of the 14,000 people still missing from the 1991-95 wars in the former Yugoslavia, are linked to the Bosnian conflict.

CAMBODIA _ In 1975-1979, Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge orchestrated a genocidal reign of terror ostensibly aimed at creating an agrarian utopia. By the time it was over, an estimated 1.7 million people were dead from executions, starvation and overwork. That number includes many missing people. Although several hundred mass grave sites have been found, most were never dug up. There has never been any comprehensive research or study to determine the number of missing. Countless families in Cambodia today have missing relatives who were never found and are presumed dead. A U.N.-backed tribunal was set up in 2006, but after six years and $160 million it has just begun the trials of three top Khmer Rouge leaders and only convicted former prison chief, Comrade Duch.

IRAQ _ An estimated 15,000 people have been missing in Iraq since the U.S.-led war, which began in 2003 and ended last year. Kamil Amin, a spokesman for Iraq's human rights ministry, said it has created a database of the missing, based on their relatives' accounts of their names, addresses, when they were last seen and the kind of clothes they were wearing when they disappeared. However, the ministry did not ask for international assistance in locating the people "because we consider the cases of those missing people as isolated and criminal cases."

KOREAS _ North Korea abducted about 86,000 South Koreans during the 1950-1953 Korean War and 700 others after it, according to the Seoul-based, government-affiliated National Committee on Investigating Abductions during the Korean War. South Korea has asked North Korea to return the abductees, but the North denies kidnapping them, according to committee official Kim Suk-nam.

TURKEY _ Although many mass graves in Turkey can be traced to the beginning of the century, a map recently published in the daily Radikal highlights the startling extent of such sites dating from the 1990s, when the war between the Turkish state and the Kurdish nationalist Kurdish Workers' Party was at its prime. The bodies of thousands of people were unceremoniously dumped into mass graves, says Amnesty International.

PAKISTAN _ Pakistan has joined a list of countries practicing enforced disappearance. People who have disappeared include foreign and Pakistani nationals suspected of links to terrorist groups and political opponents of the Pakistani government pushing for greater rights for their communities, including Baloch and Sindhis.

SRI LANKA _ Its civil war ended in 2009 after government troops defeated Tamil Tiger rebels who were fighting for a separate state in the country's north and east. Since then both government forces and rebels have been accused of rights violations during the conflict. The government has maintained a heavy military presence in the north, despite international calls for a reduction of troops there. Scores of ethnic Tamils suspected of having links with the rebels have disappeared, and so have several dissidents.

OTHER COUNTRIES OR REGIONS WITH MANY MISSING PERSONS

Armenia, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Burundi, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, East Timor, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Guatemala, Israel, Iran, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Mexico, Nepal, Peru, Russia, Senegal, Serbia, Kosovo, Uganda, Western Sahara.

Chinese Defence Minister in Sri Lanka to strengthen ties

ANANTH KRISHNAN-BEIJING, August 30, 2012

Chinese Defence Minister Liang Guanglie arrived in Colombo on Wednesday on a five-day visit aimed at solidifying military ties that have grown increasingly close following the end of the war in Sri Lanka.

General Liang’s trip comes amid reports that China will pledge US$ 100 million to help take forward Sri Lankan Army projects in the war-ravaged north and northeast.

During his five-day visit, General Liang and his 25-member delegation are scheduled to visit a number of military facilities in the north.

He is expected to give a lecture at the Defence Services Command and Staff College at Sapugaskanda, as well as visit an Army Cantonment in Panagoda and the Defence Services College in Colombo, for which China has provided some financial assistance.

He will also meet with President Mahinda Rajapaksa. On arrival at the Bandaranaike International Airport on Wednesday morning, General Liang was greeted by the Commander of the Sri Lankan Army, Lieutenant General Jagath Jayasuriya, Commander of the Navy Vice Admiral DWAS Dissanayake and Commander of the Air Force Air Marshal HD Abeywickrama, the Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence said in a statement.

In June, Sri Lanka and China pledged to deepen defence ties when Lieutenant General Jayasuriya visited Beijing. China’s substantial military assistance to the Sri Lankan government during the closing stages of the war in 2009 has been seen by Sri Lankan officials as crucial to their victory over the LTTE – a point stressed by every visiting Sri Lankan official to Beijing in recent months. General Liang said then that China was “willing to make joint efforts with Sri Lanka to boost bilateral relations".

China has also reiterated its support to Sri Lanka against persistent international pressure over its reconciliation process, with Chinese officials stressing that it was their view that Sri Lanka should address its internal issues without international interference. China has assured Sri Lanka, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, of its continued support against any international pressure.

Following his visit, General Liang will travel to New Delhi on Sunday, September 2, for a five-day visit to India, which will mark the first visit by a Chinese Defence Minister in seven years.

WikiLeaks: Lankans Were Doing Just Enough To Keep The Indians Satisfied For Now – Menon

By Colombo Telegraph -

Foreign Secretary Menon

“Responding to the Ambassador’s query about whether the Sri Lankan government was being responsive to demands from the international community to provide access to internally displaced persons, Menon said the Lankans were doing just enough to keep the Indians satisfied for now. On-the-ground cooperation with Indian relief providers was good, but he was unable to make any judgment about what the mid- to long-term prospects were for treatment of IDPs or on political devolution.” the US Embassy New Delhi informed Washington.

A Leaked “CONFIDENTIAL” US diplomatic cable, dated June 2, 2009, recounts the details of a meeting US officials in New Delhi, India has had with newly appointed Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and Indian Foreign Secretary Menon. The Colombo Telegraph found the related leaked cable from the WikiLeaks database.

Under the subheading “Sri Lanka: Delegation Coming Next Week” US  CDA Peter Burleigh wrote “The Sri Lankan President’s Senior Advisor Basil Rajapaksa as well as Secretary of Defense Gothabaya Rajapaksa were now slated to come to New Delhi for talks next week, but a time for these discussions had not yet been nailed down. He underscored that the GOI was interested in hearing Sri Lankan plans both with regard to Tamil IDPsand regarding political negotiations. He hoped that the GSL was not aiming for quick elections in the north to establish an unrepresentative provincial government, as had been done in the Easter Province earlier. Menon speculated that after the visit, the GOI should have a better feel for GSL intentions.”

Read the cable below for further details;          Read More

Fill Lacuna in LLRC action plan with sincerity - National Peace Council of Sri Lanka

Thursday, 30 August 2012

The translation of the Report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission into Sinhala and Tamil languages is an important step forward in preparing the ground for its implementation.   The National Peace Council welcomes this translation, and making the report accessible to the larger Sri Lankan population. The translations were handed over to the government representatives tasked with taking forward the implementation of the report earlier this month who pledged to print the documents and ensure their wide circulation.

It is significant that last month the government also released an Action Plan complete with key performance indicators with regard to the LLRC recommendations.   The government followed up on the presentation of its Action Plan with an invitation to the UN Human Rights Commissioner to send a technical team.  Both these governmental initiatives are in keeping with the contested vote at the March 2012 meeting of the UN Human Rights Council where a resolution was passed calling on the Sri Lankan government to implement the LLRC recommendations.

The National Peace Council welcomes the recent developments in regard to the government’s plans to implement the LLRC recommendations.  At the same time NPC calls on the government to take into account several lacunas that exist in relation to the Action Plan and where international technical assistance and consultation with civil society can provide positive outcomes.  One such lacuna pertains to the key role given to the Parliamentary Select Committee on constitutional issues which has yet to be appointed.  The government needs to ensure that all stakeholders in Parliament agree to join this committee and engage in constructive dialogue within it.   The TNA in particular is demanding certain commitments on devolution before participation in the PSC. We suggest that the government should assure the Tamil people that it accepts the 13th Amendment and will seek to overcome its inadequacies through discussions in the PSC.

Another lacuna relates to recommendations in the LLRC report that appear to have been left out of the LLRC Action Plan of the government.  These include dealing with the needs of families of missing persons who number in the thousands.  International technical expertise can play a helpful role in bringing an element of closure to this problem by addressing the psycho social needs of the affected population, restoring their livelihoods, and help regain their lost dignity to enable them to look forward to a future with hope where reconciliation within and between communities will become realities.  NPC believes that converting the words of the LLRC document into deeds on the ground would be positive evidence of the government's sincerity in taking the post-war reconciliation process forward.

Governing Council

The National Peace Council is an independent and non partisan organization that works towards a negotiated political solution to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. It has a vision of a peaceful and prosperous Sri Lanka in which the freedom, human rights and democratic rights of all the communities are respected. The policy of the National Peace Council is determined by its Governing Council of 20 members who are drawn from diverse walks of life and belong to all the main ethnic and religious communities in the country.

Genocidal sex abuse of ex-LTTE female cadres becomes routine in North and East

[Thu, 30 Aug 2012, 08:29 GMT]

The genocidal Sri Lanka military occupying the country of Eezham Tamils is routinely engaged in repeated sexual abuse of the former female members of the LTTE to see them pregnant by the Sinhala soldiers, in the model of former Yugoslavia, news sources citing a number of cases and medical professionals told TamilNet. While Radha D’Souza views the Tamil struggle “As one of the most significant movements since the end of the Vietnam War,” the former US Deputy Secretary of State and a current ICG trustee Richard Armitage in Oslo last year was harping on the unawareness of the world on the happenings in the island. The genocide is meant to be so by the architects, and the Akashi visit last week viewing ‘rehabilitated’ female cadres was another effort to keep the on-going genocide under the carpet, political observers in the island said. 
Many former female cadres of the LTTE are repeatedly abused with determination of making them pregnant either in detention or by ‘summoning’ them after the so-called release.

When they refuse or not cooperate to the ‘summons’, their family members are harmed.

Confirming the kind of genocide-intended pregnancies of ex-LTTE cadres, a senior doctor in the North said that he didn’t know what to do about it. 

A recent case that had come to him had an eight-month pregnancy. She is now handed over to the care of some nuns. “I don’t know what to do with most of the cases,” the doctor said.

“There is no international system to protect them in the island or provide refuge outside,” the doctor further said, whose statement was also confirmed by a gender social worker in the island.

Sexual abuses are committed at two stages on the ex-cadres, first in the internment camps and then after the so-called release, the feminist social worker said.

The details of 2000 to 3000 female cadres who had surrendered are not yet known. Whether they are alive or still kept in secret camps are not found in any local or international records. The number of those who surrendered and released does not tally. Colombo says there are only around 600 left in detention. What had happened to the remaining, asks the social worker.

The condition of senior female cadres is pathetic, the social worker said, citing reports of some released cadres. Many have been seen in the detention camps, but we do not know what had happened to them.

The second category of abuses takes place on those who were released. ‘Summoning’ them for interrogation and repeatedly abusing them has become routine and a past time in the SL military camps now. This happens widely in the SL bases and intelligence camps of Vavuniyaa and Jaffna, and in the camps of Vanni, the social worker told TamilNet.

In another recent incident in Jaffna, a young ex-cadre from Vanni wanted to hand over her 13-month old child to anyone who would take care of it. The child was a result of repeated abuse of the ‘interrogating’ military but she wanted the child to live, the victim said.

Genocidal Colombo, elements clinging to it and their media try to project the situation as a result of current social conditions and deviations among Eezham Tamils. But most of the cases are result of systematic and genocide-intended military abuses, observed the feminist social worker, agreeing with the doctor that there is no independent international mechanism operative in the island to protect the ex-cadres.

* * *
Commenting on the situation, TamilNet former war correspondent Mr. Lokeesan said that by the end of the war, young Sinhala soldiers of the genocidal military were given with pornographic material to induce them to commit sexual abuses on the surrendered female LTTE cadres.

A Sinhala military cultivated in this way is what that is going to stay in the country of Eezham Tamils, and the results could be imagined, he further commented.

While China now builds permanent cantonments to the occupying Sinhala military, and India ‘trains’ the genocidal military in its bases, Mr. Akashi has come primarily to patch up relations between the West and Colombo, media reports from Colombo said.

The genocidal war is perhaps perpetuated by a system and not by individuals. But the world needs an international people’s tribunal to identify the ultimate elements of such a system to remedy it. 

At least some individuals or institutions articulating for the system on the question of Eezham Tamils, such as the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Robert Blake, Erik Solheim, Akashi, Shiv Shankar Menon, his predecessor MK Narayanan and institutions such as the International Crisis Group (ICG), either coming forward or being made to answer to the world would immensely help the progress of human civilization, commented an academic in Jaffna.

The politicians and political activists who continue to deal with this system, and in the process pressurized to take up a patch-up course have to consider twice before deviating from the grassroot realities, political observers in the island and in the diaspora cautioned.

Meanwhile, those who whitewash the genocidal regime to the world with the hoodwink of Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconciliation, do many times more harm to humanity than the fault they had found with the LTTE, social workers in the island said. 
* * *
The following are further direct reports to TamilNet by a few among the affected who decided to talk: 

“I don’t like to live here. I may be in peace if I go elsewhere. Otherwise there is no option other than committing suicide with my entire family,” says a tearful ex-LTTE female cadre. She has become a wreck by continued sexual abuse in the name of summons and interrogations by the occupying Sinhala military.

She was 6-months pregnant when she was released from the SLA internment camp, said her mother with a down-casted face.

We went to an illegal medical facility for abortion, her mother was sorrowful about it.

The ex-LTTE female cadres have come to their worst point of predicament now.

The occupying Sinhala military that summoned them earlier in the name of ‘monitoring and interrogation’, now openly summons them for its sexual needs, comments a social worker of an organisation for the emancipation of women in the North and East.

Many don’t tell the truth about the sexual abuses. This may be due to the cultural stigma. So they keep the sufferings within their mind and sulk secretly. When the situation is perpetuated they are pushed to the end of committing suicide. Many try all possibilities to get out of the island, the feminist social worker said.

The situation is the same for the so-called released female cadres, whether in Jaffna, Vanni or in the East, conceded another human rights worker in the island.
* * *
A female ex-LTTE cadre, Pallavi (name changed), told TamilNet of her experience when ‘summoned’ to a local camp.

When ‘summoned,’ one has to first wait for hours in the camp, facing lewd comments coming from the Sinhala soldiers. Then, a low-rank officer would come for sexual assault in the name of ‘interrogation,’ followed by the higher officer, if he is in the ‘mood’. They behave totally in a sadistic way and it is very obvious that they get pleasure from our sufferings, Pallavi said.

Some of those ‘summoned’ to the local camps used to be sent to regional camps as well as bases in the towns. The story is the same everywhere.

The SL torture camp at Achchezhu in the Palaali base is a nightmare for former female cadres.

The Achchezhu torture camp is famous for the ‘disappearances’ of thousands of Tamil youth since 1996. People in Jaffna call the camp as the Slaughter House (I’raichchi-kadai). Sexual assault is a simple matter at this camp.
* * *
Another female ex-LTTE cadre came out with shocking facts on those who are taken to the Palaali base.

After being ‘summoned’ to the local camp and taken to regional and the Achchezhu camps, some are chosen to ‘meet’ the top officials at Palaali, the ex-cadre said.

When asked how it becomes possible to take them around without being seen by people, the ex-cadre said that they are taken in white vans or mini buses, sitting along with soldiers in civil dress, so that it would look as though they are passenger vehicles.

They have a large fleet of those white vans and such vehicles ply to and fro the base without any hindrances, she said.

Narrating her experience of meeting higher officers at Palaali, another ex-cadre said that after tiring her by interrogation for three hours, she was given with cool drink. The drink fainted her and she awoke to find that she had been sexually assaulted.

“I couldn’t do anything. I came alive out of that interrogation, crying,” she said.

“We could go absconding or go out of the country. In those cases they get hold of our family members. It could be my father, mother, brother or sister,” she further said.

To escape from sexual harassment another ex-cadre from Ki’linochchi used to hide in the houses of friends and relatives. On those occasions her father was assaulted by the SL military and was even hospitalized. Her brothers were threatened that they would be killed.

For the sake of the family, the ex-cadres accept the ‘summons’ and go back to the SL military camps. On returning to ‘interrogations’ we face sexual assault with more vengeance and sadism, the ex-cadre from ki’linochchi told TamilNet.
* * *
A senior doctor in the Jaffna teaching hospital admitted treating a number of ex-cadres who had attempted committing suicide after ‘interrogation’ sexual assaults.

Some had been admitted to the hospital after swallowing blade pieces in the camps in their attempts to commit suicide. Some had attempted suicide by immolating themselves after returning from the SL military camps, the doctor said.

Poverty is attributed to the suicide of some of those who hanged themselves. But there could be other reasons, the doctor further said.

Vanni is the worst hit region. In Jaffna and in the other towns there are social activists for the consolation of the victims. But no one could raise a finger for what is happening in Vanni.

The SL military camps mushroomed at very short distances in Vanni aim for the exploitation of the ex-cadres. Going out from the region is the only escape for the former female cadres. Their daughters have eloped with someone, the parents tell the SL military.

The claims of ‘rehabilitation’ are farce and the facility in Vavuniyaa is only a showcase, comments an ex-cadre from Vanni.

The fate of thousands of female cadres who surrendered at the end of the war is not accounted yet; claim those who managed to escape disappearance in the camps after the war.

Many of us are psychological wrecks after release from the internment camps of the SL military. Many do not go out, meet people or even speak to their family members. Many live only for the sake of their children, says another female cadre.

Her husband became mentally retarded by the war. Two of her kids were killed in the war. She lives for the sake of three more children remaining.

Some of them want at least to send their children out. But they have no means.

Meanwhile, in the cases of some, people who have personal animosities with them or with their families send malicious information, providing opportunities for the occupying military to harass them. 
* * *

Subhodini Sivalingam

32-year old, Ms. Subhodini Sivalingam, who recently committed suicide at Polika’ndi in Jaffna, had sacrificed 15 years of her life to the freedom struggle.

Her suicide has been attributed to poverty. But informed circles come out with different facts. She had been continuously harassed, interrogated, sexually abused and threatened for life by the occupying SL military.

Subhodini, who was also called Paadini, immolated herself in a closed room in the house she was living in at Polika’ndi in Vadamaraadchi, Jaffna.

Many ex female freedom fighters want to forget the sexual abuses of the genocidal military in the internment camps as a nightmare. But the occupying military has now made it a routine to harass us perpetually. How could we forget anything now, ask a female cadre.

“I feel like fighting again. If I get a gun I would kill a particular lot before losing my life,” swore another woman fighter who survived a suicide attempt after sexual assaults and harassments in the SL military camps.

WikiLeaks: Mahinda Told Clinton That There Was ‘No’ Shelling In The Safe Zone, But Basil Told ‘Yes’

By Colombo Telegraph -August 30, 2012
Mahinda and Basil

“Rajapaksa is the first Sri Lankan official who has been forthcoming when discussing Sri Lankan Army shelling of the safe zone. However, we were disappointed to hear him claim that medical supplies were reaching the wounded in the safe zone when it is clear from Embassy Colombo reporting that there have not been shipments since February 20. His comments on visas for ICRC staff were unhelpful, but unsurprising given the Sri Lankan government,s attitude towards international aid workers” US State Department wrote to US Embassy Colombo. 

Under the subheading “Sri Lankan Army Shelling” the US State Department wrote “Boucher inquired about Sri Lankan Army shelling into the safe zone. Rajapaksa admitted that there may be some shelling of the safe zone, but that top military leadership had instructed field commanders not to target the safe zone or respond to fire from the safe zone. He noted that the Sri Lankan Army has taken many casualties, including 200 injured and 70 killed on March 17. Boucher emphasized that the Sri Lankan President had told Secretary Clinton that there was no shelling in the safe zone and there should be no shelling. He requested that Rajapaksa ensure that the Army Commanders orders are respected by the field officers.”A classified diplomatic cable which details a meeting the US Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Boucher has had with Sri Lankan Presidential Advisor Basil Rajapaksa on March 18, 2009. The Colombo Telegraph found the related US diplomatic cable from the Secretary of State section of the WikiLeaks database. The cable was classified as “Confidential” signed by Hillary Clinton on March 19, 2009.

“Turning to the ongoing civil war, Boucher thanked Rajapaksa for working closely with US Ambassador Blake in Colombo and asked Rajapaksa about the Sri Lankan government,s plans for the last days of the war, indicating that any kind of major military sweep through remaining Tamil Tiger territory would &be a major international problem.8 Rajapaksa indicated that the government is not planning for this kind of intervention, but has been working with Catholic bishops in the conflict area to find a land route by which civilians can leave.” the US State Department further wrote.

Boucher and Basil also discussed the issues re economy, medical shipments to safe zone GOSL refusal of visas for ICRC Staff, accepting the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights request for a fact finding mission to Sri Lanka. Read the cable below for further details;

P 192145Z MAR 09
FM SECSTATE WASHDC
TO AMEMBASSY COLOMBO PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L STATE 026714 

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/19/2019
TAGS: PHUM KDEM PREL CE
SUBJECT: ASSISTANT SECRETARY BOUCHER SPEAKS WITH  BASIL
RAJAPAKSA 

Read More

Will UNHRC Initiatives End the Lankan Genocide Despite the Re-Invigorated South Block Captive India

 

August 29, 2012

Vssubramaniam Special to Salem-News.com

(GRAPHIC PHOTOS) The end of Sinhala oppression is only feasible once its military occupation of the North is ended.

Special thanks to dbsjeyaraj.com and other sources for the graphic photos of the Tamil victims of state terror in Sri Lanka's north and east coastal regions in 2009.

(COLOMBO, GroundReports) - Colombo boastfully hawks its National Action Plan (NAP) implementing all the inconsequentials in the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) proposals but omits the crucial political element. The NAP is a diversion to tire out the international community away from efforts to hold Lanka accountable for its grave crimes against humanity.

Once the NAP fails to provide the space to effectively deal with the crucial political component that led to the conflict in which Lanka committed the crimes, all the hog wash in LLRC and NAP to bring about long-term reconciliation and lasting peace in Lanka is no different from what the Sinhala regimes promised and never delivered for over the past six decades and allowed the oppression of the Eelam Tamils to continue without any redress. In summary the NAP here amounts to a ‘No Action Plan’.

Lanka devious efforts to evade UNHRC accountability have the support of the South Block captive Delhi/Sonia who also supported Lanka’s war overtly and covertly until the Tamils were defeated in May 2009. After that Delhi continues to support the Lankan genocide to eliminate the Tamil homelands from the Lankan soil completely by fighting international efforts through the UNHRC to bring Lanka before the courts for the crimes it committed. The lessons from Lanka’s war against Tamils is that lives of Tamils are at the Lankan mercy once the life saving umbrella that the LTTE provided was lost in May 2009.

Mullivaykkal massacre is not the only killing in the war, there were many many more mini-Muliivaykal massacres and other killings details of which will surface only when independent international courts investigate. It is foolhardy to expect much from a LLRC or any locally appointed courts to investigate. Colombo and Delhi dread independent investigation by international courts; fearing dreadful and embarrassing cans of worms to appear.

Killings of Tamils though shocking to civil humanity is only one aspect of the Lankan genocide. It also involves other brutal forms of cruelty under Lanka’s official ‘winner takes all’ (Kohona) policy; it rapaciously snatches away from Tamils their homeland, assets, homes, land, livelihood and even human dignity (including the modesty of women) under the Sinhala supremacist’s military occupation. The why for the Delhi mandarins not for once condemning these brutal acts is difficult to fathom.

Such atrocities that cause distress to many do not stir the rock like hearts of the mandarins in Delhi. They observe a novel form of dharma under the label ‘secularism’ pretending to be neutral and not condemning the brutal killings and oppression right under its nose. Lankan genocide is now about ridding the Tamil homelands in Lanka.

This outrageous plan in action shocks all except the South Block mandarins and their captive UPA leaders. Delhi’s sneaky actions to hinder international efforts go beyond curbing the excesses of Lanka to redress the Eelam Tamil’s sufferings to the South Block instigating Delhi to sabotage international action to bring the Lankans to account for their crimes.

Shiv Shankar Menon is reportedly now the chief architect of the South Block policies. Every one of his visits to the Rajapakses is dreaded by the Tamils fearing what more brutal crimes this South Block emissary has planned for with his counter-parts to harm the Tamils in Lanka. The fear was born out of the South Block’s past record of the cozying emissaries who frequented Colombo to calibrate the Rajapakse devastating attacks on the LTTE.

These produced the Mullivaykal and many mini-Mullivaykal massacres. Civilians were not spared. The Delhi trio was involved according to Gothbhaya Rajapakse in the Mullivaykal tragedy. Confirmation by independent agencies that the Delhi trio was deeply associated in the Lankan crimes using the ‘no fire zone’ to entrap tens of thousands for the kill and ‘barb wire fenced open air detention of over 300 000 displaced civilians whose release took as long as 3 years would be most embarrassing.

Though Gothabhaya openly hinted at the ‘in the loop’ involvement of the Delhi trio and Delhi’s astonishing stilled silence on this creates fears that the trio had a definite role in crimes. The ‘no fire zone’ and the ‘mass detention prisons’ are inerasable blots on the dharmic heritage of a great country though these were caused by its adharmic bureaucrats.

Hariharan a one-time hardcore anti-Tamil South Block apologist in ‘A tale of two interventions’ in Hindu 28 July and ‘25 years of India-Sri-Lanka Agreement in South Asia Analysis Group (23 April 2012) attempts to auction Delhi’s support for Lanka for the 13th Amendment as a bonanza to Eelam Tamils to restrain the restive Tamil Nadu (TN) Tamils from acting(despite Pranab’s 2009 ultimatum to Karunanithi not to) and precipitate a crisis that could have ended the UPA rule in May 2009 itself.

Hariharan rightly mourns the absence of a dynamic Indraji class national leadership who delivered a neat and clean Bangladesh for the oppressed Bengalis unlike a Sonia who is still struggling with the Rajapakses to implement its Indo-SL Accord 13th Amendment as a political solution to the Eelam Tamil issue. Sonia afflicted by a legendary South Block dependency syndrome is no match to Indraji who created Bangladesh to end Pakistan’ oppression of the Bengalese. Apparently Soniaji encourages through Delhi’s inaction the Rajapakses to kill off the rest of the Eelam Tamils, with it the Tamil homelands and Eelam Tamil problem.

The end of Sinhala oppression is only feasible once its military occupation of the North is ended. Bangladeshi was desperate for this in pre-1971 East Pakistan. NAP has no definite timetable for phasing out its military occupation of the North. Delhi’s Soniaji like Indraji has to create the equivalent of Bangladesh in Tamil Eelam, However on this Hariharan engages in semantics pointing to irrelevant differences between the oppression the Bengalese suffered and what the Eelam Tamils suffer from.

Hariharan stops at lament over the painfully slow Lankan substance less NAP roadmap to achieve the elusive ‘..rehabilitation and reconciliation’ in the war ravaged Lanka. It also offers no solution for Delhi to extricate itself from the South Block created imbroglio.

The logic that drives the excellent writings of the reputed independent political analyst (Dr Imityaz) ‘Sri Lanka: Ethnic Conflict, LTTE and Future ‘does not have the shortcomings found in Hariharan’s writings namely conflict of interest. “it is now crystal clear that the Sinhala leaders will never put forward a just resolution to the Tamil national question’ once they reject any form of devolution be it the federal or any other to accommodate Lanka’s cultural pluralism.

(thesundayleader 22 July 2012). Hence the NAP Sinhala solution is politically incorrect when ‘it demands a particular community to forcefully cohabit with the majority..without any space for political accommodation..more so for minorities who claim geographical domination in certain areas (Tamil homelands)’.

Instead Sinhala chauvinism is bent on altering the demographics to erase the existing geographical domination that some minorities have that protected their lives and identity when threatened in areas outside the North and East. For this reason many Tamils like Prabhaharan believe that uncompromising Sinhala chauvinism would never deliver justice to the Tamils out to destroy the territorial pluralism to end ethnic tensions not political autonomy.

Also the highly reputed independent intellectual Arundhadi Roy even months before the Mullivaykal pointed out that the Lankan genocide under way was causing ‘a colossal tragedy’(1 April 2009 in the Guardian). It did, the Mullivaykal massacres occurred soon after.

A remedy for genocides is deterrence; the international community holding Lanka accountable for its genocide crimes. The anti-Tamil prejudiced South Block Delhi and its apologist Hariharan do not rate the Rajapakses’ massacres as a ‘colossal tragedy’ as Arundhati does and to readily join up with the international community to bring Lanka accountable before the international courts.

How objective is Hariharan who at one time identified himself with the blatant anti-Tamil prejudiced the South Block to be compared to Arundhati who readily sees the ‘colossal tragedy’ occurring in Lanka. However the recent writings of Hariharan do appear to be more sober in their anti-Tamil rhetoric although Hariharan has not purged himself clean of his South Block lineage and policy bias.

The outright prejudiced anti-Tamil views of Hariharan were analysed by this author in ‘Some thoughts on LTTE’S military response by Hariharan – a critique’ in Sulekha.com 4 August 2008. Hariharan’s two recent pieces refer to ‘the Tamil resistance (LTTE) in milder terms as ‘affected communities (not the customary reference to them as ‘terrorists’) rising up to fight their states’.

This is a change for the better perhaps out of sensitivity for the sufferings of the Eelam Tamils but clearly to alleviate the pain Delhi endures in explaining to the world why the 13th Amendment along with the 1987 Indo-SL Accord it promised to the Tamil is held in limbo and possibly destined to ‘the archives’. The Lankan obduracy is most painful to both Delhi and Hariharan. Delhi divesting the influence of the South Block activists from Indo-Lanka policy making in becoming a necessity.

Hariharan’s analysis of the events leading to the Indian interventions in Bangladesh in 1971 and in Lanka 1987, referred  to events that ‘preceded by the affected communities rising up to fight their state forces and omits the use of the much maligned word ‘terrorism’.

He refers to the Tamil resistance (LTTE) in the same breath he refers to the respected Mukti Bahani fighting oppression. Hariharan does not peddle South Block Delhi’s stock in trade ‘sovereignty’ or ‘close friendship’ platitudes to explain India’s reluctance to intervene in Lanka but reminds Indians that  ‘ ..India has sent a strong message in power assertion in South Asia and the nation applauded the achievement. .. The Indo-SL Accord sent home a strong message to all stakeholders; India would not ignore strategic developments in its close proximity in Sri Lanka, and would support the minority demand for an equitable deal. The most significant achievement of the Accord was the introduction of the 13^th Amendment.. which provided a degree of autonomy to the newly created provinces?

And it still exists as the only constitutional tool available to redress Tamil grievances…The Accord failed to achieve its strategic goals in full. The devolution of powers to the Tamil minority promised in the Accord retains the potential as an instrument of Indian influence in the region..What Indiadoes not have is a dynamic national leadership.’

Hariharan has to be applauded here for reminding others India’s power assertion experience to produce a salutary effect especially when the Rajapakse appeasing South Block captive Sonia leadership is feeling the political earth beneath moving under for UPA Delhi. Dehi’s inaction on implementing the 13^th Amendment is bound to  continue to as Lanka plays truant with a meek and corrupt Delhi that most Indians now detest.    

That Hariharan downplays the sovereignty logic in the context of India’s power assertion  for Delhi’s failure to intervene when the massive Mullivaykal massacres occurred in May 2009 suggests Delhi’s serious concerns over the damage caused by the Narayanan/Menon ‘in the loop’ advisory/ supportive roles that led to the massacres.

The Rajapakses play hard ball to test the extent to which Delhi would go to save the Delhi trio and consequently in its own image on account of the involvement (direct or indirect) in the notorious Mullivaykal massacres. Lanka’s snub by refusing to implement the ‘made in India’ 13^th Amendment amounts to Lanka playing brinkmanship against Delhi.  South Block/Sonia club worked scrupulously to restrain Delhi from censuring the perpetrators (the Rajapakses) for the massacres purely to avoid Indian public pressure building up not merely in TN but India wide for Indian intervention.

Accordingly Hariharan is forced to blame the absence of a ‘dynamic national leadership’ for the colossal tragedy to occur under Delhi’s eyes. Indraji would have intervened in Lanka many years earlier, saved the massacred Tamils and created an Eelam state in the same manner she created a neat and clean Bangladesh. Even in post May 2009 the leadership in Delhi fell far short of Indraji’ caliber. 

Rajapakses is taking advantage of Delhi’s weakness stalling in implementing  the Indo-SL Accord including the 13^th Amendment to create  the present impasse. Delhi has good grounds to suspect the role Menon played when he visited Colombo last.

Eelam Tamils including perhaps Prabhaharan would have trusted the 13^thAmendment feeling safe under an Indraji regime (not under South Block manipulated Rajiv) acting to protect the lives of Tamils.

Hariharan’s yearning over the absence of a dynamic national leadership condemns the present meek leadership and obligated to appease the Rajapakses preventing India from returning to ‘power assertion’; that is a legitimate expectation of patriotic Indians.

Sinhala leaders and apologists have not reacted kindly to Hariharan’s recent thinking. In following the Rajapakse line, in a piece ‘It is time to abrogate the 13^th Amendment’ in the Nation.lk an apologist quotes Hariharan expensively to ridicule Delhi’s professions of friendship (sugar coated silly terms) to mask Delhi’s intervention as an instrument of Indian influence in the region..“India lovers have bent backwards to tell Sri Lankans that India is a friend and was here to help us.’ Instead Hariharan concedes that it was not a love affair, but one informed by strategic goals.

“Hariharan laments that the Accord failed ..the devolution of powers to the Tamil minority promised in the Accord remains unfulfilled despite the 13^th Amendment . But the Accord retains the potential as an instrument of Indian influence in the region’. According to the Sinhala apologists the 13^th Amendment helped to legitimize Eelam mythmaking, turning randomly drawn provincial boundaries into territories of a fictional homeland.

‘The debate should not be about 13 plus or minus, but when (and not if) the 13^th will be abrogated. ..Fiction doesn’t help. The 13^thAmendment caused blood to flow. Our children need not bleed to keep alive that discredited document and certainly not to satisfy India’s strategic interests.  China uses this line of argument in its border disputes with India claiming that the randomly drawn boundary lines are not real boundaries between India and China. Wars were fought over these boundaries and blood flowed in consequence.

The Rajapakses’ open and subtle wars are about erasing the ‘Tamil homelands’. Apologists like Dayan Jayatilleke a Ph.D from Griffith, Brisbane in his Critique of Political Fundamentalism in Sri Lanka uses semantics to masks his lackluster intellectual credentials and strongly argues against any accommodation with Tamils, especially over the mythical Tamil homelands. P Ivan claiming (Delhi 13 Plus that the Tamil homelands are a myth’ that the myth behind Tamil homelands makes all the debate about devolution and the 13^th Amendment a futile exercise. With such obstinacy from the Lankan side is Hariharan or Delhi wasting their time without asserting its power position?

Delhi’s and Hariharan’s enigma, the absence of progress on the 13^th Amendment more so after Delhi invested heavily on the 13 Amendment (ExpressBizz 29 Jun 2012) promising a political solution to the Eelam and TN Tamils. On the basis of Delhi’s promise the South Block trio visited Colombo frequently claiming to protect the lives of Tamils but in the end they it turned out to be plots to support SL genocide using massacres to weaken the Tamils.

Narayanan’s ‘no fire zone’ was a death trap to kill tens of thousands civilian Tamils. Hariharan has almost given up on the 13^th Amendment with an outspoken Sonali Waduge (a close associate of' 'tom tom' Raman) in ‘How India and Sri Lanka Handle the Headache of Tamil Eelam’ in Eurasia Review June 30 to make an outrageous statement ‘No country treats the natives of another country (who came with Cholas/Pandyan armies as far back as the 5^th century) TN/India that invaded (over a thousand five hundred years ago) as equals’. 

She further states ‘If India claims to have chipped in to help in the final stages of the war in 2009..the plan has everything to do with choking the Sinhalese leadership into eventually annexing Sri Lanka on the pretext of looking after the welfare of the Tamils.’ Do these words express the deep feelings of friendship that Lanka has for Indians; words that Manmohan and S M Krishna shamelessly repeat as mantras to the Indians.’

For a fuller discussion on Delhi’s dilemma, readers are encouraged to read the authors ‘Does Delhi needs to appease Sri Lanka any further..’ in groundreport July 08. The fear that all Tamils and the majority of Indians have is the pitifully meek UPA Delhi flagging the irrelevant 13 Amendment  allowing Lanka keen on buying time to plant sufficient Sinhalese to deprive the Tamils of their homelands and ‘do nothing’ to redress the Tamils core fears; which is their lives, livelihood, Tamil homelands and identity.

Hariharan mourning the absence of a dynamic national leadership at this juncture to save the 13^th Amendment also calls for India’s power assertion in the region. In effect he is yearning for a change in leadership away from UPA for India to go back to its assertive leadership role. The UPA has failed on all fronts to bring India to such a parlous state that the puny Lanka rubs it nose at Delhi all the time.

First published here: groundreport.com/World/WILL-THE-UNHRC-INITIATIVES-END-THE-LANKAN-GENOCIDE/2947502

Special thanks to GroundReport.com