UPDATE 1-Sri Lanka cuts rates to multi-year lows, ignores IMF

(Adds cenbank governor, analyst quotes, background)

By Shihar Aneez and Ranga Sirilal-Tue Oct 15, 2013

Oct 15 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's central bank cut key policy interest rates by 50 basis points to multi-year year lows in a surprise move on Tuesday to spur economic growth, just three weeks after the International Monetary Fund advised it to hold rates steady.

"We thought it is a right time to give a push to the economy," Central Bank of Sri Lanka Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal told Reuters after announcing the rate cut.

"We would be able to achieve a 7 (percent) plus growth in the next year, even closer to 8 percent," he said.

Sri Lanka is investing heavily in infrastructure, with major new port and airport projects underway along with urban and rural road building.

Growth this year was forecast at 7.5 percent, after slumping to a three-year low of 6.4 percent in 2012.

The decision to cut interest rates defied expectations. A Reuters poll of 11 analysts had expected the central bank's monetary board to keep the monetary policy rates unchanged.

The IMF had recommended on Sept. 25 that the central bank should keep policy rates steady to assess the impact of the U.S. Federal Reserve's possible tapering of stimulus programme in coming months.

Cabraal downplayed the risk posed to Sri Lanka by the Fed's expected tapering, though foreign selling of government debt had helped push the rupee to a record low of 135.20 per dollar on Aug. 28.

"I don't think Fed tapering will have an impact on us as we have already factored in. Cabraal said. "In the event of tapering, I don't think we will have outflows, because those investors did not come due to QE (quantitative easing)."

Having steadied off its low, the rupee is now just 2.5 percent down since the start of the year.

The exchange rate, which is closely shepherded by the central bank, opened steady at 130.85 per dollar, while the share market opened 0.01 percent down, as markets showed scant reaction to the reate cuts.

With the latest easing, the central bank has cut policy rates by 125 basis point since December, and eased other policy tools.

The repurchase rate was slashed to 6.50 percent, a level unseen since the central bank began compiling data for the interest rate in December 1999. The reverse repurchase was cut to 8.50 percent, its lowest since February 2012.

The central bank said in a statement that given the benign outlook for inflation -- it eased to 6.2 percent year-on-year in September -- there was further space to ease monetary policy.

Cabraal said the outlook was positive so long as there were no sudden spikes in global oil or commodity prices in the next 12 months. (Reporting by Shihar Aneez and Ranga Sirilal; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Letter to Prime Minister Tony Abbott Re: Human Rights in Foreign and Domestic Policy
OCTOBER 14, 2013

The Hon. Tony Abbott, MP
Prime Minister
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600

Re: Human Rights in Foreign and Domestic Policy

Dear Prime Minister Abbott,

Congratulations on your recent election as Prime Minister of Australia.

Human Rights Watch is a nongovernment organization that monitors and reports on international human rights, refugee, and humanitarian law issues in more than 90 countries around the world. In August, Human Rights Watch launched its first ever Australia office in Sydney. We look forward to working with you over the next three years to strengthen Australia’s protection of human rights.

In the memo that follows, we outline a wide range of human rights concerns from countries where we work and where we believe the right mix of pressure and engagement from Australia may make a significant difference in promoting respect for human rights. These countries are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. We also make several recommendations in the areas of domestic policy in which Human Rights Watch has expertise – asylum seekers and refugees, disability rights, same-sex marriage, and multilateral institutions.      Full Story

Senate reaches deal to end shutdown, avoid default

By Tom Cohen, CNN-Wed October 16, 2013

Washington (CNN) — Senate leaders on Wednesday announced a deal to end the partial government shutdown and avoid a possible U.S. default as soon as the end of this week, and a key GOP conservative said he wouldn’t try to block the measure.

The news of a deal brought some relief to Wall Street as well as Washington, where the shutdown reached a 16th day with the government poised to lose its ability to borrow more money to pay bills on Thursday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hailed the agreement he worked out with his GOP counterpart Mitch McConnell as “historic,” saying that “in the end, political adversaries put aside their differences.”

Now the question becomes whether the agreement can win approval in the Senate and then the House to reach President Barack Obama’s desk, perhaps by the end of Wednesday to ensure there is enough cash on hand for all U.S. debt obligations and bills.

Obama praised Senate leaders for reaching a compromise, and urged Congress to act quickly, White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

"As soon as possible is essentially the recommendation we have from here," he said.

Republican and Democratic members of the House were to meet separately in the afternoon to hear details of the proposal as well as weigh the next steps.

House Speaker John Boehner has failed to corral his caucus around any remedy, while House Democrats have solidly supported their leaders.

A senior GOP Senate aide said the Senate vote could come sometime Wednesday evening and a House leadership aide said the House could vote “as early as tonight” following the Senate.

But both chambers will have to take special steps to get the legislation passed that quickly, raising concerns that tea party conservatives led by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas would block or delay it in a final effort to include provisions intended to harm Obama’s signature health care reforms.

However, Cruz told reporters that he wouldn’t mount a filibuster or employ other procedural moves against the agreement. At the same time, he criticized his Senate colleagues for what he called their failure to listen to the American people and said the fight against Obamacare will continue.

National polls conducted since the start of the shutdown on October 1 indicate that while all sides are feeling the public’s anger over the partisan political impasse, more blame is pointed at the Republicans in Congress rather than Democrats or Obama.                                             FULL STORY

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay holds candles to honor victims in the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz in front of the death wall in Oswiecim October 13, 2013. REUTERS/Mateusz Skwarczek/Agencja Gazeta (POLAND - Tags: POLITICS) THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS

UNITED NATIONS IMAGE

Israel Hides Nukes Behind ‘Ambiguity’ Wall

Dr. James M. Wall Salem-News.com-Oct-16-2013

The ambiguity wall has protected Israel’s growing nuclear arsenal from the world’s eyes since the 1950s. In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear technician working in Dimona, breached the wall when he leaked the country’s nuclear secrets to a British newspaper.

Please visit James Wall’s Website, Wall Writings

(CHICAGO) - This week’s Geneva nuclear table talks pit Iran against the Big Five Security Council members, plus Germany.

Iran sits alone at the table, seeking release from its “sanctions jail” incarceration from its jailers, the Big Five plus one nations.

Israel Hides Nukes Behind ‘Ambiguity’ Wall by nelvely

SINTHUJAN VARATHARAJAH-tamilgenerations.

Sinthujan Varatharajah

Collecting and archiving 

stories,  


memories and 

experiences of 


Sri Lankan Tamils in London

http://tamilgenerations.rota.org.uk

The Commonwealth in troubling times and the controversy surrounding Sri Lanka

The Commonwealth in troubling times and the controversy surrounding Sri Lanka

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Sir Ronald Sanders KCMG AM
is a Senior Research Fellow at the
Institute of Commonwealth Studies
and a former Caribbean diplomat

''If the Summit in Sri Lanka is to be meaningful, Heads of Government must set up machinery to address this issue urgently and credibly. It will call for careful diplomatic stage-managing by the Secretary-General, and transparent and open chairmanship by the Sri Lankan President. Whether this can be achieved is left to be seen. But, if this matter is not tackled with urgency and credibility, the Commonwealth may well go over the cliff to disintegration on which it is now dangerously perched.''

By Sir Ronald Sanders KCMG AM-

I congratulate the Bristol Commonwealth Society as it celebrates the 100^th anniversary of its Charter.

The Society has maintained belief in the Commonwealth from its early status as a grouping of Britain and its dominions through its re-birth as the modern Commonwealth of Nations in 1949 to the present.

The Commonwealth in Troubling Times and the Controversy Surrounding Sri Lanka by nelvely

The Myth Of “No More Minorities”

By Muttukrishna Sarvananthan -October 15, 2013

Dr. Muttukrishna Sarvananthan

The Northern Provincial Council (NPC) election that took place on September 21, 2013 was relatively the most peaceful election in the North after the 1977 parliamentary elections, in spite of couple of violent incidences and numerous threats, intimidations, and abuse of public property. The first-ever NPC election was also relatively calmer than the elections in the North Western Province (NWP) and Central Province (CP) that took place on the same day. The government, security forces, Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) should be jointly lauded for the peaceful conduct of the elections.

Tamil nationalism was at its peak in 1977 when the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF – predecessor to the Tamil National Alliance) secured highest number of seats at the parliamentary elections and even more importantly highest-ever share of votes (57%) amidst 84% voter turnout in the combined eastern and northern electoral districts. The landslide victory resulted in TULF becoming the single largest opposition party and hence securing the position of Leader of Opposition in 1977.

TNA’s campaign during the provincial elections 2013, despite claptraps of internal self-determination and re-merger of the East and North in its manifesto and lauding Prabhakaran a hero, was subdued compared to the blood-curdling fiery speeches during the 1977 parliamentary elections campaign.

Here we compare and contrast the share of votes secured by the TULF-TNA at the 1977, 2004, and 2010 parliamentary elections and at the provincial council elections of 2012 (in the East) and 2013 (in the North). We are particularly interested in comparing the results of 1977 and 2012-2013 elections due to the fact that these were held during relatively more peaceful times devoid of interference by armed groups (state and non-state).

In 1977 the voter turnout in every single electoral district of the East and North exceeded 80%; Ampara 88%, Batticaloa 87%, Trincomalee and Vanni 85% each, and Jaffna 81%. The voter turnout in the East remained very high (>80%) at the 2004 parliamentary elections, but dropped in the North (47% in Jaffna and 67% in Vanni), which was held during the ceasefire and the LTTE openly supported and campaigned for the TNA. At the 2010 parliamentary elections voter turnout dropped throughout the East and North; Ampara 61%, Trincomalee 58%, Batticaloa 51%, Vanni 40%, and Jaffna 21%. The voter turnout has increased at the 2012 provincial elections in the East and 2013 provincial elections in the North; Vanni 68%, Ampara and Trincomalee 62% each, Jaffna 60%, and Batticaloa 59%. The voter turnout in the combined Eastern and Northern Provinces which was 84% in 1977 dropped to 64% in 2004 and 42% in 2010, and then has increased to 62% in 2012-2013.

Read More

Solheim says Sri Lanka’s denial would increase focus on HR issues

 Tuesday, 15 October 2013 

Former Norwegian Minister and Peace Envoy to Sri Lanka Erik Solheim has said that the continuous denial by the Sri Lankan government on human rights issues would increase the focus on such issues by other forces.

Solheim has made this comment in response to a Colombo Gazette tweet quoting Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella who had said that the government had not committed human rights violations during or after the war.
Rambukwella had said that the government maintained a “zero civilian casualty” policy during the war but admitted there may have been some isolated incidents and also questioned why there is focus on the last stages of the war and not the full 30 years of the conflict.

Solheim, who now chairs the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, has said that the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s admission that the UN had failed in Sri Lanka during the final stages of the war was nearly unprecedented.

He has observed that it is now time for all to come together to restore democracy and establish the rights of the Tamils and Muslims in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka's opposition rethinks support for key summit

Colombo, Oct 15 (IANS) Sri Lanka's main opposition Tuesday said it has been forced to rethink its support for a key summit to be held in the country after the police arrested one of its legislators.

United National Party (UNP) leader Ranil Wickremasinghe said the arrest of former foreign minister and UNP legislator Mangala Samaraweera was part of political revenge being meted out against the opposition, Xinhua reported.

Samaraweera was arrested after he surrendered to the police Tuesday over a recent clash involving members of the same party in the southern town of Matara.

Wickremasinghe claimed that the orders to arrest the popular opposition legislator came as a result of political pressure.

As a result, Ranil Wickremasinghe said, the UNP would need to reconsider its position on the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting summit to be held next month in Sri Lanka.

"Having the Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka when there are political prisoners and when there is no independent police commission, independent judiciary or elections commission is a joke," he said.

Samaraweera was released on bail by the Matara magistrate later Tuesday.

Britain's Prince Charles will be among those visiting Sri Lanka for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

The British high commission in Colombo said that the prince would represent the queen at the summit.

Women in post war reconstruction and recovery

• 

• by Harim Peiris
• - on 10/15/2013

• The aftermath of Sri Lanka’s decades of civil conflict have left, not only massive damage of physical property, both public and private, requiring extensive reconstruction but many households and even whole communities affected by the conflict through loss of loved ones, loss of property including homes, personal injuries, displacement, disruption of children’s education, loss of means of livelihood, loss of the family breadwinner and conflict related trauma. Many of those affected and indeed the most vulnerable are women and accordingly war widows, women headed household, single women, female ex combatants and girl children are both numerically significant and the most vulnerable sections of the communities of the post conflict areas. The details of this situation are well researched and documented, not least by State mechanisms such as the LLRC.
  The solutions for this situation, not just in Sri Lanka but the world over has also been exhaustively debated and dialogued, with the Covenant on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, UN Security Council resolution 1325 among many other global instruments and locally the LLRC report and various national action plans all detail the consultation, gender sensitivity and women’s inclusion that should be a key aspect of recovery and reconstruction efforts.
  However, Sri Lanka’s achievements in addressing women’s issues in reconstruction and recovery have been abysmal, with conflict affected women still excluded and vulnerable over four years after the end of hostilities. There are political dynamics that work to prevent an outcome, which seems universally accepted, desirable and required, both locally with solid support for the same, as well as internationally.
  Women severely underrepresented in Government
  The first reason for this is that women are underrepresented in Sri Lankan political life. Despite our proud achievement of having the world’s first woman prime minster and one of the still few popularly elected and reelected executive presidents in the world, Sri Lankan women have not been active participants in seeking or holding public office. Currently women hold only 2% of elected positions in local government, 3% in provincial government and 6% at the national level. This is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that Sri Lanka has a man as the minister of Women’s Affairs. An obvious way out of this situation is the principle of a quota system at election, with various models and options available on how to ensure greater women’s representation in elected bodies. Given that Sri Lanka experimented with youth candidate quota’s as a result of the 2nd JVP insurrection, some pro women measures are not impossible to achieve and should be lobbied amongst the political parties. There is some sympathy and support for these measures among the opposition parties, the UNP’s recent constitutional reform proposals being open to gender representation and the TNA appointing an unsuccessful woman candidate to one of its bonus seats at the recent Northern Provincial Council election, the other bonus seat given towards increasing Muslim representation. It is however the UPFA, though led by the SLFP a party with strong matriarchal roots, which is regrettably the most disinterested in such issues at the moment.
  Tamil women face double discrimination
  The second reason for this failure of addressing women’s issues and including them in recovery and reconstruction in the North and East is not primarily because they are women but because they are an excluded ethnic minority group, the Tamils. Accordingly the challenge of both including and rehabilitating the lives of the conflict affected Tamil women in the North and East is made doubly difficult by the fact that the system works against  both Tamils and women. The best example of this is the Presidential Task Force on reconstruction in the post war areas, which is a generally well intentioned but significantly less effective apex government body appointed by the Rajapakse Administration at the end of the war, which at its inception had neither even a single Tamil nor a single woman in the nineteen (19) member body. This being a group appointed to see to reconstruction and recovery efforts in the Tamil majority North, where the majority of victims were women. Not a single Tamil, nor a single woman. Not even from the Government’s own allies like the EPFP or the TMVP. It is little wonder then that the task force has been significantly less sympathetic to more softer human needs such as post traumatic stress disorder, the need for counseling and as well as unique concerns of women. Accordingly bringing about involvement of women in post war reconstruction,  necessarily requires involving and the political participation of the Tamil community. The recently concluded Northern Provincial Council election, in which the Tamil National Alliance secured more than a 2/3 majority in the Council, with the resultant ability to keep the unelected but generally assertive former military Governor on a short leash, holds the promise for a new empowerment of democratic Tamil political participation in the recovery and reconstruction process. One hopes that not only the Presidential Task Force, but also the multilateral institutions, especially the lending institutions of the World Bank, the IMF and the ADB would be both gender sensitive and  consult and engage the elected Tamil representatives of the NPC in their reconstruction programs in the North.
  A fragile democracy
  The third reason for this failure to address women’s issues and include them in recovery and reconstruction is democratic or a problem of Sri Lankan democracy. Sri Lanka has a representative system of government but not a responsive system of governance. Our democracy is largely limited to voting at periodic elections but our system never consults, rarely listens or is responsive to our people. That’s why Sri Lanka is ranked globally as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for independent journalism and media and more recently even to stage a peaceful protest. Even our representative government is only somewhat representative, we have parliamentary select committees made up only of government members and constitutional reforms that are passed as urgent bills within a half day, denying even most of our elected representatives an opportunity to be heard on national issues. What chance then for civil society and especially for disempowered ethnic minorities in rural communities. Accordingly unresponsive and non representative government is the third impediment to addressing women’s issues.
  Accordingly addressing the obviously urgent women’s issues in Sri Lanka’s recovery and reconstruction process requires addressing several underlying issues of democracy, ethnic minority political participation as well as women’s representation in government. These issues can be addressed through a robust engagement by civil society, religious leaders and our international friends with our government and state institutions to ensure that the required reforms to our system occur. Such reforms may not occur overnight, but overtime, with dogged persistence, history shows us that most societies, especially those with democratic roots, traditions and institutions will move towards a better path. For the sake of the resilient conflict affected women of the post conflict North and East, we should hope so.
  (Abridged text of speech delivered at the felicitation of Dulcy De Silva, veteran women’s and labor rights activist)

State Reform In Sri Lanka: Issues, Directions And Perspectives

By Sumanasiri Liyanage -October 15, 2013

Sumanasiri Liyanage

State Reform in Sri Lanka: Issues, Directions and Perspectives edited by Jayadeva Uyangoda

Colombo: Social Science Association, 2013

Reviewed by Sumanasiri Liyanage

With the recently concluded Northern Provincial Council (NPC) Election, the issue of state reform is back on the agenda as the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that stands explicitly for federal system of governance was able to win the majority seats in the NPC. Mr Wigneswaran of the TNA was sworn in before the President Mahinda Rajapaksa as the Chief Minister of the NPC.  It is certain that the NPC will ask for the full powers of the Provincial List of the13^th Amendment to the Second Republican Constitution the full implementation of which has consciously and purposely been thwarted by the central government since its enactment in 1987.    The question as to how the post-colonial Sri Lankan state should be restructured in order to accommodate the demands and aspirations of the numerically small nations in the island has once again been posed and it has to be resolved not at the deliberations of the Parliamentary Select Committee as the President Rajapaksa has proposed but at the constant negotiations between the central government and the NPC. The debate on this issue has already begun. In this context, the new book, State Reform in Sri Lanka: Issues, Directions and Perspectivesedited by Jayadeva Uyangoda is a timely addition to this important debate. The book has 6 chapters out of which 4 directly deal with state reforms.

Uyangoda in the Introduction delineates succinctly the key issue in the post-colonial Sri Lankan politics in the following words: “Should the post colonial state be re-structured and reformed and its basic institutional architecture re-designed?” (p. 1). The question of state structure in future independent Ceylon was discussed though briefly in the 1930s, the subject was not viewed from the prism of ethnicity. However, the tragedy of Sri Lanka is that since independence this issue has been looked at from the polarized national/ ethnic perspectives thus linking it with “two main ethno-nationalist projects”. As a result, the two attempts to re-structure the Sri Lankan state in 1972 and 1978 gave primacy to different immediate objectives of the political party/ front in power (socialist property relations and economic development respectively) disregarding this key issue thus distancing Tamils from those objectives interpreting them as part of the Sinhala ethno-nationalist project. Although socialist property relations and economic development transcends narrow ethnic/ national boundaries, in Sri Lanka they were given not only explicit ethno-nationalist interpretations but also ethnic twist in implementation. Political expression of these developments has produced what Uyangoda calls “ethnocratic democracy” in both Sinhala and Tamil (may be now also Muslim) imagination. “Ethnocratic democracy is a specific form of democracy that privileges ethno-nationalism as the dominant framework of political imagination, competition and mobilization” (p. 3). It is interesting to observe whether the Sri Lankan ethnocentric democracy has a specific class basis and it has prevented in many ways to make the Sri Lankan state a ‘developmental state’. In Introduction, Uyangoda has noted two broad thematic orientation of the book, namely, (1) political constitutional aspects and (2) political economy dimension.                    Read More

Tamils Get Some Symbolic Power

A woman walks to a polling centre in northern Jaffna in Sri Lanka. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Amantha Perera

DHARMAPURAM, Sri Lanka , Oct 14 2013 (IPS) - True democracy at last or a toothless tiger propped up to appease unfavourable international opinion? As Sri Lanka’s Northern Province got its first council after an election last month, many in this South Asian island nation were mulling this conundrum.

For Tamil people long demanding a say in their affairs and emerging from a bitter and bloody 26-year war where the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fought the government, the victory of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is an encouraging start. The five-party combine won an overwhelming 30 seats in the 38-member Northern Provincial Council (NPC) in the Sep. 21 election.

“We need to live with our rights,” Christine, a voter from Dharmapuram in Kilinochchi district told IPS. “That was the only thing on my mind when I went to cast my vote.”
How desperate the people are for democracy and normalcy was reflected in the 68 percent turnout among the 719,000 registered voters in the area. But will the NPC live up to Tamil expectations?

Sri Lanka’s existing councils are widely considered to be a drain on its national resources. The government spent 17 percent or about 1.03 billion dollars of its GDP of 5.9 billion dollars on the maintenance of provincial councils in 2012, according to central bank figures.

“Provincial councils have not achieved anything anywhere in this country,” Subramanium Sudhaharan, a voter from Dharmapuram, told IPS as he walked out of the polling booth. “To me all this voting is symbolic.”

“It is no secret that most become provincial council members to use their position as a stepping stone to enter parliament and hence they hardly get involved in development activities,” an editorial in the journal of the Organisation of Professional Associations of Sri Lanka stated.

The NPC could turn out to be different, as it is the only council which is held by the opposition. “For the Tamils, the election means the full implementation of the 13th Amendment,” declared Abraham Sumanthiran, a TNA parliamentarian.

Sri Lanka’s provincial councils were a result of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan accord which led to the 13th Amendment to the constitution providing for devolution of power to provincial councils. While they came into existence in seven of Sri Lanka’s other provinces, the Northeastern council for the merged Eastern and the predominantly Tamil Northern Province proved to be a short-lived experiment.

On their part, the TNA leaders have said they will seek maximum devolution of powers, among them control over land and the police. Though included in the 13th Amendment, the Centre has never really parted with these functions. And President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government has maintained it is unwilling to do so now.

“Security and land powers must remain with the Centre given the delicate political situation in the NPC,” defeated government candidate Sinnathurai Thavarajah told IPS.

The office of the governor is another curb on the council’s powers. Appointed by the president and the only official with executive powers, the governor can exercise his power through the council’s ministers, but can sidestep them and act through “officers subordinate to him” if he so wishes.

Without the governor’s approval, the council will be ineffective. Kumaravadivel Guruparan, a lecturer at the department of law in the University of Jaffna, told IPS, “The new chief minister has no significant fiscal powers to initiate any resettlement or livelihood programmes of his own. He will not even have control over the provincial public service which is legally firmly under the governor.”

The TNA’s avowed desire to go beyond the 13th Amendment is also likely to be opposed by India, which faces an election in 2014. Any compromise on the issue, Ramani Hariharan, a former intelligence head with the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka told IPS, will be perceived there as a sign of weakness. The IPKF was stationed in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1991.

In any case, Hariharan asks, “What is the guarantee that [a new amendment] will be more liberal than the 13th Amendment? Logically, the TNA should play down devolution beyond the 13th Amendment.”

Sudhaharan too feels that the TNA is unlikely to get anywhere with its demand for more devolution, and should focus instead on trying to improve living conditions in the province.

The Northern Province remains one of the poorest, despite four years of peace and massive development projects estimated by the central bank to be worth over three billion dollars.

An evaluation of the province carried out by the office of the U.N. Refugee Agency in July this year found that over 40 percent of the 917 households surveyed in the province’s five districts had a monthly household income of 9,010 rupees (70 dollars), only about a quarter of the national average monthly income of 36,000 rupees (275 dollars).

“Even with its limited financial resources, the NPC can do quite a lot in terms of economic and social development, governance, establishing institutions that promote equal opportunities,” Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, who heads the Point Pedro Institute of Development based in northern Jaffna, told IPS.

The councils collectively received 1.1 billion dollars as funds from the central government in 2012, according to central bank data.

TNA stalwarts like Rajavarotiam Sampanthan have indicated that they will try to raise funds from the global Tamil diaspora. But even if they manage to do so, it is unclear how the TNA can spend such money bypassing the central government which controls all development and reconstruction work here through a special presidential task force set up in 2009.

All that the people of the province now want is for the council to help develop traditional income sources like agriculture, build new houses, and create new jobs. “We have suffered so long and got so little,” Janoshini Kadrigamapillai, a young woman from Kilinochchi, told IPS. “First let’s get the people to live a better life, and then we can talk of other things like devolution. We deserve to live better.”