(February 28, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian)Troops uncovered a high-tech satellite communication center run by the LTTE within the Puthukudiirippu town perimeter on Friday.The communication center having modern satellite relaying machines was located west of Puthukudiirippu area. Computers, computer accessories, switches, telephones which were believed to be used for international communication through satellite were also found from the scene, military sources said. -Sri Lanka Guardian
(February 28 , Kogal, Sri Lanka Guardian) The war against the LTTE terrorism in Sri Lanka is heading towards its bloody end. The Sri Lankan security forces, as united and, thanks to Chinese and Pakistani arms deliveries, strong in numbers as never before, have corralled the last still-fighting cadres of the LTTE in a 72 square kilometer patch of their utopian state of Tamil Eelam. As thousands of civilians wait, caught between the fronts, for the next development, yet another dilemma becomes more and more clear: there had been an unholy alliance between many international relief organizations active in the hotly fought-over north and the terrorist LTTE. Some weeks ago, the international relief organizations active in the LTTE occupied area were, with the exception of the International Red Cross, brusquely asked by the Sri Lankan government to immediately leave the area of battle the Vanni. Their security could not be guaranteed anymore, the lapidary statement said.
The INGOs reluctantly followed this advice. The INGOs left large amounts of gasoline and other resources, and the great part of their vehicles, including SUVs as well as heavy construction equipment. This equipment was promptly misused by the cadres of the LTTE for military purposes, with troops and Tamil civilians alike being shot at from relief organization vehicles display the marking of their former owners. ______________________ About Writer:Christian Eckert (50), born in Germany, raised in Vancouver Canada is a vetran media personality and a working journalist in Germany.
He has been visiting Asia, specially Sri Lanka for the past 30 years. Eckert is a 2004 Tsunami survivor in Sri Lanka. Form the Tsunami devastated south of the Country, Christian Eckert walked three days from Galle to the German Embassy in Colombo and returned home with a desire to help the needy in Sri Lanka. Since then he has been actively working with many humanitarian projects with Sri Lanka.Christian Eckert just returned back to Germany from a long trip to Sri Lanka.
During his stay he travelled extensively in the country. The Story filed to Sri Lanka Guardian is a view of a foreign Journalist that most western media don't like to expose in their own country. ______________________
Numerous 19-foot containers of the INGOs, sent to Tamil-Tiger areas shortly after the Tsunami, were not returned, and the relevant INGOs never questioned nor did the freight companies complained. Now it is clear why – they were used by the LTTE to construct subterranean bunker systems. The LTTE has used those containers also as components for cleverly disguised plane hangars. Seven landing strips, constructed using the most modern western know-how, were also found.
55 electricity generators from Sweden, intended for use in hospitals in and around Jaffna, were found in the deserted shelters of the LTTE-Tigers, withdrawing under the Sri Lankan offensive. These generators were sufficient to supply the whole population of the north with electricity – instead they supplied the fighting units of the LTTE. Tiger leader Velupilai Prabhakaran, suffering from diabetes, not only had a hospital constructed especially for him in one of the headquarters, as well as ordering a bullet-proof vehicle to be constructed for him use, which has also been discovered. For the refurbishing of the vehicle, special metal sheets were used that had been ordered by one of the INGOs for the purported purpose of reconstructing destroyed bridges in the north.
Thus at least indirectly the INGOs can not reject the bitter accusation of having prolonged the war. Without vehicles and sufficient gasoline, for instance, the mobility of the remaining LTTE cadres would have been significantly reduced. The bunkers they built, the trenches they constructed for kilometers, and that made the agonizingly long static warfare necessary – without the construction equipment left to the LTTE by the INGOs, they would not have been there. Without the construction equipment, the destruction of some water tanks would not have been possible – the LTTE tried to prevent the progress of the troops with those drastic means – and without scruples put up with their own fellow Tamils, drowning miserably. But while even more areas are taken by the security forces, something else becomes clear – not only based on the pictures published by the military, one asks himself amazedly what exactly these INGOs have really been doing all those years in the north, in the areas occupied by the LTTE.
Concretely – what have they done with the internationally collected funds, the many millions of donations in the name of humanitarian assistance? How much of it did they actually spend in Sri Lanka? And where exactly and for what exactly? These questions are self-serving not only for the advancing soldiers of the Sri Lankan army, as for them to see there is – nothing.
In the coastal areas of the now liberated areas it still looks like shortly after the tsunami. Whole villages are still living under blue UN canvas cover. The gruelling 25 year-long war, the killer waves of December 2004 and the final realization that the LTTE is actually not the high-handedly proclaimed “Liberation Army”, as it always liked to pose as, but is, in the recent misery of being crushingly defeated, uncovered as being a mean gang of criminals, keeping with brutal armed violence the people they pretend to fight for as human shields between themselves and their sure destruction.
These people in the Vanni would have really needed assistance. However, the INGOs which for years have been collecting funds to assumedly assist to exactly those people, did not supply the urgently needed assistance. Refugees say that not the INGOs, but the LTTE were distributing the food and basic supplies delivered to the north. And the LTTE bandits did this distribution according to their own taste – a family refusing to give at least one child to the LTTE had to hunger. Families allowing a child to be recruited got food, but never in sufficient amounts. In the south, however, the infrastructure was completely rehabilitated after the tsunami-disaster of 2004 – better and more modern than ever before. In all places you fight marked ways of escape in case of another tsunami, new houses, streets, public buildings, constructed tsunami-proof with the help of many donations. The most important island highway, the coastal Galle Road along is mostly constructed for up to four lanes now.
None of this can be seen in the now liberated areas in the north. Only the headquarters of the self-styled Tigers are gleaming in feudal light – often enough including a swimming pool and leisure quarters, but always also with room of honour for the suicide bombers of the LTTE as well as premium constructed safety cellars and covered defence positions around the place. And always: A plethora of modern arms of all calibres. When the so-called Eelam capital Kilinochchi was taken in January not only the Sri Lankan troops were surprised: there was no trace of an infrastructure, the city was like a ghost town. Again: where did the many donated dollars and euros go that were explicitly sent to the north to help the Tamils?
This question can be clearly answered up to now in the case of three of the most busiest collectors of donations in the name of humanity: TRO (Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation), TYO (Tamil Youth Organisation) and WTM (World Tamil Movement). The accounts of those hypocritical relief organizations were frozen in some countries like Canada, the US, Europe as well as in Australia. Officials of those organizations have to face investigation by state prosecution. The unbelievable accusation: the donated millions were used exclusively for arms purchases for the LTTE. TRO, TYO and WTM were nothing else than front organizations of the LTTE terrorists, and the arms that troops find one by one taking back areas occupied by the LTTE for years, mirror the amount of funds we are talking about. Besides whole ammunition factories for the production of mines, hand grenades and suicide-outfits, there are modern high-calibre artillery, even a whole fighter plane squad including runways and hangars and even a whole shipyard with half-finished submarines were found there. The high-profile technology for this military purposes as well as essential components come from Switzerland (construction plans), Norway (steel, tools satellite communications), Germany (night vision devices, compasses), Czech Republic (planes) underwater diving scooters and generators (Sweden).
The INGOs leaving the Vanni reacted on their eviction at first loudly dismayed – and then offended. They immediately accused and suspected the government: Genocide, they cried, the government wanted to have no disturbing witnesses of the war crimes. Not the government, only they, the assumedly neutral INGOs, were wanting to safeguard themselves at any cost. What irreparable damage would it be to their heavenly humanitarian image if the donors really knew what these INGOs were up in Vanni? Hectically and without evaluation they published „news items“ with great consternation, according to which the government troops had bombed a hospital and used internationally condemned cluster bombs as well as napalm for this purpose. Only to admit later, that they had been fooled – like so often before – by the aggressive propaganda of the LTTE terrorists, which is still working under high pressure and quite obviously functioning.
And now the signs are increasing that the evicted INGOs will „cut the lifeline“ for Sri Lanka altogether. A boardmember of a foundation operating in Sri Lanka, who does not want to be named said, “well, if all these accusations go public, our donors could also think twice“. The INGOs send no funds anymore to local relief- and charity organizations. Functioning projects in the whole country suddenly may not control the funds actually promised by their big international partners, as the international collectors of donations have stopped supporting them.
Many small projects, local associations and foundation could not do the good things they do on their own. Projects like a successful child assistance organisation in Meegoda, where a newly constructed house for street children are offered healthy food, a roof over their heads, a bed, expert counselling, school, education – and some peace. And now those admirable people running the place have to face the sad fact: How long will this still last? This beneficial institution 30km southeast of Colombo is threatened with closure as well as for instance another project in Seenigama, shortly before the tourism centre of Hikkaduwa, which was almost destroyed completely by the tsunami, offering children and youth from poor family education and training.
Is this the subtle revenge of the INGOs for their eviction? Have these „sympathy-industrialists“ suddenly lost interest in Sri Lanka because of this? Do these relief organization assume that if the Sri Lanka government does not do what they want, then it will have to face the results, without them and their donations? Maybe there are more important and more urgent matters to clear up right now, while the war is still raging, while the last high-handed LTTE-chieftains let their slavey and cruel suicide bombers from the leash, while thousands of innocent children and women are misused by the cowardly gang of terrorists as human shields.
However, after the war at last it sould be allowed to examin what the INGOs have done, and they should be taken to account, they should be asked many many questions. It will be interesting to find out, in the name of the many international donors, which have given funds in good faith, what happened to all the funds, why so many relief goods have ended up in the bloody hands the ruthless cadres of the LTTE and not with the needy Tamil population in the north of the tormented island nation, why the INGOs did not report earlier – and more open, that they were not really able to assist the people in the areas controlled by the LTTE, why those oh so independent INGOs let themselves turn into henchmen of the murderous terrorist gang, and why they outrageously leave alone other projects, that had been functioning up to now, why they are cutting off the roots of functioning relief projects suddenly, thus finally taking away from them the chance to prove themselves in a sustainable, independent way.
It almost seems that this is actually the goal of the INGOs: “Look here, without us, and our generous INGO assistance you are – nothing ! If you don’t dance to our tune, we will see that you never stand up on your own feet, because your recovery is our death“.
It also seems like certain INGOs - specially from Germany - are trying to lay the ground work to bring certain Sri Lankan government officials and keyplayers to international courts under the violations of international human rights. Then however, if this is the case, the same international courts should also examine how far the INGOs have overstepped their humanitarian mandate and supported the existence of a terrorist organisation which has led Sri Lanka to this gruesome war killing thousands. And why are these INGOs not talking about the human rights violations of the LTTE ?
After all the law is equal for all, isn’t it?
There is no better way to exhibit to the whole world how Sri Lanka is under subtle and effective form of terrorism and chauvinistic racism from the so-called western humanitarian INGOs.
What determines who is a terrorist? What determines what humanism is? What determines what is evil? What determines what is good?
(February 28, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) A great service of unimaginable value has been rendered by some legal saints who stand for sanctity of human rights and civil liberty by simplifying the process of answering such questions.
The methodology is so simple; unbelievably simple. Only problem is that the answer generates utmost revulsion in any decent person and increases the bank account of the creators of this simple method. This makes one ponder is it really possible such ‘erudite’ people to fall into this despicable level of nastiness and hypocrisy just for color of money. More the zeros in the sum, the deeper the abyss of evilness and darkness these people fall into.
If the Government of Sri Lanka has paid the fee asked by the so called great humanist lawyer then the LTTE is the terrorist organization. Since the Sri Lankan Government has not agreed to pay the fee, that is what has determined what terrorism is not. Since the LTTE has paid more or less than this asked price of 25000 dollars a month, the Sri Lankan government has suddenly become the terrorist party and LTTE has become the angles of peace, champions of liberation, ideals of humanity and priests of sanctity, to the sharp eyes of these lawyers. That is, sharp enough to see only the color of money. This is the miracle of money. This is the ultimate manifestation of incredible ‘legal’ gymnastics of unscrupulousness.
Let us look at a different situation. A farmer may refuse to sell his produce to a customer if the right price is not offered. This is quite normal, but the farmer will not poison the foods in the refrigerator of this customer. A doctor may refuse to treat a person who is not in an emergency situation if the right fee is not agreed upon but the doctor will not falsify the medical history of this patient. Now, an underworld contract killer will obviously behave differently. If the underworld thug does not like the price offered to him by the person A to protect him from B then he will negotiate with the person B to kill the Person A for half the fee. That is natural too. That is what natural to contract killers.
Now these unscrupulous acts legal professionals are amount to contract killing of Tamil people, nothing less and Sri Lanka in general. This frightens me. What would have happened if the Government had agreed to pay the fee? Would this person have become the greatest of the great in our eyes? How ironical, sad and frightening?
This writer will be extremely unhappy, as many others, if Sri Lankan Government acts casually towards the safety of civilian lives. Indications are that the Government is trying to do all it can to save human lives under extremely difficult circumstances. For example, UTHR(J) has commended that soldiers’ behavior at crossing points being exceptionally well. In the refuge camps there could be vultures. Some of these vultures could even be LTTE-ers. Like in Tsunami or New Orleans cyclone there are always vultures who take advantage of human tragedies. This behavior has no racial undertones or is not limited to any particular group. Religious, civil and political leaders can assist the government to eliminate behaviors of such vultures. We need to look at the promise here. Even after the suicide bombing in side the refugee camp if the soldiers, who are trained to promptly react to even a slightly a threatening situation, can behave with such gentleness towards civilians (even though these civilians could end up being LTTE attackers) is a hallmark of bravery and nobleness of well disciplined soldiers. Again there could be people step out side the norm. In the name of our Tamil brothers and sisters the government needs to look into these possibilities. I emphasize that the tragedy of tsunami brought out the best of humanity and the worst. In any crisis situation, in any country these things could happen. It was reported that how Sri Lankan Sinhalese Nave personnel risked their lives to save Tamil brothers and sisters. Again even in that situation LTTE obstructed these rescue efforts and did not give any assistance to the people.
One may resist that this writer is thinking every civilian as a possible LTTE terrorist. Not so, but this problematic challenge itself epitomizes the brutality of LTTE methodology. Isn’t this another reason why the LTTE needs to be destroyed? Even basic human compassion is a bait of death. They can use so called their own people as baits of deaths. This reminds me Ted Bundy. To rape and kill he lured girls by pretending to be sick.
I would like to summarize what a few zeros in a bank check can do. It can sanctify the act of using babies, women, and elderly people as body protection suits. Yes it is a divine act of endless mercy and human compassion. It can deify drug trafficking, human smuggling suicide killing and any other crime. Yes they are noble acts of liberation. More the zero-more the lowness they would embrace. What I am surprised at is that world has ears to lend them.
I would like to thank Hela Puwath for bringing this aspect to my attention. -Sri Lanka Guardian
(February 28, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) This is an extract of a media release by socalled Australians for Human Rights of the Voiceless headed by former AG Sivapasupathy who had free education up to graduation and rose up to be the AG (Discrimination against majority Sinhalese ?) and may be still drawing Sri Lankan pension. He is one of the most ungrateful sons of Sri Lanka.
Quote An Australian Human Rights Organisation, Australians for Human Rights of the Voiceless headed by Hon Shiva Pasupati, Former Attorney General of Sri Lanka has strongly criticised Sri Lankan Government’s Genocidal war on minority Tamils and said, “We are alarmed that the human rights atrocities in Sri Lanka have reached genocidal proportions” . It further called on United Nations Secretary General to intervene immediately and said “As things are, it is extremely important the UN SG seriously consider the dispatch of a monitoring mission that would undoubtedly serve to mitigate the severity of the atrocities that the internally displace people have to endure.”Unquote
I wrote this letter in 2006 exposing his involvement with LTTE terrorists and sent to The Island, Daily Mirror and Daily news but never got published. I thought It’s more timely to reproduce that letter. APPOINT A PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE INTO SIVA PASUPATHY’S ROLE AS FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL.
No sooner the CFA was signed and the Talks of the tri parties GoSL/LTTE/Norway followed, Siva Pasupathy (SP) retired former Attorney General (AG) of Sri Lanka represented LTTE at some of these Talks. I immediately fired a letter to the print media the need of Presidential Commission to probe and investigate into his activities/suggestions/proposals/leak of information to LTTE etc, during his tenure as AG. But unfortunately that letter never saw the light of the editor’s eyes and would have ended in the dust bin (thinking a mad man talking). But I reiterate the fact that how important my request was when SP who is now in Australia again went to Oslo last week for the planned talks (albeit it never occurred) to represent LTTE, which now proves that he is a hard-core LTTE supporter.
If he had joined LTTE because of so called hackneyed slogan of LTTE discrimination, then it is bunkum. He rose to the top most legal position in the Island as Attorney General and so ungrateful he is. It is clear as crystal, no sooner he retired as AG, and he has started representing LTTE. This situation calls for some scrutiny as to whether he performed his duties as an impartial AG during his tenure.
He has now amply proved by representing LTTE in several talks/assisting LTTE to draft infamous ISGA etc, a hard core LTTE supporter of the most brutal Terrorist Organisation in the world which has now been banned by 30 countries. Former AG of Sri Lanka, SP now qualifies as a “full blooded terrorist” by being a member/sympathizer of LTTE. What a change from Attorney General to a “Terrorist”
It is now clear that SP is part and parcel of LTTE and no sooner Australia brings it under the Criminal Code Act 1995, he will go into hiding as others have done. ASIO (Australian Secret Intelligence Organization) should be mindful of his whereabouts.
I reiterate the fact that it is still not late to appoint a Presidential Commission immediately to investigate/scrutinize his role as AG during his tenure whether he had overtly and covertly helped LTTE by leaking confidential Government information etc., May be some of the debacles where the Government forces lost heavily were a result of leak of such confidential information to LTTE thro AG. Who knows?
I also make a fervent request to all patriotic parties like JHU/JVP and other organizations like NMAT/PNM to get together and raise one voice to insist the government to appoint a Presidential Commission into former Attorney General Siva Pasupathy’s (I purposely avoid calling him Mr.) role and activities during his tenure as AG and if proved wrong doing, bring him into justice. -Sri Lanka Guardian
(February 28, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) When LTTE gunned down 7 fleeing Tamil civilians including two women and two children in mid January, the so-called peace advocates did not utter a word of sympathy or condemnation of LTTE for the dastardly act. Instead, there were hundreds of eulogies and hosanna sang for Late Lashanta Wickrematunga which happened in the same week because he was an icon of the elite unlike those poor hapless Tamil civilians. The peace mongers, INGOs and NGO’s who advocate peace were deaf and dumb when these fleeing innocent Tamils were killed. LTTE has now almost lost its conventional war power and back to attack innocent Sinhala villagers as in the past. LTTE has recommenced their ethnic cleansing of Sinhalese and destruction of well knit Sinhala villages in the East. Lat week, a LTTE cell operating in the Eastern province had attacked Karametiya village in Inginiyagala and shot and hacked to death 21 villagers which included women and children and injuring over 20 people. These villagers were chena cultivators carrying out their simple life style living a day to day life contented with what they have without pestering the ruling government. The villagers in these remote areas do not demand moon and star from the government unlike the urban folks who go on strike and demos for minor things aroused by political parties. But yet, these villagers have become a forgotten lot when the full concentration is now on the hapless Tamil civilians in LTTE’s captivity.
It is tragic to take action once a calamity has happened. It is reported that aleady a police post has been established in this village. We have never been pro-active. If adequate protection has been given to these villages, such a catastrophe could have been avoided. It was told that the home guards or Civil Defense forces do not work on week ends. Why not? Terrorists work 24 hours and seven days of the week (24/7). The villagers in these remote villages have been the buffer to LTTE’s expansion to the South but yet they are not protected. Twenty one innocent lives of villagers were lost due to our civil defense forces (whatever you call it) not being pro active. At least, let this tragedy be an eye opening for the authorities to put in place a constructive strategy to protect all remote villages and its inhabitants. This is not an impossible or a huge task for the Government who brought the unsinkable LTTE (as called by some) brought to their knees. The Tamil Tiger terrorists in their last ditch of facing humiliating defeat have re-started ethnic cleansing of Sinhala villagers. LTTE will start spreading and increasing these attacks to other Sinhala villages too to create a back lash in the South. Hence, the government should immediately take steps to safe guard and protect the hapless unarmed villagers in LTTE threatened villages just as much they concentrate on the hapless Tamil civilians forcibly kept in an 76 square kilometer area held by LTTE.
Unfortunately there are only few people to mourn for deaths of innocent people like this. A pertinent question is what has happened to those peace advocates like jehans, sothys, nimalkas, uyans, kumars and AI and HRW reps in Sri Lanka ? To date, they have neither condemned this dastardly act by LTTE nor made any statements of sympathy. Instead, these peace mongers and peace orgs are more involved about the Tamil civilians (which are fair) trapped in captivity by LTTE but not pressurizing LTTE to release them. They are eagerly waiting till our armed forces make some collateral damage to Tamil civilians in a cross fire so that they can bring it to the attention of the international community against the Sri Lankan Government. It is obvious that these so called peace mongers would get nothing in dollars for shedding tears when LTTE massacres innocent Sinhala villagers but get paid by appeasing LTTE terrorists or ignore its atrocities. Have they gone into slumber or is that 21 Sinhala villagers shot and hacked to death by LTTE is a small number for them to get worried or worked up?
(February 28, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Sir John Holmes, Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator of the United Nations who visited Sri Lanka at the invitation extended to UN Secretary General by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to send one of his colleagues to Sri Lanka, and pursuant to a telephone discussion with Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama, gave an informal closed door information briefing on his visit to Sri Lanka to the members of the UN Security Council on 27th February in New York.
Sir John gave a favourable account of the humanitarian assistance being provided by the Government of Sri Lanka to the civilians held captive by the LTTE as human shields as well as to those who have managed to escape and come into the Government controlled areas. He described the situation of trapped people as dire but acknowledged IDPS in transit camps are reasonably well. He stated that he was not aware of major outbreak of disease in the conflict area. He gave some descriptions of his conversations with IDPs and commented on the fairly satisfactory physical conditions and the efforts made to have acceptable screening procedures.
The remarks of Ambassadors of Security Council member states to the media following the briefing by Sir John reflected their appreciation of the sincere and commendable efforts of the Sri Lankan Government to render assistance to its citizens who are caught up in the conflict, amidst extremely difficult ground conditions. -Sri Lanka Guardian
(February 28, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) These are the allegations increasingly being used about President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan inside the coalition formed by Benazir Bhutto before her assassination in order to fight for the restoration of democracy as well as inside his own Pakistan People's Party (PPP). Well-informed sources in the PPP say that ever since he took over as the President in September last year, he has sought to marginalise the loyalists of Benazir Bhutto and have them replaced by loyalists of the Zardari family. The Bhutto loyalists have been shocked by the disinterest allegedly shown by him in pursuing vigorously the investigation into the assassination of his wife. Instead of doing so, he has allegedly asked Rehman Malik, the Internal Security Adviser, to suspend any further investigation on the ground that the UN Secretary-General has already initiated action for the case to be investigated by a team appointed by him. It is alleged that anyone, who raises the question of the lack of progress in the investigation, incurs Zardari's wrath and is subjected to harassment by the police. A typical example is that of Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, of the Sindh National Front (SNF), who is a cousin of the late Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto and a founding-father of the PPP. The police have allegedly been set after him and other members of the SNF after they raised the issue of the investigation in public.
These PPP sources claim that Bhutto loyalists have started raising doubts about the genuineness of the so-called political will of Benazir Bhutto on the basis of which Zardari took over the interim leadership of the PPP till their son Bilawal, designated in the so-called will as her ultimate successor, came of age to be able to take over the leadership. There has been no demand so far for an enquiry into the genuineness of the will, but there are increasing insinuations that the so-called will was the idea of Rehman Malik. Malik used to be in charge of co-ordinating physical security arrangements for Benazir Bhutto and many in the party accuse him of negligence which, according to them, contributed to her assassination. To the surprise of many, who were close to Benazir, not only no action was taken against him by Zardari, but he was appointed as the Internal Security Adviser with the rank of a Cabinet Minister and has emerged as a close personal adviser of Zardari. It is alleged in party circles that Malik, himself a retired police officer, has been misusing the police officers of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in which he had served during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure (1993-96) as the Prime Minister for monitoring the activities of the critics of Zardari.
Speculation about differences between Zardari and Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani continue to gain currency despite repeated denials by both. These PPP sources say that Gilani is unhappy that important decisions are being taken by Zardari and his close group of advisers without consulting him or keeping him in the picture and instructions issued directly over his head to senior bureaucrats to have the decisions executed. Gilani was also excluded from the committee set up by Zardari for selecting Party candidates for the elections to fill up vacancies in the Senate, the upprer House of the Parliament.It is said that Gilani was taken by surprise by the press conference held by Rehman Malik at which he admitted that there was partial involvement by certain elements in Pakistan in the conspiracy for the Mumbai terrorist attack. Only a day before Malik's press conference, the Cabinet Committee on Defence had discussed the Indian allegations and it was reportedly decided that a set of questions should be sent to India and that Pakistan should await India's replies before deciding on the next step.
It is alleged that Zardari, who was under tremendous pressure from the US to co-operate with India, advised Malik to admit partial involvement without awaiting India's replies to the questions. The PPP sources claim that even Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), who was present at the meeting of the Cabinet Committee, was surprised by Malik's press conference.
During Benazir Bhutto's second tenure as the Prime Minister, many PPP workers known for their loyalty to Zardari had been recruited into Government Departments, including the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the FIA. After dismissing her in 1996, Farooq Leghari, the then President, had sacked all these people who had been recruited without following the civil service recruitment rules. It is said that Zardari has been keen to have these people re-taken into the jobs from which they were sacked by Leghari, but Gilani has been strongly resisting this.
Senior officials of the Foreign Office are mystified by Zardari's decision to visit Wuhan and Shanghai in China from February 20 to 24, 2009, without an official invitation from the Chinese Government. He did not visit Beijing. Nor did he meet any Chinese leaders. He only spoke to President Hu Jintao over phone from Shanghai before returning to Islamabad. The Chinese had reportedly told Zardari that since they would be busy in connection with the first visit of Mrs.Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, to China after assuming office, they would not be in a position to receive him in Beijing during February. In spite of this, he decided to go ahead with his visit and restrict his visit to Wuhan and Shanghai only. His advisers projected his decision as part of the plan announced by him after taking over as the President to visit different provinces of China once a quarter to learn from China's experience in economic development. Foreign Office officials have been saying that it is not in keeping with the dignity of the office of the President of Pakistan to keep travelling to other countries----even if it be to China---- without a formal invitation and without taking into account the convenience of the hosts.They project this as an indicator of what they allege as the erratic and flippant streak in him.
Zardari has also come in for strong criticism inside his own party as well as inside the ruling coalition for what they see as the lack of transparency in matters relating to co-operation with the US in its fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Reports carried by sections of the US media alleging that the increasing Predator air strikes on suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban hide-outs in Pakistani territory are being carried out with the knowledge and tacit consent of Zardari have added to the suspicions that he has a huge debt to pay to the US for its role in persuading Gen. Pervez Musharraf, when he was the President, to issue the National Reconciliation Ordinance to withdraw the pending cases against him and Benazir to enable them to return to Pakistan from political exile and contest the elections.
His decision not to take any action against Musharraf for his repeated violations of the Constitution when he was in power and not to reinstate former Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhury, who was sacked by Musharraf, are also seen by many of his critics as motivated partly by his own interests and partly by US desires. It is alleged that Zardari is worried that if he reinstated the former Chief Justice, the latter might question the validity of the National Reconciliation Ordinance and order a retrial of the case relating to the alleged murder of Murtaza Ali Bhutto, the younger brother of Benazir, at Karachi in September 1996. Zardari was an accused in the case, which has since been closed. The US also feels uncomfortable with the former Chief Justice because of the interest taken by him in looking into the cases of a large number of Pakistanis, who were picked up by the Pakistani intelligence agencies and handed over to the US intelligence without following the due process of the law because the US suspected that they were involved with Al Qaeda. Many of them are reported to be in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.
Nawaz Sharif is bitter with Zardari for the way he has gone back on every commitment made by him before the elections to the National Assembly in February last year. He first went back on the commitment made regarding the reinstatement of the former Chief Justice. He then took Nawaz Sharif by surprise by manipulating to have himself nominated and elected as the President and then went back on the commitment to do away with the various constitutional amendments introduced through decree by Musharraf to restore to the President the powers to dismiss the Prime Minister and dissolve the National Assembly. He also went back on the commitment to review the various aspects of co-operation with the US in its so-called war against terrorism in order to remove those aspects which were not in Pakistan's national interests.
When Nawaz Sharif announced his support for a fresh agitation by the lawyers to demand the reinstatement of sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhury, Zardari allegedly sent Rehman Malik to meet him and his brother Shabaz Sharif, till recently the Chief Minister of Punjab, to warn them that if Nawaz Sharif supported the fresh agitation by the lawyers, he (Zardari) would not oppose any ruling by a bench of the Supreme Court to disqualify Nawaz and his brother from contesting any election and holding any public office.
Whereas Zardari and Benazir were the accused in many criminal cases which had not ended in any conviction, Nawaz Sharif had been convicted on a charge of attempted hijacking of the aircraft in which Musharraf was travelling from Colombo to Karachi in October 1999, which provoked the coup against Nawaz. His brother was the accused in two criminal cases, but not a convict. While the US-supported National Reconciliation Ordinance led to the withdrawal of the cases against Benazir and Zardari, it did not affect the conviction of Nawaz and the cases against his brother.
Despite this, the Election Commission allowed Shabaz Sharif to contest the election. He became the Chief Minister of Punjab with the support of the PPP. Nawaz was not able to contest the election because of his conviction. He was hopeful that if Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhury was reinstated as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court he would have his conviction reviewed and set aside. Zardari had reportedly promised Nawaz that the Government would take the initiative to have his conviction set aside, but he went back on the promise. Nawaz and his brother refused to appear before a bench consisting of Judges appointed by Musharraf to argue their case. The result: the bench's ruling on February 25,2009, declaring them as ineligible to contest elections and to hold any public office.Shabaz Sharif has resigned as the Chief Minister and Governor's rule has been proclaimed in the province for two months. The PPP hopes to form the provincial Government with the help of Musharraf loyalists in the PML ( Qaide Azam) and possible defectors from the PML of Nawaz.
Though Zardari's advisers have been strongly denying that he had anything to do with the ruling, Nawaz and Shabaz are convinced that the ruling was induced by Zardari. There has already been public agitation on this issue. Presuming that Zardari had a role in inducing this ruling by the bench of the Supreme Court, this could prove to be as unwise and as damaging as the decision of Musharraf in 2007 to have Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhury sacked. Zardari is not Benazir. He is seen by many in his own party as a political upstart. His confrontation with Nawaz could set in motion a chain of events which may ultimately discredit once again the political class in Pakistan and prepare the ground for another spell of military rule.
The US has reasons to be concerned over the developments in Pakistan. There is a trust deficit between it and Nawaz. It continues to back Zardari who has shown himself to be as amenable to US wishes as Musharraf, if not even more. It continues to encourage Gen.Kayani to back Zardari. But Zardari's mishandling of the political situation could come in the way of the US operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban at a time when the Obama Administration is re-tooling its Afghan strategy.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institue For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com ) -Sri Lanka Guardian
(February 28, Washington, Sri Lanka Guardian)Today’s secret intelligence community costs the U.S. taxpayer over $65 billion a year, and yet, according to General Tony Zinni, USMC (Ret), provides less than 4% of the decision support needed by a major government executive. This is the same community that has violated the Constitution at least three times, with warrantless wiretapping, rendition for torture, and more recently, a homeland surveillance grid that is a hair away from effecting a police state. This is the same community that is completely useless as a source of objective information able to help the President and those purporting to represent the public in connecting means (revenue) with ways (spending) and ends (outcomes).
The U.S. taxpayer is being screwed by the Obama Administration with “Empire as Usual.” As I wrote in my latest book ELECTION 2008: Lipstick on the Pig, and as others have documented, this election was a fraud. Seventeen percent of the eligible voters elected Obama, triumphing over the fifteen percent that voted for McCain. Upon entering office, instead of reaching out to Cynthia McKinny, Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, and others representing the two thirds of America that did not vote, the Voices Not Heard, Obama immediately abandoned his transpartisan campaign rhetoric and adopted the prevailing Washington paradigm of bi-partisanship. As Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform likes to point out, bipartisanship is what you get when the two parties that exclude all others from power get together to screw the American taxpayer. ENOUGH! Obama’s appointments to the top three positions of the totally fragmented and out-of-control U.S. Intelligence Community are mixed.
The new Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Admiral Dennis Blair, USN (Ret), is a good man badly suited to the job, and he committed intellectual suicide on day one by declaring the economic crisis to be “the” threat to national security—evidently he has not read the report from LtGen Brent Scowcroft, USAF(Ret) and other members of the Panel on High-Level Threats and Challenges. Leon Panetta, the new Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) could be a wild card, with his extraordinary knowledge, as a former Chief of Staff to the President, and as a former Director of the Office of Management and Budget, of what Presidents actually need to know. However, as of this writing, he has allowed himself to be sucked into the secret world, where he is surrounded by sycophants, liars, and bureaucrats out of touch with reality. Finally, we have Chas Freeman, selected to chair the National Intelligence Council—this is a man with so little integrity and so little intelligence that he is world-famous for prostituting himself to the Saudis and serving as their shill for the global distribution of a Saudi history “textbook” replete with fabrications, incitements to violence, and libel against Israel in particular, the West in general. Among those remaining in power are LtGen Keith Alexander, USA, who covered up and destroyed the ABLE DANGER discovery of two of the 9-11 terrorists prior to 9-11, rather than share them with the FBI. This is the same person who wants $12 billion dollars to achieve cyber-security, but who will actually use that money to assure digital nakedness for every single person, thing, and datum. I do not trust him.
ENOUGH. It is time for We the People to demand public intelligence in the public interest, to free Obama from the clutches of the closed circle of power that is totally out of touch with both reality and the public interest, and to restore the Constitution, a balanced budget, and a foreign policy committed to creating a prosperous world at peace. Obama can listen and lead, or not listen and lose it all.
Right now $65 billion a year, 70% of which is spent on contractors rather than government employees, buys a vast range of largely failed technical systems for collecting everything it is possible to steal, while ignoring the 80% that is openly available in 183 languages we do not comprehend. The secret world has no knowledge of history, of culture, of family and tribal networks, of values. The secret world is not capable of bringing all that it knows together in any one place because it has never invested in processing what it collects. The secret world is not capable of making sense of what it collects, despite a massive hiring binge, because its security and payroll habits demand the hiring of children rather than mid-career accomplished authorities, and its cult of secrecy precludes its consulting world-class experts who lack US citizenship and the kind of boring sedentary life that is easy for thick-necked security officers to “validate” as being free from foreign influence.
Perhaps even more importantly, because secrets not known to the public can be ignored by both the Executive and Congress, our Cabinet departments continue to focus on maximizing budget share (plundering the individual taxpayer) and protecting special interests (the recipients of the tax dollar). There is nothing “intelligent” about how we are governed, for ideology and pork displace substance. To illustrate the insanity of what now passes for “intelligence” at our expense, let me simply describe how each of the secret disciplines would approach the simple question of reporting on the outcome of a baseball game.
+ Clandestine Human Intelligence (HUMINT) would strive to recruit at least one player on each team, and they would be given complex covert communications arrangements for reporting, arrangements not likely to work while they are still playing. At the same time, using pre-arranged signals from the stands, the bribed players would be “tasked” to drop or catch any given ball depending on orders from Washington.
+ Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) would combine a dedicated satellite in outer-space seeking to listen to every conversations taking place on every cell phone being using during the game, with the installation of listening devices (“bugs”) in each dug-out, hoping to hear the coaches and players, and from all of that, figure out how the game is going.
+ Imagery intelligence (IMINT), would in the past have taken a picture of the ball field every three days. Today we can have a Predator circling the ball field 24/7, and if we don’t like one of the umpire’s calls, the secret world simply takes him out with a missile, never mind the collateral damage.
+ Measurements and Signatures Intelligence (MASINT), the most expensive and least productive of the secret disciplines, would install extremely complex equipment around the ball field and seek to “sniff” the ball each time it leaves the bat, and when that does not work, ask for billions more.
Remarkably absent from the secret world’s repertoire is Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), something I and 7,500 others have sought to advance these past 20 years. At almost no cost, this discipline listens and watches using publicly-available and generally free open sources, and if we wish to alter the outcome of the game, we change the rules of the game: any catch by anyone in the audience is an out. That’s called Collective Intelligence, something the secret world cannot fathom because Collective Intelligence not only knows everyone has something to contribute, but it shines so much sunlight on all information in all languages all the time that the lies protected by secrecy are quickly exposed.
Congress and the Executive are no longer representative of We the People, and can no longer be trusted as stewards of our Commonwealth. Our tax dollars are being spent in ways that reduce our prosperity and decrease our security, because Congress and the Executive are making decisions based on a mix of corruption, ideology, partisanship, and ignorance. As I wrote in the late 1990’s, the gap between people with power and people with knowledge has grown cataclysmic. Obama, for all of his talk of change and hope, has not demonstrated in a single appointment, a single speech, a single decision, any break what-so-ever from “Empire as Usual.”
In the balance of this commentary I will outline the one thing that President Obama can do now, at virtually no cost, to honor his campaign promises, restore the Constitution, and create a prosperous world at peace. This is not rocket science. It requires only one little word, a word that Buckminster Fuller selected to represent all that is essential about feedback loops within and among complex systems. The word: INTEGRITY.
Everything about how we elect our government at local, state, and federal levels lacks integrity. Everything about how they inform themselves and make decisions lacks integrity. Everything about how the public dollar is spent lacks integrity. Worst of all, everything being done “in our name” both at home and abroad lacks integrity. The time has come to either abolish the government, or restore its integrity. We do that by demanding of President Obama the transparency of which he is the purported champion. Instead of focusing $65 billion a year on “secrets for the President,” as is now the case, the President should accept the recommendation of the 9-11 Commission (on page 413 of their report), and create the Open Source Agency (OSA) as an independent agency co-equal to the CIA but under diplomatic auspices.
The OSA, which I and others have defined in collaboration with senior civil servants in OMB as well as within the Department of Defense (DoD) would initially cost only $125 million a year, ramping up over six years to a final annual cost of $3 billion a year. Once fully operational, it would allow the reduction of the secret intelligence budget by at least 50%; it would illuminate the benefits of redirecting at least a third of what we spend on war toward waging peace; and it would expose all corruption in all government spending at all levels—we can cut so much fraud, waste, and abuse as to eliminate individual income taxes along with all the corporate loopholes while generating ample revenue from a tiny tax on all financial transactions among banks and corporations. With an OSA I can wipe out the deficit in three years and cut future unfunded Medicare costs by 90%. INTEGRITY is priceless, and it favors the public over special interests.
The OSA would consist of the following “pieces,” each of which would rapidly restore INTEGRITY to the public policy and spending process, not only in the USA, but around the world in every government, every corporation, and every non-profit or civil society organization.
• A diplomatic Office of Information Sharing Treaties and Agreements, led by a senior Ambassador, would rapidly accelerate the aggregate sharing of information within the digital cloud, with full provision for all necessary aspects of privacy, accountability, and the protection of intellectual property. The Information Commons does not exist, and it must exist if we are to save the Global Commons.
• A diplomatic Office of the Assistant Secretary General for Decision Support within the Department of Safety and Security at the United Nations. This office would be responsible for identifying the intelligence (decision support) needs of all elements of the UN System, while also striving to meet the decision support needs of all those engaged in stabilization and reconstruction, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief operations. It would also be the sponsor for a Global Range of Needs Table, an online matrix of needs down to the household level, able to connect the one billion rich individuals with the five billion poor, at an item by item level of giving. This is how we harmonize close to $1 trillion a year in planned giving along with social and corporate investments, while enticing the 80% of the rich who do not give to the poor, to do so on a peer-to-peer basis.
• A Multinational Decision Support Center (MDSC) and Network, a global grid implementing the Swedish concept of Multinational, Mutliagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information Sharing and Sense-Making (M4IS2). Built around the militaries of the world, this would be a hub within each country for both harvesting knowledge from and providing knowledge to each of the other seven tribes of intelligence (government, law enforcement, academia, business, media, non-profit, and civil society including labor unions and religions). It would deal exclusively with open source information, eschewing all secrets, while enabling global real-time translations in 183 languages.
• Community Decision Support Networks (CDSN) would be funded within each of the 50 states and commonwealths, with a special network for the Tribal Nations. As with the MDSC, these would deal exclusively with open source information, and serve—with National Guard personnel manning each state’s “center”—as a means for receiving and making sense of bottom up early warning of threats to the community; and as a means of providing every community with direct free access to useful information from all global sources in all languages (with all necessary translation as needed).
This is what we have now in the way of very TIRED 20th Century Intelligence: secrets for the President; obsession with seven “Hard Target” countries; administered on basis of inputs or budget share; reliance on centralized secret analysis by children; priority of support to military aggression; Ignore OMB and the General Accountability Office (GAO); ineffective in support to Cabinet Secretaries and individual action officers; Ineffective in support to state & local governments; and excessive expenditures on secret technical collection.
This is what we could have in the way of very WIRED 21st Century Intelligence, with immediate benefits: decision-support for ALL officials and citizens; “Global Coverage” of all threats and issues in all languages; management on basis of public interest outcomes; reliance on distributed public knowledge and wisdom; respect and meet needs of OMB and GAO; provide constant comprehensive decision support and raw global information feeds to every schoolhouse and chamber of commerce; balanced expenditures on processing and sense-making that can be shared, instead of just “secrets for the President. President Obama can bring to life the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison:
A Nation’s best defense is an educated citizenry.-- Thomas Jefferson
A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. -- James Madison
National Intelligence in this era cannot be about “secrets for the President.” It must be about empowering the President—and everyone else—with the extraordinary personal and organizational power that comes from information that has been discovered, discriminated, distilled, and converted into actionable intelligence—decision-support. Operating under this new paradigm, the DNI would be the President’s chief aide in harnessing the distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth, and in creating a “Smart Nation” that will be secure as well as competitive in what is clearly the age of applied intelligence—applied Collective Intelligence.
A truly inspired DNI would ask that the OSA, while funded by the DNI and totally responsive to the DNI’s severely deficient access to global multilingual open sources of information, be a completely independent agency, a virtual “fourth estate” willing and able to ensure that every citizen has access to real-world, real-time intelligence, arming America with the power unique to an informed citizenry.
As the Rasmussen poll just documented, 73% of the public trusts public judgment over that of politicians. There is absolutely nothing wrong with America, or the world, that cannot be rapidly and constructively addressed by re-engaging the Collective Intelligence of the Whole Earth. This is how we do it.
Robert David Steele Vivas, a recovering spy and senior civilian founder of the Marine Corps Intelligence Center, is a 30-year veteran of government service across intelligence, information technology, military, and policy support functionalities. He is the founding CEO of OSS.Net, and of the Earth Intelligence Network, a 501c3 Public Charity devoted to creating public intelligence in the public interest. As a hobby, he is the #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction. All of his books are free online at www.oss.net, as well as available in hard-copy from Amazon. -Sri Lanka Guardian
(February 27 , Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) Pressure is mounting at the UN to put the humanitarian crisis in Mullativu – the last outpost of the Tamil Tigers -- on the agenda of the Security Council. The objective is to get the Security Council to call for a ceasefire. Pro-Tiger NGOs and lobbies, and also the noted Mathew R. Lee, the only blogger given accreditation at UN, (more about him later) are button holing delegates and urging them to put Sri Lanka on the Security Council agenda at today’s meeting. Sri Lanka is waging a strenuous battle in the labyrinthine corridors of international power, to stave off any UN intervention or censure. Early in February Mexico, a new comer to the Security Council, asked the Council to be briefed on Sri Lanka. Russia stepped in and said that it would be improper. Russia, however, added that it could be raised at the General Assembly. The Japanese Ambassador, Ukio Takasi, the current President of the Security Council, also said earlier that “at the moment there is no strong request” for the Council to be briefed on the Sri Lankan issue, according to Mathew Lee who questioned Takasi. In any case, in early February the general consensus was to await the return of Sri John Holmes from his Sri Lankan tour. Even the British Ambassador to UN, John Sawers, did not back the Mexican delegate even though Britain was pressing Sri Lanka to accept Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Browne as a special envoy to Sri Lanka.
The British failure to back the Mexican move was also raised in the House of Commons. Replying to Mr. Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)) who asked why Britain didn’t back the Mexican delegate at the UN, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs , David Miliband told the House of Commons: “ I am sorry to hear the hon. Gentleman talk in that way, because he knows that a failed resolution—one that faces a veto—is worse than no resolution at all, and it would strengthen precisely the forces that he and I oppose. I can assure him that our diplomats, whether in New York or in the region, are all working off the same script, which is one that has been set by the Prime Minister and me.”
Sri Lanka has played his card straight by placing the hard facts before the key delegates. Sri Lanka is also backed by Russia and China. Their veto power is going to be the trump card. Russia and China have been protective of Sri Lanka’s interests. Their supportive stance arises partly from their own global interests and partly from separatist threats to their respective nations.
The influential role of Russia was echoed even in the House of Commons as seen in the following question and answer: Mike Gapes (Ilford, South) (Lab/Co-op): Can the Foreign Secretary confirm that the problem in the Security Council is not the UK Government, but the Russian Government, who refuse to support the Security Council resolution? Therefore, unlike in Gaza, we are unable to get the Security Council resolution that is so needed.
David Miliband: There certainly is a blockage at the UN. That is why the UN has not been able to opine on this issue.
The Security Council is expected to take up the issue today but it is unlikely to succeed. Mathew Lee’s Inter City Press quoted President Takaso of saying that the “humanitarian issue in Sri Lanka is played up by the Tamil Tigers for political benefit.”
Having failed to get at Sri Lanka through foreign offices of Western countries the NGOs and the pro-Tiger lobbies are trying desperately to push their luck through the UN. Sri Lanka’s quiet diplomacy has worked to block the aggressive lobbying to get the humanitarian issue on the Council’s agenda.The pro-Tiger lobbies and NGOs have mounted a massive campaign, both inside and outside the UN, hiring agents on sale like Bruce Fei(g)n, former Attorney-General who argued the case for the Sri Lankan when he was on its pay roll and now arguing for the Tamil Tigers who are paying him handsomely for his services to argue against his own case he put up for Sri Lanka.
President Mahinda Rajapakse’s bold move to reject the Prime Minister Brown’s special envoy is a necessary strategic move that has serious implications for the future domestic and foreign policies of Sri Lanka. Though Brown’s move has some inklings of a superior tone of an ex-colonial master knowing what is best for the natives the issue goes deeper. It is a clash of two domestic interests surfacing as foreign policies. Britain is reacting primarily to its Tamil electorate. The debate in the House Commons demonstrates this amply. Every MP, mainly in the Labour Party and the Liberal Democratic Party, are raising issues in the House, to make them visible in the eyes of the Tamil voters. Invariably when these MPs raise the Sri Lankan issue in the House of Commons they cite the exaggerated complaints made to them by the Tamil voters. The pro-Tigers manipulators in the Tamil diaspora, are using this political clout to put pressure on the Sri Lankan government through their local MPs. This gives them the false notion that they can dictate their pro-Tiger policies to Sri Lanka through the foreign offices in London, Canberra, Washington etc. President Rajapakse’s rejection is a clear signal to the Tamil diaspora that they can’t dictate to Sri Lanka through foreign offices in the countries of their domicile.
Non-Tamil Sri Lankans in the diaspora are quite pleased with the decisive move of President Rajapakse to nip the budding pressures of the Tamil disapora and the NGOs by manipulating Western powers. They believe that the message should have been sent earlier.
President Rajapakse’s rejection of Brown’s Browne is a slap in the face not so much of Britain as in the faces of the manipulative NGOs and Tamil diaspora. The NGOs and the Tamil diaspora depend entirely on influencing Sri Lankan domestic policy by manipulating their political bases abroad. In his timely action President Rajapakse has stood up for the interests of all communities and not just that of one armed group terrorizing all communities, mostly the Tamils.
In the meantime, a new phenomenon against Sri Lanka has emerged at the UN -- Mathew R. Lee of the Inter City Press. As an accredited media representative he holds a unique position: he is only a blogger with no leading newspaper establishment to back him. He does not have to worry about newsprint, staff, printing presses and other administrative expenses. He is the one-man band who is bent on pushing the UN to dance to his tune. The accreditation given to him has given him access to UN delegates and officials. He has been badgering the delegates to the Security Council UN officials, the Secretary –General, Ban Ki-Moon and his officials questioning them as to why Sri Lanka has not been put on the Security Council agenda. He feels frustrated because the general consensus is that Sri Lanka is not in the same category of other crisis-ridden trouble spots.
Lee, however, argues that Sri Lanka should be listed because Darfur and Congo have been on the Security Council agenda. John Sawers, the British Ambassador, put him in his place when he said that he was comparing apples with oranges. His partisan line of questioning has been so transparent that it is easy see through from where he comes. Obviously, the NGOs and the Tamil lobbies are feeding him with pictures and one-sided stories which he peddles without any qualm. -Sri Lanka Guardian
[February 27, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian] A mischievous ad has been published against the undersigned as being a part of a network of conspirators by the Sri Lanka Patriot claiming that a deliberate attempt has been made to sabotage the said website. This ad goes to the extent of providing personal details of the undersigned, refers to him as the “Managing Chief Editor of Sri Lanka Guardian” and makes, evidently with mischievous intent, references to certain conspirators that make no sense whatsoever.
The Chief Editor of Sri Lanka Patriot, the said claimant had earlier sought the help of the undersigned as a personal favour to set up a website which was executed to his total satisfaction. But now he casts blame on the undersigned for his technical inability to handle its operation. We want to assure the public that there are no conspirators involved here neither is the Sri Lankan Guardian or the undersigned anyway involved in whatsoever way to embarrass or cause distress to the chief editor of Sri Lanka Patriot.
He has issued threats verbally over the telephone and also in the said ad about taking legal action against the undersigned and reporting him to the CID and NIB.
We will certainly appreciate if he would proceed with the threat to do so. It will enable us to have an opportunity to show that our hands are clean and we honour the highest principles of journalism. We will also strongly urge him to desist from threats of bodily harm. A copy of this public notice will be sent to the Inspector General of Police as well as to the CID and NIB.
We further state that a media institution’s reputation is judged by its performance and the Sri Lanka Patriot has hardly had a shoot from the seed cast and has in no way emerged as an organ of communication in the media world. Reputation is based on reality and not in fantasy.
(February 27, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The government has decided to reduce the price of 12.5kg Laufs Gas by Rs. 334 and Shell Gas by Rs. 310 with effect from midnight today.A senior official of Shell Gas told Timesonline that the drastic reduction was due to the decline in the import costs.
“Prices are decided by the Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) based on the import costs and cost for December 2008 and January 2009 have reduced in a significant way” he said.-Sri Lanka Guardian
(February 27, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The UNP records its strong protest against the anti Democratic action of the Govt. in the arrest of ‘Sudar Oli’ Editor N. Vidyadaran, the United National Front, a main opposition in Sri Lanka said in a press statement.
According to the statement, “if the Govt. suspects that he has been assisting the LTTE or had terrorist connections , there is a legal procedure to follow for the Govt. It could have legally and duly arrested him and produced to the Courts. In that event , we certainly have no objections.”
“But, the Govt. resorted to its dastardly action of abducting him in the infamously famous white Van ,using force. This is a grave blow to Democracy.”
“Because of these violations of law and the violence directed against the Journalists , the whole World is looking down on Sri Lanka which has lost its good image. This unlawful action, is the latest in the series of violence and assassinations which claimed the life of Lasantha Wickremetunge and launched attacks on Upali Tennekoon and many others.”
“If this abduction by any chance turns into a threat to his life , nothing can be more shameful and disgraceful than that to tarnish the image of the Govt. in the opinion of the world.”
“Let those who are behind this be reminded that these actions inspired by irresponsibility, lack of foresightedness and despicable motives can only do more harm than any good to the country and the people.” -Sri Lanka Guardian
(February 27, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Tibetans in China and abroad have started a boycott of the Tibetan New Year (Losar) fortnight, which started on February 25,2009. They are observing the fortnight as a period of mourning in homage to the Tibetans who were killed by the Chinese security forces during the uprising in the Tibetan-inhabited areas of China in March and April last year. Their observance of the period of mourning consisted of prayers and processions. In some places, they also burnt the effigies of the Chinese leaders in keeping with the Tibetan tradition of burning the effigies of demons during the New Year.
In the Qinghai province, over 100 Tibetan monks of the Lutsang monastery took out a silent procession in the Mangra ( the Chinese call it Guinan) county on February 25,2009. The procession terminated at the country centre, where the local Government offices are located. They presented a petition to a representative of the local Government calling, inter alia, for an international enquiry into the violent incidents of last year. The petition also appealed to the Chinese leaders to respect the wishes and feelings of the Tibetan youth. After observing silence for 30 minutes at the county centre, they went back to their monastery peacefully. The local Chinese authorities did not try to prevent the procession and accepted their petition.
However, on February 26,2009, vans of the Public Security Bureau went round the county asking the leaders of the procession to surrender to the police and the local population to help the police in the identification and arrest of the leaders. They warned of legal action against those not carrying out the orders and not co-operating with the police. A few hours later, a contingent of the People's Armed Police (PAP) raided the monastery and took away a number of monks for interrogation at the police station.
The Chinese authorities in Tibet and other areas having a large Tibetan population organised singing and dancing in public squares and street plays, showing how the Chinese vanquished serfdom and what was portrayed as the feudal rule of the Dalai Lama. A large number of Han Chinese living and working in these areas attended the State-sponsored celebrations, which were largely boycotted by the Tibetans despite the payment of a cash gift by the Chinese to Tibetans attending the celebrations. However, there are no reports of the Chinese forcing the Tibetans to attend the celebrations, which could have led to violence.
Coinciding with the beginning of the New Year fortnight, the Chinese authorities suspended the issue of permission to foreign tourists and journalists to visit Tibet and the Tibetan-inhabited areas. They have indicated that this ban could continue till the end of March.
However, Edward Wong of the "International Herald Tribune" managed to visit Qinghai--- presumably with a permit issued by the Chinese before the imposition of the temporary ban. His despatch, which was carried by the IHT on February 25,2009, stated as follows: "The most prominent act of Tibetan resistance to Chinese rule since an uprising last March, unfolded quietly in towns across western China on Wednesday (February 25), as monks, nomads and merchants refrained from holding festivities and instead used the occasion of Losar to memorialize Tibetans who suffered in China's military crackdown last year. Many Tibetans forsook dancing and dinner parties for the lighting of yak-butter lamps and the chanting of prayers. The result of a grassroots campaign that began months ago, the boycott of Losar signifies the discontent that many of China's six million Tibetans still feel toward domination by the ethnic Han Chinese nearly one year after the uprising and almost six decades after Mao Zedong's troops seized control of the high deserts and grasslands of Tibet.
Although more passive than the protests and riots of last year, the boycott has raised tensions. Tibetans here (in Tongren) and in other towns, including Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, say Government officials have handed out money to Tibetans to spur them to celebrate. On Wednesday, the government was eager to show festive Tibetans on state-run television: It broadcast footage of Tibetans in Lhasa dancing, shooting off fireworks and feasting in their homes. But no such activities were in evidence in this part of Qinghai Province, near the birthplace of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, except for a flurry of firecrackers set off at noon by Chinese officers outside a paramilitary compound. The boycott of festivities began even earlier, during Chinese New Year, which ran for two weeks from late January and which Tibetans here tend to observe alongside Losar. "The government thinks we should celebrate this holiday properly," said Shartsang, the abbot of Rongwo Monastery. "Certainly this year people haven't celebrated it in the same way they did in past years."
The Government has stepped up security across Tibet and shut off access to foreigners. Here in the town of Tongren, called Rebkong by Tibetans, more than 300 security officers with riot shields were seen training in the stadium on Wednesday afternoon. On Monday night, a unit of officers marched in formation along a road cordoned off with yellow tape. Like most of the people interviewed for this article, the monk asked that his name not be used, for fear of government reprisal. The monastery is under tight surveillance: Cameras have been installed throughout, monks say, and security officers dressed in monk's robes wander the alleyways. Nevertheless, the monks have put photographs of the Dalai Lama back up in prayer halls and in their bedrooms. One monk from southern Qinghai held up an amulet of the Dalai Lama dangling from his neck. "The Chinese say this is all one country," the monk said. "What do we think? You don't know what's in our hearts. They don't know what's in our hearts," he said, and tapped his chest. Some of the greatest hostility comes from 30 or so monks from Drepung and Sera monasteries in Lhasa who have sought refuge here, even as some monks from Rongwo have tried fleeing across the Himalayas to India. Last spring, after the uprising, security forces in Lhasa cleared out monasteries and jailed monks for months. About 700 monks were sent to a camp in Golmud in Qinghai Province for four months of patriotic education, then ordered to return to their hometowns for three months, said three young monks who were shipped to the camp. The three are now studying here. "We want to go back to our monastery in Lhasa, but the police would check our ID cards and evict us," one of the monks said over tea in a bedroom stacked with Buddhist texts. "We came here because we wanted a good opportunity to study."
While the Chinese have prevented all foreign journalists from visiting Tibet, N.Ram, the Editor-in-Chief of "The Hindu" of Chennai, was a privileged visitor to Tibet for two days to observe how the Tibetans are observing Losar. The official Xinhua news agency (February 26) reported as follows after his visit: "Mr. Ram’s latest visit coincided with the run-up to the Tibetan New Year. He said: “We witnessed fewer people in work places as they went back home to celebrate the New Year.There was no sign of strain or suppression there as people were filled with excitement and the atmosphere was festive. There were plenty of signs of prosperity on my long drive from Lhasa to Nyingchi.The contrast between the old and the new is very powerful, demonstrating what the Chinese Government and the system have done for Tibet.”
On February 26,2009, "The Hindu" disseminated a report of the Xinhua describing how the Tibetans were celebrating the Losar.
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com ) -Sri Lanka Guardian
(February 27, Jaffna, Sri Lanka Guardian) Torch bearing or more pointedly “pantham carrying” is a clumsy craft of the crafty that have no sense of honour or dignity. A practice of the “pandamkaraya” often a coward is that he will for private and personal gains dance a tango with a monkey.
Conscience is furthest from such a person and his sheer existence is dependent on the crumbs that fall from the table or sparingly distributed among fellow pandamkarayas. Creating one’s own source for the traditional needs with self-esteem is not habitual to the pandamkarayas. Glare, glower and a puckered brow are the tricks of their trade. Or they sail a vicarious journey believing that the very person to whom they hold torch is them too.
A good example would be a cinema hero. If such a person acts with a beautiful heroine hugging and kissing her, the fixated fan feels that he is in the act himself; perhaps fantasizes even more for himself. Or if he drives a luxury car, the fan is in the driving seat. So much also for the Tamil National Alliance Members of Parliament and how they prostrate in front of Velupillai Prabhakaran. This is the guy who has to answer for 70,000 brutalized deaths and today he holds hundreds more using them as his final act of revenge.
Sam the Pantham or call him Sampantham has strange ideas about elections and what people seeking elections to legislatures or what are expected of them. He has simply no ideas about party politics, obligations to constituents and even how one should behave in a House of Parliament. Not long ago, he and his TNA MPs mistook the legislature for a funeral house and conducted the final rituals for a supposed dear departed amidst fellow law-makers of the state making asses of themselves.
Sam the Pantham has his strange bedfellow mates too, indeed a confused lot who thought all their obligations were to a dictator who had the belief that he was presiding over a sovereign state in the style of Pol Pot of Cambodia. It was this Cambodia guy who caused the deaths of two million Cambodians having had strange ideas about governing people just like the Wanni dictator. Sam the Pantham did have some visions too, and one was to train an heir apparent to the Wanni dictator on the quiet so that he could have control of Eelam.
His trainee chap was another TNA MP Gajendran who was sent on a rowdy mission to cause havoc in the precincts of the University of Jaffna and ensure Professor Jeevan Hoole never took office as the Vice Chancellor there. Here is another tragic example of how the community was denied the services of an excellent educationalist. The hell Gajendran created in and around the university reflects the type of material Tamils have as their representatives in the House of Parliament.
Sam the Pantham and his sishyas not to be mistaken with Aviiviveka Poorana Guru and his fellowmen Maddi, Madayan, Pethai and Milaychan, want to seek elections from the people but not to represent them. They want to represent the Tigers of Wanni, the band of the dictator, just the way they have done the last few years. But this could all change.
If by any chance the Wanni dictator does a Marcos with the help of the Norwegian Erik Solheim or becomes trapped like the Iraqi Hussein in a hole, Sam the Pantham will look immediately for another organ grinder. The other day Sam the Pantham held a meeting in the port town of Trincomalee to make a public announcement that the Wanni dictator is assured of his support and of his muddled orchestra; in other words, to show the world that all talks about terrorism coming to an end is all cock and bull. Sam the Pantham wants to hold the torch for terrorism.
It may even be his ambition to take over the terror contraption once the Valvettiturai brand, not the Subramaniam orange barley, fizzes out. After all this terror business attracted millions of dollars, Sterling, and Euros and Sam the Pantham would love to lay his hands even if it would be a small part of it. May be he sounded to the terror group that he is ready to take over should the current leader bite the cyanide that has been waiting to be bitten for many years now. Yes of course, he didn’t have the courage to do it himself when he forced others to do just that in certain situations.
What will be Sam the Pantham’s alternative to the cyanide vial? Some say he will take the rope or even lay his neck on the Tampalakamam rail track, once the train to Colombo had passed just like Tamilnadu Thirumavalavan’s 36-hour fast unto death. Of course in the case of the Chiriththai Puli (Leopard) from Tamilnadu his medical condition demands regular fast to stay alive!
However, most of the TNA guru’s sishyas have already done the beat ready for seeking refuge anywhere from Solomon Islands to the Dominican Republic. Some may never return while one or two may make brief visits to sell their properties. One such property in Colombo has already been placed on sale.
And Sam the Pantham knows for sure the game is up now and yet he was very foolish to announce in public his vicarious fixation to the Wanni dictator. May be he had his reasons and there was something to gain from making a statement in Trincomalee in support of the LTTE. One can presume, involved in it must be something substantial for his gain.
How can a Member of Parliament hold the torch for terrorism? No Sri Lankan with even an iota of honour in him can tolerate such a stand. This is an insult especially to the Tamil community. -Sri Lanka Guardian
(February 27, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is indeed no surprise that the painfully repetitive lessons of history have never ever been imbibed by the ilk of dictators, terror chieftains and megalomaniacs. The ruthless pursuit of power to satisfy their grandiose ambitions have invariably brought to their people, followers and all those who do their bidding, voluntarily or under coercion, nothing but ruin and destruction.
An addition to this evil band of those who have brought total misery to their people in the name of illusory freedom for the Tamils in the island nation of Sri Lanka is the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) supremo, Vellupillai Prabhakaran.
Waging an insurrection since the mid-70s, characterised by matchless violence, Prabhakaran’s struggle have now entered its final hours before its now assured wipeout by the Sri Lankan forces, who have mounted a successful military campaign since July 2006 against the LTTE.
From controlling nearly one-third of territory in Sri Lanka’s north and east, the Tamil Tigers (another name for the LTTE) have been pushed into a 300 sq km area along the coast with the Sri Lankan Navy also deploying itself along the sea-lanes dominating the coastlines to prevent Prabhakaran from fleeing the battlefield.
Nearly 75,000 civilians have died since the fratricidal conflict commenced and over two lakh Tamil civilians have been displaced from their homes. A major humanitarian crisis has thus resulted with countries the world over, including India and the European Union, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, international agencies like the Red Cross and the International Human Rights Commission voicing their concerns over the ongoing violence and consequently the misery heaped on innocent civilians by both the LTTE and the government forces.
The Tamil Tigers must hang their heads in utter shame that they are resorting to their trademark tactics of suicide bombers now against their own poor Tamils in relief camps who were fleeing from the LTTE’s clutches, as the LTTE killed 30 on February 9 using a poor Tamil girl as the suicide member.
The LTTE had been, for the record, declared a terrorist organisation by 32 countries, including the UN, India, the US, the UK and the European Union. India, of course, can never pardon Prabhakaran for masterminding the gruesome assassination of India’s ex-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi while he was on an election campaign in Tamil Nadu in 1991.
Prabhakaran feared that if elected again, Rajiv might send in the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka once again and his ambitions to establish an independent state named Tamil Elam in the north and east of the island might get thwarted.
The Sri Lankan civil war has been, since 1983, an on-and-off civil war between the predominantly Sinhalese government and the Tamil Tigers. After over two decades of consistent fighting, marred by gross human rights violations by both the LTTE and the government troops and three failed attempts at peace talks including the not-so-successful deployment of the IPKF from 1987 to 1990, a ceasefire agreement came into force in early 2002 with international mediation.
However, as there were allegations of violations of the ceasefire and human rights by both sides, the fragile ceasefire broke down in late 2005.In July 2006, the Sri Lankan forces mounted a well-planned major offensive against the LTTE and drove them out of the entire Eastern province of the island. The Sri Lankans then shifted their offensive towards the northern part of the Tamilian strongholds, destroyed a major portion of the Sea Tigers naval vessels and ensured, with international assistance, a crackdown on overseas funding for the LTTE.
Thus over 98 per cent territory, previously controlled by the LTTE, including their administrative capital Kilinochchi, the LTTE’s main military base at Mullaithivu and the entire A9 highway (Kandy-Jaffna), has fallen to the government forces with Prabhakaran’s whereabouts not clearly known.
Though both Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse and his Army Chief, Lt Gen Sarath Fonseka, have expressed that 2009 will be the “year of heroic victory” and “ the end of terrorism is near” respectively, the beleaguered Tamil Tigers have been issuing press statements that they will continue to fight on.
However, some experts feel that the LTTE may change its tactics and while they may have been defeated as a conventional force, may resort to an underground guerrilla campaign, which is essentially their expertise honed over long years of insurgency in Sri Lanka.
On February 3 the US, Japan, Norway and the European Union issued a joint statement urging the LTTE to lay down the arms and end all hostilities and prevent further bloodshed especially to the thousands of innocent Tamil civilians, who have been caught in the crossfire and with some being used as human shields by the LTTE.
India has much in stake in neighbouring Sri Lanka owing to both geo-strategic aspects of the region and importantly, the ethnic kinship between our Tamils and those who reside in Sri Lanka. The last two decades have, however, seen some ups and downs in Indo-Sri Lankan relations.
The wily Sri Lankan President J Jayawardene in the late 80s cleverly used the IPKF and the India-Sri Lanka Accord 1987 to essentially promote his country’s interests whilst the IPKF did his dirty work of fighting the LTTE, losing over 1,100 soldiers in the bargain apart from Rajiv Gandhi’s unfortunate and untimely death at the hands of the LTTE.
Subsequently, the next Sri Lankan President Premadasa was hardly cordial towards to India and consistently flirted with the Chinese and Pakistanis at Indian expense, while being a Sinhalese chauvinist in his approach to matters concerning its own Tamilian population.
In case they had implemented with some sincerity the 1987 accord which recommended powers to the Tamils and merging of the eastern and northern provinces for a Tamil state on the lines of states in India, perhaps there would have been some peace in Sri Lanka.
Meanwhile, the Government of India has been active in the past few months in urging the currently very friendly Rajapakse Sri Lankan dispensation to call off all operations so that further casualties of innocent Tamil civilians do not take place.
Be that as it may, the Sri Lankan government has a window of opportunity which it has not had for decades. As it completes successfully its military campaign against the LTTE, it must find an amicable political solution to the ethnic conflict, which takes into consideration genuine aspirations of its Tamil population.
The suggestions made to the Sri Lankan government by Mr Pranab Mukherjee during his flying visit to the island on January 27 urging for devolution of powers as the major solution to this ethnic conflict could provide the healing touch to this beautiful, albeit terrorism-ravaged, island.
The Sri Lankan government must work for a genuine federal state and curb Sinhalese extremist tendencies. As it has done in the past, India must continue to be generous in its humanitarian aid to their hapless people.
The writer was the first Chief of the Defence Intelligence Agency of Govt. of India. These are his personal views.-Sri Lanka Guardian
(February 27, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) Ever spend a summer's night on the farm? Sometime ago, while traveling through the flat lands of Canadian Prairies, I was invited to stay at a farm. After enjoying mid-Western hospitality of barbeque and chat around the fire pit, I retired for the night in the farmhouse. In the middle of the night I was woken by loud barking at the farm I was staying at, which immediately followed by many barks from dogs in neighboring farms. This middle of the night unprovoked barking went on every night, and soon I started to notice a pattern. A dog thinks he hears something he doesn't like and starts barking. Within a minute, dogs from other farms join in. After few minutes of annoying barking, they all go silent, unsure as to why they were barking in the first place, and go back to being the lazy ol'porch-hounds that they are. Unlike other dogs, these particular farm dogs are not needed for any important chores like hunting or sheep herding; rather they just sleep all day, and when they are not, they walk around the farm aimlessly. It's what they do.
In the context of Sri Lankan conflict there are many real, and ‘nom de guerre’ porch hounds of such caliber – Sebastian Rasalingam et al. They like to bark it up just to show everyone that they are still hanging around by the porch, while sporting a massive chip on their shoulders that could be seen from outer space. At heart, these Sri Lankan hounds – some senile, are morbid rubberneckers. Give off even the faintest sense of suffering, or sordid circumstance, and they will pop their snout in peoples’ pain and start admiring the magnitude of misery. Like those farm dogs of the Prairies they do nothing of value except to cause distraction with tiny annoying insidious bark, and waxing of eloquence with verbal machete; so their political masters can carry-on with the “agenda.”
The “agenda” – of course is to get the entire nation on the same “Genocide” page. In return for being loyal “Genocide Sympathizers” they get rewarded, from time to time, with a little scratch behind their ears and few doggy biscuits to chew on. Currently, the line between truth and propaganda is a border so often crossed it makes Sri Lanka look like cold war Berlin. And, ironically the last time I can remember the entire nation on the same page was Germany in the late 1930’s, and we all know how that turned out.
Back in the dim past, when I was a pup in the investment arena, a revered veteran passed along a story to illustrate the point that enforcing the same unproductive economic policies over and over can only produce same unproductive economic results; and the story is worthy of note here as it is jarringly similar to Sri Lankan saga.
Two politicians went on a moose hunt. Since the terrain was unknown to them and a punishing one to boot, they hired a plane and pilot to take them for hunting and for the trip back home. The pilot was happy to do it, as he knew that it is a chance to make a quick buck while being in charge. But he warned the politicians – as he has done such trips before – that they could only bring back one moose, as the small plane cannot take the weight of more than three people and a moose. Politicians agreed.
However, after the hunting was over, politicians brought back two moose. To which the pilot said: “I told you guys the plane can only take one moose and three people.” Conniving that they are, the politicians coaxed and cajoled and finally convinced the pilot to take both moose and them, pilot agreed.
After a painfully long taxi, take off and a short flight – the plane crash-landed due to overweight. When the dust settled, one of the politicians managed to get him out of the wreckage, looked outside and asked the pilot “Where are we?” And the pilot replied “We are about few kilometers away from where you two dummies crashed the plane last time.”
While this is a simple story, it profoundly reflects the current situation in Sri Lanka; pilot denoted by the ‘consortium of countries’ which are helping Sri Lanka to crush the Tamil freedom struggle, Plane is ‘the country,’ punishing terrain is ‘Tamil Heartland,’ and of course the ‘Two Politicians’ are Colombo drunks who adamantly believe that the best way to prevent a hangover is to stay drunk.
It is a mystery why Sri Lanka stubbornly refuses to learn from the mistakes of its past. A cursory glance at the experience of the past in Sri Lanka would suggest that it is a very bad idea to celebrate military battles – which always has the tracings of a low budget Bollywood movie. Politicians have been trumpeting their recent ‘elusive’ victory for months with displays and dances, which can only lead to nothing but more Tamil anger, resentment and subsequently more violence. Rubbing salt in old wounds with military bravado speeches is guaranteed to inflame passions best allowed to recede. In a country awash in violence, it seems egregious to celebrate this conflict.
Albert Einstein’s insight was never more apt: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them,” said one of humanity's biggest brains half a century ago. Sri Lanka – a sinking ship; reintroducing the same old bad policies is like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. The evidences are abundance to support such claim.
Most of the population lives below the poverty line. Almost 45% of the population makes less than $2 a day. School children in Sri Lanka suffer from malnutrition. Global investors continuously deprive foreign direct investments – a key prerequisite for economic growth. Basic services still remain rudimentary. The general standard of living is on the decline. The rule of law is absent for the most part. A huge number of people have fled abroad to seek better opportunity and to do better things with their skills and money, resulting in brain drain and capital. The country is financially levered infinite times over, and completely broke beyond believe. Generations of unborn Sri Lankans are now in financial debt, forever. It’s like watching an economic train wreck in slow motion.
Despite all this, a sizeable myopic majority of hounds are fixated on short-term fixes, and say that “Eelam” idea is dead, and a sizeable plurality of politicians say it is because they have “won the war.” Meanwhile the bulk of the Sri Lankan population is dancing hard to this drumbeat at the party financed by the foreigners; without giving any deep thought and totally oblivious to the mess there are in by adhering to the notion that “Two drunks don’t make a sober person.”
So the natural question is, is the party over? Well, I do not know. But if I were at this party, I would be dancing near the exit door. Because one thing is for sure: Tamil freedom struggle can’t end until the last Tamil gives up. French poet and playwright Victor Hugo's dictum is now unfolding: “No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.” Tamil Diaspora’s recent show of force around globe is an example of such defiance.
It took Sri Lanka, many foreign countries support – military advisers, consultants, strategists, pilots, guns, bombs and about 30 years to get to this point, and it’s still not over. Eelam cause on the other hand relied on no one – not a single foreign entity, but owned by Tamils and operated by high-grade fuel of freedom. It managed to outsmart all the thug politicians and heavily decorated Sri Lankan army generals with gold braid and badges, who painfully rely on foreigners to do the heavy lifting for them. I am not sure what military traditions these brave sons emanate from – maybe WestPoint Academy, but it is categorically embarrassing to say the least.
Even after all those claims of ‘annihilation’ of Tigers by these hounds, they still managed to penetrate Sri Lanka’s “borrowed” – not bought – air defense, and managed to cause some mayhem and embarrass the Colombo goons. True to form, the hounds of course dismissed this by barking at those planes and calling it a kite with primitive technology. If the Tigers can surprise them with a kite, imagine what they can do with real ones. And, Ukraine pilots were not flying those Tiger planes either. I am not sure who is skillful and brave in this scenario? These hounds apparently prefer to remain comfortably inside a particular bubble – a bubble that most Tamils recognize it as the empty illusion of intelligent thought with more shine than substance.
Given the current abominable situation, every Sri Lankan who fails to vociferously urge the ‘hounds and hunters’ to be responsible forfeits the right to peaceful sleep and safe flight in this little farm called Sri Lanka. Remember, those who sleep with dogs wake up with fleas.
The moose hunters have finally tipped the scale, and crash-landed the country – once again. Soon the farm dogs will stick to animalistic legacy of their evolutionary past and will go silent, unsure as to why they were barking in the first place. In a country that loves its clichés, “there’s no silver bullet” to this long-term issue of Tamil freedom struggle; but the hounds and hunters have given way to a “perfect storm” once and for all in this contentious battle.
I used to take an almost perverse delight in being politically incorrect about countries with bad leaders. Now I see otherwise: There is no humane way to destroy a country.
[The writer can be reached at roy_ratnavel@hotmail.com] -Sri Lanka Guardian
