(October 31, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Following the military defeat of the LTTE on the 18th of May, competition for supremacy for control of the Tamil politics is going through a new phase.

Minister Douglas Devananda is said to be strenuously working to fill the vacuum created with the demise of LTTE leadership. Backed by enormous financial resources provided by the government and income generated from many covert unaccounted government backed clandestine business operations, including money laundering deals, he is in the recruitment process to get the Tamils on to his side.

Having taken control of the Jaffna Municipality in the meagre voting by the Tamils recently, he is using it as his base to run his gravy train.

Douglas Devananda’s agents in Europe are going around approaching prominent members of the Tamil community to join him. Financial offers and positions are offered in the Jaffna Municipal Council. Few who were in the fringes of Tamil politics in the diaspora has taken on his offers and have gone to Jaffna to act in various capacities.

Positions are offered even if someone is not willing to go to Jaffna. Pure interactions with Douglas Devananda from overseas are rewarded with positions and titles.

Douglas Devananda’s sources confirmed that he is already started working to select individuals for the forthcoming parliamentary elections to be held in March or April 2010. The former LTTE activist Miss Ankayatkanni Selvarajah, known as Dancing Queen on her return to London following recent local government election campaign work in Jaffna for Douglas’s EPDP has confirmed to her friends that Minister Douglas Devananda will reserved a seat for her to become an MP.

In another development, sources in South London said Ankayatkanni is facing pressures from the Tamils there. When she went on shopping on a high street, she was said to have been spat at and hostile comments were made by some Tamil customers to the extent of calling her a traitor.

Further information filtering through government sources confirms that President Mahinda Rajapakse had harsh words with Douglas Devananda for the poor performance in the recent Jaffna Municipal elections. The President is also maintaining some distance with Douglas since then after telling him that he is expecting outstanding performances in any future elections in the North.

Douglas is said be preoccupied in Jaffna leaving the ministerial duties to his subordinates in Colombo.

-Sri Lanka Guardian

“People were willing to tolerate these issues for a reason, but that reason is over. The war is over, conclusively. People were happy and they put the stickers on their buses, but once the petrol runs out they’re won’t be so supportive.”
_________

By Indi

(October 31, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Mahinda’s war honeymoon is over. In the past month there have been crippling petrol and student strikes, plus a wholesale collapse of the national electrical system. Water, ports and railways have also threatened strikes. These are mundane things, but they are the type of grievances that topple governments. The only thing missing is a narrative to bind them together.

Focus

Mahinda had a plan for the war. It was a simple plan, marketed, funded and executed ruthlessly. He has no such plan for the economy. The basic idea seems to be to ride the wave of post-war prosperity. Indeed, a secure nation has opened up opportunities for many people.

However, mega-projects aside, his developments haven’t created many jobs. They have made for good commissions and contracts for companies (including many Chinese) but the daily wages I’ve seen in Hambantota and along the east coast rarely exceed Rs. 400. These projects are good in the long term, but they’re not putting food in people’s mouths now.

Cost Of Living

And the people are hungry. We have sacrificed tremendously in terms of the direct cost of war and its collateral drag on the economy. Moreover, the increasing size and decreasing competence of government has also drained our earnings while money printing has impoverished us via inflation.

People were willing to tolerate these issues for a reason, but that reason is over. The war is over, conclusively. People were happy and they put the stickers on their buses, but once the petrol runs out they’re won’t be so supportive.

Strikes

If the power, petrol, water and transport staff strike at once it will shut down the entire country. Most of these people have already struck separately, plus the perennial parade of university students. They strike for the own reasons, some foolish some wise, but if they were united by a narrative they could actually change something.

Unfortunately, of course, there is no opposition to connect the dots. If they could, however, it wouldn’t be a pretty picture for Mahinda.

-Sri Lanka Guardian

“What is the provenance of the billions of dollars (several times more than India's GDP) secretly stashed away by Indian citizens in Swiss bank accounts? Where did the two billion dollars spent on the last general elections come from? What are we to make of the fact that the Union home minister, P. Chidambaram, the CEO of Operation Green Hunt, has, in his career as a corporate lawyer, represented several mining corporations?”
_____________

By Arundhati Roy

(October 31, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) The low, flat-topped hills of south Orissa have been home to the Dongria Kondh long before there was a country called India or a state called Orissa. The hills watched over the Kondh. The Kondh watched over the hills and worshipped them as living deities. Now these hills have been sold for the bauxite they contain. For the Kondh it's as though god has been sold. They ask how much god would go for if the god were Ram or Allah or Jesus Christ?

Perhaps the Kondh are supposed to be grateful that their Niyamgiri hill, home to their Niyam Raja, God of Universal Law, has been sold to a company with a name like Vedanta (the branch of Hindu philosophy that teaches the Ultimate Nature of Knowledge). It's one of the biggest mining corporations in the world and is owned by Anil Aggarwal, the Indian billionaire who lives in London in a mansion that once belonged to the Shah of Iran. Vedanta is only one of the many multinational corporations closing in on Orissa.

If the flat-topped hills are destroyed, the forests that clothe them will be destroyed too. So will the rivers and streams that flow out of them and irrigate the plains below. So will the Dongria Kondh. So will the hundreds of thousands of tribal people who live in the forested heart of India, and whose homeland is similarly under attack.
In our smoky, crowded cities, some people say, "So what? Someone has to pay the price of progress." Some even say, "Let's face it, these are people whose time has come. Look at any developed country, Europe, the US, Australia–they all have a 'past'." Indeed they do. So why shouldn't "we"?

In keeping with this line of thought, the government has announced Operation Green Hunt, a war purportedly against the 'Maoist' rebels headquartered in the jungles of central India. Of course, the Maoists are by no means the only ones rebelling. There is a whole spectrum of struggles all over the country that people are engaged in–the landless, the Dalits, the homeless, workers, peasants, weavers. They're pitted against a juggernaut of injustices, including policies that allow a wholesale corporate takeover of people's land and resources. However, it is the Maoists who the government has singled out as being the biggest threat.

Two years ago, when things were nowhere near as bad as they are now, the prime minister described the Maoists as the "single-largest internal security threat" to the country. He revealed his government's real concern on June 18, 2009, when he told Parliament: "If left-wing extremism continues to flourish in parts which have natural resources of minerals, the climate for investment would certainly be affected."

Who are the Maoists? They are members of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist)–CPI (Maoist)–one of the several descendants of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), which led the 1969 Naxalite uprising and was subsequently liquidated by the Indian government. The Maoists believe that the innate, structural inequality of Indian society can only be redressed by the violent overthrow of the Indian State. In its earlier avatars as the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) in Jharkhand and Bihar, and the People's War Group (PWG) in Andhra Pradesh, the Maoists had tremendous popular support. (When the ban on them was briefly lifted in 2004, one-and-a-half million people attended their rally in Warangal.)

But eventually their intercession in Andhra Pradesh ended badly. They left a violent legacy that turned some of their staunchest supporters into harsh critics. After a paroxysm of killing and counter-killing by the Andhra police as well as the Maoists, the PWG was decimated. Those who managed to survive fled Andhra Pradesh into neighbouring Chhattisgarh. There, deep in the heart of the forest, they joined colleagues who had already been working there for decades.

Right now in central India, the Maoists' guerrilla army is made up almost entirely of desperately poor tribal people living in conditions of such chronic hunger that it verges on famine of the kind we only associate with sub-Saharan Africa. They are people who, even after 60 years of India's so-called Independence, have not had access to education, healthcare or legal redress. They are people who have been mercilessly exploited for decades, consistently cheated by small businessmen and moneylenders, the women raped as a matter of right by police and forest department personnel. Their journey back to a semblance of dignity is due in large part to the Maoist cadre who have lived and worked and fought by their side for decades.

If the tribals have taken up arms, they have done so because a government which has given them nothing but violence and neglect now wants to snatch away the last thing they have–their land. Clearly, they do not believe the government when it says it only wants to "develop" their region. Clearly, they do not believe that the roads as wide and flat as aircraft runways that are being built through their forests in Dantewada by the National Mineral Development Corporation are being built for them to walk their children to school on. They believe that if they do not fight for their land, they will be annihilated. That is why they have taken up arms.

Even if the ideologues of the Maoist movement are fighting to eventually overthrow the Indian State, right now even they know that their ragged, malnutritioned army, the bulk of whose soldiers have never seen a train or a bus or even a small town, are fighting only for survival.

In 2008, an expert group appointed by the Planning Commission submitted a report called 'Development Challenges in Extremist-Affected Areas'. It said, "the Naxalite (Maoist) movement has to be recognised as a political movement with a strong base among the landless and poor peasantry and adivasis. Its emergence and growth need to be contextualised in the social conditions and experience of people who form a part of it.

The huge gap between state policy and performance is a feature of these conditions. Though its professed long-term ideology is capturing state power by force, in its day-to-day manifestation, it is to be looked upon as basically a fight for social justice, equality, protection, security and local development." A very far cry from the "single-largest internal security threat".

In order to keep its better-off citizens absolutely safe from these dangerous people, the government has declared war on them. A war, which it tells us, may take between three and five years to win. It's not enough that Special Police–with totemic names like Greyhounds, Cobras and Scorpions–are scouring the forests with a licence to kill.

It's not enough that the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Border Security Force (BSF) and the notorious Naga Battalion have already wreaked havoc and committed unconscionable atrocities in remote forest villages. It's not enough that the government supports and arms the Salwa Judum, the "people's militia" that has killed and raped and burned its way through the forests of Dantewada leaving three hundred thousand people homeless, or on the run. Now the government is going to deploy the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and tens of thousands of paramilitary troops. It plans to set up a brigade headquarters in Bilaspur (which will displace nine villages) and an air base in Rajnandgaon (which will displace seven). Obviously, these decisions were taken a while ago. War has been in the offing for a while. And now the helicopters of the Indian air force have been given the right to fire in "self-defence", the very right that the government denies its poorest citizens.

Fire at whom? How in god's name will the security forces be able to distinguish a Maoist from an ordinary person who is running terrified through the jungle? Will adivasis carrying the bows and arrows they have carried for centuries now count as Maoists too? Are non-combatant Maoist sympathisers valid targets? When I was in Dantewada, the Superintendent of Police showed me pictures of 19 'Maoists' who "his boys" had killed. I asked him how I was supposed to tell they were Maoists. He said, "See Ma'am, they have malaria medicines, Dettol bottles, all these things from outside."

What kind of war is Operation Green Hunt going to be? Not much news comes out of the forests. Lalgarh in West Bengal has been cordoned off. Those who try to go in are being beaten and arrested. And called Maoists of course. In Dantewada, the Vanvasi Chetana Ashram, a Gandhian ashram run by Himanshu Kumar, was bulldozed in a few hours. It was the last neutral outpost before the war zone begins, a place where journalists, activists, researchers and fact-finding teams could stay while they worked in the area.
Meanwhile, the Indian establishment has unleashed its most potent weapon. Almost overnight, our embedded media has substituted its steady supply of planted, unsubstantiated, hysterical stories about 'Islamist Terrorism' with planted, unsubstantiated, hysterical stories about 'Red Terrorism'. In the midst of this racket, at Ground Zero, the cordon of silence is being inexorably tightened. The 'Sri Lanka Solution' could very well be on the cards. It's not for nothing that the Indian government blocked a European move in the UN asking for an international probe into war crimes committed by the government of Sri Lanka in its recent offensive against the Tamil Tigers.

The first move in that direction is the concerted campaign that has been orchestrated to shoehorn the myriad forms of resistance taking place in this country into a simple George Bush binary: If you are not with us, you are with the Maoists. The deliberate exaggeration of the Maoist "threat" helps the State to justify militarisation. (And surely does no harm to the Maoists. Which political party would be unhappy to be singled out for such attention?) While all the oxygen is being used up by this new doppelganger of the War on Terror, the State will use the opportunity to mop up the hundreds of other resistance movements in the sweep of its military operation, calling them all Maoist sympathisers.

I use the future tense, but this process is well under way. Right now in Lalgarh, the Pulishi Santrash Birodhi Janasadharaner Committee or the People's Committee Against Police Atrocities–which is a people's movement that is separate from, though sympathetic to, the Maoists–is routinely referred to as an overground wing of the CPI (Maoist). Its leader, Chhatradhar Mahato, now arrested and being held without bail, is always called a "Maoist leader". We all know the story of Dr Binayak Sen, a medical doctor and a civil liberties activist, who spent two years in jail on the absolutely facile charge of being a courier for the Maoists. While the light shines brightly on Operation Green Hunt, in other parts of India, away from the theatre of war, the assault on the rights of the poor, of workers, of the landless, of those whose lands the government wishes to acquire for "public purpose", will pick up pace. Their suffering will deepen and it will be that much harder for them to get a hearing.

Once the war begins, like all wars, it will develop a momentum, a logic and an economics of its own. It will become a way of life, almost impossible to reverse. The police will be expected to behave like an army, a ruthless killing machine. The paramilitary will be expected to become like the police, a corrupt, bloated administrative force. We've seen it happen in Nagaland, Manipur and Kashmir. The only difference in the "heartland" will be that it'll become obvious very quickly to the security forces that they're only a little less wretched than the people they're fighting. In time, the divide between the people and the law enforcers will become porous. Guns and ammunition will be bought and sold. In fact, it's already happening. Whether it's the security forces or the Maoists or non-combatant civilians, the poorest people will die in this Rich People's War. However, if anybody believes that this war will leave them unaffected, they should think again. The resources it'll consume will cripple the economy of this country.

Last week, civil liberties groups from all over the country organised a series of meetings in Delhi to discuss what could be done to turn the tide and stop the war.

These are the people who the Union home minister recently accused of creating an "intellectual climate" that was conducive to "terrorism". If that charge was meant to frighten people, to cow them down, it had the opposite effect. The speakers represented a range of opinion from the liberal to the radical Left. Though none of those who spoke would describe themselves as Maoist, few were opposed in principle to the idea that people have a right to defend themselves against State violence. Many were uncomfortable about Maoist violence, about the "people's courts" that delivered summary justice, about the authoritarianism that was bound to permeate an armed struggle and marginalise those who did not have arms. But even as they expressed their discomfort, they knew that people's courts only existed because India's courts are out of the reach of ordinary people and that the armed struggle that has broken out in the heartland is not the first, but the very last option of a desperate people pushed to the very brink of existence. The speakers were aware of the dangers of trying to extract a simple morality out of individual incidents of heinous violence, in a situation that had already begun to look very much like war.

People who had come from the war zones, from Lalgarh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa, described the police repression, the arrests, the torture, the killing, the corruption, and the fact that in places like Orissa, they seemed to take orders directly from the officials who worked for the mining companies. People described the dubious, malign role being played by certain NGOs funded by aid agencies wholly devoted to furthering corporate prospects. Again and again they spoke of how in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh activists as well as ordinary people–anyone who was seen to be a dissenter–were being branded Maoists and imprisoned. They said that this, more than anything else, was pushing people to take up arms and join the Maoists. They asked how a government that professed its inability to resettle even a fraction of the fifty million people who had been displaced by "development" projects was suddenly able to identify 1,40,000 hectares of prime land to give to industrialists for more than 300 Special Economic Zones, India's onshore tax havens for the rich. They asked what brand of justice the Supreme Court was practising when it refused to review the meaning of "public purpose" in the Land Acquisition Act even when it knew that the government was forcibly acquiring land in the name of "public purpose" to give to private corporations. They asked why when the government says that "the Writ of the State must run", it seems to only mean that police stations must be put in place. Not schools or clinics or housing, or clean water, or a fair price for forest produce, or even being left alone and free from the fear of the police–anything that would make people's lives a little easier. They asked why the "Writ of the State" could never be taken to mean justice.

There was a time, perhaps 10 years ago, when in meetings like these, people were still debating the model of "development" that was being thrust on them by the New Economic Policy. Now the rejection of that model is complete. It is absolute. Everyone from the Gandhians to the Maoists agree on that. The only question now is, what is the most effective way to dismantle it?

An old college friend of a friend, a big noise in the corporate world, had come along for one of the meetings out of morbid curiosity about a world he knew very little about. At one point, he leaned across to me and said, "Someone should tell them not to bother. They won't win this one. They have no idea what they're up against. With the kind of money that's involved here, these companies can buy ministers and media barons and policy wonks, they can run their own NGOs, their own militias, they can buy whole governments. They'll even buy the Maoists. These good people here should save their breath and find something better to do."

When people are being brutalised, what "better" thing is there for them to do than to fight back? It's not as though anyone's offering them a choice, unless it's to commit suicide, like the 1,80,000 farmers caught in a spiral of debt have done. For several years, people in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal–some of them Maoists, many not–have managed to hold off the big corporations. The question now is–how will Operation Green Hunt change the nature of their struggle? What exactly are the fighting people up against?

It's true that, historically, mining companies have almost always won their battles against local people. Of all corporations, leaving aside the ones that make weapons, they probably have the most merciless past. They are cynical, battle-hardened campaigners and when people say "Jaan denge par jameen nahin denge (We'll give away our lives, but never our land)", it probably bounces off them like a light drizzle on a bomb shelter. They've heard it before, in a thousand different languages, in a hundred different countries.

In India, many of them are still in the First Class Arrivals lounge, ordering cocktails, blinking slowly like lazy predators, waiting for the Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) they have signed–some as far back as 2005–to materialise into real money. But four years in a First Class lounge is enough to test the patience of even the truly tolerant. There's only that much space they're willing to make for the elaborate, if increasingly empty, rituals of democratic practice: the (rigged) public hearings, the (fake) Environmental Impact Assessments, the (purchased) clearances from various ministries, the long-drawn-out court cases. Even phony democracy is time-consuming. And time, for industrialists, is money.

So what kind of money are we talking about? In their seminal, soon-to-be-published work, Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminum Cartel, Samarendra Das and Felix Padel say that the financial value of the bauxite deposits of Orissa alone is 2.27 trillion dollars. (More than twice India's Gross Domestic Product). That was at 2004 prices. At today's prices it would be about 4 trillion dollars.

Of this, officially the government gets a royalty of less than 7 per cent. Quite often, if the mining company is a known and recognised one, the chances are that, even though the ore is still in the mountain, it will have already been traded on the futures market. So, while for the adivasis the mountain is still a living deity, the fountainhead of life and faith, the keystone of the ecological health of the region, for the corporation, it's just a cheap storage facility. Goods in storage have to be accessible. From the corporation's point of view, the bauxite will have to come out of the mountain. If it can't be done peacefully, then it will have to be done violently. Such are the pressures and the exigencies of the free market.

That's just the story of the bauxite in Orissa. Expand the four trillion dollars to include the value of the millions of tonnes of high-quality iron ore in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and the 28 other precious mineral resources, including uranium, limestone, dolomite, coal, tin, granite, marble, copper, diamond, gold, quartzite, corundum, beryl, alexandrite, silica, fluorite and garnet. Add to that the power plants, the dams, the highways, the steel and cement factories, the aluminium smelters, and all the other infrastructure projects that are part of the hundreds of MoUs (more than 90 in Jharkhand alone) that have been signed. That gives us a rough outline of the scale of the operation and the desperation of the stakeholders.

The forest once known as the Dandakaranya, which stretches from West Bengal through Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, parts of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, is home to millions of India's tribal people. The media has taken to calling it the Red corridor or the Maoist corridor. It could just as accurately be called the MoUist corridor. Scores of corporations, from relatively unknown ones to the biggest mining companies and steel manufacturers in the world, are in the fray to appropriate adivasi homelands–the Mittals, Jindals, Tata, Essar, Posco, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and, of course, Vedanta.

There's an MoU on every mountain, river and forest glades: social and environmental engineering on an unimaginable scale. And most of this is secret. Somehow I don't think that the plans that are afoot to destroy one of the world's most pristine forests and ecosystems, as well as the people who live in it, will be discussed at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Our 24-hour news channels that are so busy hunting for macabre stories of Maoist violence–and making them up when they run out of the real thing–seem to have no interest at all in this side of the story.

Perhaps it's because the development lobby to which they are so much in thrall says the mining industry will ratchet up the rate of GDP growth dramatically and provide employment to the people it displaces. This does not take into account the catastrophic costs of environmental damage. But even on its own narrow terms, it is simply untrue. Most of the money goes into the bank accounts of the mining corporations. Less than 10 per cent comes to the public exchequer. A very tiny percentage of the displaced people get jobs, and those who do, earn slave-wages to do humiliating, backbreaking work.

When the scale of money involved is what it is, the stakeholders are not always easy to identify. Between the CEOs in their private jets and the wretched tribal Special Police Officers in the "people's" militias–who for a couple of thousand rupees a month fight their own people, rape, kill and burn down whole villages in an effort to clear the ground for mining to begin–there is an entire universe of primary, secondary and tertiary stakeholders. These people don't have to declare their interests, but they're allowed to use their positions and good offices to further them. How will we ever know which political party, which ministers, which MPs, which politicians, which judges, which NGOs, which expert consultants, which police officers, have a direct or indirect stake in the booty? How will we know which newspapers reporting the latest Maoist "atrocity",–are stakeholders?

What is the provenance of the billions of dollars (several times more than India's GDP) secretly stashed away by Indian citizens in Swiss bank accounts? Where did the two billion dollars spent on the last general elections come from? What are we to make of the fact that the Union home minister, P. Chidambaram, the CEO of Operation Green Hunt, has, in his career as a corporate lawyer, represented several mining corporations? What are we to make of the fact that he was a non-executive director of Vedanta–a position from which he resigned the day he became finance minister in 2004? What are we to make of the fact that, when he became finance minister, one of the first clearances he gave for FDI was to Twinstar Holdings, a Mauritius-based company, to buy shares in Sterlite, a part of the Vedanta group?

What are we to make of the fact that, when activists from Orissa filed a case against Vedanta in the Supreme Court, citing its violations of government guidelines and pointing out that the Norwegian Pension Fund had withdrawn its investment from the company alleging gross environmental damage and human rights violations committed by the company, Justice Kapadia suggested that Vedanta be substituted with Sterlite, a sister company of the same group? He then blithely announced in an open court that he too had shares in Sterlite. He gave forest clearance to Sterlite to go ahead with the mining despite the fact that the Supreme Court's own expert committee had explicitly said that permission should be denied and that mining would ruin the forests, water sources, environment and the lives and livelihoods of the thousands of tribals living there.

What are we to make of the fact that the Salwa Judum, the brutal ground-clearing operation disguised as a "spontaneous" people's militia in Dantewada, was formally inaugurated in 2005, just days after the MoU with the Tatas was signed?

What are we to make of the fact that just around the time the prime minister began to call the Maoists the "single-largest internal security threat" (which was a signal that the government was getting ready to go after them), the share prices of many of the mining companies in the region skyrocketed?

The mining companies desperately need this "war". It's an old technique. They hope the impact of the violence will drive out the people who have so far managed to resist the attempts that have been made to evict them. Whether this will indeed be the outcome, or whether it'll simply swell the ranks of the Maoists remains to be seen.

The real problem is that the flagship of India's miraculous "growth" story has run aground. It came at a huge social and environmental cost. And now, as the rivers dry up and forests disappear, as the water table recedes and as people realise what is being done to them, the chickens are coming home to roost. All over the country, there's unrest, there are protests by people refusing to give up their land and their access to resources, refusing to believe false promises any more. Suddenly, it's beginning to look as though the 10 per cent growth rate and democracy are mutually incompatible.

To get the bauxite out of the flat-topped hills, to get iron ore out from under the forest floor, to get 85 per cent of India's people off their land and into the cities (which is what Mr Chidambaram says he'd like to see), India has to become a police state. The government has to militarise. To justify that militarisation, it needs an enemy. The Maoists are that enemy. They are to corporate fundamentalists what the Muslims are to Hindu fundamentalists.

It would be a grave mistake to imagine that the paramilitary troops, the Rajnandgaon air base, the Bilaspur brigade headquarters, the Unlawful Activities Act, the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act and Operation Green Hunt are all being put in place just to flush out a few thousand Maoists from the forests. In all the talk of Operation Green Hunt, whether or not Mr Chidambaram goes ahead and "presses the button", I detect the kernel of a coming state of Emergency.

In the meanwhile, will someone who's going to the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen later this year please ask the only question worth asking: Can we leave the bauxite in the mountain? – (28 October 2009)

-Sri Lanka Guardian

By Basil Fernando

(October 31, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) The incident at Bambalapitiya regarding the pursuit of a young man by the police to the sea and allowing him to die there is another cruel incident that demonstrates the type of policing that exists in Sri Lanka. Police hounding people like dogs is a demonstration of the way that arrests are done. The only exception in this case is that the way that this was done has come to knowledge of the public due to the presence of some persons and a video camera that caught the incident. However, if all the incidents that happen daily at the police stations in Sri Lanka were to be caught on camera, it would show that this incident is no real exception.

The people of Sri Lanka know that this is what is happening at their police stations. However, there is passive acceptance of this kind of cruelty. The media rarely report police brutality and some local reporters unfortunately get their reports from the police themselves. Instead of engaging in investigative journalism, they often give versions of incidents that are in favour of the police.

Despite of the extent of the brutality of the police, there has hardly been any significant debate in the parliament about the nature of policing in Sri Lanka. The people’s elected representatives, while blaming the politicization of the police, do not make any attempt to develop any positive steps in order to deal with the horrible behaviour of the police.

The limited attempt that was adopted to deal with this issue was the creation of the National Police Commission as an institution functioning under the 17th Amendment to the Constitution. However, the 17th Amendment was abandoned by this government.

The Executive President of the country and the inspector general of the police should accept the full responsibility for the police brutalities. The president paid some monetary compensation to the parents whose children were victims of the Angulana police murders. This is hardly the way to deal with police brutalities. What is needed is the will to ensure that the police function under the rule of law. The Executive President and the government is responsible for the present state of this collapsed institution.

-Sri Lanka Guardian

Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has strongly condemned the shocking killing of a mentally ill person in the beach of Bamalapitiya (Colombo 4) which involved the police.
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(October 31, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Hundreds of people were gathered around the beach whilst the violent act was perpetrated on Thursday against this innocent and mentally disabled man. Police officers pursued the man who was seen stoning buses and trains on the beach side road. He was chased by the police towards the sea and the victim went as far as into the sea.

The police men did not find ways to get him out of the see, but went on to charge him with the batons. The video footage shows the man was defending himself from the police attack. His resistance was in vain, within few minutes the sea drama of the police came to an end and the man was dead choking in the water. For the spectators, it was real drama and for others the video footage is a real life film. This incident reflects the ugly face of the security persons at the time when the outgoing Inspector General of Police boasted them as exemplary service men.

Perhaps few weeks ago, we watched the video release by the Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka brought to the public domain by the UK based Channel 4 news. The footage showed young Tamil men being executed by the army.

There was even a video footage of abhorring dealings by the Sri Lankan forces of the dead bodies of Tamil Tiger female cadres.

These are in addition to the display of naked bodies of Tamil Tiger cadres in an open truck in the holy city of Anuradhapura following an encounter in the army base.

These incidents are strongly condemned by the Sri Lanka Government and it always qualifies them by saying these are huge conspiracies against the government to tarnish the image of the forces.

The latest footage of the killing of the mentally ill man makes the government defenseless and it has made everyone clear who has tarnished the image of the country. The government remains exposed and it is in a twisted knickers situation, unable to blame it on external forces. The denial spree government is good at creating another concocted story on the latest incident.

The victim, the 26 years old Shivakumara was a resident of Ratmalana - just few miles away from where he was killed and the area is mainly an ethnic Tamil minority concentrated place in Colombo.

‘This kind of police brutality has taken place all over Sri Lanka in the past few years. The IGP must take the responsibility for this shocking incident’ said Mr. Basil Fernando, director of the Asian Human Rights Commission to the Sri Lanka Guardian.

Speaking from Delhi, Mr. Basil Fernando further said, “ This is just one single brutal act that was witnessed by the people. There are no law and order and a highly corrupted brutal Police service has carried out this act. We were seen this in Angulana when the wife of high ranking police offer took the law into her hand and brutally punished the school children, just few months ago.”

“The Asian Human Rights Commission condemns (AHRC) both the police and the Government of Sri Lanka for this incident and many other similar incidents routinely occurring in the country. The police officers who commit such acts continue to remain as law enforcement officers is not just surprising but truly shocking. Before anything else, the Sri Lankan government must get rid of the persons in the law enforcement agencies who do such barbaric acts and blatantly violate the law. A heavy burden lies with the country's Attorney General - under whom there is branch to prosecute torture perpetrators - to act decisively,” Mr. Basil Fernanado added.

-Sri Lanka Guardian

There are about 30,000 Sri Lankan Tamil Pensioners in foreign countries.

A Sri Lanka Guardian Reader

(October 31, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) For the last several months or may be years the Sri Lankan Pensioners were getting Rs.2,000.00 a month as C.O.L (Cost of living Allowance) but most of the Tamil pensioners abroad are not paid this as they do not know what is happening to their monthly pensions and their breakdowns of the amounts. They are paid a lump sum payment of base pension but the monthly Rs.2,000.00 COL is not paid to them.

These Pensioners who are living abroad should write to the Director General Of Pensions (Colombo 10) and also to the Sri Lankan Embassy or Sri Lankan High Commission concerned and ask that they be paid the monthlty Rs.2,000.00 Cost of Living Allowance which is their right. They should ask for the breakdown of their pensions. Then the pensioners will know what they are getting and for what and easy to ascertain their base pension and C.O.L.?

If it is difficult to get a reply from the Director General of Pensions then deal with the Sri Lankan Missions Abroad.

The Director General of Pensions in Colombo 10 has an email address and a FAX number. All SL Embassies and SL High Commissions abroad have email addresses and FAX numbers. EMAIL IS FREE so use email as much as possible to get your COL and know the breakdowns. Ask them the breakdown of the pensions you are getting or may be you could ask for full details from the banks (they have email addresses too) that pay your pension in Sri Lanka. One can go to the relevant websites to find our their email addresses and FAX numbers. We are in the 21st century.

-Sri Lanka Guardian

By Lucien Rajakarunanayake

(October 31, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The "International Community" has every reason to be proud just now. They must be so thrilled they may use the coming Guy Fawke’s Day to have special bonfires to celebrate their victory.

They will be celebrating the arrest of Heinrich Boere, 88, a former member of Hitler’s SS, whose trial in a German court, charged with murdering three Dutch citizens during World War II, began this week. It will be one of the last Nazi war crimes prosecutions, along with next month’s trial of John Demjanjuk 89.

We can’t deny the IC its joy. Punishing the Nazis for the War Crimes they committed follows in the tradition of the Nuremberg Trials. Such events taking place today, after the Allies celebrated the 60th anniversary of the end of World War 2, help to turn the focus away from what the IC is doing just now to helpless people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Somalia.

Let the IC have its great day of joy. Yet, why is it that those who sanction and applaud manhunts for war criminals that can last for more than sixty years, are so angry at a small, democratic nation that is not in the charmed circle of the IC trying to prevent having to carry manhunts, for those who carried out crimes that are often much more heinous than what Nazi criminals had done?

I was watching a live webcast of a House of Commons Committee debate two days ago, when so many British MPs, were castigating Sri Lanka, and demanding the most severe sanctions and punishments on the country for the manner in which the IDPs in the North of our country are being treated. A key item in the list of charges against Sri Lanka is the time taken to screen the IDPs, and the lack of freedom for them.

The barrage of largely false and ill-informed charges made against Sri Lanka by those who were setting themselves up as the paragons of virtue on human rights, gave me the impression that what they would like to see is Sri Lanka, carrying out a manhunt for LTTE war criminals that would drag on for even a century, given the increasing life expectancy of people in the West today.

It was obvious that the Pied Piper who prepared their common "Bash Sri Lanka" hymn sheet and paid for their singing was listening well to how they were performing, by the many assertions made my one member after another that there were no Sri Lankan Tamils voters in their constituencies. Stressing they had no Tamils voters, many of them admitted to having friends among expatriate Sri Lankan Tamils, and also knew others who knew members of such families from Sri Lanka, and were, therefore, well informed of the day to day functioning of the relief centres at Menik Farm.

These elected representatives of the British people, while making passing references to the terrible violence carried out by the LTTE, were appalled in unison at the conditions at Menik Farm, and very particularly about the screening of IDPs — why it was taking so long, and the absence of international observers at such screenings.

It is interesting to know whether there were any international observers trailing the Nazi hunter Ulrich Maass, who is reported to be a satisfied man today, having hunted down Heinrich Boere, 88, for what will probably be the last trial against a Dutch war criminal from World War II, and one of the last Nazi war crimes trials. By calling for quick and reduced screening for those who may have carried out or were closely associated with the many acts of savage brutality carried out by the LTTE seem keen to see war criminals of Tamil Eelam escape the law in Sri Lanka.

The people they want to be screened in a jiffy and sent out to the safety of the West, or, much worse plot more violence and crime in Sri Lanka, are those who carried out the massacre of more than a hundred Muslim worshippers while at prayer in a mosque at Kattankudy, the slaying of so many pilgrims at the Sri Maha Bodhi, the slaughter of Buddhist monks and young samaneras at Arantalawa, the massacre of more than 600 policemen who had surrendered to the LTTE in the East, the bus bombs that caused so much carnage at Kebitigollawa, Dambulla, Moratuwa and several other places, the attack on the Central Bank, the Pettah Bus Stand and CTO bombs —- the litany or terror and crime goes on and on.

The vote hungry members of the House of Commons cannot be bothered by what they believe are apparent footnotes in the trail of terror in Sri Lanka that lasted three decades, and not just the five plus years of World War 2 or the entire period of Nazi rule in Germany, which is much less that 30 years..

Those who carry out crimes of war are known to conceal themselves very well, as good or even model citizens, in the places to which they have fled, or in some instances gone to with help and connivance of some sections of the allied forces or its intelligence network. While the vast majority of Tamil IDPs does not comprise not gun carrying, grenade throwing or cyanide adorned LTTE cadres, there must be such types among them, who can very well blend with the Tamil expatiate communities abroad, and live as exemplary citizens in the countries of the West. All that is needed is some cunning and plenty of help from the so-called Tamil Diaspora. What Sri Lanka is trying to do, if these block heads in the Commons do not know it or see it, is to prevent having to launch lengthy manhunts for war criminals of the Tiger stripe, as Israel had to hunt for the fugitive Nazis.

But it is not possible to reason with those who sing for their supper. What I saw during that debate on what they said was the current situation in Sri Lanka, was how easy it is for a liar to be a Member of House of Commons. What most of them said there were utter lies extending from deliberate fabrications to drivel and balderdash. It was so full of the tripe and garbage of cheap and vulgar parliamentary debate, that one wondered if it was a Standing Order of the Commons that its members had to leave their brains outside when coming for a debate in the Chamber or Committee Room.

One women member, who interrupted another of her lying colleagues, to add a new note and lyric to the hymn of hatred against Sri Lanka they were singing, said the latest information she had was that the North East Monsoon had already struck in the Vanni, and that Menik Farm was badly flooded and the people there suffering every hardship of a massive inundation.. All she had to do if interested in being accurate was to check with the British Met Dept. to know about the NE monsoon in Si Lanka, and she would have learnt that its onset is in early December. That was typical of the type of lying that went on, to justify the demands being made for Sri Lanka to be denied GSP plus, suspended from the Commonwealth, and for an international probe on War Crimes in Sri Lanka’s battle to end the terror of the LTTE. There were many others who also feared the onset of the monsoon, that it reconfirmed by belief that there is a rapid spread of monsoon madness among members of the International Community, having almost reached epidemic proportions in the House of Commons.

It is obvious that members of the Commons who have been exposed on their false claims on personal expenses and the new rules that will make it harder for them to make such claims, which the cost of trimming lawns, maintaining second homes and possibly keeping the toilets clean too, have now got on to a new source of income, that does not come through claimed expenses that are vetted by any ethics committee, but is easily got through the brown paper envelopes that must be available in plenty among the so-called Tamil Diaspora. Singing the ballads of untruth, scripted by those who funded terror can certainly help the Commoners to enjoy the creature comforts they yearn for at no cost to the British taxpayer. It’s Sing along time for the Choir of Hatred and Untruth in the Commons.

-Sri Lanka Guardian

By Keerthi Ratnayaka

(October31, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Three decades of time people of Sri Lanka were gripped by horror, now a great sigh of relief has flow across the entire nation being finally released from the grip of the fear of terrorism. The Sri Lankan Nation now looks to the future with renewed hope and enthusiasm but a political dialogue needs to be initiated as soon as possible to prevent the Tamils from becoming an oppressed people again.Thus legitimate concerns and aspirations of the Tamil people and other minorities must be fully addressed. Government must aware that defeating a terrorist group does not solve the underlying grievances of its people. Prior to work out what so ever, Government is constituted to face a election. SL political stage warming day by day as Gen. Fonseka’s name is hitting news headlines as a prospective candidate for the next Presidential election. Today Rajapaksha regime is ready to extend even the prime minister post to merely make silence his profile,as Gen.Fonseka has became the most strong symbol of the nation.There are widespread campaigns to have Gen.Fonseka elected as president in near future.Many Srilankans believe that Gen.Fonseka's stance against corruption and his non alliance to traditional political methods could put the correct path towards the extreme development and law and order of the country .


Gen.Fonseka functioned as un shaken tower in his tour of duty in Srilanka army,till changing the dire situation of motherland. In the wake of the fall of Elephant Pass base complex to the Tigers in early 2000, Major General Fonseka, was appointed Security Forces Commander of Jaffna while Major General Janaka Perera became Overall Operations Commander, North. As soon his assignment he called MBRLS to continue war and multi-paralleled rocket launchers (MBRLs) set caused a lethal weapon against LTTE and in much of northern territory being reduced to rubble. During the so-called prace process Major General Sarath Fonseka took command of troops in Jaffna 10 may 20002,result of the cold war of President CBK and Prime minister Ranil, returning to a post he was transferred out of in 2000 following infighting in the Army high command.On the day he take over duty all shops and schools were closed down and black flags were hoisted in Jaffna. In the phase of ceasefire agreement Maj.Gen Fonseka ordered Army to continue maintain bunkers as well construct new bunkers within hundred metres of the LTTE’s FDL in violation of the ceasefire agreement, despite the matter being brought notice the SLA several times by Colombo Government as well SLMM.

Maj.Gen. Fonseka came to prominence in the peace process when, in December 2002, he issued a public letter defying the CFA and refusing to withdraw from High Security Zones (HSZs) he disregard the claim arise from SLMM,LTTE even from the Government on restriction conditional of high security zones and resettlement of the internally displaced Tamils in their own homes and villages in Jaffna close with military occupation.Replying Gen.Fonseka called LTTE to lay down arms to impliment such claim despite of the Government version.Responding LTTE leadership was critically reviewed the document put forward by Major General Sarath Foneska, with regards to de-escalation and return to normalcy of civilian life in the Jaffna peninsula which was sent to the LTTE through the SLMM.LTTE leader noted by its official statement " Inevitably, the SLA's refusal to honour the commitments already reached between the GOSL and the LTTE seriously undermines the ongoing peace process.It is clear that the Sri Lankan Army is opposed to the peace process and its adopting a hardline positioning full awareness of the negative impact this will have on efforts to resolve the conflict in Sri Lanka.Most importantly, Gen.Fonseka is not making adherence to the cease-fire agreement reached by the LTTE and the GOSL.

Speaking to representatives of the North Ceylon Journalists’ Association about attacks caused on media persons covered the melee in the outskirts of Jaffna city by Sri Lankan armed forces as well para militant, He said that newspapers in Jaffna do not give the correct picture of the situation there and that the news they publish is “half information and distorted” intended to make people angry at the Sri Lankan armed forces. We don’t have any intention of attacking, assaulting any media people. But I also must tell you at the same time we are not hundred percent happy about the way media people in Jaffna are carrying out their jobs. .I can provide proof from articles in Jaffna papers in the last month to show how unfair you have been. I just mentioned this for you to know that you also have to make some effort to change this situation. This is why the media (in Jaffna) haven’t got the confidence of the security forces”, thus leave a margin for ‘other pressures’ on Jaffna journalists for not ‘reporting correctly’. Sometimes we are forced to use tear gas, rubber bullets and baton charge. We use the word minimum force in such situations. When troops baton charge the media calls it an attack”.“If media people were inside the mobs then you also would have had to face the baton charge and the rubber bullets. You happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You have to take precautions .Journalists should inform us as an organised body when they want to cover an incident. Then we can take a certain amount of responsibility for your safety. Otherwise we cannot provide you safety.Referring to the murder of the well-known Jaffna journalist, Mr. Mylvaganam Nimalarajan, Maj. Gen. Foneseka said:“Security forces had nothing to do with this. It was a political killing. We understand your emotions towards this incident. There are various hidden hands… forces in the south”.He said that certain parties operating in the south, which called “half militant, were behind Mr. Nimalrajan’s murder.

By barring pro LTTE campaigns in Northern territory, Major General Sarath Fonseka, instructed all the Government official as well five zonal directors of education in the Jaffna district not to allow any public events to take place in school premises during school hours with out his approval. The circular issued in this regard asked all education officials not to allow students and teachers to attend events in public places in school uniforms.The circular has categorically ordered the what ever official, not to allow hoisting of Tiger flag in any event inside such premises.interfering with the Great Heroes’ Day arrangements in the peninsula, he said the SLA won’t allow the Tiger flag to be flown in Sri Lankan government buildings and public places.

When President Rajapakse came to power , he appointed Lt. Gen. Fonseka to the post of Army Commander, JHU and JVP provoked the same . Stresssing word on new government peace initiate he said the Army today was not going to be docile as when Chandrika Kumaratunga was President."People thought like in the past one and half or two years we will put the white flag and shape up matters," Due to my aggressive military ‘retaliation’ LTTE returned to peace talks in a short period he said.”the difference between previous peace efforts and the present one is that the new government is going for talks with 'peace and respect.'”Referring contemptuously to the United National Front (UNF) government of Premier Ranil Wickremesinge, Lt. Gen. Fonseka said: “those days people spoke about peace as they were scared to face the LTTE.”“If they could have, they would have eliminated the LTTE, but because they [UNF leaders] were scared of them [Tigers] they spoke about peace.”

Declaring offensive in Mavilaaru Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka vowed to take control of Tamil Tiger controlled Sampur in Trincomalee “within days” as military offensive against the enclave continued for the fourth day. “We have gone through half way and we will capture the whole area within a few more days,” “We are doing it now and we are being successful,” he said.In 2008 Gen Fonseka was due for retirement, thusly he claimed that he would not leave the war to his succeeding commander, at a New Year party hosted by him to local and international journalists at his residence at Bauddhaloka Mawatha in Colombo.

In a program on Sri Lanka by the ‘Unreported World’ produced by Channel 4, British reporters tried to travel to the island’s North and East to investigate the continuing abductions and killings of civilians.As part of the program, the reporters interviewed Army commander, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka.Asked how it is that so many people were being murdered or abducted in mysterious circumstances across in Sri Lanka, even in the capitol, Colombo, Gen. Fonseka said: “those are the allegations by interested parties who are trying to sabotage or block the military operations.”“ And They have vested interests several parties. They say hundreds are missing, hundreds are murdered. But as far as complaints are concerned, there are no formal complaints even entered in the police station or something like that. There are no witnesses who come to police station and given evidence,” he said.Asked about the killings and abductions that refugees in the east, said i: “If you are saying Karuna’s people are doing it or any other paramilitary groups, then it is a problem between the LTTE and the paramilitary groups.” “this area [east] is not a normal area. So people getting killed and some people going missing will happen as far as the anti-terrorist operations are continuing.”Lt. Gen. Fonseka meanwhile insisted the LTTE can be defeated militarily.The British reporters had been given permission to visit Jaffna for four days.Prior to leave from island they brought out during the time they were here, four people reported missing, Channel 4 said.

In an interview published in the state-controlled Sinhala daily Dinamina on January 2, 2008, Foneska said the “treachery” of the media was the only obstacle hampering the military’s fight to defeat the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).“The biggest obstacle is the unpatriotic media,” “I know 99 percent of media and journalists are patriotic and doing their jobs properly.But unfortunately, we have a small number of traitors amongst the journalists. They are the biggest obstacle.”Gen. Sarath Fonseka, in an interview to Canada's National Post , said he "strongly believed that Sri Lanka belongs to Sinhalese."I strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our people," quoted Stewart Bell of the Canadian paper National Post the Sri Lankan commander as saying."We are also a strong nation. They can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things."

An interview to a Sri Lankan state-owned newspaper Gen.Fonseka remarked Indian government "is not interested in a ceasefire in Sri Lanka" as it has listed the LTTE as a terrorist organisation and added that the Indian Government would never influence Sri Lanka to restore the ceasefire with the LTTE and it would not listen to the "political jokers" of Tamil Nadu whose "survival depends on the LTTE".When asked by the newspaper reporter about allegations of Sri Lankan security forces' disregard for civilian casualties, Fonseka replied: "These allegations are made only by the corrupt politicians in Tamil Nadu who have been bribed by the LTTE. Though they are very much aware that the civilians are not getting killed in any of these military operations they try to utter some words on behalf of the LTTE as their survival depends on the LTTE."

Recently addressing The religious ceremony organized by Washington Buddhist Temple Gen.Fonseka remarked, he had rendered his service to the Motherland as an Army officer for several decades and would be always prepared to continue his service, duty and responsibility towards the Motherland.Killing of Prabakaran would not end terrorism.

What we need now is to develop a society that would not create more Prabakarans. It is not necessary to detain Tamil people further. Detaining them further would create more Prabakarans in the future.We should take the country that was liberated from terrorism towards development. If my Motherland that was liberated from terrorism is driven astray, I am, prepared to give up my uniform and work with people to take the country on a correct path.

Yes General,through out past We built too many walls to safe guard the mother land, now right time to build bridges to come across our own people.You are the saviour of our Nation.

(The writer, editor, www.rawaya.net, online journal based in Colombo, Sri Lanka)

-Sri Lanka Guardian

EXCLUSIVE: “There was no problems or misunderstandings whatsoever among the parties like some trying to highlight.”
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Photo caption - Ambassador Jaliya Wickramasuriya and Chief of Defence of Staff, General Sarath Fonseka at the dinner function hosted by the Embassy on 25th Oct, in honour of Chief of Defence Staff. (L-R - Mrs Fonseka, Chief of Defence Staff - General Sarath Fonseka, Ambassador Jaliya Wickramasuriya and Mrs Wickramasuriya)
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(October 31, Washington, Sri Lanka Guardian) We reported in our earlier news about the visit of General Sarath Fonseka to Washington and that the Sri Lanka envoy to the US Jaliya Wickramasinghe was absent in the special religious function held at the Washington Buddhist temple. Our correspondent in Washington now confirmed that the Ambassador was out of state attending another pre arranged event on the day of the function at the temple and had a special dinner for the General and his wife at his Deputy Chief of Mission’s residence later.

General Fonseka was informed by the Ambassador in advance of his inability to participate at the event of the Buddhist Vihara as the Ambassador was out of state attending another event which was scheduled earlier. It was not an issue as indicated in some media, since both of them were aware of the situation, as they were in touch and planning arrangements. In his absence, the Ambassador instructed his Deputy Chief of the Mission and the embassy staff to attend the event at the Buddhist Vihara in Washington DC and to provide whatever assistance.

According to our correspondent in Washington, “prior to his arrival in New York, on the instructions of Ambassador Wickramasuriya, all appropriate airport courtesies including immigration and custom clearance enabling his smooth entry into the United States were arranged”.

“On his arrival in Washington DC, General Fonseka was received at the Airport by Deputy Chief of Mission and Defense Attaché. And also, General Fonseka and the delegation were provided the logistical facilities,” our source added.

Throughout the following day (Oct. 26) until his departure from Washington DC, Ambassador Wickramasuriya accompanied General Fonseka for the official meetings, our correspondent in Washington said.

Special lunch was hosted by the Ambassador for Gen. Fonseka and the delegation at the Ambassador’s residence before his departure.

Understand that during the visit of General Fonseka to Washington DC, as Chief of Defence of Staff, he was provided by this Embassy appropriate facilities.

“There was no problems or misunderstandings whatsoever among the parties like some trying to highlight,” a source in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Colombo told the Sri Lanka Guardian.

-Sri Lanka Guardian

By Mike Hewitt

(October 31, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) On March 23, 2009, China made public announcements to overhaul the global monetary system, thereby questioning the role of the US dollar as the reserve currency.1 Chinese officials have gone on record saying they want to move the global currency peg away from the dollar in favour of currency diversification as indicated by China's push for OPEC to price oil in a basket of currencies (including the yuan) instead of dollars.

The use of the Chinese yuan in China's neighbouring countries for transactions has been growing in recent years. Today the yuan is informally freely convertible in almost all countries bordering China.

The push for the regionalization of yuan appears to be gathering steam ahead of the scheduled launch of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) on January 1, 2010. Under the terms of CAFTA, there will be zero-tariff for 90 percent of the products traded between China and ASEAN countries and "substantial opening" in the service trade market.

At nearly US$2.3 trillion, China holds the largest official foreign exchange reserves of any country and surpassed Japan as the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt in November 2008. Understandably, such a large exposure leaves China subject to currency fluctuations. China has been shifting their U.S. holdings to shorter term Treasuries and analysts believe China has been continuing a trend of diversifying into non-US dollar assets.

The economic model of export-led growth, of which China has been engaging, is essentially the practice of vendor financing to the United States. The concern is not that the United States will be unable to pay back the debt, for as long as this debt is denominated in US dollars, the United States will always be able to pay off the debt (since they can legally print as many dollars as required). The concern is what the purchasing power of these dollars will be when the debt is eventually repaid.

The cost of printing a $100 dollar with Benjamin Franklin's portrait is the same as that required for a $1 dollar bill with a profile of George Washington. The value for this extra paper note is derived by reducing the purchasing power of all US money in circulation and held in reserve. For single bills, the effect of devaluation is trivial; however, when large increases to the US money supply occur, the effect upon purchasing power becomes a disconcerting issue for holders of large amounts of US denominated assets such as US government bonds and treasury bills.

The widely accepted US dollar is usually used to settle trade accounts. Since July, China has allowed Hong Kong and five mainland cities to settle cross-border trade in yuan. Additionally, since December 2008, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) has signed six different official bilateral currency swap agreements worth 650 billion yuan in total.

Currency swap agreements are two-way loans between central banks. A central bank, through the exchange, injects the partner country's currency into its own financial system, allowing domestic businesses to borrow the other country's currency and use it to pay for imports of that country's goods.

This allows for bilateral trade to occur between the two countries without a requirement to convert everything into US dollars as firms importing goods from China can then pay for them with yuan borrowed from domestic banks. As the yuan is not a fully convertible currency it would be primarily used for this purpose.2

Other countries working towards directly exchanging their own currencies in trade transactions with China rather than using the US dollar as an intermediary include Russia, Brazil and Thailand. Recently, China has moved past the US as Brazil's top trading partner.

While the Chinese yuan does not currently have the liquidity to replace the US dollar as the global currency of choice for resolving international trade settlements, it must be acknowledged that China has made great strides in making that scenario more plausible than it was even a year ago.
Notes

1 "The acceptance of credit-based national currencies as major international reserve currencies, as is the case in the current system, is a rare special case in history ... The crisis again calls for creative reform of the existing international monetary system towards an international reserve currency with a stable value, rule-based issuance and manageable supply, so as to achieve the objective of safeguarding global economic and financial stability." (Essay titled "Reform the International Monetary System" by Dr Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People's Bank of China dated March 23, 2009)

2 In some cases, such as the case for the Philippines, Mongolia and Belarus, yuan is being held as a reserve currency, albeit on a small-scale.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR : Mike Hewitt is the editor of DollarDaze.org, a website pertaining to commentary on the instability of the global fiat monetary system and investment strategies on mining companies. His website also provides a no-cost market data feed service with up-to-date quotes on currency exchange rates, commodity prices and major indices. Mike can be emailed at mikehewitt@hotmail.com.

-Sri Lanka Guardian

(October 30, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Father of local street drama field Gamini Hattottuwaga passed away today (Oct. 30). Prof. Hattottuwegama, an English lecturer by profession, was also involved in writing and was a renowned film critic. He played a main role in Dharmasiri Bandaranayake’s ‘Thunweni Yamaya.’ Prof. Hattottuwegama also created several talented artistes by producing dramas and conducting workshops and courses.

Prof. Gamini Hattotuwegama’s contribution for the field of street drama has been for more than three decades. He has been the guru of a number of versatile and talented actors today. ‘Veediye Satankaruwa’ (Warrior of the Street) a street drama festival was held at the Sudarshi Hall under the patronage of the Socialists Arts Society to honor Prof. Hattotuwegama.

Specialising in English he got his Bachelors degree from the University of Peradeniya in 1963. His academic career extended over 40 years. Prof. Gamini Hattotuwegama joined the English Department of the University of Kelaniya in 1965 and helped to set up a Department of Fine Arts in 1974. He was the president of the Film Critics and Journalist’s Association, Sri Lanka from its inception to its demise from 1966 to 1974.

Prof. Hattotuwegama founded the Wayside and Street Theatre Movement in 1974. He also introduced a powerful agitprop medium into the practice of professional criticism of social, political, economic and cultural issues in Sri Lanka and the world at large. From 1980s to 2004 he served at the University of Peradeniya. During this time he also served as a visiting lecturer in English, Cinema, Drama and Theatre studies at the Colombo University Post Graduate Institute of Education; at the Colombo University Shripali Campus Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts at Horana; at the National Institute of Education Maharagama and also as a visiting lecturer in drama on a degree programme in English, conducted for a group of Maldivian students. He is also known as a classical play producer and a translator of William Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Bekett, Jean Anouilh and many others.

Prof. Hattotuwegama was invited to represent Sri Lanka at several international conferences in India, Australia, Norway, Germany and the Philippines. Some of his plays have been rated among the most advanced scenes in Asia. His troop has been featured in UNESCO’s April 1992 issue Art Street and has taken part in an international theatre Olympiad in 1996 in India.

-Sri Lanka Guardian

(October 30, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Bishop of Colombo Rt Revd Duleep de Chickera on Friday urged the Inspector General of Police and other concerned authorities to conduct an immediate and impartial probe into the incident at Bambalapitiya where a mentally unsound man was beaten by a policeman and several others and drowned as a result.

He also urged the IGP to ensure that all those responsible are arrested and dealt with according to the Law.

“There have been several recent incidents of violence where the Police have reportedly been held responsible, it need to be investigated whether Police personnel were involved in this incident as well. Public confidence in our law enforcement authorities must be maintained under all circumstances; otherwise the country can quickly descend into a state of lawlessness,” the Bishop said in an news release.

“Our law enforcement authorities are trained to handle situations like this and it is beyond understanding why a crime of this nature, and by a person reportedly of unsound mind, had to end in violent death in broad daylight, “ it added.

-Sri Lanka Guardian

The Challenge of Post-Conflict Economic Reconstruction

"Rebuilding War-Torn States does justice to the complexity of the problems that the four states examined in detail here - Afghanistan, El Salvador, Iraq and Kosovo - have faced, and it makes convincing arguments about how future transitions should be handled."
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By Graciana del Castillo
Oxford University Press, October, 2009

(October 30, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Post-conflict economic reconstruction is a critical part of the political economy of peacetime and one of the most important challenges in any peace-building or state-building strategy. After wars end, countries must negotiate a multi-pronged transition to peace: Violence must give way to public security; lawlessness, political exclusion, and violation of human rights must give way to the rule of law and participatory government; ethnic, religious, ideological, or class/caste confrontation must give way to national reconciliation; and ravaged and mismanaged war economies must be reconstructed and transformed into functioning market economies that enable people to earn a decent living.

Yet, how can these vitally important tasks each be successfully managed? How should we go about rehabilitating basic services and physical and human infrastructure? Which policies and institutions are necessary to reactivate the economy in the short run and ensure sustainable development in the long run? What steps should countries take to bring about national reconciliation and the consolidation of peace? In all of these cases, unless the political objectives of peacetime prevail at all times, peace will be ephemeral, while policies that pursue purely economic objectives can have tragic consequences. This book argues that any strategy for post-conflict economic reconstruction must be based on five premises and examines specific post-conflict reconstruction experiences to identify not only where these premises have been disregarded, but also where policies have worked, and the specific conditions that have influenced their success and failure.

Features

* Clearly presents the unique set of challenges countries face in post-conflict reconstruction
* Integrates theoretical and practical issues related to post-conflict economic reconstruction in a methodical and comprehensive way
* Presents case studies of UN-led and US-led post-conflict reconstruction, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo

Reviews

"Rebuilding War-Torn States is that rare book that brilliantly combines the insights of an experienced practitioner with the disciplined argument of a meticulous researcher. Dr. del Castillo distils lessons from the peacebuilding efforts in El Salvador, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. She concludes with incisive and provocative strategic lessons that neither the scholars nor the decision-makers can afford to neglect."-- Michael W. Doyle, Harold Brown Professor of International Affairs, Law and Political Science, Columbia University. Special Adviser to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (2001-2003).

"This volume offers a highly readable, economically literate discussion of the inter-linked political and economic dimensions of peacebuilding that too often do not receive sufficient attention amidst concerns over security. It draws on many important case studies, including Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as reminding us of the historically salient lessons of international attempts to support and consolidate peace in El Salvador and Timor Leste."-- David M. Malone, President of the International Development Research Centre, former President of the International Peace Academy, and author of The International Struggle For Iraq: Decision-Making in the UN Security Council, 1980-2005k

"I believe that in summarizing the lessons learned from the Salvadorean experience, Graciana is not only very accurate in her insights and analysis, but also provides an extremely valuable tool for consolidating peace in other countries around the world."-- Alfredo Cristiani, Former President of El Salvador

"In her insightful and timely book Rebuilding War-Torn States , Graciana del Castillo understands that reconstruction in the war-torn countries must aim toward a commercial society... Based on case studies and other relevant experiences, the author presents the basic premises, lessons, best practices and policy guidelines which she posits are necessary to design an effective strategy for post-conflict economic reconstruction."-- Edmund S. Phelps, Nobel Prize Laureate for Economics 2006

"An important contribution to debates about peace-building and postwar reconstruction.... The author is an international economist with considerable experience as a top-level UN adviser, banker and International Monetary Fund staffer, but hers is a dissident voice, too. She brings all this experience to bear, together with extensive reading of academic sources and institutional reports.... Rebuilding War-Torn States does justice to the complexity of the problems that the four states examined in detail here - Afghanistan, El Salvador, Iraq and Kosovo - have faced, and it makes convincing arguments about how future transitions should be handled. The book is packed with critical information, statistics and perspectives, and it will be an important source for theorists and practitioners alike."--Times Higher Education

Product Details

304 pages;
ISBN13: 978-0-19-923773-9
ISBN10: 0-19-923773-5

About the Author

Graciana del Castillo is an expert on countries in crises-both financial and post-conflict. She was the first senior economist in the Cabinet of the UN Secretary-General in the early 1990s, involved in ongoing post-conflict operations in Central America, Asia, and Africa. She continued work on countries at war or post-conflict at the IMF, participated in jump-starting Kosovos economy, and moderated a major donors meeting on Timor-Leste in Prague. She was a director at S&Ps and the Centennial Group, a senior consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank, a visiting scholar at the OECD Development Center, and a participant in USAID bids for reconstruction projects in Afghanistan and Iraq. She is a founding partner of the Macroeconomic Advisory Group. With a Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University (1986), she has been adjunct professor there since 1990 and is now research scholar and associate director of the Center on Capitalism and Society. Her articles have appeared in top economic and political journals and newspapers worldwide.

-Sri Lanka Guardian

By R. Swaminathan

(October 30, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Relations between India and Myanmar over nearly five decades have been governed by many complex factors. Amongst them are the strategic location of Myanmar, India’s commitment to idealism-driven support to the restoration of democracy in Myanmar, realism-driven need to deal with those actually governing the country, the implications of China’s increasing presence and role in Myanmar etc. China, fortunately for it, has been able to make its foreign policy decisions without having to bother about the nature of the regime in any country.

India and Myanmar share a complicated and delicate history, marked as much by mistrust as amity. For those who may be interested, a “Historical Background” is annexed to this paper.

POLITICAL

Pro-Democracy Protests in 2007

A series of anti-government protests started in Myanmar on 15 August 2007. The immediate and stated cause of the protests was mainly the decision of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) to remove fuel subsidies, resulting in very steep increases in the prices of diesel, petrol and compressed natural gas. The first demonstrations were dealt with quickly and harshly, with many arrested and detained. Starting 18 September, the protests were led by thousands of Buddhist monks, and those were also allowed to proceed. Initially, only a few hundred monks walked down the streets but, by end-September, the protesting crowds had grown to 100,000 – both monks and democracy activists. There was a renewed government crackdown on 26 September.

The military junta’s actions against the “peaceful” and “almost Gandhian” ptotestors evoked a considerable amount of international condemnation. However, Beijing expectedly showed more interest in maintaining stability than in pushing for democracy.

In an official statement issued in the wake of the violence, India expressed its support for the "undaunted resolve of the Burmese people to achieve democracy". The Burmese language service of All-India Radio (AIR) was more outspoken in its criticism of Myanmar's military government. It said that India was gradually succeeding in weaning Myanmar away from its near-total dependence on China for economic and military support. It could not therefore be expected to take the strong position that the US, the European Union and Myanmar dissidents were asking her to take; and thus risk - to China's benefit - the precious foothold it had achieved in Myanmar over the previous decade.

Ibrahim Gambari, the United Nations special envoy to Myanmar, undertook a tour across Asia, with the hope of cajoling Asian governments to take a tougher stance on the junta’s crushing of the protests. When he called on India (in October 2007) to join other countries in pressing Myanmar’s military rulers to stop their campaign of repression against pro-democracy protesters, the Indian government described Myanmar as its “close and friendly neighbor” and assured that it would help in Myanmar’s national reconciliation. India’s decision to avoid direct criticism of the military regime came in for a lot of adverse comments. However, it is not as if India was totally silent on the issue. When Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win, who visited India in January 2008, called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the PM emphasized that there was need for greater urgency in bringing about political reforms and national reconciliation. “This process has to be broad-based to include all sections of society, including Aung San Suu Kyi and the various ethnic groups.”

Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi (the daughter of “General” Aung San) has been under house arrest almost continually since 1989. When anti-government protests intensified in September 2007, hundreds of monks paid respects to her at the gate of her home. This was the first time in four years that people were able to see her in public. On 29 September, she was allowed to leave her house briefly to meet with a UN envoy who was trying to persuade (eventually, successfully) the junta to ease its crackdown against pro-democracy protesters.

On 4 May 2009, a mentally unbalanced American (John Yettaw) swam across the lake and entered the house of Aung San Suu Kyi, uninvited, and remained there for two nights. Instead of faulting those in charge of security, both the intruder and Suu Kyi were held in prison and put on trial. While the intruder was sentenced to imprisonment, Suu Kyi was awarded (on 11 August 2009) an additional 18 months of house arrest – beyond the earlier term which was due to end on 27 May 2009. The sentencing once again showed how the milit.ary junta was determined to stop her participation in the elections to be held in 2010. In a declared act of “benevolence”, the government had commuted the court’s original sentence of three-years hard labour.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s conviction drew almost universal condemnation. President Obama demanded her immediate release while British Prime Minister Gordon Brown stated that "This is a purely political sentence designed to prevent her from taking part in the regime’s planned elections next year" and called for a UN embargo on all arms exports to Burma. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France sought fresh restrictions on Myanmar's two important export items - rubies and hardwood. Thailand was even more explicit and urged Myanmar to immediately free Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest to allow her to play a role in next year's general election. However, action by the U.N. Security Council was stalled due to reservations on the part of Russia and China. “India’s reaction to the conviction of Aung San Suu Kyi was shameful to say the least. It had not one word of condemnation or even ‘disappointment”, wrote Col. Hariharan, a very senior analyst of intelligence and security issues.

Suu Kyi is said to have written a letter to Than Shwe, offering to work towards reducing international sanctions on Myanmar, and asked to meet representatives of the US, EU and Australia. Either in a reaction to this or in response to US overtures and demands, two meetings were held in October 2009 between the junta's liaison officer (Labor Minister and retired Major General Aung Kyi) and Suu Kyi. She was also allowed to meet with representatives from the US, Australia and the European Union. Her National League for Democracy (NLD) party has also been allowed to meet with foreign diplomats, including a meeting (on 20 October 2009) with the US charge d' affaires. Cynical observers may say that the generals are making yet another attempt to put off international pressure, only to revert back to repression once attention shifts elsewhere. Or, are the generals playing the US card against China, knowing that any improvement in relations with Washington will improve its leverage with Beijing?

Prime Minister General Thein Sein told (on 25 October 2009) the leaders attending the East Asian Summit in Thailand that the junta will consider relaxing the terms of Suu Kyi’s house arrest if she “maintains a good attitude”. He also said that she can contribute to national reconciliation.

Sanctions Regime

World governments remain divided on how to deal with the military junta in Myanmar. Calls for further sanctions by Canada, United Kingdom, United States, and France are opposed by some countries (including China) on the ground that "sanctions or pressure will not help to solve the issue". India had also resolutely opposed the US call for sanctions on Myanmar. There is some disagreement over whether sanctions are the most effective approach to dealing with the junta, with some opining that sanctions may have caused more harm than good to the people.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has estimated that about 800,000 people are subject to forced labour in Myanmar. It announced in November 2006, that it will seek to prosecute members of the ruling junta – at the International Court of Justice – for crimes against humanity, over this issue.

The military junta moved the national capital from Yangon to a site near Pyinmana in November 2005, and officially named the new capital as Naypyidaw (meaning "city of the kings") on 27 March 2006. In a futile gesture of criticism, many countries still consider the capital to be Rangoon.

Shifting US Position

India has been advising the west to engage with Myanmar and take off the pressure of sanctions. Many in the west thought this was India’s way of keeping up with China. The Obama Administration, after an eight-month-long review, has apparently decided to engage with Myanmar’s generals. On 29 September 2009, US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell held his first meeting with Myanmar’s Science Minister U Thaung in New York. One of the key issues that India may take up during discussions with Campbell when he transits New Delhi this week, en route to Yangon, will be the delinking of the fledgling engagement process from next year’s elections in Myanmar. This, incidentally, will be the first US official visit to Myanmar in decades. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said (after the East Asian Summit in Thailand) that there was an "atmosphere of hope" about improving relations between Myanmar and the United States.

Dr. Subash Kapila, a noted International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst, has very recently written a scholarly paper, which can be seen at www.southasiaanalysis.org. He has argued that the United States has for decades shunned Myanmar politically and economically, on the grounds of human rights abuses and democracy. India adopted the same stance till the early 1990s. In the process, both succeeded in pushing Myanmar closer to China. India has to some extent retrieved its strategic losses by a political and economic reach-out to Myanmar. The US is still dithering, though the Obama Administration has made some tentative moves towards normalization of relations with Myanmar. The strategic key for checkmating in South East Asia lies in Myanmar. Dr. Kapila has advocated that the US should frame its future policy towards Myanmar based on the considerations that Myanmar is of geo-strategic significance for US Naval interests, that Myanmar has not been adversarial to the US geo-politically, Myanmar’s importance for South East Asian Security, and that the US could use India as a bridge to reach-out politically to Myanmar. He has also emphasized that Myanmar has not yet become a full strategic satellite of China and that such an eventuality can be pre-empted.

Almost simultaneously, the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee was told on 21 October 2009 that a high-level US delegation is expected to visit Myanmar in the coming weeks, in an attempt to progress the US efforts to engage with the military junta. The talks will center on improving the human-rights situation in Myanmar, the claimed intention to move towards democracy, and increasing US influence in a country widely viewed as a key regional ally of China – through improved diplomatic relations. The delegation is hoping to meet Aung San Suu Kyi and representatives of ethnic groups. This policy shift is apparently a part of the US desire to build stronger ties with South East Asia. Some analysts say that it is caused by the realization that Chinese influence in the region has increased considerably in the past decade, when US attention was diverted elsewhere. This may be the beginning of a quiet competition between Washington and Beijing for influence in South East Asia. A US-Myanmar detente would undoubtedly be viewed as a threat to Beijing's strategic interests in the region. A repeal of even some sanctions (before or after the 2010 election) would put the US in direct competition with China for influence in Myanmar.

The US efforts to counterbalance China's influence in South East Asia have a difficult road ahead in Myanmar. China has already secured a strong position in Myanmar, but the US currently has very little leverage. It has no aid programs, civil society building projects or military-to-military exchanges. Even the US diplomatic mission is headed by a charge d' affaires, since the US withdrew its ambassador in 1988.

India-Myanmar Bilateral Relations : Realism Influencing Policy

As a legacy of British rule, Indians had to face (not so latent) resentment amongst the Burmese; due to Indian soldiers (under the British Army) having fought against BIA, due to the perception that Indian officers and staff functioned as tools of the British colonial regime and due to the alleged exploitation by Indian traders and businesses.

India’s relations with Burma were mostly cordial in the early years after independence. Prime Ministers U Nu and Jawaharlal Nehru were close personal and were both prominent figures in Non-Aligned Movement. India helped Myanmar survive its first difficult years as an independent state, including crucially when various political and ethnic insurgent groups threatened to break the new country apart. Without India's massive military and economic aid, U Nu's government may probably have collapsed. However, Indo-Myanmar relations chilled after General Ne Win's military coup in March 1962. Many former democratic leaders of the Myanmar, including U Nu, were given asylum in India.

Personal relations between Indira Gandhi and Ne Win were good. The xenophobic policies of his Revolutionary Council and the nationalization of privately owned businesses and factories (of which an estimated 60% were owned by people of Indian origin) made thousands lose their properties and livelihood. During the four-year period spanning 1964-68, nearly 150,000 Indo-Burmese had to leave the country.

Myanmar is of great strategic significance to both India and China, thanks to its location and long borders with both countries. In the early years of the military regime, India pushed hard for democracy. Myanmar thus gradually moved to embrace China. China has the advantage of being able to work comfortably with authoritarian and quasi-democratic regimes, without any schizophrenic (ideological) commitment to democracy. China has become to Myanmar an increasingly attractive source of low-interest loans, grants, development projects, technical assistance etc. Combined with China's "no strings attached" approach to aid, this is making China a more attractive partner to regimes with questionable records in human-rights and democracy.

By 1993, it seemed obvious that, despite the charisma of Aung San Suu Kyi, the movement for democracy was not making much progress and that the military regime was going ahead with making peace with the ethnic minorities. There was little or no possibility of the military regime relinquishing power to the National League for Democracy. In the absence of dialogue with the Myanmar military, insurgency and narcotics smuggling were assuming alarming proportions in the states bordering Myanmar. In a classic example of how a nation's interests often override normally expected human behavior, pragmatism became the hallmark of India's relations with Myanmar. Quiet contacts were established and a series of agreements signed to deal with cross-border terrorism and narcotics smuggling and to promote trade and economic development along the Indo-Myanmar border.

During the tenure of Narasimha Rao as Prime Minister, India realized that giving too much weight to human rights and democracy in Myanmar over strategic considerations may not be in its long term interests. It started basing its policy not on idealistic ‘isms’ but on national security considerations. It was increasingly felt that the way to bring about change is not through isolation, but through active engagement and persuasion. Accepting the realities, India's call for democracy in Myanmar has been muted in recent years. This has invited a lot of criticism from “purists”. There has also been severe international criticism of India’s closer engagement with the military junta, at a time when the US and EU were concentrating on sanctions, driving Myanmar into even greater isolation.

The success of a nation’s foreign policy is not judged by the high moral grounds that it adopts, but by the advantages that accrue to it. India also realized that the main beneficiary of strained India-Myanmar relations was China, whether for access to all-important hydrocarbon energy sources, transport corridors or strategic control of the Indian Ocean. Thus, a new chapter began.

Energy-starved India has been courting Myanmar, which is rich in natural gas. India has been trying to look after its own practical interests by maintaining good relations with the military junta in Myanmar. Not only is India eager to cash in on Myanmar’s substantial reserves of natural gas, but Indian officials also hope that Myanmar government would help in controlling anti-Indian insurgents along the border.

Rajiv Sikri (a former Secretary in the Ministry of External affairs) has said that India is obviously not doing enough in Myanmar. Decision-makers in New Delhi are not bestowing serious and sustained attention to Myanmar, since the bordering North East states are themselves political lightweights in the eyes of geographically distant New Delhi. This is in sharp contrast to the attention that, for example, Sri Lanka or Afghanistan gets. If Myanmar were to get even half of the grant assistance and the attention that India has given Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, India would considerably improve her position there. There is no time for India to lose in giving much higher priority to relations with Myanmar.

As Kris Srinivasan, a former Foreign Secretary, has observed “The rationale for India’s policy to befriend Myanmar despite that regime’s ill-treatment of people of Indian origin and repression of its own citizens is understandable, but the lack of beneficial results from the new orientation is harder to comprehend. The new strategy has failed even partially to open a closed polity.”

ECONOMIC

Economic Cooperation

Fruitful and balanced economic cooperation may be the most effective method of engaging with Myanmar. During the 9th round of consultations between foreign offices of the two countries in November 2008, the two delegations being led by the Foreign Secretaries, it was decided to implement promptly the bilateral agreements [a framework agreement on the construction and operation of a multi-modal transit and transport facility on the Kaladan River, a MOU on intelligence exchange to combat transitional crime including terrorism, and an agreement on avoidance of double taxation and prevention of fiscal evasion] signed in April during the visit to India by Maung Aye. Vice Chairman of the SPDC (also Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Services and Commander-in-Chief of the Army). In June 2008, Myanmar and India had reached four more economic cooperation agreements, during the visit of Minister of State for Commerce and Power (Jairam Ramesh). These agreements related to bilateral investment promotion, a USD 20-million credit line between the Exim Bank of India and the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank (MFTB) for the establishment of a manufacturing facility, another 64-million-dollar credit line for three 230 KV transmission lines; and for establishing banking arrangement between the Myanmar Investment and Trade Bank and the United Bank of India.

Most of the economic transactions have so far been between the two governments, in areas like agriculture, telecommunications, aviation and gas exploration. Myanmar has been trying to entice Indian companies to invest in sectors like pharmaceuticals, cement, fertilizer, steel, IT and food processing; but Indian firms seem reluctant to invest, for fear of a repetition of the earlier nationalization drive.

Myanmar-compiled figures show that India's contracted investments in Myanmar reached USD 219.57 million as of January 2008, of which USD 137 million was in the oil and gas sector. India has given USD 100 million credit for Myanmar’s infrastructure, while USD 57 million has been offered to upgrade the railway system. A further USD 27 million in grants has been pledged for road and rail projects, but there is little yet to show in terms of concrete benefit.

Trade

India-Myanmar bilateral trade reached USD 995 million in 2007-08, with Myanmar's exports accounting for USD 810 million. India is Myanmar's fourth largest trading partner (after Thailand, China and Singapore) and absorbs about 25% of its total exports. India hopes to double by 2010 the bilateral trade that now stand at $ one billion.

It is axiomatic that Myanmar needs help from her friends. In order to improve Myanmar’s multi-lateral trade, India can take the initiative by bringing in the ambit of bilateral trade products like bicycles and spare parts, life saving drugs, fertilizers, textiles, gold plated jewelry, fruits, pulses, tea, gems etc. Already, India imports about 60% of Myanmar’s export of pulses. India can provide the technology to improve productivity in Myanmar’s tea industry. Indian expertise in gem cutting and polishing can be harnessed to provide a boost to the semi-precious gem industry in Myanmar.

Border Trade

It was hoped that greater border trade with Myanmar, on the basis of the agreement signed in 1994, would help revitalize the economy of the North East and help to quell narcotic and arms trafficking, but the hope has not been fulfilled. Only one of the two proposed border posts is open. The road on the Indian side to Moreh is sub-standard. Two-way trade is constrained by the small list of tradable goods, excessive regulation and restrictions; and is negligible compared to trade across the Myanmar’s borders with China and Thailand. India’s North East is swamped by goods of Chinese origin, but there is hardly any movement of Indian exports in the opposite direction.

India and Myanmar are considering the upgradation of the border trade carried out at Reedkhoda (India) and Tamu-Moye (Myanmar) to “normal” trade. This was discussed at the third meeting of Myanmar-India Joint Trade Committee held in October 2008 during the second visit of Indian Minister Jairam Ramesh.

Quest for Energy

Nearly seventy percent of India’s oil is imported and only half its gas demand of 170 million cubic meters a day is met internally. China also imports about 40% of its demand. The two countries account for almost 35% of the growth in the global demand for energy. This dependence on imports has forced both countries to bid aggressively for overseas oil assets.

Expecting an exponential growth in its energy demands due to its expanding economy, India has been trying hard in recent years to secure energy supplies. Unfortunately, India’s oil diplomacy has not been sufficiently geared to meet the challenge; and its oil companies have been outsmarted (or under-bid) by Chinese firms in several deals. In the last few years, ONGC has been thwarted by Chinese firms in Kazakhstan, Ecuador and Angola. Top Chinese offshore producer CNOOC Ltd. acquired a 45 % stake in a Nigerian oil and gas field for USD 2.3 billion. ONGC was also in this race, but withdrew due to objections in the cabinet.

Most embarrassingly, India also lost a deal in Myanmar where no open bidding was held. Myanmar decided to decline gas supply to the (proposed-but-grounded) Myanmar-Bangladesh-India pipeline. Instead, it signed an agreement with Petrochina, under which Myanmar’s ministry of energy agreed to sell 6.5 TCF from A-1 block (Rakhine coastline) reserve through an overland pipeline to Kunming, for 30 years. All this happened despite the fact that India’s ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) and GAIL (India) Ltd., between them, hold 30% participating interest in this block. Anyhow, Myanmar could not be expected to have waited indefinitely for India and Bangladesh to resolve their mutual differences over a project based on sound economic logic but delayed because of domestic political compulsions. Myanmar, however, says that it could still supply gas to the tri-nation gas pipeline from other gas blocks if Bangladesh and India were successful in ironing out their differences. In answer to the question as to who lost Myanmar, Rajiv Sikri (a former Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs) has written “Various actors bear a collective responsibility”.

In return for various economic concessions (and support in the UN), China seems to have been given preferential access to exploit Myanmar's natural resources and port facilities along Myanmar's coast. Chinese investment includes involvement in the Shwe gas project off Myanmar's western coast. Human rights organizations allege that the offshore project and a dual oil and gas pipeline being constructed from the coast to Kunming have already resulted in human rights abuses and will likely result in many more as the projects progress.

China was scheduled to begin (in September 2009) the laying of 1,100 kms-long, parallel oil and natural gas pipelines from the deep-sea port at Kyaukpyu (on Myanmar’s Arakan coast in the Bay of Bengal) to Kunming. The pipeline will also tap into key blocks in Myanmar’s energy-rich Shwe gas fields that have been given on a 30-year lease to a Chinese-led consortium. The pipeline project was agreed to during the visit Maung Aye to Beijing in mid-June 2009. It will reduce China’s dependence on the narrow Malacca Straits, through which 80% of its oil imports of four million barrels per day currently pass. When the oil and gas pipelines are completed by 2013, Chinese tankers will dock at Kyaukpyu port to transport 600,000 barrels per day from West Asia and Africa. The gas pipeline can move about 12 billion cubic meters of gas annually.

In late September 2007, when the pro-democracy protests were under way, India’s Minister for Petroleum (Murli Deora) visited Myanmar and secured a contract for three deep-water gas exploration projects for the ONGC.

Infrastructure Projects

Both India and China are interested in implementing infrastructure projects in Myanmar, to get access to the Bay of Bengal, India for the North-East and China for its landlocked Yunnan province. India and China had planned to rebuild the (World War II) Stillwell Road, on which work by the Chinese has already started. Recent reports say that India has lost interest in the project. A 1,500 km Trans-Asian Highway between India and Thailand and a railway from Hanoi to Imphal are still being talked about.

The 160 km India-Myanmar Friendship Road, between Tamu and Kalemayo (Myanmar) and going on to Kalewa, was built by India in 2001. It is now being strengthened and resurfaced. It effectively links Manipur with Myanmar. Two other sections at Rhi-Tidim and Rhi-Falam across the border from Mizoram are under way.

An optical fibre network has been laid from linking Kolkata with Yangon and Mandalay.

Kaladan Project

The Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit-cum-Transport Project is essentially transportation project on the River Kaladan, which flows in and out of Mizoram and is navigable all the way to the sea. It empties into the Bay of Bengal near the port of Sittwe (formerly known as Akyab). This port will be developed by India into a major commercial hub, to distribute Mizoram's bamboo crops and Myanmar's forest wealth. Besides 225-km waterway, the project also envisages construction of two roads, ie.e 117 km extending NHI54 to the border and 52 km from the border to Kaleutwa. Sea lanes are also to be developed between Sittwe and Kolkata and Visakhapatnam. Sittwe could also become a major distribution center for oil and gas supplies to India’s North-East.

Kaladan, a wide river with perennial water flow, originates in the upper reaches of Myanmar, enters Mizoram and then meanders back into Myanmar to continue its passage south to the Bay of Bengal. Navigation with 500-ton river crafts is possible all the way from Mizoram. Gooda from the North-East could easily be transported by river to the Bay of Bengal and then onwards to markets in India and elsewhere. The circuitous surface route via Assam and through the Siliguri Corridor could be avoided, cutting transportation costs by nearly half.

Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Jairam Ramesh, announced on 7 January 2008 that India has decided to undertake the project at a cost of more than USD 120 million. The port will be India’s gift to Myanmar, but India would have usage rights. Ramesh termed it as “the most significant initiative the Indian government has taken in South-East Asia”.

When Myanmar realizes the full potential of this project, it may begin utilizing the river for domestic navigational purposes also. Sittwe could eventually become the onshore hub of Myanmar's gas industry once the vast reserves in the Shwe fields in the Bay of Bengal are developed. It is a win-win situation for both India and Myanmar. Further development of the Sittwe port into a gas and oil transshipment terminal may add to its importance. More funds will be required to develop Sittwe to its full potential, but India may (and should) not be averse to putting up the additional funds.

Cyclone Nargis

Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar on 3 May 2008, causing heavy damage in the densely populated, rice-farming delta of the Irrawaddy Division. There were reports that more than 200,000 people were dead or missing, in the worst recorded natural disaster in Myanmar’s history. UN estimates projected that as many as one million people were left homeless. In the immediate days following the disaster, the military regime complicated recovery efforts by delaying the entry of planes delivering medicine, food, and other supplies. A US naval task force carrying much-needed relief supplies, helicopters and other vehicles as well as manpower was denied permission, based on fears that it could be a prelude to a military invasion. Indian leaders sent condolence messages and rushed urgently needed relief and medical supplies to the affected areas, using two naval ships from Port Blair.

MILITARY

Insurgencies in Myanmar

About twenty minority groups have been carrying on insurgency against the Government of Myanmar, with the Karen being the largest of them. The BBC had estimated in 2004 that upto 200,000 Karen have been driven from their homes during decades of war, with 120,000 more refugees from Myanmar, mostly Karen, living in refugee camps in Thailand, across the border. Another estimate says that more than two million people have fled from Myanmar to Thailand. There are accusations against the military government of “ethnic cleansing”.

Since Beijing reversed its previous policy and withdrew support to the insurgent Burmese Communist Party (BCP) in the 1980s, the BCP collapsed in 1989 resulting in the formation of several ethnic-based insurgent organizations, including narcotics trafficking by the United Wa State Army, now active along the China-Myanmar border.

In early August 2009, in the Kokang incident in Shan State in northern Myanmar, junta troops fought for several weeks against ethnic minorities including Han Chinese, Wa and Kachin. In the first days of the conflict, as many as 10,000 Burmese civilians are said to have fled to Yunnan province in neighboring China. The incident annoyed China.

The military junta has been applying pressure for the ceasefire groups to become border guard units, under army control. Ethnic leaders have so far resisted the demand and with a deadline set for the end of October 2009, civil war may become a possibility. So far, China has been careful to provide only enough support to ethnic insurgents to deter the Myanmar Army from making any rash moves (like at Kokang). This situation may change if closer ties develop between Myanmar and the US.

Insurgencies in India

A (limited) joint Indo-Myanmar military operation against insurgents (striding the Indo-Myanmar border) was undertaken in 1995. However, cooperation in taking action against the cross-border militants petered out. India and Myanmar have varying problems with different sets of insurgents and do not share the same priorities in addressing them. During his visit to India in April 2008, Maung Aye (Vice Chairman of SPDC) assured that Myanmar will never allow the use of its territory by any organization that harms neighboring countries. At the same time, he acknowledged that, likewise, India does not allow its territory to be used by any organization against Myanmar.

Defence Relations

High-level military-to-military contacts began in 2000. In January, Indian Army Chief General Ved Prakash Malik paid a two-day visit to Myanmar. This was followed by the reciprocal visit by his Myanmar counterpart, General Maung Aye, to the northeast Indian city of Shillong. In the aftermath of these meetings, India began to provide non-lethal military support to Myanmar troops along the border. Most of the Myanmar troops' uniforms and other combat gear originated from India, as were the leased helicopters Myanmar needed to counter the ethnic insurgents operating from sanctuaries along both sides of the border.

Since the initial exchange of visits, there has been a steady flow of high level visits from both sides. Junta chief, General Than Shwe, visited India In 2004, followed in December 2006 by the third-highest ranking officer in Myanmar's military hierarchy, General Thura Shwe Mann. The latter toured the National Defense Academy in Khadakvasla and the Tata Motors plant in Pune, which manufactures vehicles for India’s military.

After the relatively small-scale pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988, China stepped in with enhanced military aid, enabling Myanmar's army to expand to some 500,000 men, the second-largest standing army in South east Asia. Indian military is also concerned about China modernizing the naval bases at Hanggyi, Cocos, Akyab,, Mergui and the port at Kyauk Phuy. The situations seems to have become an unequal triangular relationship, where one party seems to be reaping all the benefits.

Some Conclusions

Though China has been able greatly to improve its position in Myanmar and has cultivated civil and military officials, Beijing's efforts in Myanmar may have started running into the pervasive xenophobia and wariness of dependence on any singular foreign power.

Myanmar is not a democracy or a pluralistic society where clamour for human rights, adherence to international norms and standards have much chance of strict observance. It is one of the few bastions of totalitarian governance in the world today. India may have been making a mistake in looking at Myanmar through the Indian prism and experience. The people, the civil society (what there is left of it) and the media behave very differently than in India. The junta seems to believe that they do not matter much and behaves very differently from the governments in India. It should be taken into account that the Myanmar leadership is perceived as being reclusive and essentially xenophobic, almost happy to be in their own “time warp”, wish to be left alone (except as demanded by the changing international situation) and do not want the dominance of any country in Myanmar’s affairs. They also display occasional touches of racialism. Myanmar’s leadership is able to afford the luxury of such positions mainly because of the country’s strategic geographic location and because it has perhaps the largest military in South East Asia. This view of an untrained amateur student of human behavior (like me) may or may not be valid, but is worth consideration by Indian policy-makers.

With all his experience, Rajiv Sikri :feels that Myanmar regards China’s growing influence with suspicion and sees India as the only viable means to balance China’s increasing encroachment, especially in the Kachin and Shan states. For this and other reasons, Myanmar is keen to have good relations with India. India needs to fine-tune its strategy for dealing with Myanmar, focusing not on what should be or might have been, but on what can be done.

Apart from inadequate awareness and respect for the psyche of the leadership in Myanmar, India has not shown much subtlety or finesse (not even matching the limited subtlety or finesse shown in Sri Lanka) in dealing with them. There is no evidence of a clear vision about what we want and how to get it. There is hardly any visible coordinated stance or approach, with too many loose cannons around. Often, India seems to be shooting at its own toes instead of at the target. On the commercial and trade fronts, where most deals are government-to-government, the government’s bureaucratic procedures seem to dominate the decision-making process in the public sector oil companies. There is an urgent need to change this to become commercially competitive in today’s fast-paced international milieu.

Fortunately, India currently enjoys fairly good political, economic and military-relations with Myanmar. India is also involved in infrastructure projects for better India-Myanmar connectivity. However, one cannot but agree with Kris Srinivasan when he concludes that “The outcomes of the energies expended by India over the past two decades have been negligible. The situation calls for a re-appraisal designed to turn the tide more in our favour.

([This paper was prepared by R. Swaminathan, President & DG, International Institute for Security and Safety Management (New Delhi), and former Special Secretary, DG (Security), Govt. of India, for presentation on 29 October 2009 at the National Seminar on “Recent Developments in Myanmar : Implications for India”, organized jointly by the Department of Politics & Public Administration (University of Madras) and Center for Asia Studies (Chennai). He can be contacted at rsnathan@gmail.com)

A N N E X U R E

Historical Background

The Union of Myanmar, known as Burma till 1989, is the largest country by geographical area (678,500 sq kms) in mainland Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China on the northeast (with the Hengduan Shan mountains as the boundary), Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest and the Bay of Bengal to the southwest. One-third of Myanmar’s total perimeter forms an uninterrupted coastline of 1,930 kilometres. Myanmar and India share a border of over 1,600 kilometers. The country's culture, heavily influenced by its neighbours, is based on Theravada Buddhism.

Known human habitation in Myanmar goes back nearly 5000 years, from when the Mon, considered to be the first inhabitants, settled in central Myanmar and along the eastern coast of Bay of Bengal. It is believed that the Mon established some trade and cultural contacts with the early inhabitants of India. The Burmans (originally from Yunnan), who established their first kingdom in Myanmar in 849 A.D., eventually absorbed the communities of the Mon and Pyu people. King Anawrahta (r 1044-1077) set up the Pagan Kingdom bringing about the first unified state of Myanmar. Kublai Khan’s victory in 1287 started a period of continual conflicts that continued for many centuries. The appearance of Europeans had little effect on Myanmar due to these conflicts, until they infringed on the British Raj in Bengal. This brought about British intervention (from 1824) and, though Rangoon was occupied in 1853, all of Burma was formally annexed to British India only in 1886. Burma was administered as a province of British India until 1937, when it became a separate colony. One of the results of the British occupation was the flow of Chinese and Indian immigrants, who tended to exploit the Burmans. Indians were drafted in large numbers into the colonial army during the three Anglo-Burma wars in the 19th century, and about 400,000 Indians were taken there to run various public services. The persons of Indian origin on the eve of the Japanese invasion numbered about 1.1 million.

Strong Burmese resentment against the British was noticed as early as 1919. It was often vented in violent riots that paralyzed Yangon on occasion. Much of the discontent was caused by a perceived disrespect for Burmese culture and traditions, like the British not removing their shoes upon entering Buddhist temples or other holy places. When scandalized Buddhist monks attempted to physically expel a group of shoe-wearing British in Eindawya Pagoda (Mandalay) in October 1919, the leader of the monks was sentenced to life imprisonment for attempted murder. Such incidents inspired the Burmese resistance to use Buddhism as a rallying point for their cause. Buddhist monks became the vanguards of the independence movement, and many died while protesting. Students were also active participants in anti-British activities.

Nationalist sentiments became more evident with the start of World War II. A student leader, Aung San (and his “thirty comrades”) went to Japan for “training”. On return, they founded the Burma Independence Army (BIA) in Bangkok (which was then under Japanese occupation) on 26 December 1941, with the help of Japanese intelligence. When Rangoon fell in March 1942, the BIA formed an administration for the country that operated in parallel with the Japanese military administration. On 1 August 1943, the Japanese declared Burma to be an “independent” nation, and Aung San was appointed War Minister. Later, Aung San became skeptical of the Japanese promises and made plans to organize an uprising in Burma (in cooperation with Communist leaders Thakin Than Tun and Thakin Soe), with help from the British authorities in India. On 27 March 1945, he led the BNA in a revolt against the Japanese occupiers and helped the Allies defeat the Japanese; and the British established a military administration.

The Anti-Fascist Organisation (formed in August 1944) was transformed into the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL), a united front consisting of the BNA, the Communists and the Socialists. The BNA was gradually disarmed by the British, when the Japanese were driven out of Burma. Aung San turned down the rank of Deputy Inspector General of the Burma Army and became the military leader of the People's Volunteer Organisation. He was popularly referred to as Bogyoke (meaning General).

After civilian government was restored in Burma in October 1945, Aung San became the President of the AFPFL in January 1946. In September, he was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Executive Council of Burma by the new British Governor, and was made responsible for defence and external affairs. [This was analogous to the appointment of Jawahar Lal Nehru as the Vice President of the Interim Government in India, in June 1946.] The communists left the AFPFL, when Aung San and others accepted seats on the Executive Council. Aung San (at the age of 31) was to all intents and purposes the Prime Minister. On 27 January 1947, Aung San and Clement Attlee signed an agreement in London guaranteeing Burma's independence within a year. In April, the AFPFL won 196 out of 202 seats in the Constituent Assembly. Tragedy struck on 19 July 1947, when a gang of armed paramilitaries broke into the Secretariat Building and assassinated Aung San and six of his cabinet ministers, who were participating in a meeting of the Executive Council. [The assassination was allegedly carried out on the orders of political rival U Saw, who was subsequently tried and hanged.] U Nu, (a former student leader) and Foreign Minister Ba Maw took over the leadership of the government and AFPFL.

The country became independent on 4 January 1948, as the "Union of Burma". It became the "Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma" on 4 January 1974, before reverting to the "Union of Burma" on 23 September 1988. On 18 June, 1989, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) adopted the name "Union of Myanmar".

Military Rule

Civilian government ended in 1962 when General Ne Win led a military coup and put U Nu in prison. Myanmar now has one of the longest surviving military regimes in the world. Ne Win ruled for nearly 26 years and pursued policies in the name of “Burmese Way to Socialism”. Between 1962 and 1974, Burma was ruled by a Revolutionary Council headed by the general, and almost all aspects of society (business, media, production - including the Boy Scouts) were nationalized or brought under government control. In an effort to consolidate power, General Ne Win and many top generals “resigned” from the military and took civilian posts. They held “elections” under a one-party system and Ne Win ruled Burma between 1974 and 1988, through the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), which was the sole political party allowed to function. The Burmese Way to Socialism adopted Soviet-style nationalization and central planning and was a kind of an amalgam of Buddhism and Marxism. During this period, Burma became one of the world's most impoverished countries.

People whose ancestors were not from the "original" Myanmar races, i.e. Sino-Burman and Indo-Burman communities, were classified as “associate citizens" or “resident aliens”, with the right to vote, but not allowed to be elected or hold government positions above a certain level. This and the wholesale nationalisation of private enterprises led to the exodus of about 300,000 Burmese Indians.

Almost from the beginning of military rule, there were sporadic protests against it, many organized by students, and were almost always violently suppressed by the government. Student protests were violently broken up every year during 1974-77. Unrest over economic mismanagement and political oppression led to widespread pro-democracy demonstrations throughout the country in 1988. Security forces killed thousands of demonstrators. Ne Win stepped down in July. Aung San Suu Kyi (the daughter of Aung San), in partnership with Brigadier Aung Gyi and General Tin U, tried to appease those who resented the military rule and was only partly successful. Defense Minister General Saw Maung staged a coup in September and formed the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). In 1989, SLORC declared martial law after widespread protests. In July, Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest and General Tin U put in prison.

In May 1990, the government held free elections for the first time in almost 30 years. The National League for Democracy (NLD), the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, won 392 out of a total 489 seats, and 60 % of the votes. The election results were, however, annulled by SLORC, which arrested most of its top leaders and declared that a non-military government could not be established in Myanmar, without a new constitution. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991 put a lot of pressure on the SLORC. When General Than Shwe took over as SLORC chairman in 1992, many political prisoners were released and Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed visits from her family; and later allowed to meet a U.S congressman, a UN official and an American reporter.

In 1992, SLORC unveiled plans to create a new constitution through the National Convention, which began 9 January 1993. When the military directed it to give it a major role in the government, NLD party members walked out the convention. The National Convention continues to convene and adjourn. Many major political parties, particularly the NLD, have been absent or excluded, and little progress has been made.

The State Law and Order Restoration Council was renamed as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in 1997, with the same leadership as the SLORC.

On 7 February 2008, SPDC announced that a referendum would soon be held relating to the new Constitution, and that elections would be held by 2010. The referendum, held on 10 May 2008, promised a "discipline-flourishing democracy" for the country. The referendum is seen by many as an effort to “legalise” the perpetuation of the military rule.

-Sri Lanka Guardian