By Lt. General Denis Perera (Rtd)

Currently there seem to be diverse views on Sri Lanka’s internal conflict that can be resolved. Various opinions have been expressed in the media and debates are taking place in numerous forums as to the best solution to end the conflict.

If one looks at the contemporary situation in which the United States is currently involved in, there are certain lessons to be learned by us in Sri Lanka. The mighty United States army supported by its Navy, Air Force and Marine corps quickly and easily defeated Saddam Hussein’s forces. But the conventional war turned into a grinding occupation, a multifaceted insurgency and something very close to a civil war, the U.S. military with all its fire power and technology could not control.

Iraq territory or the population and conventional state of war was replaced by asymmetric warfare. These “new” wars, whatever they are called, are insurgency rooted, low tech and unconventional confrontations between the weak and the strong. (Incidentally, the war in Iraq has been fought over

a period longer than the American civil war 1864-1868: the first World War 1914-1918 and the second World War 1939- 1945 in which American troops were involved).
There is no way a rational but weaker competitor will confront a stronger opponent on his own terms, rather, a wise competitor will shift away from conventional military confrontations, enlarge the proverbial playing field to include the whole of society and focus on non-traditional, inexpensive and more politico psychological forms of war.

There is a belief in some segments of society that air power can deal effectively, cheaply and quickly with all types of enemy. The counter to this theory is that an adequate and properly prepared ground force is necessary to exercise control of territory and people. That is, without control of territory and people the result of air power, must be at best, transient. The experience in Afghanistan is a case in point. Despite precision bombing, air power has not been able to dislodge and defeat the Taliban fighters. Even the introduction of infantry and special forces into the equation, the small, low tech and highly motivated Taliban forces have been dislodged but not defeated.

The important point is that contemporary asymmetric irregular conflict requires more than military solutions. Contemporary conflict is multi dimensional and requires the coordinated application of all the instruments of national and international power. Astute diplomacy, not brashness as sometimes indulged in and national unity which is very much lacking are two essential ingredients in a scenario where peace and stability have to be aimed at. It has to be a “united” national commitment, sans petty bickering as presently resorted to.

CAN A DIVIDED MEDIA FACE THE CHALLENGE? 

One would think that politicians would be used to criticism. After all, that is part and parcel of public life specially in a democracy. But in Sri Lanka, the higher one reaches in political life, the less tolerant they become. President Mahinda Rajapaksa is a case in point. For most of his political career of over 30 years, Rajapaksa wooed the media. With his easy-going style, most journalists liked him. He was shrewd enough to use these personal relationships to further his political career and undermine those of his opponents.

All that changed once he became the all powerful Executive President. Even the mildest criticism in the media was enough for him to go ballistic. Surrounded by acolytes who praise his every move, the once easy going Rajapaksa can no longer tolerate criticism. Every newspaper article critical of him or his administration is seen as part of a conspiracy against him. And in his mind there are many conspiracies to topple him and the government. The UNP with the LTTE, the elite business community, the western nations with local and international NGOs are all seen as part of this conspiracy.

No wonder then that freedom of expression has come under tremendous pressure during his regime. Not only are individual journalists harassed, threatened, killed and intimidated, owners of media institutions have been frightened by a possible backlash to their business interests.
It seems that we are back to the same dark days of Presidents Premadasa and Kumaratunga. In the 15 years since the Premadasa regime, our leaders have not learned the lesson that oppressing the media is not a recipe for longevity. In fact the ability of the media to force regime change is almost non existent.
But the unfortunate truth is the more successful the Sri Lankan politicians become, the more egocentric and paranoid they grow.

The Sri Lankan media is in for another period of tough times. Whether it can resist successfully will depend on whether the media has learned the lessons from earlier periods of such oppression. The signs are not positive. Journalists are as divided as they were earlier and therefore not in a position to face down the government as one united front. This disunity will be the biggest strength to the government which will play one media group against the other, one journalist against the other, until finally the entire media will succumb to being the government’s “kept media”.

By Sumanasiri Liyanage

Even if one were to operate within the framework of conventional thinking and assume that the Government of Sri Lanka has the right of recapturing the territory previously held by the LTTE, which was not a legitimate power, she or he cannot miss the logic of Sambandan’s argument. Both at the parliamentary election held in April 2004 and the presidential election held in November 2005, a significant number of people, especially its Tamil population, voted against the parties that exercise governmental power in Colombo today. A military victory over its opponent, the LTTE, in itself does not make the incumbent government a legitimate power in the Eastern Province.

One may argue that the Government of Sri Lanka has launched its reconstruction and development programme in order to gain legitimacy by proving that it is genuinely interested in addressing the basic needs and issues of the people and redressing their
grievances, which they have been facing since the recommencement of the Trincomalee District MP R. Sambandan raised a valid point by questioning the legitimacy of the government in Colombo in initiating a plan of reconstruction and development in the Eastern Province. armed conflict in 1983. However, the legitimacy of the state depends on many things, among which the critical aspect is whether the state receives the consent of the governed and it represents their interests. As Seyla Benhabib writes, “the basis of legitimacy in democracy is to be traced back to the presumption that the institutions that claim obligatory power do so because their decisions represent standpoint equally in the interests of all.” Therefore, such decisions should be open to appropriate processes of public deliberation by free and equalcitizens. Sambandan has noted that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has opted out of this process. SLMC Leader, Minister Rauf Hakeem has also expressed his dissatisfaction about the ongoing process.

Reconstruction and development is not a political exercise. The political configuration matters very much in allocating limited resources. Secondly, development economics posits that the satisfaction of the principle of subsidiarity is a necessary condition in making development work more productive and effective. Development and reconstruction in war-torn areas have many facets. The process entails not only rebuilding of physical infrastructure and provision of welfare for the people who were affected by the war, but also reinvigorating necessary institutional structure, which also includes institutions of human rights and democracy.

In the words of Amartya Sen, the opportunities and capabilities can be enhanced by public policy, but the space should be created for people to influence public policies by effective use of their “participatory capabilities.” The making of decisions in Colombo by a regime that has not gained the consent of the governed in the Eastern Province may end up producing lopsided development, which would exacerbate the prevalent conflict situation there. Moreover, the apparatus of the centre has no credibility. The alleged corrupt practices in the Mavil Aru compensation case have made it amply clear that the benefits have not reached the affected people.

In such a context, international agencies and international and Colombo- based Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) would even destroy local capacities by usurping local resources, especially human and social capital. We have witnessed such processes operating in the past, especially in the post-tsunami period. How can eastern development be made a legitimate affair, an affair in which the interests of the governed in the Eastern Province are well and equally represented? Nothing can be substituted for the democratic institutions of the people. However, there are no operational democratic institutions and the prevailing institutions have been subordinated to the military command in order to ensure state security. In my opinion, the most pressing need is reactivation of civil and political mechanisms in the province. Hence I propose the following:

1. The setting up of an Interim Provincial Council for the Eastern Province (IPCEP). Here I do believe that the North East merger issue should be dealt with at a different level

2. The composition of the IPCEP should include all the MPs of the Eastern Province and the chairpersons of all the local government bodies of the Eastern Province

3. The election for the local government bodies that do not have elected representatives should be held immediately after the setting up of the IPCEP 4. All the powers given by the 13th Amendment, including police powers, should be devolved to the IPCEP

5. Steps should be taken to re-organise the police force of the Eastern Province in order to reflect its plurinational demographic character

6. An Eastern Province Reconstruction and Development Fund (EPRDF) should be set up and all the central government allocations and foreign grants should be transferred to that fund and the use of the fund should be decided by the IPCEP. IPCEP can operate for the first 180 days that the
government has named as the first phase of the accelerated programme. After this phase, steps should be taken to hold elections for the Eastern Provincial Council.

The writer teaches political economy at the university of Peradeniya

By Indrajit Samarajiva

Woke up to like 5 cops in my living room, rifling through my stuff. Literally, there’s a guy with a T-56 looking through my DVDs. Re-tie my sarong and sleepily locate my ID. No warrant, no nothing. This is Emergency. Thank God we’re not Tamil. It’s a Tamil neighbourhood, which is otherwise lovely. Last week we saw this procession down the street, women with harvesty things on their head. Now I presume they’re getting their underwear looked through. Asking where they’re from, what their business is here. There’s an army female at least. Kinda cute.

But I digress. The cops here can come into your home, they can lock you up for months, anything in the name of the state. Understandable with the LTTE, but my problem is that I definitely don’t trust the cops. They are complicit in abductions, bribery, murder, etc. Don’t take my word for it, that’s the word of the IGP. The cops are undertrained, underpaid and overpowered. They’re not especially qualified or trustworthy to be looking through peoples’ homes at 5 in the morning, but that’s how it is. This is Emergency.

But the cops. They’re corrupt, they’re a hassle, and they’re everywhere. More than anything they just waste your time. Go into a cop-shed for a police report and they’ll sit there sleeping over their ledgers for hours. There are like 500 cops around and none of them does anything. The only person who has any authority is the Officer In Charge, so the system runs on connections and grease. This system runs slow, annoying at best, but leading to outright torture and murder in the worst case. Take the Balloon Man case, for example. Someone called in a bomb threat to a school, the police arrested the man on the received calls list and ended up beating him to death. He was the balloon supplier for a party.

I’m sure there are a great many good cops. It is, by nature, a noble profession. Unfortunately, more poorly-paid cops do not equal a few with integrity. Of course Mahinda scuttling the peace process has made us less secure and necessity more security theatre. This means we need more cops. Mahinda throttling the economy through money- printing, corruption (bloated cabinet, high positions and graft from his family) and war has meant that these cops get paid peanuts and trained not so much. Mahinda’s alliance with the LTTE splinter group leader Karuna and his tolerance of kidnapping in Colombo has corrupted the police force even deeper. I read in the Daily Mirror newspaper that Karuna members are going to start joining the Police Force soon.

So now people there can report the people abducting their children to… the people abducting the children. Sweet. Meanwhile, abductions and disappearances continue apace in the North East, (NE) as recorded by the Government Agent. There are probably more unreported. “HRW also inspected a report from the Government Agent (GA) of Jaffna, which had statistics from April to December 2006. During that time, the GA registered 354 missing persons. HRW visited Jaffna in February and interviewed the families of 37 persons who But I digress. The cops here can come into your home, they can lock you up for months, anything in the name of the state. Understandable with the LTTE, but my problem is that I definitely don’t trust the cops. They are complicit in abductions, bribery, murder, etc. Don’t take my word for it, that’s the word of the IGP.

The cops are undertrained, underpaid and overpowered. They’re not especially qualified or trustworthy to be looking through peoples’ homes at 5 in the morning, but that’s how it is. This is Emergency. But the cops. They’re corrupt, they’re a hassle, and they’re everywhere. More than anything they just waste your time. Go into a cop-shed for a police report and they’ll sit there sleeping over their ledgers for hours. There are like 500 cops around and none of them does anything. The only person who has any authority is the Officer In Charge, so the system runs on connections and grease. This system had “disappeared” over the previous year. Of these, in 21 cases the evidence strongly suggested the involvement of government security forces. In two cases the families strongly believed that the perpetrators were members of the EPDP (based on their accents, appearance and cars leaving in the direction of EPDP camps). HRW asked the Sri Lankan government

about the army’s authority to arrest or detain civilians in Jaffna, as well as the number of persons the army is detaining in its camps. The government replied that the army can arrest individuals under regulation 18 of the Emergency Regulations, and it is required to hand over to the police all arrested persons within 24 hours- (Daily Mirror). In the NE, abductors have to pass through government checkpoints, as do people in Colombo. While the army involvement remains unadmitted up there, the IGP has admitted that the forces are involved with the terror in our neighbourhoods.

“Inspector General of Police Victor Perera announced that the police had arrested over 400 persons since September 2006 on charges of abduction,including “ex-soldiers, serving soldiers, police officers and underworld gangs and other organized elements-” (HRW)” Note that things have gotten so bad that you can say soldiers, police officers and underworld gangs in the same breath. Organized elements. They’re all tainted with criminality. Anyways, this is the national situ, but these same uniforms are now in my house at 5:30. This isn’t even the local cops, this is some special force from Borella. Looking at my ID, opening my work bag, checking out my bathroom. They want ID from everybody. Doing their ‘job’ I guess, but this feels like odd to me. I do not want the State in my living room at 5 in the morning. Feel like I’m quartering troops here. I understand that the war is on, but I wish this government would clean its own house before it goes looking through mine.

There is corruption in the security forces. I am not comfortable with these people in my home. Before Mahinda searches me, he needs to do something about the abductions on our city streets. Before he declares the east ‘free’ he needs to get Karuna to lay down their arms. More fundamentally, Mahinda needs to either honour the Ceasefire Agreement or let it go. He says we honour it, but we’re obviously at war here. Under the CFA we didn’t have these widespread searches. We didn’t have the LTTE holding our airspace hostage. We had 4,500 more lives than we did last year. Life was better and it sucks now. Just for reference

By Victor Ivan

Yet another crisis in Sri Lanka’s education system-triggered by the drafting of new guidelines for state school admissions-drags on. That such a sensitive issue has caused such strong reactions is no surprise. What’s surprising is that it’s taken so many twists and turns in the space of just a few months.

The present crisis is based on several fundamental rights petitions filed against a circular presenting a new framework for admission of pupils to grade one. The Supreme Court declared that the circular violated the principle of equal opportunity guaranteed by the Constitution. The Court correctly ordered the Secretary to the President to submit a circular that would not violate people’s fundamental rights. As a result, the responsibility
of preparing guidelines was handed over to the National Education Commission (NEC). Thereafter, the Commission recommended a good, reasonable framework. Surprisingly,
this framework was not submitted to the the Supreme court. Instead, a different set of guidelines reached the judiciary.

It was then that the Supreme Court put forward its own detailed guidelines. But they recommended a system that would sharpen the dissimilarities and would push the process of admitting children to a greater mess. It was severely criticized by the educationists who pointed out the destructive effects the implementation of those recommendations might cause. Ranil Wickremesinghe a former minister of education, took up the matter in parliament. He made an excellent analysis of the recommendations of the Supreme Court, basically tearing it apart. The parliament then took the issue up for discussion. As a better alternative to the Supreme Court recommendations could not be found immediately, it was decided to use the previous system with some amendments for the coming year only, pending the introduction of a new system.

This decision taken in parliament was approved by the Cabinet. It was against that decision that several past pupils’ associations went to Court. The Supreme Court said that the cabinet had no authority to change a judicial decision. However, the Chief Justice made certain changes to his previous pronouncements.
He agreed to remove the provision that gave marks for the parents’ education and status. However he does not seem to have changed entirely the recommendations in regard to the measurement of the ability of the pupils. He said that it was necessary to take merit into account in admission to grade one although no merit was required to become a member of parliament. However the Chief Justice did not make clear what procedure should be adopted to test the merits of children applying for admission to grade one.

The case filed by a group of past pupils was subjected to discussion in parliament the same day. Making a special statement in parliament, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe
requested that the action taken to summon the Secretary of Education to the Supreme Court, challenging the decision taken by the parliament about the admission of pupils to grade one next year, be suspended immediately. Stating that Jayasiri Ittepana, joint
secretary of the Ananda College Old Boys’ Union, had breached a privilege by submitting to the Supreme Court a statement that had not been made by him, Ranil Wickremesinghe
raised a question of privilege against him.

He also criticized the conduct of the past pupils’ associations who had filed court cases. He said that attorney Manohara de Silva had done a ‘deal’. What did Mr.Ranil Wickremesinghe really mean by it? Is it that past pupils associations gang up with the judiciary to ptotect their turf. Ranil Wickremesinghe said that summoning the Secretary to the Education Ministry to the Supreme Court violated parliamentary privileges and requested the Speaker to convey that to the Registrar of the Supreme Court through the Secretary to the Parliament. Although the principles declared
by the judiciary were severely criticized by the parliament and the cabinet, neither the parliament nor the cabinet went so far as to have a conflict with the judiciary. Instead the
Secretary for Education went before the Supreme Court on the following case date.

The past pupils associations of popular schools made use of this crisis to improve further their influence in these schools. The judiciary too had come to a position of giving
weightage to their demands to an unnecessary extent. By that time the recommendation
of the Supreme Court had been that 40 marks be given either on the basis of being a child of a past pupil or resident in proximity to the school; 10 marks for a child whose parent is in the armed forces and the balance 50 marks for the skills and abilities of the child.

The Supreme Court declared that the Secretary for education had demeaned the judiciary by preparing a circular disregarding the guidelines given by the judiciary. Reminding that several persons who had mined sand disregarding the orders of the Supreme Court were imprisoned, the Chief Justice warned the secretary for Education that such a course of action could be followed in regard to him too. However, unshaken by the warnings, the Secretary for Education did his best to get the guidelines amended. He appealed against giving 40 marks on the past pupils basis as well as against the intelligence test policy. Finally the judiciary agreed to relax their guidelines to some extent but, did not agree to withdraw them entirely. Accordingly, the administrative district is now considered thefeed area of a school. A candidate can submit applications for admission to six schools and at least three of them must be provincial schools. The suitable students are selectedby the school committee.

It comprises of one representative of the provincial Director of Education, two representatives of the past pupils’ association, two representatives of the school development society (who are not teachers or old boys of the school) and aneminent person of the area who is not in active politics. The total number of marks that may be given in the selection of students is 60, of which 20 marks are on the past pupil basis, 20 on residence, 5 on the basis of already having siblings in the school, 5 on occupation of the parents, and 10 for the armed forces or the police. There is only a little difference between the initial guidelines of the Supreme Court and the present ones.

Under the initial ones, 40% were to be on the past pupils basis. Now it is 33%. Under the old guidelines, intelligences and aptitude was to get 50%. Now it is 35%. These recome- ndations not only violate the free education and equal opportunity envisaged by the father of free education C.W.W. Kannangara, but will also worsen the crisis that has arisen about the admission of children to grade one and will inevitably push it to a disorder which
will not be disentangled easily.

There’s an old tale about a frog in a pot of water. If you turn the heat up very slowly, the frog just sits there and boils to death. In case you didn’t notice, it’s been getting awfully hot in Sri Lanka. More people are dead, more are without homes, and inflation and corruption are picking the pockets of all. Are you hopping mad, or are you sitting still?

Sri Lanka is actually a perfect fit for the ‘boiled frog’ metaphor. We are literally a small pond where everyone thinks they’re a big fish. Thirdtier feudals like the Rajapaksa family behave like generational kings. Everybody and their uncle is a Minister, entitled to a security detail of six and their choice of imported cars. Each Minister, in turn, appoints scores of their cronies to redundant government posts and promises even more to agitated university students. However, in the grand scheme of things, these people are barely qualified to manage a 7-11. Everyone feels like a big fish, when they are really just warty toads.

Take those two metaphors, and you have a small pond on slow boil. We have generations of feudal leaders who feel entitled to power, cars, attendants and more. We have new money politicians who have no scruples at all, turning Parliament into a mafia, simply taxing, borrowing, extorting, robbing and often assaulting the public while delivering nothing. In the midst of it all you have Sri Lankan citizens, blinking stupidly wherestheir blood should be boiling.

Hundreds of thousands of our citizens live in tents. You may not have noticed, but nobody has civil rights. Under Emergency Regulations our Constitution effectively doesn’t exist – we can be searched, seized and jailed on the whim of the state. Meanwhile, the state is run like a mafia and our ‘security’ forces are implicated in abductions, killings of aid workers and more. We have given up our national rights with nary a peep, letting the threat of the LTTE lower the level of our basic civilization. Our very Constitution and identity as a democratic nation is melting into so much pulp.

But Sri Lankans sit still. We might go to a protest if we get a lunchpacket. We might yell ‘Mahinda Chinthaney’ when food prices go up at the office canteen. But it’s not enough. The Rajapaksa family is stealing more generational wealth every day. Our young soldiers are sleeping and dying in the jungle while Mahinda’s naval son has been shipped off to
train in the UK. The rampant inflation is making each paycheck carry a bit less far. The war is taking us down a well-worn path. The slow boil is rising fast. If you feel it, maybe you should do something. Doesn’t have to be anything drastic, just kick, flap and make some noise. Perhaps the toads selling us out will start feeling the heat as well.

By Malith Mendis 

The “Gujral Doctrine” as pronounced by former Indian Prime Minister I K Gujral in a speech made at the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies on January 20 ^th 1997 consisted of  five points on which the Foreign policy of India was proposed to be based. The points were that first,  with  neighbours like Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka, India would not ask for reciprocity, but would give and accommodate what it could in good faith and trust. Second, that no South Asian country should allow its territory to be used against the interests of another country of the region. Third, that no one should interfere in the internal affairs of another. Fourth, that all South Asian countries should respect each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. And finally, that they should settle all their disputes through peaceful bilateral negotiations.   

The Sethusamudram Sea Canal project (SSCP) is a kick in the face of the Gujral Doctrine. Sri Lanka was kept in the dark until construction was about to begin. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study did not consult a main stakeholder, Sri Lanka. Hence, the EIA is fundamentally flawed. Several bilateral meetings have not yielded meaningful results. Meanwhile, India goes ahead with the project stubbornly…..

The Palk Strait area is “quiet,” maritime transport speaking. Its shallowness prohibits large vessels entering the area. The Sethusamudram canal will dredge the sea bottom along the India – Sri Lanka maritime boundary to a depth of 12m to enable larger ships to go through the Palk Strait. After the initial capital dredging, maintenance dredging will have to be done almost continuously to maintain the depth of the canal.

The studies carried out for a project of such magnitude is minimal. The EIA is a rapid assessment. Any oceanographic modeling carried out has been after the EIA was completed. The studies are incomplete and inadequate.  

The Palk Strait region is shallow, not more than 10 metres deep. It is like a sea water lake, bound by India and Sri Lanka, the two ridges of Adams Bridge and a shallow region towards the bay of Bengal. At these two ridges, water depth is generally around 3 metres. The Palk Strait’s water temperature is higher and its salinity is generally lower than the rest of the Indian Ocean region. Therefore it has a unique ecology compared to the rest of the region. It has marine mammals like Dugong which are not found anywhere else in the region. Dugong is again found only in the Middle Eastern waters of the gulf which has a similar temperature and ecology. The area has some 3600 species of plants and animals and so the Palk Strait area is unique in the region in many ways.  This unique ecology, together with the shallow sea, gives the area great tourism potential. This area could well become the Carribean of the East.

The Sethusamudram canal, once built, will increase near two fold the water flow into the region from outside, especially at the Adams Bridge end during the monsoons. This is sure to alter the temperature and salinity balance in the area, and thereby the unique ecology.   The continuous maintenance dredging and increased shipping activity will disturb the tranquil environment of the region. The continous dredging can increase the turbidity of the waters, harming the marine biology in the area. This area is, after all, rich fishing grounds for both India and Sri Lanka, and the seas north of Mannar are the richest fishing grounds for Sri Lanka.  The effects of pollution in this region will be unimaginable. Any oil slick will disperse towards Sri Lanka during the prevalent South West Monsoon.

The blow to Indian trans-shipment traffic through Colombo is unclear. Currently, 70% of cargo handled through Colombo port is trans-shipment cargo to and from India. Colombo dreams of becoming the hub of the region. But India has other plans. Its Sagaramala project for developing ports and attracting the larger shipping lines through Indian ports and the development of the Sethusamudram canal are significant pointers to their intensions. The feeder vessels from India can avoid coming into Colombo and dock at an Indian mega port after traveling via the Sethusamudram canal. But then calculations show that with the current volume of feeder vessel traffic, only about six ships a day will use the Sethusamudram canal. Is that enough volume to make it financially viable? Or are there other reasons for the SSCP? Are they military reasons?

India sees a large part of the Indian Ocean as their security envelope. This is said to range from Socatra Island in Yemen in the West to the Andaman Islands in the East, from the Himalayas in the North, to Diego Garcia in the South. It sees the Palk Strait region as an area where its writ does not run as much as it would like, an area high in risk. They see the Canal as a way of getting control of the region and putting LTTE activity under pressure. India is also developing Nuclear reactors and Power plants in South India and it wants to enhance its Navy’s mobility in this area to protect those interests. 

There have been many protests in India against the project. The Vishava Hindu Parisad (VHP) and the Barathiya Janatha Party (BJP) have protested against the project in the Lok Sabha. However, several cases filed in Supreme Court against the project have been thrown out on the basis that the petitioners have not brought their opposition to the project to the notice of the relevant authorities first!

Meanwhile, the project continues unabated with the recent announcement by India that four more dredgers will be deployed on the project. It is estimated that …….% of the capital dredging has already been done.

This is a time when countries the world over increase links with their neighbours. Links are being strengthened through economic cooperation, artistic exchanges and tourism. Many countries   have built or are building fixed links with their neighbours. The Channel Tunnel, the Oresund link, the Bahrain – Saudi Causeway are such examples. Sri Lanka has many times proposed a bridge between India and Sri Lanka, linking  Danushkodi and Tallaimannar. Such a link is proposed in the Asian Highway network study. If a bridge is to be built in 15 years time the studies have to start now. Instead, the SSCP will create a chasm between the nations, further alienating the two countries.

Sri Lanka has had several high level discussions on the subject and several expert group bilateral meetings. There have been several calls for a joint EIA and a joint Environmental Management Plan (EMP) to which India has shown disregard or opposition. This is definitely a kick in the face to the Gujral Doctrine. Sri Lanka can resort to provisions of the Convention on the Law of the Sea to institute international legal action to safeguard its rights and interests.  Sri Lanka should also propose a joint India – Sri Lanka Palk Strait Transnational Authority to handle affairs in the region. That is the way mature countries work.  

Malith Mendis is a Civil Engineer by profession and is the head of a consultancy in Coastal Engineering, Water Resources and Urban Water

To Start

The country is going to pot. People are poorer, deader, and less free. Not because of the war, but because the war is being fought by corrupt morons. You cannot ask our youth to bleed while your family is bleeding the coffers dry. It’s mixed metaphors. The Rajapaksas are the most corrupt and feudal family to rule Sri Lanka, and that’s saying a lot. They fund airlines, vanity NGO projects for Namal, practice large-scale graft from EPF/ETF money and generally behave like mafia. They are leading this country in the wrong direction, specifically, away from the moral and wealthy state that Sri Lanka can be.

The Cross Overs

Ranil Wickremesinghe is a poor leader of the UNP. He can’t hold a baby or a convincing press conference, though he would be a good CEO. Like JR, he thinks if he just hangs around long enough, power will fall into his lap. Maybe it will, but the country needs some stability now. I’ve worked for Ranil’s campaign and the people around him are idiots. Loyal, but deeply incompetent. Malcompetent even. Total obstructive hacks that can’t mount a decent poster campaign or find a photo where Ranil doesn’t look like a child molester. In the face of the stagnation of the UNP it’s tempting to leave, but going to this government is, IMHO, unconscionable.

This is a crucial moment in Sri Lankan history. Mahinda is not a leader like Premadasa who inherited disaster (two rebellions) and dealt with it in brutal but effective ways. I’m cribbing this from a friend, but Mahinda inherited peace and prosperity and is actively messing it up. He destroyed the peace process with the promise of future gains, but the only real gain is generational wealth for his family. With my money. With our money, and our lives. Now he’s captured a hill in the east, but at the cost of countless lives, tons of treasure, over 600,000 displaced (total), control of Sri Lankan airspace, international support, and our very status as a moral democracy. Perhaps there is a military way out, but at the least this corrupt Rajapaksa family needs some checks and balances from a functional Parliament.

That’s why the SLFP (M)/UNP alliance is so hopeful. Perhaps the monolith of Ranil and movement of Mangala can check this corrupt President before life in this country gets much worse. We are printing money and recruiting youth for a war that has no end in sight. And it’s not Thoppigala. When we get the police state off the streets of Colombo, displaced people (tsunami and war) in homes and the Rajapaksa hands out of my pockets then that’s progress. Everything else is just panadol for the people. We need something real, we need something with integrity, and we need a government that delivers a better Sri Lanka. We need an Opposition and we need politicians with courage. I once thought that Milinda Moragoda had that, but he doesn’t. Milinda Moragoda and all the cross-overs are just sell-outs. The only people really standing up are Mangala and the JVP, oddly enough. In these times I guess you take what you can get.

It was a sunny morning on Saturday, July 28. The swirling rotors of an Air Force Bell VIP helicopter stirred up a cloud of dust and dry grass as it slowly settled down in an open patch surrounded by thick jungle.

Troops clapped as the door swung open.

The visitors dismounted. They were Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Chief of Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Donald Perera and Commander of the Army, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka. Unlike the highly publicised event at Independence Square on July 19, there were no television cameras, radio commentators or media corps. A lone official camera operator took photographs of this short ceremony. It was being held at Thoppigala. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa laid a commemorative plaque watched by the VIP visitors and troops.

He was then at his residence in Los Angeles and thus chose to give a slip, like his brother Basil Rajapaksa, to the Independence Square ceremonies. They were telecast live countrywide on TV and broadcast on radio. The move was intended to obviate criticism that together with their brother President Percy Mahinda Rajapaksa, they ran the military and the country. Whether the absence helped erase that wide public perception is doubtful. Even if the nation did not see him, the Defence Secretary wanted the troops to know that he, the one who ran the military machine, acknowledged their role.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa had declared in an address to the nation that the Tiger rebels have all been driven out of the East. He wanted to be able to say that, more than anything else, to shore up the image of his Government. Allegations of human rights violations, killings, abductions, kidnappings, and the breakdown in law and order have all been having a telling effect on President Rajapaksa. He grew impatient when the military operations in the East dragged on.

At a meeting of the National Security Council on July 4, he asked Army Commander Lt. Gen. Fonseka why there was a delay in capturing the last bit of rebel dominated territory – Thoppigala. Troops had so rapidly seized the Mavil Aru, Sampur, Kathiraveli and Vakarai areas. It is those actions that had forced the rebels to concentrate in the midst of the jungles of Thoppigala. The military operations to seize areas west of the A-5 Maha Oya – Chenkaladi Road had been launched on April 8. President Rajapaksa set a deadline for July 11, the date of the next meeting of the Council, to accomplish the task. If that was not possible, the Army was to explain why it could not be executed.

By the time the Presidential deadline was set, the Army’s intelligence operatives had confirmed that only a group of 200 rebels were holed up in Thoppigala. Others were making a hasty retreat. They opined that the delay was to give them time to escape safely and at the same time inflict as much casualties as possible on the rebels. In that week the Air Force stepped up air raids over Thoppigala. The rebels stepped up mortar barrages on advancing troops. This made their march difficult through open terrain and passage through the hill tracts.

Unlike the failed rebel attack on troops at the positions in Muhamalai on August 11, last year, there were no close quarter battles in Thoppigala. It was a war of stand off weapons – artillery (from the Army), mortars and sniper fire from the rebels. That was why, unlike at Muhamalai, there were no gory photographs of rebel dead bodies lying strewn in the battlefields. Despite official claims of hundreds of rebels being killed, no such photographs of those who died ever surfaced. Nor did photographs of vehicles being destroyed ever surface. Not despite official claims which spoke of immobilizing them. The absence of close quarter battles meant casualties on both sides were much less than claimed.

Even if Army officers insisted that the rebels have been cornered and would have to fight to a finish, the ground reality was different. Thoppigala and its environs were much larger in size than the City of Colombo. Though the troops had blocked escape routes, the rebels found many areas from which they could make a safe exit. Lt. Gen. Fonseka kept the pressure on Brigadier Chagi Gallage, Commanding Officer of the Army’s Task Force One to expedite the last phase of seizing Thoppigala. As the deadline neared, Army officials feared it was not possible. Hence, they told a conference at the Public Administration Ministry, held to plan out ceremonies on July 19, that it could not be done.

But Brig. Gallage’s troops had cleared a path and reached Thoppigala by the morning of July 11. This was with barely hours to go for the National Security Council meeting where President Rajapaksa set the deadline. The Army was in a hurry and leaked the story that they had already captured Thoppigala. Unaware of the developments, initially the Media Centre for National Security (MCNS) denied the claims. It was only on the night of July 11 that both agreed that Thoppigala in fact had been re-captured. That was how President Rajapaksa’s congratulatory message was distributed during the night of July 11.
As euphoria spread amongst Government leaders, the Leader of the Opposition and United National Party, Ranil Wickremesinghe was to publicly announce that some 800 to 1,000 rebels had been allowed to escape. This, together with his earlier remarks that Thoppigala was a jungle area, and thus not giving credit to the troops for their actions, did cause some faux pas. Firstly, there were not more than 200 rebels in Thoppigala at the time of the re-capture.

But to a Government which was content on only press releases and rhetoric by a myriad of spokesmen at news conferences, the significance of Wickremesinghe’s remarks were lost. They failed to exploit it to their advantage. If, as claimed, some 800 to 1,000 rebels were allowed to escape from Thoppigala, it naturally raises an important issue. One is that the Army hierarchy allowed them safe passage, a charge that impacted badly on them. In other words, Wickremesinghe is saying that the Army, the backbone of the country’s national security, was responsible for allowing the enemy to escape. The fact that the remarks did not go down well from the soldier to the officer is no secret.
Once again, if as claimed, the rebels did take advantage of such a safe passage to flee the area, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had become militarily weaker. Thus, Wickremesinghe is confirming the Government’s assertion, though questionable, that the LTTE has been militarily weakened. The Government’s media advisors failed to seize the lack of foresight in Wickremesinghe’s argument. Like in the case of the Police raid on the Army’s intelligence cell at Athugiriya, when he was Prime Minister, Wickremesinghe had apparently been ill informed.

Did the security forces, as claimed by their Minister of Defence and Commander-in-Chief, President Rajapaksa rid the East of all rebel presence? The answer is no. One need not be privy to top secret information to realize that the claim is unfounded. Just four days after the re-capture of Thoppigala, the rebels shot dead the Chief Secretary of the Eastern Provincial Council, Herath Abeyweera. And recently, the Special Task Force (STF) of the Police had killed five rebels including an area leader during operations in Ampara.
Army’s own intelligence operatives have reported that groups of LTTE cadres fled Thoppigala to several areas  in Trincomalee. They included Kumburupiddy, Kadawana and Peraru. Some of these groups later found their way to the Wanni. The others have shifted to Ampara where they have begun opening up new bases. It is known that the LTTE intelligence bases that operated in the Batticaloa West area have now shifted to Ampara. Intercepts of radio communications by the STF have confirmed that these intelligence bases are regularly in touch with LTTE bases in the Wanni.

Thus, with small groups operating in Trincomalee and Ampara, which are two of three districts in the East (the other is Batticaloa), the threat factor remains. It only takes a few rebels albeit one or two to carry out assassinations or sabotage. Thus, the Government’s ambitious development programmes, the proposed elections to provincial councils and local bodies are fraught with danger. Some senior security officials have proposed that candidates could be secured in one central area under armed protection. But the central question is how they could win elections without mixing with the people.
A much bigger concern after the reported re-capture of the East is fears that the Rajapaksa administration is trying to convert the security forces as its new constituency. This is because it has lost the support of a larger mass of people over a number of issues, most importantly the rising cost of living. This will exacerbate further with the latest increase in fuel and flour prices.

Signs that Rajapaksa is getting the military slowly but surely involved in governance have become clearly evident. With the victory in the East, the Commander of the Security Forces there, Major General Parakrama Pannipitiya, had directed Government Agents, senior Police and security officials that grass roots level committees for development should be headed by the military or the Police.
The fact that such a directive has come from an Army officer in charge of the East is questionable enough. The worst is how he could give such rulings which are matters of Government policy and should be decided upon by the political leadership. On the other hand, if he had in fact been told to issue those instructions, it portends a new trend where the military and the police will be involved in not only development work but governance too.

With the reported re-capture of the East where the Government claims it has driven out the rebels, military offensives are to begin shortly in the North. Thus, a Ceasefire Agreement, now only on paper, remains forgotten. Even if it has increased its strength, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission will remain impotent. Though undeclared, Eelam War IV is set to reach newer heights as the nation’s economy and the cost of living hit a new low.

By D.B.S Jeyaraj  

Sri Lanka’s Eastern province will be experiencing a new sunrise, according to Government propaganda. The Rajapaksa regime claims to have vanquished the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and cleared the province of two – legged felines. Now the focus will be on development of the region. If Colombo is to be believed, the east is rising!

Naturally, the LTTE disputes this. The tigers say that they have merely executed a strategic withdrawal. Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan, the LTTE spokesperson on Defence affairs – an eastern son of the soil himself – was candid enough to admit on the BBC that the tigers had suffered a “setback”. It was not a “defeat,” he said. The LTTE is abandoning positional warfare and adopting guerilla tactics in the future.

There was a time when the LTTE controlled extensive territory in the East. The tigers claimed then that 70% of the East was under them. When Jaffna fell in 1996, LTTE propagandists tried to make the best of a difficult situation by pointing out that more “land” in the east had come under their control than what was lost in the north.

 In Trincomalee district, the LTTE had areas north of Trinco town and the greater part of Muttur and Eechilampatru divisions in the South. It also had a small portion of the Seruwila division.

In Batticaloa district, the LTTE controlled the bulk of territory in the hinterland to the west of Batticaloa lagoon, the Vaharai region and also the Kudumbimalai /Thoppigala areas.

In Amparai district, the LTTE controlled the Kanchikudicharu – Rufuskulam jungle areas and adjacent villages. It also maintained a presence in the Lahugala and Pottuvil jungle areas.

At one stage the Eastern coast from Sampur down to Panichankerny was dominated by the LTTE. Possession of Sampur by the tigers posed a threat to strategic Trincomalee harbour.

The present reality is that the LTTE is not in  control of areas in the East. However the tigers continue to maintain a low – key presence in the jungles of Kudumbimalai/Thoppigala in Batticaloa, Kanchikudicharu jungles in Amparai and the Kadawanaikulam  - Peraaru areas in Trincomalee.

Tiger operatives also maintain a clandestine presence in the Eastern littoral. They are from the intelligence section and the assassination squads.

It is estimated that around 250 – 300 such tigers are living covertly in this mode. Around 400 – 500 tigers in small groups are moving about in the jungle areas of the entire province.

Currently more and more cadres are re – locating to the Wanni. Apparently the LTTE wants to whittle down its cadre strength in the East to an optimum level of a few hundreds in the near future.

 Recent history shows that the LTTE did not wrest control of Eastern territory through direct confrontation. The mid – nineties of the last century saw the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) withdrawing personnel from the East and deploying them in the North. The tigers simply filled the vacuum and gained real estate.

 The “surprise” factor in recent eastern fighting was not the fact that the LTTE” lost” but the fact that it “withstood” for such a long time. The LTTE faced overwhelming odds in terrain unsuited for positional warfare but managed to hold out in the east for nearly 15 months.

The question that arises at this juncture is- Can the LTTE change the eastern military status quo through future armed action?

These questions gain significance against the backdrop of past events where the LTTE gets cleared out only to return in full force. GOSL strategists feel that the past scenario will not repeat itself. LTTE circles are confident that it will.

The LTTE is the cynosure of all eyes in this respect. What the tigers can do or cannot do will determine the future.

It is indeed a moot point as to whether the LTTE will make a strong effort to regain the East through military action.

 It is noteworthy that the LTTE did not make desperate endeavours to retain grip of the Province. After proffering resistance for specific periods, the LTTE withdrew, retaining a considerable part of its military assets.

It is also worth remembering that the LTTE did not make powerful attempts to capture territory in the East during the early nineties. This was a time when the tigers controlled extensive territory in the North.

This indicates that the tigers did not regard the east as a great “prize” for which the LTTE had to fight to the finish.

 The LTTE gave greater priority to the preservation of the Northern Wanni mainland as its “rear base” than risk grave losses in a bid to retake the East.

Militarily, retention of territory in the east is not as important as retaining territory in the Wanni. Therefore the LTTE is unlikely to launch offensives to recapture the east.

A guerilla force like the LTTE cannot hold on to Eastern territory in the face of intensive offensives launched by the security forces.

Geographically, the east is too long, and too narrow for a force like the LTTE to hold on indefinitely. Also unlike the North, Tamil territorial contiguity is seriously impaired through interspersed Sinhala and Muslim areas.

Attempting to ” hold ” can only result in debilitating losses. It is better therefore not to try and grab something which you can’t hold on.

Retaining territory that passed into tiger control by “default” is acceptable. But to risk heavy losses in trying to retain or recapture the “unretainable” is simply unacceptable.

Even during recent fighting in the east, the tiger hierarchy in the Wanni did not make any major effort to send reinforcements to replenish depleted Eastern ranks. The Eastern tigers had to fight on their own with little logistical support from the North.

The hundreds of tigers present in the east are capable of launching many guerilla type attacks and assassinations of key individuals. But their ability and capacity is limited unless greater input from the north is received.

It is doubtful whether the current “eastern” strength can enable the LTTE to conduct a major offensive to retake territory or reverse the current military balance of power.

This can be possible only if the LTTE hierarchy is willing and able to induct men and material in a big way from the North to East. This is highly unlikely because the LTTE high command is concentrating on retaining the Wanni at present. The security forces are knocking on the “gates” of many different entry points to the Wanni.

The Wanni too is highly vulnerable now. So the tigers will give priority to the Wanni and not the east. It is not in LTTE interests to dilute manpower and firepower by sending a portion to the East at this critical juncture.

Even if the LTTE was to send reinforcements, there is a big question of “how”? The security forces now dominate the Eastern sea coast. The LTTE can beach a boat or two discreetly but will find it difficult to mount a massive naval offensive.

The only land-based link between the Eastern and northern cadres is the “beirut” trail. This is a jungle based “route” between the jungles of Kudumbimalai/Thoppigala to Manalaaru/ Weli – Oya. Many of these jungle tracts are in areas populated by Sinhalese and Muslims.

Tiger groups have revived use of this trail now. It would however require much effort to utilise the same “beirut trail” for a reverse flow and transport men and materials necessary for an Eastern assault.

It has to be remembered that such an operation was not conducted even when Karuna was Eastern regional commander of the LTTE.

Today the situation is one where a breakaway faction ostensibly led by “Col.” Karuna is cooperating fully with the security forces. The “Karuna cadres” know all about the “beirut trail.” It is only a matter of time before combined units of security forces and Karuna cadres commence jungle-patrolling.

Even if the LTTE mobility via the Beirut trail is not stopped entirely, the possibilities of large-scale tiger movement could be effectively curtailed.

One development that could transform this climate drastically is a tiger victory in Weli – Oya/Manalaaru. If the LTTE can overrun this region and remove the military presence there, it would seriously undermine the security forces in the North-East.

 In such a situation the tigers could launch effective attacks against military installations in Trincomalee district. More importantly, north-east transport would be made much easy.

Again it must be pointed out that the LTTE could not overrun Weli Oya/ Manalaaru earlier when the tigers were perceived to be much stronger than now.

There are other reasons also that militate against large – scale offensives by the LTTE in the East.

Firstly the security forces have displayed a pugnacious tenacity unseen before. Massive aerial bombardment and artillery shelling has seriously undermined the helpless Tamil civilians. Displaced Tamils have not returned home yet.

The ordinary Tamils in the east will not like resumption of hostilities. They would prefer that the LTTE leave them alone while they try to pick up pieces of their shattered lives. There won’t be public sympathy for a tiger assault.

Secondly the Muslims are alienated from the LTTE.  So are the Sinhalese. This provides greater strength to the security forces while handicapping the LTTE.

Thirdly the LTTE split has weakened it considerably. With the Karuna cadres on the side of the security forces the power balance has altered dramatically in favour of Colombo.

Against this backdrop, the prospects of the LTTE trying to retake lost eastern territory or reversing the situation is highly improbable.

What is most likely is a series of guerilla attacks on army, police and STF patrols, lightning raids on Police stations, posts and small army outposts. Sniping; landmine ambushes; and assassination of politicians and administrators perceived as agents or collaborators of the regime.

While keeping the Eastern cauldron boiling, these types of action cannot reverse the military situation. It can only invite reprisals and make life hell for the civilians.

These LTTE attempts will be counter balanced by the regime’s ruthless resolve to retain the east at any cost. The Rajapaksa government is blowing up the Eastern victory to enormous proportions. With such a political investment, it is of utmost importance to retain its hold militarily.

If the LTTE does display any sign of making a comeback, brutal retaliation will be underway. The reign of terror unleashed in Jaffna will be replicated more intensively here. The Karuna and Douglas groups will be the instruments of terror. The STF too has a terrible past.

In such a situation where two powerful forces clash for domination, the helpless civilians will bear the brunt as usual.