New Delhi cold-shouldering Colombo for over two years
R. K. RADHAKRISHNAN May 30, 2012
A 2010 photograph of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi.

Sri Lanka and India haven’t had a bilateral engagement at the top-most levels in governance, reflecting the changing priorities in New Delhi towards its immediate neighbourhood. A series of issues between Sri Lanka and India since the close of the Eelam war IV in May 2009, which saw the demise of the Tamil Tigers, has seen New Delhi cold-shoulder Colombo for over two years.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has held bilateral meetings with his south Asian counterparts, either in New Delhi or in the capitals of these countries in the past year. While there was no official bilateral meet with Pakistan, its President Asif Ali Zardari met Dr. Singh in New Delhi in April this year — that was the first time in seven years that a Pakistan President was meeting the Indian Prime Minister.

Before his visit to Myanmar, Dr. Singh was in the Maldives (November 9-12, 2011), and became the first head of a foreign State to address the People's Majlis; toured Bangladesh in September 2011; met Nepal Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, Bhutan King Jigme Wangchuck, and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai in New Delhi, in October 2011.

That leaves out Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa as the only leader in the region whom Dr. Singh hasn’t consciously met in a formal bilateral forum — the two leaders have met on the sidelines of the 2011 SAARC summit in Addu City in the Maldives, and the last session of the United Nations General Assembly. These meetings are necessarily hurried and short, and nothing of substance can be discussed at any length.

The last time an Indian Prime Minister visited Sri Lanka was in 2008 — that too wasn’t for a bilateral meeting; it was for the SAARC summit.

The last bilateral summit between the two countries was when Mr. Rajapaksa visited New Delhi in June 2010. In his meetings with the Prime Minister, Mr. Rajapaksa made a series of promises, on devolution and related issues. None of these promises was kept, Indian officials said.

These assurances were repeated when Foreign Minister S. M. Krishna visited Sri Lanka and met the President in January 2012 and, yet again, in April this year, to Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj. The promises have remained on paper.

After the end of the war, India has pressed for a political solution to accommodate the legitimate hopes and aspirations of Tamils in Sri Lanka's Northern Province. New Delhi was repeatedly assured by Colombo that a solution would be found, even going beyond the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution. The Amendment, which many Sri Lankans say was thrust on it by India in 1987 as part of the Indo-Sri Lankan accord, granted certain powers to the Sri Lankan provinces. Though this provision exists in the Constitution, it has never been implemented.

Dr. Singh had, in fact, accepted an invitation to visit Sri Lanka in June 2010. Asked why a visit couldn’t be worked out, a senior Sri Lankan official said the Foreign Ministries of both countries had to work out details of the visit. “You should ask your Ministry of External Affairs. We are ready to welcome your Prime Minister anytime,” the official told The Hindu, when asked what outstanding issues stood in the way of a visit.

It isn’t merely Dr. Singh who seems to be staying away from Sri Lanka. His Cabinet, too, is. After the visit of Mr. Krishna in January 2012, there hasn’t been a senior Cabinet visit to date. The earliest slated visit is that of senior Congress leader and Union Minister Jairam Ramesh, in July. He has been invited by the Kadirgamar Institute, and will arrive here on a short visit on July 11.

Mr. Rajapaksa is in Thailand on a bilateral visit. He has recently been to Qatar, South Korea, Singapore and Pakistan.

Why people in Tamil Nadu are protesting


nuclear energy

Featured Author: S.P. Udayakumar

Udayakumar leads anti-nuclear movement in India.”

We have been fighting against the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) since the late 1980s. This Russian project was shelved right after the Soviet Union’s collapse and taken up again in 1997. The Indian government and Russians have constructed two huge reactors of 1000 MW each without the consent of or consultation with the local people. We have just obtained the outdated Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report after 23 years of long and hard struggle. The Indian nuclear authorities have not shared any basic information about the project with the public. They do not give complete and truthful answers for our questions on the ‘daily routine emissions’ from these reactors, the amount and management of nuclear waste, fresh water needs, impact of the coolant water on our sea and seafood, decommissioning costs and effects, Russian liability and so forth. We are deeply disturbed by all this.

Our people watched the Fukushima accident of March 11, 2011 on TV at their homes and understood the magnitude and repercussions of a nuclear accident. Right after that on July 1, 2011, the KKNPP announced the ‘hot run’ of the first reactor that produced an alarming amount of noise and smoke. Furthermore, the authorities asked the people, in a mock drill notice, to cover their nose and mouth and run for their life in case of an emergency. As a result of all these, our people in Koodankulam and Idinthakarai villages made up their minds and took to the streets on their own on August 11, 2011. Then we together decided to host a day-long hunger strike on August 16 at Idinthakarai and a three-day fast on August 17-19 at Koodankulam. On the first day of the fast^, authorities invited us for talks and asked us to postpone our struggle to the first week of September because of the upcoming Hindu and Muslim festivals. In a few days’ time, the chief of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) announced that the first reactor would go critical in September 2011. See the Times of India coverage.

So we embarked upon an indefinite hunger strike on September 11, 2011 and our women blocked a state road on

Women on hunger strike from May 1 to May 4, 2012

September 13 for a few hours when the state and central governments continued to ignore us. The state Chief Minister invited us for talks on September 21, and passed a cabinet resolution the next day asking the central government to halt all the work until the fears and concerns of the local people were allayed. We ended our hunger strike on the next day but went on another round of hunger strike from October 9 to 16 when the talks with the Indian Prime Minister failed. We laid siege in front of the KKNPP on October 13-16, 2011 when the KKNPP authorities did not halt work despite the Tamil Nadu state cabinet resolution. We ended both the indefinite hunger strike and the siege on October 16 in order for our people to participate in the local body elections. From October 18, 2011, we have been on a relay hunger strike. We have been carrying out massive rallies, village campaigns, public meetings, seminars, conferences, and other demonstrations such as shaving our heads, cooking on the street, and burning the models of the nuclear plants. When the state government of Tamil Nadu arrested some 200 of our comrades on March 19, 2012, fifteen of us embarked on an indefinite hunger strike until March 27. This struggle has been going on for more than 260 days and the morale of the people is still high. On May 14, a public hearing “Koodankulam and State Suppression of Democratic Rights” was held in Chennai. The next day relay hunger strikers took over from those who were on an indefinite strike.

There is no foreign country or agency or money involved in this classic people’s struggle to defend our right to life and livelihood. Our fishermen, farmers, workers and women make small voluntary donations in cash and kind to sustain our simple Gandhian struggle. Our needs and expenses are very few. We only provide safe drinking water to the hunger strikers and visitors. People from all over Tamil Nadu (and sometimes from other parts of India) come on their own arranging their own transportation. For our own occasional travel, we hire local taxis.

Instead of understanding the people’s genuine feelings and fulfilling our demands, the government has foisted serious cases of ‘sedition’ and ‘waging war on the Indian state’ on the leaders of our movement. There are more than 200 criminal cases against us. Police harassment, surveillance by intelligence officers, concocted news reports in the pro-government media, abuse of our family members, hate mail, death threats and even physical attack have become a daily part of our lives.

Although India is a democracy, our central government has been keen on safeguarding the interests of the multinational corporations, and pleasing powerful countries such as the United States, Russia, and France. The welfare of the ‘ordinary citizens’ of India does not figure on their list of priorities. The central government and the ruling Congress party stand by the secretive nuclear agreements they have made with the different countries, and consider us as stumbling blocks on their road to development. The main opposition party, Bharatiya Janata Party (Hindu nationalist party) is equally interested in the nuclear weapons program and making India a superpower and hence loves everything nuclear. It is ironic that these two corrupt and communal forces join hands with each other against their own people. They bend backwards to please their American and other bosses but question our integrity and nationalist credentials.

Our leaders and the group of fifteen women were physically attacked on January 31, 2012 at Tirunelveli by the Congress thugs and Hindutva fascists when we had gone for talks with the central government expert team. Now the government cuts electricity supply often and indiscriminately in order to drive home the message that nuclear power plant is needed for additional power. They try to create resentment and opposition among the public against our anti-nuclear struggle.

To put it in a nutshell, this is a classic David-Goliath fight between the ordinary citizens of India and the powerful Indian government supported by the rich Indian capitalists, multinational corporations, imperial powers, and the global nuclear mafia. They promise foreign direct investment, nuclear power, development, atom bombs, security, and superpower status. We demand risk-free electricity, disease-free life, unpolluted natural resources, sustainable development and harmless future. They say the Russian nuclear power plants are safe and can withstand earthquakes and tsunamis. But we worry about their side-effects and after-effects. They speak for their scientist friends and business partners, and have their eyes on commissions and kickbacks. But we fight for our children and grandchildren, our animals and birds, our land, water, sea, air and the skies.

Recovery in Rwanda – traditional courts for reconciliation

TransConflict

Posted on May 28th, 2012 in the category GCCT by TransConflict

Gacaca Courts – local courts based upon communitarian values - were recoveredfrom previous traditions by the post-genocide government; focusing not necessarily on punishment, but first and foremost on forgiveness and reconciliation.

By Moara Crivelente

The ethnic aspect which is usually defined as a cause of conflict between Hutus and Tutsis – either historically fundamented or discursively constructed, and instrumentalized by political leaders – has deep roots with which society has to deal. To initiate this process, Gacaca Courts - local courts based on communitarian values - were recovered from previous traditions by the post-genocide government; focusing not necessarily on punishment, but first and foremost on forgiveness and reconciliation. This process is important due to Rwanda’s reconstruction of economic and, more importantly, social structures.

Nonetheless, a contraposition between peace and justice is constantly made; mostly by critics who do not consider Gacaca’s objectives as actual justice, or as effective enough in facilitating the building of peace. Bearing in mind its subjectivity, the concept of justice will be referred to throughout as an endeavour to secure accountability and punishment - either to remove criminals from society or to protect society from criminals – only for the sake of simplicity and correspondence with the critics referred to below.

As communitarian and traditional courts, the Gacacas are said to be the best way found by the Rwanda to deal autonomously with their problems, through their own methods. The courts were introduced as a combination of some sort of truth commissions (1) and other programs aimed at promoting forgiveness and reconciliation; essential for pursuing justice and laying the basis for the reconstruction of the Rwandan society. The proceedings are focused on social-healing workshops (2) also organized by the Government, with special attention given to risk groups, such as children orphaned by genocide. Justice and the construction of memory should serve for preventing and dismantling mechanisms that allow violence, thereby ensuring the tragedy does not repeat itself (3).

According to a 1997 report by the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and the Protection of Human Rights, the number of imprisoned people suspected of grave human rights violation was so high that it was almost impossible to try them fairly, within a reasonable period of time. In that sense, the Rwandan case is exemplary: more than 90,000 persons were imprisoned then – the majority of them charged with crimes of genocide – and the judiciary could not deal with the situation in a sufficiently effective manner (4). In that sense, establishing the Gacaca Courts’ jurisdiction – in 2001, for crimes against humanity committed between October 1990 and December 1994 – contributed not only to efforts at reconciliation and justice in a traditional and local manner (5), but also for more efficiency. The Gacacas’ goals are to tell the truth about the genocide, actively engaging the local population in its hearings; to speed up the genocide trials, increasing the judicial system’s institutional capacities; to eliminate the culture of impunity; to promote reconciliation and unity between the Rwandan people; and to demonstrate how Rwanda can deal with its own problems through a judiciary system based upon its own traditions, despite adaptations made to fit some international standards.

The proceedings and psychological impacts Full Story>>>

Bid at UN to Ban ICP Led by 5 Big Media, For France,Lanka, Ladsous

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 29 -- Hours after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous refused to answer Inner City Press' questions about charges that his Department introduced cholera into Haiti, and has Sri Lanka alleged war criminal general Shavendra Silva as an adviser, representatives of five media organizations presented charges to eject Inner City Press. Longer version here.

Video of Ladsous' refusal to answer is here, Minute 28:10.

The five signers of the charge letter to set up a "board of examination" to "investigate" Inner City Press with the goal of expelling it include not only Louis Charbonneau of Reuters and Timothy Witcher of Agence France Presse (as explained below, a major French Mission and Ladsous tool).

Now they've expanded to five, with Flavia Krause-Jackson of Bloomberg, Talal Al-Haj of Al-Arabia and Margaret Besheer of Voice of America.

During Tuesday afternoon's session, Bloomberg's Flavia Krause-Jackson told Inner City Press, We're not talkingabout giving evidence... we do not like your attitude.

Full Story>>>

Unique temple of Tamil folk heritage found destroyed, desecrated in HSZ in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 May 2012, 05:25 GMT]
A unique temple of Eezham Tamil folk heritage, dedicated to Kooddaththaar, a deity historically worshipped by a soldier guild that got absorbed into the toddy-tapping community, was found destroyed in bombing and its rare bronze idol sawed off and stolen at the Vasanthapuram locality of I’lavaalai in Jaffna. For the last two decades the locality was under the ‘High Security Zone’ (HSZ) of the occupying Sinhala military. Recently, when some fringes of the HSZ were allowed for resettlement, the people of Vasanthapuram returned. Finding their temple destroyed and the deity missing they now worship only the pedestal remaining. Vasanthapuram is where the occupying military has built lines of a few monotype houses for the resettled people and often shows them off to visiting foreign dignitaries as an example of its ‘reconciliation’ efforts.

The rare bronze image of the deity Kooddaththaar found sawed off in the Sinhala Army-occupied ‘High Security Zone’ at I'lavaalai in Jaffna. The image of the collective deity of the Tamil guild of soldiers of the ancient times, was in anthropomorphic form. Note that despite the idol missing, the local Tamil devotees have applied saffron in reverence to the the remaining part. [Image courtesy: History Department, University of Jaffna]

Destroyed and delapidated walls of the Kooddaththaar Temple in the Sri Lanka occupied ‘High Security Zone’ at I'lavaalai [Image courtesy: History Department, University of Jaffna]

Mr Naakan, caretaker and folk-priest (Poochaari) of the Kooddaththaar Temple at I'lavaalai, Jaffna [Image courtesy: History Department, University of Jaffna]

The destruction and desecration of the Kooddaththaar temple was brought to light when a media team from Virakesari led by Ms Uma Prakash, joining with Professor P. Pushparatnam and Ms Sasitha Kumaradevan of the Jaffna University History Department, undertook a survey and documentation of the temples in the resettled parts of the HSZ in Valikaamam North.

Writing a feature in Virakesari on Sunday, Professor Pushparatnam elucidated on the historical, religious and social significance behind the heritage of the temple.

Bringing out the present conditions in the locality, he said that areas interior to the main roads are beyond recognition with scrub jungle and ruined buildings.

He records an interesting observation that the emotional priority of the resettled people is to first rebuild their temples than to rebuild their houses.

Noting that the coral-stone-built Kooddaththaar temple was one of the many structures destroyed in bombing during the war, and noting that besides the main bronze image there were also other images missing from the temple, Pushparatnam says, people have now placed stones to represent the various other deities and worship them.

The bronze image of the deity Kooddaththaar was in anthropomorphic form with just two hands wielding weapons, Pushparatnam cited an old-generation person earlier associated with the temple.

In explaining the cult of Kooddaththaar, Pushparatnam cited Dr. P. Ragupathy assigning it to the hero-worship cult of the soldier guilds.

* * *

When contacted by TamilNet, Dr. Ragupathy said Kooddaththaar, A’n’namaar, Cheavukar and Padaikkalar found in the folk religion of Eezham Tamils are deities of collective hero-worship, originating from the soldier guilds of historical times. The collectiveness in the concept could be seen in the plural form used for the names of the deities: Kooddaththaar (members of the guild), A’n’namaar (from A’n’nalmaar, meaning leaders or those who have become gods), Cheavukar (soldiers), Padaikkalar (those who wield weapons), he pointed out. Collectiveness of a community personified into a deity is an alternative idea of religion found only at folk levels, he further said.

The soldier guilds, associated with the protection of trade guilds and rulers of the past, were also cultivators or craftsmen in peacetimes. In the medieval times, especially in the late medieval times, they were also hired and migrated to far and wide places in South and Southeast Asia. With the collapse of native trade and state institutions, the soldier guilds were absorbed into various castes and professions.

The Kooddaththaar Temple of I'lavaalai, found destroyed in the ‘High Security Zone’ occupied by the Sinhala Army in the last two decades [Image courtesy: History Department, University of Jaffna]

Another nearby temple for Vayiravar found destroyed in bombing in the HSZ, I'lavaalai [Image courtesy: History Department, University of Jaffna]

Full story >>

Sri Lanka Exports Fall Most In 30 Months On Tea, Textile

Bloomberg

By Anusha Ondaatjie - May 30, 2012

Sri Lanka’s exports declined the most in 30 months in March as demand for textiles, tea and rubber moderated.

Overseas sales fell 10.2 percent from a year earlier to $835.7 million, after rising 7.6 percent in February, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka said in a statement today. Imports rose 3.9 percent to $1.69 billion, for a trade deficit of $861.3 million.

Sri Lanka has sought to pare demand for imports such as oil to fight a trade shortfall exacerbated by a moderation in overseas sales as Europe’s debt crisis curbs Asian shipments. Officials have raised interest rates this year to damp credit growth, increased fuel prices and moved toward a more freely floating exchange rate, seeking to shield foreign reserves.

Expenditure on imports of refined petroleum products increased by about 18 percent as a result of higher prices, the central bank said in the statement today. Gross official foreign reserves were $5.73 billion by the end of March, equivalent to 3.3 months of imports, it said.

Textiles and garment exports in March fell 11.7 percent to $319.4 million, the central bank said. Agricultural shipments declined 10.1 percent to $203.2 million, while the value of industrial exports fell 10.9 percent to $624.2 million.

The nation has targeted exports of $11.7 billion in 2012 and expects imports of $20.9 billion, central bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal said May 8.

The rupee fell 0.3 percent to 132.40 per dollar as of 4:36 p.m. local time. The currency has tumbled about 16.2 percent so far in 2012.

To contact the reporter on this story: Anusha Ondaatjie in Colombo at anushao@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Hari Govind at hgovind@bloomberg.net

Liberia ex-leader Charles Taylor get 50 years in jail

30 May 2012

Judge Richard Lussick reads out the sentence in court

Continue reading the main story

Liberia's ex-President Charles Taylor has been sentenced to 50 years in jail by a UN-backed war crimes court.

Last month Taylor was found guilty of aiding and abetting rebels in Sierra Leone during the 1991-2002 civil war.

Special Court for Sierra Leone judges said the sentence reflected his status as head of state at the time and his betrayal of public trust.

Taylor, 64, insists he is innocent and his lawyer has told the BBC he will appeal against the sentence.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

In Sierra Leone, where victims of the war gathered in silence to watch the hearing on a large screen in a courtroom in the capital, Freetown, the sentence was welcomed.

The chairman of the country's Amputees' Association, Edward Conteh, told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme it came as a "relief" as Taylor was likely to spend the rest of his life in jail.

"It is a step forward as justice has been done, though the magnitude of the sentence is not commensurate with the atrocities committed," AP news agency quotes Deputy Information Minister Sheku Tarawali as saying.

'Heinous crimes' Full Story>>>

Analysing the Fonseka agenda


Qadijah Irshad (Spotlight) / 30 May 2012
In an interview with Khaleej Times at his temporary residence outside Colombo, Fonseka, who led his troops to victory during the last phase of the three decade internal war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) speaks of his success as a commander, the turbulent years following the end of the war, his political views and his uncertain future.

Prison seems to have matured Fonseka who agrees that the two-and-half years in a 12 by 12 foot cell had been ‘a point of transition’. A previously vociferous candidate who repeatedly hurt the minority Tamil and Muslim sentiments during a bitter presidential race against President Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2010, Fonseka at 62 chooses his words with more care now. To fight corruption, he says, would be the reason he would re-enter politics. He revealed that LTTE Chief V. Prabhakaran’s son was never found after the war, accuses the government of corruption, challenges the United Nations for war crimes allegations, shares his thoughts on Prabhakaran’s war and offers his plans for reconciliation and demilitarisation.

Q: How has the prison term changed you?

A: Prison has been a good transition from military to politics. If it had gone straight from the military seat to the president’s seat things could have been different. I would have only seen and known the people around me in the political campaign without getting a look at the grass root level — the needs and requirements of the people and the real psychology of the politicians of the country — now I know better. Full Story>>>

British MPs to visit Jaffna

WEDNESDAY, 30 MAY 2012
A group of British Conservative MPs including Liam Fox who was the architect of the bi-partisan agreement with the then PA government and the UNP, is expected to visit Jaffna to monitor the current situation in the peninsula especially on the alleged military presence, Presidential Advisor Arun Tambimuttu said yesterday.

Mr. Tambimuttu said the MPs had responded positively to an invitation they extended during a meeting held with them in London recently. Mr. Tambimuttu said he and UPFA national List MP Dr. Rajeewa Wijesinghe were among those who met them.

He said the ten MPs - David Amess, Guto Bebb, Nick de Bois, Alun Cairns, Alan Duncan, Liam Fox, Sheryll Murray, Richard Ottaway, Andrew Turner and James Wharton - were concerned about reports of heavy military presence in the North. (Yohan Perera)

Religious Tolerance Under Scrutiny In Sri Lanka

May 30, 2012

By Nirmal Ranjith Dewarsiri-

Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Dewarsiri

The recent attack led by Buddhist monks on the Khairya Jumma mosque located in the so-called “sacred zone” of the Dambulla rock temple in the central province is important even though it did not develop into a larger scale clash between the Buddhist and Muslim communities of Sri Lanka. The Dambulla Khairya Jummah mosque had been in existence for over 60 years and the mosque trustees have legal documents regarding its construction. On Friday the 20th of April 2012 a tense situation arose as regular Friday prayer at the mosque was prevented by a gang led by Buddhist monks who claimed that it was an illegal construction built on sacred Buddhist ground.

Many view this incident as an isolated event led by a group of extremists; an event which was easily quelled as it did not represent the sentiments of the majority Buddhist populace. Although this may be true, this line of thinking conceals some of the realities of the inter-religious relations in Sri Lanka within which the Dambulla incident could be located. In this short piece, I attempt to highlight existing problems in the religious setting in the Sinhala-Buddhist south of Sri Lanka giving special attention to the Dambulla incident.

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