Col R Hariharan (Retd.)
Initiatives to win over Diaspora
Sri Lanka appears to have scored a major success in winning over a section of the Tamil Diaspora that had actively supported the LTTE to participate in the reconstruction process in the Tamil areas. This was confirmed in a newspaper interview by Kumaran Pathmanathan (KP) who was the LTTE’s international affairs representative now in Sri Lankan custody. His newly formed outfit ‘The North-East Rehabilitation and Development Organisation' (NERDO) located in Vavuniya, was preparing to play a key role in the rehabilitation, reconstruction and resettlement processes in the war ravaged areas. He expected the support for the move from the Tamil Diaspora. KP had influential connections in the Diaspora in his LTTE days.
Justifying his action to collaborate with the government, he said it was essential for Tamils to realise the ground realities in a post-LTTE era in the island nation and review its strategy to meet the new challenges. His said he was only “concerned about the welfare of the people, particularly children, though some seek fresh funding to cause mayhem. People are fed up with war and every effort should be made to alleviate their suffering without playing politics with a purely humanitarian motive.” His effort could find favour with sections of Diaspora who are still suspicious of Sri Lanka government moves.
In his interview, KP attributed the defeat of the LTTE to the change in global political leaders’ attitude to the LTTE prompted by the 9/11 al Qaeda attack and the US led war on al Qaeda. Prabhakaran did not realise the urgent need to change the LTTE strategy accordingly. KP’s observation “there is a new world order today, which does not tolerate armed campaigns and that is the hard reality,” showed a lot of pragmatism.
Apart from these efforts, Sri Lanka with the help of INTERPOL has launched a coordinated effort to dismantle LTTE’s international network using information gathered by the Sri Lankan military intelligence from captured documents. In particular the recent unearthing of highly classified documents and diaries of Castro, former head of the LTTE's international wing, at Viswamadu has given details of LTTE international activists engaged in human trafficking, arms smuggling and financial bases in East Asia, Western Europe, Canada and Africa. This carrot and stick method could induce more Diaspora to support KP’s rehabilitation effort as many sections of Diaspora who consider rehabilitation as the priority.
The increasing public projection of KP in spite of his detention has caused jitters among Tamil politicians who consider it as Rajapaksa’s ploy to destabilise them by allowing KP to participate in politics.
LTTE prisoners
The Commissioner General of Rehabilitation in a media interview has said that 7,948 former LTTE combatants, including about 1,100 females were still undergoing rehabilitation. He said 700 of the 1,100 females were now working in the garment trade. About 400 are being trained as Montessori teachers while others were learning English, IT and drama ‘therapy’. He said families of detained persons were regularly allowed to visit them.
When the war ended last year the army held 11,686 LTTE cadres, including members of the suicide squad as prisoners. They were kept in more than 20 detention centres after the war. Now only 12 such centres, including two meant for women, were operational. All ex-LTTE child soldiers have been handed over to their parents after undergoing rehabilitation training.
Among the detainees 737 hardcore elements have been identified and charge sheets are being prepared to prosecute them.
Conditions in Northern Province
The Ceylon Communist Party has come out with a detailed field report on the prevailing conditions in war ravaged Northern Province. The report has said though the government’s massive physical infrastructure programme was going on, many old and new issues in the environment have denied the people any sense of liberation. On the contrary, they felt betrayed both by the LTTE and the State though both had promised them liberation. People were in a confused, disillusioned, abandoned and demoralized state of mind.
The physical reconstruction programme was focusing on basic infrastructure such as roads and telecommunication. Reconstructed government departments, modernized urban commercial centres and towns were active and flourishing with 15 major banks and financial agencies opening offices in Jaffna. However, vast majority of the population were leading a life below subsistence level.
Army was present everywhere along the roads, in villages and towns. In many areas landmine clearance has been undertaken. Army’s continued presence, reinforcement and expansion of the security forces have become a cause for concern for the people. People were anxious about role of the security forces in controlling and monitoring their social, cultural and religious activities for fear of reprisals. However, incidence of abductions, rape and torture and generalized abuse has drastically come down.
The report said the government simply lacked the political will for undertaking an accelerated, comprehensive and integrated process of resettlement, rehabilitation, reconstruction and development. The rehabilitation effort was pitiful, since the general public and civil society of the country was not being mobilized in the relief process. The government gave permission to only a selected few of them to operate in the Province.
Attack on media network
A dozen men armed with assault rifles and petrol bombs attacked the offices of privately owned Voice of Asia Network in the early hours of July 30. The network controls three FM stations including Vettri FM, a Tamil one. According to the management said in the attack its studios, control room and library were destroyed. Two persons were injured.
The owners had backed the main opposition candidate, ex-army chief Sarath Fonseka, in the last presidential election. Another journalist Eknaligoda, a critic of the government and supporter of Fonseka, who disappeared two days before the election in January has still not been traced. The attacks have not enhanced Sri Lanka’s reputation as a state where media criticism is not tolerated.
Increasing Chinese footprint
Zhang Ze - Deputy Director of the Department of treaty of and Law of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of China and ten Chinese army officers including senior colonels, lieutenant colonels and majors were on a visit northern and eastern provinces East including Kilinochchi, Mannar and Mullaitivu to advise on use of de-mining equipment supplied by the Chinese and to provide knowledge on de-mining tasks.
China has also assisted the army re-deployment process in the north after the war.
Chinese pre-fabricated technology was being used in permanent buildings constructed for the forces. Already the army has established the 68 Division headquarters at Sugandirapuram, Puthukudirippu east of the Kandy-Jaffna A9 road. According to the army commander, although the Jaffna peninsula had seen the largest concentration of forces before Eelam war IV, today the biggest deployment was in the Vanni. With permanent buildings coming up for army in government land, the army hopes to vacate private buildings and land occupied by them.
EU tariff concessions
The European Union has officially announced that Sri Lanka would lose the GSP+ trade concessions in August after it failed to respond to a set of conditions laid down by the Commission. However it was open for negotiations with the Sri Lankan government despite the decision.
The EU also expressed regretted Sri Lanka’s decision to remain silent on the proposals by the EU for Sri Lanka to obtain a temporary extension of the trade tariff benefits by meeting some conditions. In June the EU had offered to delay the suspension of GSP+ trade concessions by six months if Sri Lanka responded to its questions on tangible progress on shortcomings in its implementation of three UN human rights conventions a number of outstanding issues. However, the government had firmly rejected the EU conditional offer.
31 July 2010
Courtesy: South Asia Security Trends,Vol 4 No 6 July 2010
www.security-risks.com
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