Col R Hariharan (Retd.)
President Rajapaksa’s UN address
President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his speech at the UN General Assembly at the UN Headquarters in New York on September 23, 2010 has indicated that Sri Lanka was unlikely to change its stand against allowing any form of international scrutiny of its actions during the war. These include allegations of war crimes and violation of humanitarian laws mainly from the West and the Tamil Diaspora. He sought to vindicate Sri Lanka’s stand saying “such [humanitarian] laws were evolved essentially in response to conflicts waged by forces of legally constituted States, and not terrorist groups.”
Dwelling on his country’s long conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), he said he was elected on a promise to rid the country of the menace of terrorism. He appealed to the international community to examine “the capacity of current international humanitarian law to meet contemporary needs” where legally constituted states had to fight terrorists in asymmetric conflicts.
This argument would have been acceptable if Sri Lanka had cleaned up its act on its own. Unfortunately this is not so. Even the proceedings of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) constituted to investigate the events leading to Tamil insurgency lack transparency. Its hearings are held in camera. Media coverage of testimonies made at LLRC sittings is selective.
This was evident when most of the media did not report the testimonies made by Tamils at Kilinochchi. Some of them were damaging. For instance, Ananthi Sasitharan, wife of Elilan, former political head of Trincomalee, in an interview to the BBC said she had requested the LLRC to find out about the fate of her husband and other senior leaders of the LTTE (including former LTTE negotiators Yogi and Lawrence Thilakar, and the LTTE political wing deputy chief Thangkan) who had surrendered to the army in her presence. This testimony was not covered in the national media at all. This has reinforced the suspicion of large sections of world community that the government was not sincere in its reconciliation process and the media was working under external pressures. This does not bode well for speedy restoration of ethnic amity in the country.
Sarath Fonseka’s woes
It seems there are no let up in the woes of the Eelam War hero and former Chief of Defence Staff General Sarath Fonseka ever since he entered politics after retirement. A General Court Martial (GCM) on September 17, 2010 found him guilty on four counts of irregularities in military purchases while serving as army commander, favouring his son-in-law’s company. The GCM sentenced him to three years imprisonment. However, the President while confirming the sentence reduced the period of imprisonment to two and a half years.
Only last month another GCM stripped him of his rank and military honours for dabbling in politics while serving as army commander.The treatment meted out to Fonseka sharply contrasts with the handling of LTTE prisoners none of whom have been prosecuted. In fact, even as the President signed confirmation of Fonseka’s jail sentence, 397 Ex-LTTE combatants were released from a rehabilitation camp in Vavuniya after being detained for 16 months. Both the main opposition parties -the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the United National Party have condemned Fonseka’s conviction as politics of persecution.
Bottling up human trafficking
The issue of Sri Lankan boat people – mainly Tamils from Sri Lanka – illegally trying to enter Australia and Canada had been a major source of embarrassment and concern for Sri Lanka. To curb such traffic and prevent external assistance from flowing into Sri Lanka that could lead to resurgence of Tamil insurgency once again , Sri Lanka’s has taken a series of measures to prevent illegal use of sea routes to and from the country. The assets of navy and air force are being re-positioned to support ground deployment in coastal areas.
The navy has shifted its North Western Headquarters from Puttalam to Mullikulam. This would facilitate prevention of illegal use of north eastern seas for nefarious purposes ranging from human trafficking to drug and arms trafficking. According to media reports Sri Lanka has already received two Israeli-built Fast Attack Craft (FACs) and four more FACs are expected to join the navy. The US is reported to have increased Sri Lanka’s air surveillance capability by providing sophisticated real time data link system. The system received early this year is mounted on two Beech King Aircraft SMR 2201 and SMR 2202 would obtain real time intelligence.
The illegal fishing by Indian fisherman in Sri Lankan waters off Mannar coast had been a major thorn in Sri Lankan security. There had been frequent seizure of boats from Tamil Nadu and in some instances of Sri Lankan navy had opened fire on them.
Considering the political sensitivity of the issue, the Sri Lankan and Indian navies have agreed to conduct extensive educational programmes for their local fisherman on the issue of maritime boundary between the two countries. This was decided recently at a meeting between senior officers of the two navies on board INS Kukri, an offshore patrol vessel, at the International Maritime Boundary Line near Point Calimere. They also discussed ways of ending the illegal activities of drug trafficking and human smuggling through improved surveillance methods.
Representatives of the Sri Lanka Navy Headquarters and the East, North and North-Central Naval Commands took part in the meeting. Indian navy was represented by Commodore Rajiv Girotra, Naval Officer In-Charge, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry.
Therese measures are of security interest to India as an increasing number of instances of Sri Lankan Tamils fleeing from the country using India as a take off point have come to notice. Recently Tamil Nadu police searched a lodge in Courtallam and rounded up 53 Lankan Tamils some of whom had promised to pay up to Rs 300,000 to Chandrakanthan, a Sri Lankan refugee in Chennai for smuggling them to Australia and Canada. Police have arrested Chandrakanthan.
Sri Lanka economy
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecasted “strong growth” of Sri Lanka economy this year while commenting on its 8.5 percent growth during the second quarter of 2010 as against 7.1 percent growth in the first quarter.
The government statistics office reported growth of agriculture sector by 5.1 percent, manufacturing by 8.9 percent, and services by 8.8 percent over last year’s figures. The IMF said the country’s fiscal performance so far “remains consistent with achieving the government's full-year deficit target of 8 percent.”
Written on September 30, 2010
© South Asia Security Trends, October 2010, Vol 4 No 9
www.security-risks.com
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