Sri Lanka - News and Discussion

[Anabhaya]

Ah, nice. So if the eelamists start killing SLA soldiers, then I guess you wouldn't condone it, coz they deserved it, correct?

I wouldn't know about SLA soldiers but they definitely did kill IPKF men in a much more gruesome manner. The best response would be stoic silence - to celebrate would be degrading ourselves.

[Javee]

Ah, nice. So if the eelamists start killing SLA soldiers, then I guess you wouldn't condone it, coz they deserved it, correct?

I wouldn't know about SLA soldiers but they definitely did kill IPKF men in a much more gruesome manner. The best response would be stoic silence - to celebrate would be degrading ourselves.

Even after those deaths, did IPKF did a gruesome thing like this? Professional Army men are a different breed from these rag-top thugs they call SLA. I'm just amused at the reports where SLA is said to teach IA on terrorist operations or the claim that SLAF is the world's best, coz they defeated LTTE. As they say, victorious write history. I would shudder to think these extra judicial killings in India, it will be a huge L&O situation.

If left unchecked, tomorrow the same thugs would just go kill any tamil on the road claiming them to be LTTE. Sinhalese in the south will keep wondering why tamil demand for a separate homeland.

[Kashyap]

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Project to build a beltway around Sri Lanka capital given to Chinese company

Thu, Aug 27, 2009, 09:09 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.

Aug 27, Colombo: Sri Lanka's Cabinet of ministers today approved a project to construct Outer Circular Highway (OCH) around the city of Colombo.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his capacity as the Minister of Highways and Road Development submitted a proposal to award the contract for the southern section of the proposed highway to the China Harbour Engineering Company for nearly 25 billion rupees.

http://www.colombopage.com/archive_091/ ... 596CH.html

[Kashyap]

India to seek LTTE leader's extradition

Aman Sharma

New Delhi, August 28, 2009

India has decided to place an extradition request for LTTE leader Kumaran Padmanadan, alias KP, nabbed by Sri Lanka earlier this month.

A CBI team will leave for Colombo in September to grill KP on the " larger conspiracy" behind the 1991 Rajiv Gandhi assassination.

Sources in the ministry of home affairs ( MHA) said the multi- disciplinary monitoring agency ( MDMA) under the CBI has been given a one- year extension with directions to focus on KP's interrogation and ensure his extradition to India.

The request for MDMA's extension was pending with the MHA after its term ended on May 31.

" MDMA has been given an extension last week after Sri Lanka announced KP's arrest on August 7," a top MHA official said.

KP is being interrogated by Sri Lankan officials after they nabbed him on August 5, reportedly on the basis of an input from Indian intelligence agencies, sources said.

India accused KP of criminal conspiracy, arms smuggling and involvement in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. He has been accused him of providing finances, arms, explosives, suicide vest and communication equipment to Dhanu and Sivarasan.

"KP's interrogation by Indian agencies and his extradition could unravel what the Jain Commission indicated as the larger international conspiracy behind Rajiv's killing," the official said.

The MDMA has been on the job to unravel this " larger conspiracy" for 11 years without success.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/index.php? ... ssueid=120



SLNS Sayurala becomes the newest Commissioned Ship in the SLN Fleet

SLNS ‘Sayurala’, an Off Shore Patrol Vessel acquired in August 2008 was commissioned at the Sri Lanka Navy Dockyard, Trincomalee today (28th August 2009) by the Secretary, Ministry of Defence, Public Security, Law & Order Mr.Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The Commissioning Ceremony was attended by the Commander of the Navy Vice Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe and large number of naval personnel with traditional naval customs and ceremonies taking precedence.

The former Indian Coast Guard Ship ‘Vigraha’ joined the Sri Lanka Navy fleet on 23rd August 2008 and was assigned Pennant Number P 623. The OPV was built by Mazagon Dockyard Ltd, of Mumbai in India in 1990. With a length of 74.10m and breath of 11.40m, it has a speed of a maximum 21.5 knots. Its draught is 3.58m maximum. The net registered tonnage is 750 tons and gross registered tonnage is 1247 tons. The vessel is equipped with marine radar and surveillance communication equipment for the assigned role in Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

http://www.navy.lk/index.php?id=1825

[Philip]

I repeat,the "defeat of the LTTE is to be celebrated...".I have not said anywhere that extra-judicial killings should be celebrated,but its alleged treatment at the hands of the SL forces is due to the manner in which the LTTE waged its war for Eelam,ruthlessy exterminating first ALL Tamil groups oppposed to its diabolic ways(Uma Maheswaran,Sabaratnam,etc.),ALL moderate Tamil politicians like Amirthalingam,Neelam Tiruchelvam,Kadirgamar,etc.,Lankan political and military leaders by the dozens like Premadasa,Wijeratne,Dissanayake,Adm.Fernando-naval chief,etc.,including our vey own IPKF soldiers-some 2000+ and most infamously of all Rajiv Gandhi.

The LTTE fought without rules,without honour,without humanity.They deserved the treatment they have gotten from the SL forces who have annihalted and decimated them,doing the globe a signal service in the process,as the LTTE was assisting numerous terorist groups worldwide,including India's Maoists,during Kargil assisting the ISI ,smuggling drugs globally including links with the Colombian drug cartels,building similar drug running semi-subs,even wanting to possess nukes!They invented the suicide bomber and bomb belt,which has claimed so many lives around the world and most diabolically of all,disgraced mankind with the cult of the cyanide capsule and fuhrer Prabhakaran's "last suppers" with his suicide squads,truly Satanic.

While the rest of the world celebrates the LTTE's defeat,the only ones a-weeping and a-wailing ,gnashing their teeth and tearing their hair,plotting diabolic revenge, are the hard core Eelamists of the Jaffna tribe and their foreign collaborators like Solheim and his Norsemen and the likes of Milli-"Bond" and his tribe of neo-imperialists.

[Kashyap]

Temple reborn from ashes

Aug 28, 2009 04:30 AM

The arsonists crept up to the Buddhist temple in Scarborough around 4 a.m., doused a side door in flammable liquid and then set the immense wooden structure alight.

They ran around back and tried to torch the part of the temple that housed the library. But they inadvertently triggered a motion sensor alarm, dropped bottles of flammable liquid, and fled into the dark as a monk awoke and called police.

That was back in mid-May, during the height of both Sri Lanka's civil war and the local Tamil population's protests. More than three months, $65,000 and multiple Sunday school and sermon cancellations later, the Toronto Mahari Vihara Buddhist Meditation Centre has finally reopened for local Sinhalese Buddhists.

Monks at the Sinhalese temple remember that they had been receiving threats for weeks. That night in May, police had monitored the premises until midnight.

"We lit every light and we waited until 2 o'clock in the morning and then we slept," said Wimalabuddhi, a monk who has been at the temple for seven years. "Early in the morning, around 4:15 a.m., I heard a noise, the alarm."

He awoke to smoke caused by a fire that burned down a side door, destroyed wood siding, hardwood floors, shutters, glass and a $5,000 cabinet full of priceless artifacts.

"They were trying to destroy the whole building," said Ben Seneviratne, 71, a patriarchal figure in the Sinhalese Buddhist community in Scarborough. But now, the temple's new wooden exterior is gleaming, as are the replaced hardwood floors. The white paint is fresh and incense lingers in the air.

Police said yesterday the arson investigation is still ongoing. It is being treated as a hate crime because of the threats the temple received from Tamils in the days leading up to the fire.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/687710

[Stan_Savljevic]

Yes Philip, the LTTE leadership was ruthless and a terrorist organization in capital letters. How do you know that the people who were put down were not those who were forced to fight on behalf of the LTTE? I know of many folks whose extended family members were caught between the devil and the deep sea and had to fight because they were forcibly enlisted by the LTTE. Some even came from TELO and other organizations because it was a perish or survive situation. Would a responsible government try to separate the chaff from the wheat and rehabilitate those that were helpable or would it try to put down as many people as it could? A responsible government would go beyond its call of duty if it believed that the other set of people were its own citizens. The history of SL has shown that the GoSL never believed in such aspirations. Not the folks in 1948, not the folks in 2008. So yes, spinning an undefensible argument in a different form does not mean you can become a Murali!

Winning a war takes time, you cant beat father time with shortcuts. You cant undo the issues in SL without a truth and reconciliation commission of sorts. The main organizers of the LTTE apparatus are down, I guess. The low-ranks noone knows what has happened. Shortcuts like putting down people only ensure that divides that have been long-standing keep festering. The GoSL may take pride and thump their chests that the LTTE is defeated, but unless the Tamils feel a part of the future governing modules of SL, folks like Pirabakaran will keep popping up, may be not the same venom. Surely, the GoSL is not creating any confidence in the SL Tamils that they believe in a rule of law as a civilian democracy is expected to be. Remember, this is a world of perceptions, not one based on ground realities. You lose the battle of ideas, you will soon lose the real war. The same mistakes are getting repeated in different forms. The bottomline is that fundamental difficulties are invariant under reformulation!

[Philip]

I agree with you that the onus is now on the GOSL to alleviate genuine Tamil needs.It is now in a position where it can do a lot of genuine good in many ways,the first being the speedy closure of the internment camps.There seems to be some movement on this front,faster than before.Indian mine disposal teams are also at work and the SL economy is looking up.Local elections were also held earlier,which though not fully representative of the population,many displaced,was to a significant measure accepted.Rajapakse has a window of opportunity here and should make full use of it.He has a "honeymoon" period of about a year within which to make solid political moves and to ensure that a new generation of Tamil political leadsership emerges.His greatest threat now will come from the Sinhalese south,the youth there formerly swayed by the JVP who will now want rapid employment and the general population lower inflation.If there is little headway in solving the ethnic political conundrum,then the SL Tamil diaspora will be once again energised to create trouble,both abroad and at home.The "moderates" among them,who now feel that the way in which the armed struggle was conducted was wrong,and that a political solution is the only answer,need to see improvement on the ground,which is the best way in which the GOSL can wean them away from returning to criminal deeds.

It is a tragedy that the LTTE which proved its point that the Tamils could fight back fearlessly,did not seize the opportunity of winning peace when it was on the table.prabhakaran's supression of democracy-by boycotting the last election that brought Rajapakse to power by a whisker,was his final fatal mistake.

Another problem that the GOSL will face is de-mobbed armymen,recruited on short service commissions,who will have to be found alternative employment.SL will find it very difficult to maintain a huge 200,000 strong armed forces.Def.Sec.Gothabhaya Rajapakse,the pres's brother,will be hard put to find the funds to maintain such a large standing army.There will be huge demands for infrastructure and social development projects like hospitals,instituions ,etc.,which are sorely needed outside Colombo and as veretan scribe "Gamma" (Gamini Weerakoon) has sagaciously said that,"the Sinhalese memory lasts only a few weeks".In the next election,the opposition,though battered now,will surely do much better-that is the way of SL elections.They vote the opposition in most of the time.With so many hot-spots around the world,and troops in short supply,the SLA can be sent for peace-keeping duties under the UN flag,especially as it is a neutral country not tied to any global military alliance and would be welcome everywhere.That way,the troops will also be outside the island unable to create any local problems.

PS: I don't know about T&R commissions succeeding in SL.For that you need a Mandela and a Tutu.The only person that I know of who could fit the bill and dare to institute such a commission is CBK.When she was in power she sent the Army Commander "on 11th January 1996 a letter (to the Army Commander) ordering him to place a number of officers who had been implicated in commission hearings to be placed on compulsory leave."But the army commander effectively flouted her order and nothing came of it.A couple of Brigadiers were allegedly implicated in "killings",one whos erved under the then army commander.

"While human rights groups were silent the mainline press which essentially represented ruling class interests mounted a campaign representing the officers implicated as heroes and patriots, if not for whom the war against the LTTE would be seriously jeopardised. The government too evidently lacked the conviction to argue that the methods of these officers had been in use for more than a dozen of years while the country got deeper into crisis with imminent division. It remained silent instead."

Ranil has a history of allegedly being involved in extra-jududicial JVP "events",his nickname was the "Baby-face killer of Batalanda"

Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe had links with or, had knowledge of, the groups that were responsible for Batalanda killings. Former Senior Superintendent of Police Douglas Peiris, who was recently arrested on landing at Colombo International Airport after absconding overseas, stated that the Mr. Wickremesinghe had provided housing, vehicles and money to one Dharmasiri and one 'Thadi' Priyantha who, he claimed, were operating the death squad. He said that he had been introduced to these two persons who had been identified as members of the Independent Students' Union (ISU) of the University of Colombo. One of the houses provided was in the Mahara area located behind the Mahara Resthouse. In his deposition Mr. Peiris specifically mentioned Hulftsdorp attorneys Kanchana Abeypala and Charitha Lankapura, Gampaha attorney Nissanka, and a Kelaniya Tyre Corporation employee named Perera as being the victims of a clandestine death squad which, he claimed, operated at that time with the knowledge of Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe. Douglas Peiris claims political links in 'terror' killings-Full story- (Daily News - 13/08/00)

No chance of him ever starting a T&R commission! I lost a very dear friend to one of Mr.Ps death squads.

[Stan_Savljevic]

I dont know about truth in a truth & reconciliation mission, but reconciliation is necessary. The onus is more on the GoSL side as one or even two generations of Tamil leaders have been killed by the LTTE. The vacuum is being slowly crept in by the rabid EJ-front. GoSL and everyone in the periphery has a good reason to fear that. Karuna vs Pillayan vs corruption will tell us which side the SL Tamils will fall back on.

[Philip]

Sometime ago,the buzz in the popular watering holes in the island was that the next clash of communities would be between the Sinhalese and the Muslims.Fortunately that kind of talk has subsided,but events in the east,where most Muslim interests lie,if threatened by Karuna,Pillayan & co.,who rule the roost there after elections in the east,can unravel the peace once again.There are many outside players who would like to see the Muslims becoming militant and could stir the pot.But the most likely clash if another round of disturbances takes place will be between the Sinhalese parties yet again,involving the youth.The JVP though now split and battered in the polls,can still resurect a degree of disaffection that could spiral out of hand.The tougher task for Pres.Rajapakse is now winning the peace and ushering in a free and just society where outspoken criciticsm of the govt. was treated as treason when the war was on.The sad state of the media in the island scuttling for cover is depressing and the GOSL which is now "top dog",must make life easier for all communities and all the pillars of the nation.

[Philip]

Was this posted earlier?Apologies if it was.It should be compulsory reading for our Cabinet members ,babus and military experts,as it mirrors exactly what India under Mrs.G did in '71.,the task being to liberate Bangladesh and to give Gen.Manekshaw and the armed forces a free hand,while we said "boo" to Nixon and Kissinger too! We need this knid of leadership and attitude to deal with Pak and its terror.

Fundamentals of victory against terror: The Sri Lankan example


Field commanders planning strategy on the move

In an in-depth analysis of the Sri Lankan government’s defeat of the LTTE, the Indian Defence Review has identified Eight Fundamentals of Victory.

These are listed as the ‘Rajapakse Model of Fighting Terror’ and are described as:

• Unwavering political will

• Disregard for international opinion distracting from the goal

• No negotiations with the forces of terror

• Unidirectional floor of conflict information

• Absence of political intervention to pull away from complete defeat of the LTTE

• Complete operational freedom for the security forces — Let the best men do the task

• Accent on young commanders

• Keep your neighbours in the loop

The July-September 2009 issue of the Indian Defence Review carries the detailed article authored by V. K. Shashikumar.

Here is the text of the article:

The news about the killing of Prabhakaran sparked mass celebrations around the country, and people poured into the streets of Colombo, dancing and singing. Looking back at the war General Fonseka made two insightful observations that must surely resonate in the minds of military strategists dealing with terrorism and insurgency in other parts of the world. The first is on the commitment of the political leadership to eliminate terror.

Eelam IV war began as a poll-promise. President Mahinda Rajapakse rode to power four years ago vowing to annihilate the LTTE. In the early hours of Tuesday the fight for Eelam, a separate homeland for the Tamils in Sri Lanka, begun in 1983 ended in a lagoon, the Nanthi Kadal. Velupillai Prabhakaran’s dead body, eyes wide open, top portion of the head blown off, the thick bushy moustache in place, was found in the lagoon by the Sri Lankan forces looking for remnant LTTE stragglers.

In the President’s Office in Colombo officials talk about the ‘Rajapakse Model’ (of fighting terror). “Broadly, win back the LTTE held areas, eliminate the top LTTE leadership and give the Tamils a political solution.”

Sunimal Fernando, one of Rajapakse’s advisors, says that the President demonstrated a basic resolve: “given the political will, the military can crush terrorism.” This is not as simple as it sounds. Like most poll promises he did not have plans to fulfil his promise to militarily defeat the LTTE. Eelam I to III were miserable failures. So the ‘Rajapakse Model’ evolved, it was not pre-planned.

First Fundamental: Political Will

The first fundamental of this approach was unwavering political will. Rajapakse clearly conveyed to General Sarath Fonseka: “eliminate the LTTE.” To the outside world he conveyed the same message differently: “either the LTTE surrenders or face, their end.” Rajapakse instructed the Sri Lankan Army that their job was to fight and win the war. At whatever cost, however bloody it might be. He would take care of political pressures, domestic and international.

General Fonseka commented: “It is the political leadership with the commitment of the military that led the battle to success. We have the best political leadership to destroy terrorism in this country. It was never there before to this extent. The military achieved these war victories after President Mahinda Rajapakse came into power. He, who believed that terrorism should and could be eliminated, gave priority to go ahead with our military strategies. And no Defence Secretary was there like the present Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse who had the same commitment and knowledge on how to crush the LTTE. Finally, they gave me the chance of going ahead with the military plan.”

Second Fundamental: Go To Hell

Following from the first, the second principle of Rajapakse’s ‘how to fight a war and win it’ is telling the international community to “go to hell.” As the British and French Foreign Ministers, David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner, found out during their visit. They were cold shouldered for suggesting that Sri Lanka should halt the war and negotiate with the LTTE. As Rajapakse said during the post-interview chatter “we will finish off the LTTE, we will finish terrorism and not allow it to regroup in this country ever; every ceasefire has been used by the LTTE to consolidate, regroup and re-launch attacks, so no negotiations.”

Eliminate and Annihilate – two key operational words that went with the ‘go to hell’ principle of the ‘Rajapakse Model.’ After Colombo declared victory the Sri Lanka Army Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka used words used by Rajapakse. That the SLA will not allow the LTTE to “regroup.”

Third Fundamental: No Negotiations

Naturally, the third fundamental was no negotiations with the LTTE. “The firm decision of the political hierarchy not to go for talks with the LTTE terrorists until they lay down arms had contributed significantly to all these war victories,” affirms Fonseka. But this meant withstanding international pressure to halt the war, the humanitarian crisis spawned by the war and the rising civilian casualties. Rajapakse did all of this by simply ensuring ‘silence’ and information blackout under which the war was conducted. Rajapakse’s biggest gamble was to give the military a free hand, shut the world out of the war zone.

When the United Nations, US and European countries raised concerns of high civilian casualties, Rajapakse, said that the international community was “getting in the way” of Sri Lanka’s victory against terrorism. “We knew that the moment the military is close to operational successes, there will be loud screams for the resumption of the political process of peace negotiations. But there will be no negotiations.” That was the rock solid stand taken and communicated by Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse to all visiting dignitaries and diplomats.

Fourth Fundamental: Regulate Media

With just one version of the war available for the media to report, the Sri Lankan government ensured an unidirectional flow of conflict information. The information put out by the LTTE’s official website, TamilNet, could not be independently verified on the ground because access to the war zone was regulated and controlled. This was a vital fourth principle in the strategic matrix of the Rajapakse model.

“Presidents Premadasa and Chandrika Bandaranaike gave orders to the military to take on the LTTE. But when success was near, they reversed the orders and instructed the military to pull back, to withdraw from operations because of international concerns about the humanitarian crisis and civilian casualties. So we had to ensure that we regulated the media. We didn’t want the international community to force peace negotiations on us,” says a senior official in the President’s Office who wishes to remain anonymous.

Fifth Fundamental: No Cease-fire

Rajapakse’s brother, Gotabaya Rajapakse, consistently maintained that military operations would continue unhindered. “There will be no ceasefire,” was Gotabaya’s uncompromising message. The clear, unambiguous stand enabled other prominent personalities in the Rajapakse cabinet to speak in a uniform voice. “Human rights violations during war operations and the humanitarian crisis that engulfs civilians caught in the cross fire have always been the trigger points to order a military pull-back,” asserted Mahinda Samarasinghe, Minister for Human Rights and Disaster Management. “The LTTE would always play this card in the past. They would use the ceasefire to regroup and resume the war.”

President Rajapakse was clear that he did not want to go down that route. That was the traditional way of fighting the LTTE – two steps forward, four steps back. The Rajapakse brothers’ commitment to a military solution was cast in stone. And it was anchored in a deft political arrangement.

But first it is important to reveal the idea behind the political arrangement. “It was to ensure that there would be no political intervention to pull away the military from its task of comprehensively and completely eliminating the LTTE,” says a senior official in the President’s Office. “Prabhakaran was aware of the political contradictions in Sri Lanka and so was confident that the SLA will not indulge in an adventurous, all guns blazing, a full onslaught against the LTTE.”

Sixth Fundamental: Complete Operational Freedom

Gotabaya Rajapakse’s appointment to the post of Defence Secretary was made precisely to break this political logjam. Gotabaya had a military past. He had taken voluntary retirement from the SLA. He had retained his long standing friendship with Lt. General Sarath Fonseka. Gotabaya met Fonseka and asked him, “can you go for a win”? The battle-hardened veteran said “yes, but you will have to permit me to pick my own team.”

Gotabaya and Mahinda agreed. “We will let the military do its job, while we hold the fort, politically,” they told Fonseka. This deft political arrangement worked because both, Gotabaya and Fonseka, were recruited and commissioned into the army at the same time.

This is the team Fonseka handpicked by August 2006 – Major General Jagath Dias, commander of the 57 Division, Brigadier Shavendra Silva, commander of Task Force One also the 58 Division (the SLA formation that has recorded the maximum victories against the LTTE), Major General Nandana Udawatta, commander of the 59 Division and Major General Kamal Gunarathne and Brigadier Prasanna Silva, commanders of the 53 and 55 Divisions respectively. Their task was to recapture 15,000 square kilometers of area controlled by the LTTE.

The defection of LTTE’s Eastern Chief, Karuna, helped the Army take over Batticaloa, Tamil Tigers’ eastern stronghold on July 11, 2007.

By the time of LTTE’s defeat in the east, the 57 Division under the command of Major General Jagath Dias started military operations north of Vavuniya. Eighteen months later, in January 2009, the 57 Division marched into Kilinochchi, the head quarters of the Tamil Tigers. Parallel to this Task Force One (58 Division) under Brigadier Shavendra Silva achieved stunning success moving from Silavathurai area in Mannar in the west coast, capturing Pooneryn and Paranthan.

These troops then swiftly recaptured Elephant Pass, linked up with the 57 Division and further moved to Sundarapuram, Pudukudiyiruppu and finally the eastern coast of the country.

Meanwhile, the 59th division of the Army, commanded by Major General Nandana Udawatta opened a new front in Welioya area in January 2008 and within a year marched into the LTTE’s administrative hub, Mullaitivu. Finally, troops from 53rd, 55th, 58th and 59th bottled up the LTTE along a small patch of eastern coastal land in Mullaitivu and killed the top leadership, including Prabhakaran.

The decision to bring Fonseka out of retirement paid off because he was a hardcore advocate of military operations to crush the LTTE. With rock solid political backing Fonseka was able to motivate his troops and officers to go all out without fearing any adverse consequences. It’s not surprising why Eelam IV turned out to be a bloody and a brutal war. “That there will be civilian casualties was a given and Rajapakse was ready to take the blame. This gave the Army tremendous confidence. It was the best morale booster the forces could have got,” says a Sri Lankan minister who wishes to let this quote remain unattributed.

Is it any surprise, therefore, that the LTTE wanted to assassinate Gotabaya in 2006? Prabhakaran knew that if he could assassinate Gotabaya then the carefully constructed political-military architecture pushing the war operations forward would have been gravely undermined. Gotabaya escaped the assassination bid and the rest as the cliché goes, is history.

So even though Gotabaya came into the political set up virtually out of nowhere, he quickly became the bridge-head between President Rajapakse’s government and the military. The Rajapakse brothers fused political commitment to a pre-set military goal. “He (Gotabaya) was embraced and accepted by the military and his was a legitimate voice in the Army,” said a senior official in the President Office. Gotabaya communicated the military requirements to the government – men, material and weapons.

His brother and head of the government, President Rajapakse, ensured the military got what it wanted. He in turn instructed Gotabaya to tell the Army to go all out and get on with the task. The sixth fundamental of the Rajapakse Model also had a clause – Basil, the youngest of the Rajapakse brothers. “Neither Mahinda nor Basil saw their brother Gotabaya as a political threat to their political aspirations. So they gave him a free hand.” More importantly, Basil was used by President Rajapakse for political liaison, especially with India.

Seventh Fundamental: Accent On Young Commanders

The other critical element was empowering young officers as GOCs to lead the battle. “I did not select these officers because they are young. But they were appointed as I thought they were the best to command the battle. I went to the lines and picked up the capable people. I had to drop those who had less capacity to lead the battle. Some of them are good for other work like administration activities. Therefore, the good commanders were chosen to command this battle.

“I thought seniority was immaterial if they could not command the soldiers properly. I restructured the Army and changed almost all the aspects of the organisation. I made the Sri Lanka Army a more professional Army. Everybody had to work with a sense of professionalism.”

Eighth Fundamental: Keep Your Neighbours in Loop

The seventh fundamental was India and an unsigned strategic partnership agreed by New Delhi and Colombo. India played a crucial part in the Sri Lanka military operations by providing intelligence and other kinds of tactical support. “The moral support, whatever support India gave us, is what they should have given to us. It is their duty to help us in this stage,” is President Rajapakse’s rather candid admission of the Indian involvement.

“I can’t demand, I shouldn’t demand anything from a neighboring country. I request.” The first significant request from Colombo was naval intelligence and intelligence on the movement of LTTE owned merchant navy vessels.

The 15,000 sq km area controlled by the LTTE in northern Sri Lanka known as Wanni was cut off from all land access. The A9 Colombo-Jaffna road ran through it. But in the southern end was the Vavuniya frontline at Omanthai and in the north beyond Elephant Pass was the northern frontline.

The only way for the LTTE to get its supplies, weapons and other essentials was through the sea route. It had eight ‘warehouse’ ships, vessels that transported “artillery, mortar shells, artillery shells, torpedoes, aircraft, missiles, underwater vehicles, diving equipment, radar, electro-optical devices and night vision equipment.”

These ships would travel close to the Sri Lankan coast but beyond the reach of Sri Lanka’s coastal Navy. War material from these ‘warehouse’ ships would be transported into smaller boats protected by Sea Tiger units, which would then make its way to the Sea Tiger bases. This is how the LTTE sustained itself for decades and continually upgraded its conventional military capability through funding provided by the Tamil diaspora.

India played a crucial role in choking this well established supply line of the LTTE. This enabled the Sri Lankan armed forces on the ground to make rapid advances. The Sri Lankan Navy led by Vice Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda, executed a maritime strategy based on intelligence on LTTE ship movements provided by India. In 2006 the SL Navy had tremendous success when, based on Indian intelligence, it launched operations to destroy six LTTE warehouse vessels. Subsequently, by 2007, two more were destroyed, which completely disrupted the LTTE’s supply line.

Some LTTE warehouse ships were located at about 1700 nautical miles, south east of Sri Lanka close to Australia’s exclusive economic zone. SL Navy clearly does not have this capability and this shows how deep and extensive intelligence sharing between India and Colombo have been ever since 2006.

In a recent interview to the Jane’s Defence Weekly, Admiral Karannagoda said, “It was one of the major turning points in the last 30 years of the conflict. That was the main reason why the LTTE are losing the battle, we did not allow a single supply of replenishment ship to come into (Sri Lankan) waters over the last two and a half years since 2006.”

In the final analysis the Rajapakse model is based on a military precept and not a political one. Terrorism has to be wiped out militarily and cannot be tackled politically. That’s the basic premise of the Rajapakse Model.

(Courtesy: Indian Defence Review – July-Sept 2009,

[Kashyap]

CBI to question LTTE financer Padmanathan about Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination

August 30th, 2009 - 8:53 pm ICT

New Delhi, Aug 30 (ANI): The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is all set to question the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam’s (LTTE) financer Kumaran Padmanathan alias ‘KP’ in connection with the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

The questioning is expected to throw light on the events that led to Rajiv Gandhi’s killing.

The CBI has collected data to question Padmanathan on the basis of decade-old findings of Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA), which has been investigating the conspiracy behind Rajiv’s killing.

The MDMA, which has been granted another extension by the Union Government, has begun the work to assist Lankan security officials, who will question Padmanathan in Sri Lanka.

The term of MDMA, headed by a CBI official and comprises officers from Intelligence Bureau (IB), Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Revenue Intelligence, ended on May 31,but the Centre gave a post-facto approval.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/ind ... 40359.html



AT LAST THE SOUTH POLL

By Vindya Amaranayake

The nominations for the crucial Southern Provincial Council (SPC) election were handed over last week. All the major parties, including the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), United National Party (UNP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) have much at stake at this election.

The ruling UPFA is entering the election race following a string of election victories. Their popularity is on the rise, quite unprecedented for a political party in the middle of its term. However, this is the first time they are testing the Southern waters after the war victory and the hierarchy has vowed to top the 80% mark there, following the 72% received in the Uva.
For the UNP, it is crunch time. They have not been in power in the SPC after their defeat there in 1993. Added to that is their failure to win an election for nearly eight years, sowing serious doubts in the minds of the people whether the UNP still has what it takes to win an election.

http://www.nation.lk/2009/08/30/newsfe1.htm



In search of souls: the Catholic missionaries in 16th and 17th century Sri Lanka

BY HARIS DE SILVA

Gaston Perera has had a long march towards historiography. A graduate in Western Classics, he had served in the Inland Revenue department during his entire career in the Public Service, and on retirement had taken to writing. He had started his literary career writing historical novels, then graduated into historiography when he first dealt with the wars between the Portuguese and the Sinhalese, and now looks at the missionary activities of the Portuguese.

The present work runs into 412 pages of text. It is divided into 6 parts and 22 chapters. The Parts are named ‘The Ideology of the Conquest’, ‘Organization of the Conquest’, `The Conquistador’, ‘The Strategy of Conquest’ ‘The Tactics of Conquest’, and the ‘Conclusion’. Within these Parts, the text is presented under various headings to focus on what is dealt within that chapter.

http://www.island.lk/2009/08/30/features8.html

[Rahul M]

http://livefist.blogspot.com/2009/08/in ... -slns.html

Sunday, August 30, 2009
India's CGS Vigraha Now Lanka's SLNS Sayurala

[Hiten]

Apologies if it has been posted [did a Google search first though - no result]

SL Blogger writes about SL Army's Recon Unit and its involvement in the fight against LTTE

http://lrrp.wordpress.com/

Flickr Stream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/phoenix_project/

[melonski]

Cold blooded murder
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... opup&ino=2

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8223362.stm

these videos might have already been posted.

[Anabhaya]

Emerging trends in Sri Lanka - An Indian perspective

It would perhaps be out of place for me to suggest courses of action to the Tamil leadership, but they could usefully consider some of the following measures:

a. Openly and clearly disown the militancy of LTTE and seek a peaceful resolution within the framework of a unified Sri Lankan nation.

b. Use the delays imposed by the president, to organize themselves into cadre-based parties working amongst the people, with whom they have had little interaction or meaningful contact for two decades.

c. Be politically active and mobilize public opinion throughout , in favour of ethnic reconciliation at the national level.

d. Consider a coordinated effort by all the Tamil parties, through a “Joint Action Committee”, to demand and urge forward movement on the package for political devolution – instead of merely of waiting for crumbs to fall from the presidential table.

e. Behave as “Sri Lankan” political parties and not look for inspiration and support from outside the country.

[Philip]

A draconian sentence.It appears to be excessively harsh.The fact that the journo is also a Tamil will only attract more international condemnation.The GOSL having won the war now need no reason to continue their strict regime that scribes had to endure during the war.Censorship during wartime is understandable.Veteran editor Gamini Weerakoon writing in a Lankan paper,said that the problem facing the govt. now was that they had "no enemies" left! They had defeated the LTTE,defeated the international community-Kouchner and Milli-Bond being clean bowled!They also defeated the opposition in the recent elections,so who was left for them to defeat? Even the press in the island have "beaten the retreat",with some scribes having fled the island earlier.It will take a little while before the GOSL and the powers that be who run the nation "wind down".The adrenalin is still in their veins having fought a war for 25 years.It is time for their good friends like India to gently remind them that winning the propaganda war is equally important and that magnanimity to those who criticised them of the conduct of the war is now needed.If pres.Rakapase rescinds or reduces the sentence of the convicted scribe,his stature will rise even further.As a glorious example and being a good Buddhist,he has the immortal example of Emperor Asoka who reflected upon the nature of his bloody victory at Kalinga,changed his course,it became his last battle, and attained immortallity in the process.

Sri Lankan court jails Tamil journalist who criticised war
JS Tissanayagam sentenced to 20 years' hard labour under anti-terrorism laws

Randeep Ramesh, South Asia correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 31 August 2009 12.17 BST

A Tamil journalist who wrote articles criticising the Sri Lankan government's war against the Tamil Tigers was today sentenced to 20 years' hard labour under the country's anti-terrorism laws.

Judge Deepali Wijesundera, at the high court in Colombo, convicted JS Tissanayagam on three charges of conspiracy, breaking the Prevention of Terrorism Act and violating wide-ranging emergency regulations.

The court found Tissainayagam guilty of causing racial hatred and receiving money from the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to fund his website.

The journalist, who had been a respected columnist for Colombo papers, was arrested in 2008 and charged five months later with inciting violence in articles in his magazine, the North Eastern Monthly, which is now closed.

Tissainayagam's defence lawyers said their client would appeal, maintaining he had always fought for human rights. The journalist's case has attracted international attention, with President Obama saying earlier this year it was "emblematic of the hundreds of journalists who face intimidation, censorship, and arbitrary arrest".

"He was never a racist, and he at no time tried to arouse hatred," Tissainayagam's defence lawyer, Anil Silva, said in his filing. "Now he has been punished for what he wrote as a journalist. This will be a lesson to other journalists, too."

However, the prosecution argued that the constitutional right to free speech did not extend to spreading "false information to spur ethnic violence".

Until its defeat in May, the LTTE fought a guerrilla war for almost three decades to create a separate nation for Sri Lanka's minority Tamils, whom it said the Sinhalese majority discriminated against. The war ended with the death of the Tamil Tiger's leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran.

The verdict is the first under Sri Lanka's draconian anti-terror laws. Human rights groups have criticised the government for suspending press freedoms and cracking down on reporters considered to be insubordinate. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says 11 Sri Lankan reporters have been forced into exile over the past year.

In some cases, the government has been accused of assassinating journalists. Amnesty International says at least 14 Sri Lankan journalists and media workers have been killed since the beginning of 2006.

"The courts in Sri Lanka cannot be considered independent … even the chief justice has been silenced for speaking out on the issue of Tamil refugees in the country," said Suhas Chakma of the Asian centre for human rights.

"The message is that nobody can speak out against the government, and is especially pointed given that exiled journalists last week had sent out a video showing Sri Lankan soldiers executing Tamils".

Chakma said there were still questions to be asked about how many people had been killed in the final stages of the war, and that the verdict was "about silencing dissent".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/au ... iled-tamil

[Sanku]

A draconian sentence

The court found Tissainayagam guilty of causing racial hatred and receiving money from the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to fund his website.

I think this must have gotten their goat.

[Philip]

The fact that the Tamil journo was defended by a Sinhalese lawyer indicates that the accused has a standing in the general community at large who are willing to defend him.

[thusitha]

Stan_Savljevic
PPS: All these assorted countries around us hate us not because of trade deficits or we indulge in our interests too far vis-a-vis them or any other bullcrap reason. They hate us because they cannot get over the fact that a buncha folks with diverse backgrounds can live together and obey a rule of law, however flawed its execution may be. In contrast to their own societies which have only one or two groups of people. We are winning the battle of ideas, and the hatred is a reflection of that. For those from SL, welcome to Murphy's laws of coexistence, two groups cannot stand each other, but 10 can.

Hmm. This is bit hard for me to believe. If this is the case, why don't India have a referendum similar to Canada to see which states would like to have independence. All this ethnic violence that happens time to time cannot be the result of peaceful co-existence. Most probably India is going towards peaceful co-existence, but it is hard to believe that India has already achieved this peaceful co-existence.

[Stan_Savljevic]

Hmm. This is bit hard for me to believe. If this is the case, why don't India have a referendum similar to Canada to see which states would like to have independence. All this ethnic violence that happens time to time cannot be the result of peaceful co-existence.

Why dont you guys take the lead and have a referendum in the Tamil areas? After all, dont you guys want to teach the world how your methods are ah-so-great.

[thusitha]

Philip
The fact that the Tamil journo was defended by a Sinhalese lawyer indicates that the accused has a standing in the general community at large who are willing to defend him.

The duty of the lawyers is to support any person without discrimination. That does not mean that common Sinhalese people support this journalist. Maybe he has become a scapegoat, but if he supported LTTE, he should receive punishment, whether he is Sinhalese/Tamil or Journalist/Policemen or MP. Otherwise terrorist makes a mockery of the legal system.

[thusitha]

Stan_Savljevic

Why dont you guys take the lead and have a referendum in the Tamil areas? After all, dont you guys want to teach the world how your methods are ah-so-great.

Not at all. Every one know the answer for that. SL The government is doing the preaching, but no SL person believes in the BS. It is like NFZ and Zero Tollarence for innocent deaths. No one believes that. But SL government has no choice but to publish this stuff knowing very well it is rubbish.

But you are the one who posted the comment regarding India. You seem to believe what you said.

[chetak]

Stan_Savljevic


Hmm. This is bit hard for me to believe. If this is the case, why don't India have a referendum similar to Canada to see which states would like to have independence. All this ethnic violence that happens time to time cannot be the result of peaceful co-existence. Most probably India is going towards peaceful co-existence, but it is hard to believe that India has already achieved this peaceful co-existence.

Even considering the now discredited Aryan tourist theory, which ethnic groups are you talking about?

There is very little ethnic violence in India. Other kinds of violence yes, like that which exists the world over, particularly in SL.

Or is your thinking influenced by old colonial ideas that India is an unlikely amalgamation of disparate states that is just waiting to explode?

Per http://www.webindia123.com/india/people/people.htm

People of India

India is a fascinating country where people of many different communities and religions live together in unity. Indian Population is polygenetic and is an amazing amalgamation of various races and cultures.

It is impossible to find out the exact origin of Indian People. The species known as Ramapithecus was found in the Siwalik foothills of north western Himalayas. The species believed to be the first in the line of hominids (Human Family) lived some 14 million years ago. Researchers have found that a species resembling the Austrapithecus lived in India some 2 million years ago. Even this discovery leaves an evolutionary gap of as much as 12 million years since Ramapithecus.

There are many diverse ethnic groups among the people of India. The 6 main ethnic groups are as follows.

1.

Negrito
2.

Proto - Australoids or Austrics
3.

Mongoloids
4.

Mediterranean or Dravidian
5.

Western Brachycephals
6.

Nordic Aryans

Negroids
The Negritos or the Brachycephalic (broad headed) from Africa were the earliest people to have come to India. They have survived in their original habitat in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Jarawas, Onges, Sentinelese and the Great Andamanese are some of the examples. Some hill tribes like Irulas, Kodars, Paniyans and Kurumbas are found in some patches in Southern part of mainland India.

Pro-Australoids or Austrics
These groups were the next to come to India after the Negritos. They are people with wavy hair lavishly distributed all over their brown bodies, long headed with low foreheads and prominent eye ridges, noses with low and broad roots, thick jaws, large palates and teeth and small chins. The Austrics of India represent a race of medium height, dark complexion with long heads and rather flat noses but otherwise of regular features. Miscegenation with the earlier Negroids may be the reason for the dark or black pigmentation of the skin and flat noses.

The Austrics laid the foundation of Indian civilization. They cultivated rice and vegetables and made sugar from sugarcane. Now these people are found in some parts of India, Myanmar and the islands of South East Asia. Their languages have survived in the Central and Eastern India.

Mongoloids
These people are found in the North eastern part of India in the states of Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Tripura. They are also found in Northern parts of West Bengal, Sikkim, and Ladakh. Generally they are people with yellow complexion, oblique eyes, high cheekbones, sparse hair and medium height.

Dravidians
These are the people of South India. They have been believed to come before the Aryans. They have different sub-groups like the Paleo-Mediterranean, the true Mediterranean, and the Oriental Mediterranean. They appear to be people of the same stock as the peoples of Asia Minor and Crete and pre- Hellenic Aegean's of Greece. They are reputed to have built up the city civilization of the Indus valley, whose remains have been found at Mohenjo- daro and Harappa and other Indus cities.

Western Bracycephals
These include the Alpinoids, Dinarics and Armenoids. The Parsis and Kodavas also fall in this category. They are the broad headed people living mainly on the western side of the country such as the Ganga Valley and the delta, parts of Kashmir, Kathiawar, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Nordics or the Indo-Aryans
This group were the last one to immigrate to India. They came to India somewhere between 2000 and 1500 B.C. They are now mainly found in the northern and central part of India.

[thusitha]

chetak
There is very little ethnic violence in India.

This is one of the URLs I found. I don't know how much is the truth, or how much of it is false.
But this would never happen in a peaceful country. A good example of a multicultural society is Australia (But once in a while it has its own hiccups and problems, but never in the scale of India)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 834245.ece

And plenty of this kind of URLs can be found by googling.

Other kinds of violence yes, like that which exists the world over, particularly in SL.

I am in no way defending SL. I was not preaching at all. I was just commenting on one of Stans comments.

[chetak]

chetak
There is very little ethnic violence in India.

This is one of the URLs I found. I don't know how much is the truth, or how much of it is false.
But this would never happen in a peaceful country. A good example of a multicultural society is Australia (But once in a while it has its own hiccups and problems, but never in the scale of India)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 834245.ece

And plenty of this kind of URLs can be found by googling.

Other kinds of violence yes, like that which exists the world over, particularly in SL.

I am in no way defending SL. I was not preaching at all. I was just commenting on one of Stans comments.

Boss, you is talking religious or other kinds of violence.

In the url you have quoted, the Hindus and christians belong to the very same ethnic group. This is not ethnic violence!

Australia is a peaceful multicultural country? seriously??

A lot of peaceful multicultural australians like the staines family seem to be actively involved in the incidents in your quoted url.

[thusitha]

chetak
In the url you have quoted, the Hindus and christians belong to the very same ethnic group. This is not ethnic violence!

Let me try to understand. Ethnic violence is bad violence. Religious violence among same ethnic group is good violence:).
So, it is o.k. for Hindu's to kill Christians, Muslims, and other religous groups as long as the killing is done by the same ethnic groups.
This would solve lot of SL problems.

[SwamyG]

So, it is o.k. for Hindu's to kill Christians, Muslims, and other religous groups as long as the killing is done by the same ethnic groups.

The automatic assumption is that Hindus do all the killing There has been no genocide in India. Period. Violence exists in all countries - and India is no exception. GoI has never systematically sought to eliminate any particular community. And neither have the majority community - Hindus - trying to reduce the population of other minorities. One can always google and provide links to riots and other violence, but what Stan said holds good - India has created a land of rules. It might not comparable to say some of the developed countries. But it is far better than India's neighbors who have far less diversity than India.

[Javee]

Hmm. This is bit hard for me to believe. If this is the case, why don't India have a referendum similar to Canada to see which states would like to have independence.

If you didnt notice, we already have a referendum, they are called General elections. Every single state voted to choose the ruling party, aka PM of India. Before you cry wolf, check out number of eligible people to vote (regardless of their beliefs in the union) and the number of people voted in the elections.

http://www.indian-elections.com/india-statistics.html

[Javee]

Let me try to understand. Ethnic violence is bad violence. Religious violence among same ethnic group is good violence:).

Any kind of violence is a sore blemish, but if the govt, the custodian of the people engages in violence siding with the majority then you have a problem. That sort of violence does not happen in India.

[chetak]

chetak
In the url you have quoted, the Hindus and christians belong to the very same ethnic group. This is not ethnic violence!

Let me try to understand. Ethnic violence is bad violence. Religious violence among same ethnic group is good violence:).
So, it is o.k. for Hindu's to kill Christians, Muslims, and other religous groups as long as the killing is done by the same ethnic groups.
This would solve lot of SL problems.

All violence is bad.

The reasons for the violence is varied and many. But the minute anyone descends to violence the rule of law and reason is lost.

Hindus are generally docile people who used accept everything with a fatalistic attitude. But not anymore it seems.

Cultural aggression by any name or subterfuge, by any "superior " religious group or following is becoming less tolerable these days.

Especially when the freedoms guaranteed by the Indian constitution is sought to be willfully misused and slyly subverted to target groups less capable of withstanding the sordid use of money and other allurement to actively re culturalize and realign their loyalties to entities that are so far removed from the Indian milieu and social moorings that the very deceitful motivation of such groups is the singular cause of such violence.

Of course, you know only too well what happened in SL when similar "superior" religious groups supported terrorists or freedom fighters, if you prefer the chic term.

Now that was ethnic violence, old chap. Ours is the more mundane or garden variety.

It will really be a very cold day in hell when any mai ke lal separates any part of India.

[thusitha]

Any kind of violence is a sore blemish, but if the govt, the custodian of the people engages in violence siding with the majority then you have a problem. That sort of violence does not happen in India.

Ah, now I understand what Stan was getting at. Of course, I don't believe GoI would side with the majority and allow killing of other ethnic groups. And also it must be one of the very few Asian countries (I am not sure whether there are any other) that allows an outsider (Sonia Gandhi) to be part of the political system. I agree in that sense India is much more tolerant society.

[thusitha]

Channel 4 TV Must Eat Its Digits – Fake Execution Video Exposed!
http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2009/ ... o-exposed

[chetak]

There is something distinctly odd about the videos.

A headshot at that range should have some bits of skull and brain matter flying around, no? The heads are jerking backwards... towards the gun and not away as would be logical

Also should the bodies not be falling forward or to the side?
They seem to be falling right back as though shot from the front.

Seemed odd to me.

Cheers.

I had pointed this out on 27 Aug 2009.

Thanks to thusitha for posting the link.

It looks like someone else has also spotted the oddities in the fake video.

Incidentally, the motivation of channel 4 goes far beyond " human rights". It has been sponsored by the " superior religion" supporters of the ltte. Just like our own burkha brigade, no?


' Fake-execution-video-exposed ’

There is another important development to note in the video from medical point of view: the man can be seated in that position only as long he is alive. The moment he dies he has to fall either forward or sideways, because the centre of the brain which controls his balance ceases to function. As anyone who has seen an actual execution by a firing squad (or a video of it) would have observed, even if the body were kept erect by some means, such as by tying to a pole, the head will not stay erect after the man is executed. It slumps either sideways or forwards.

Channel 4 TV, an obvious victim of the current economic crisis engulfing the United Kingdom due to advertising famine, extended its doctrine of self-righteousness by telecasting an execution video, allegedly committed by the Sri Lankan armed forces last week.

The Asian Tribune has obtained the expert-evidence to prove that the video has been doctored to cater for the right audience – the human-rights body who normally turns its back on human-wrongs and the league with vested interests those who are determined to tarnish the image of Sri Lanka at a time that it tries to stand on its feet.

The motive of the telecast by the particular TV channel is blindingly obvious: first of all, it needs stories to be seen as a big player among the TV audience in the UK, having been fed up with itself being in the shadow of the big players like the BSKYB and BBC; secondly, it has an axe to grind with the Government of Sri Lanka, since the unceremonious removal of its television crew in the middle of another questionable venture at the peak of the last phase of the war.

So, the bosses of the Channel 4 started doing what they normally are good at – mud-slinging at a nation which just began recovering from thirty years of endless suffering. It wants to bring the nation down to its knees both economically and politically – and then boast about the mantra ‘We told you so’.

[Neela]

WARNING! Gruesome pictures below.
Definitely not for the lily-livered!


Pictures of dead Tamil fighters emerge in pro-Eelam website with signs of mutilation.
One of the pictures show SL soldier placing his foot over the head of a dead LTTE fighter.
http://www.athirvu.com/target_news.php? ... m=&ucat=17&

[chetak]

WARNING! Gruesome pictures below.
Definitely not for the lily-livered!


Pictures of dead Tamil fighters emerge in pro-Eelam website with signs of mutilation.
One of the pictures show SL soldier placing his foot over the head of a dead LTTE fighter.
http://www.athirvu.com/target_news.php? ... m=&ucat=17&

Reminds you of how our dear neighbor returned the bodies of Lt Kalia along with five jawans -- Sepoys Arjun Ram, Bhanwar Lal Bagaria, Bhika Ram, Moola Ram and Naresh Singh.

[sanjaychoudhry]

Regardless of the merits or demerits of the case, it is hilarious to see the Goras so quickly start their award business and their Indian media stooges instantly start blaring the news like a loud speaker.

Jailed Lankan journalist receives prestigious awards

Tamil journalist Jayaprakash Sittampalam Tissainayagam, who was sentenced to 20 years rigorous imprisonment in Sri Lanka [ Images ] for links with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and whose case has been highlighted by United States President Barack Obama [ Images ], has received two prestigious international awards.

Global Media Forum and the US branch of Reporters Without Borders on Monday announced that J S Tissainayagam has been selected as the first winner of the Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism. The award would be presented in October.

http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/sep/ ... awards.htm

The American mouthpiece, Rediff, has even declared the awards as 'prestigious" lest Sri Lankans harbour any doubts about their validity.

The story has been filed by Jha Sahib in Washington, no less, and perhaps was faxed directly from the US State Deptt.

So, the back end = Washington. Front end = "South Asian" Indians (a.k.a. World Citizens).

[Philip]

The provenance of the video with alleged killings of unarmed Tamils (LTTE cadre) is as yet unknown.Even going by the assumption that they are true clips,as I pointed out before,the nature of the conflict was such that the LTTE gave scant regard to any courtesies of warfare whatsoever.Was any warning given to Rajiv (and countless victims assassinated) and the IPKF ,that they would be assassinated and attacked? So while we weep for the island in general and innocent victims on all sides,we do not weep for the LTTE.

Reagrding the convicted journalist.The war has been won.The LTTE have been decisively defeated and totally annhilated.The earlier censorship during the war needs now to be relaxed.It is now time for magnanimity,especially towards non-combatants.There have been many Eelam supporters who did not take to arms,but were involved in logistic and propaganda tasks and whatever their proven guilt,the GOSL can win hearts and minds by giving them softer sentences.What adds to the concern regarding this particular scribe is that the general health of journos in Lanka is so bad that many who were critical of the govt.have fled the country.Journalism is perhaps the most dangerous occupation in the island today.

The GOSL may have won the war but are in danger of losing the peace if there is no progress on resolving the political package for the Tamils and human rights becomes a new issue with which to berate and beat the current regime with by the west in particular.The island now needs a rapid and large foreign investment to keep the population employed in worthwhile causes, not taking to arms as both the LTTE and JVP did.

PS:It appears that the harsh sentence was in response to Pres.Obama's hailing the journalist as a "hero".Had Obama the Messiah kept his gob tightly shut,the poor scribe would probably have been a free man today !

[Sridhar]

Is that really the state of the rule of law in the island? Where a pronouncement by a leader outside has a drastic effect on the sentence awarded by a court of law, a high court at that? Sri Lanka looks eerily like Burma or North Korea if that is really the case.

[Philip]

Sridhar,the provocation has been a scandal.Apart from Obama calling a hero a journo with alleged strong LTTE links,the journo has just been given an international award to "punish" Sri Lanka further! This is akin to waving a red rag to a bull.Remember the earlier calls of putting Lankan politicos and soldiers on trial for war crimes,which Rajapakse beautifully despatched to the boundary by saying that he was willing to be hanged if need be for defeating terrorism!

http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Secti ... RTID=59911

Escaped LTTE cadres could rebuild outfit: Report

LTTE cadres, who escaped the final assault by the army in May, could give a new lease of life to the now vanquished outfit and are even trying to launch fresh attacks in Sri Lanka, according to a report on the Strategy Page website.

"There were 30,000 members back then (during the final phase of the war) in the LTTE. Not all were armed, but all were organised. The army has lots of records listing who they are," the International Defence website Strategy Page said in the report.

"Most of these LTTE staff survived the final campaign, and the Sri Lankan government is looking for them. These are the people who could rebuild the LTTE, and who are even now trying to carry out terror attacks," says the article also posted on Sri Lankan government's official website.

It said intelligence reports suggest that the cadres could rebuild the LTTE and are trying to carry out terror activities.

Some of the information had been gathered from new LTTE leader Selvarajah Pathmanathan who is now under the custody of Sri Lankan government.

"Pathmanathan has the information on operational details and contacts of the LTTE as well as information on money collected from expatriate Tamils which were used for the terrorist activities of the LTTE," the article said.

The 30-year-old civil war in Sri Lanka came to an end on May 18 with the death of LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran.

"Pathmanathan also has information on the organisation that only the senior leadership had. He is able to let the government know how large the organisation was in Sri Lanka before the final offensive," the article said.

It said India is much more sympathetic to the Sri Lankan government on the LTTE issue as New Delhi "knows all about fanatical sects and political movements and was also subject to LTTE terrorism".