Grab LTTE ceasefire offer to rescue civilians, India tells Sri Lanka
Sat, Feb 28 05:48 PM
New Delhi, Feb 28 (IANS) Amid mounting concern over the plight of 70,000 civilians trapped in the conflict zone, India Friday made a renewed appeal to Sri Lanka to seize the Tamil Tigers rebels' ceasefire offer and spur safe passage for Tamil civilians where they can get humanitarian aid.
'While this (ceasefire offer by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam - LTTE) may fall short of a declaration of willingness to lay down arms, it is our view that the government of Sri Lanka should seize the opportunity presented by the offer to bring about a pause in the hostilities,' External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said.
'The government of India would, therefore, appeal to the government of Sri Lanka to immediately work out safe passage for trapped civilians to secure locations,' Mukherjee said. 'This would require the cooperation of the LTTE,' he underlined reading out from a statement.
Early this week, Colombo rejected calls for a truce with Tamil Tiger rebels, demanding first an unconditional surrender by the LTTE guerrillas.
International organisations, including the UN, have made repeated appeals for the cessation of hostilities in Sri Lanka. Colombo, however, sees the LTTE's ceasefire call as a desperate plea 'to save their miserable skins.'
The Sri Lankan government believes the battle against terrorism has entered its last lap with the Tamil Tiger rebels losing most of their strongholds to government forces.
'Though pressure is exerted in various ways by the international community, the government will not stop the war on the Tigers until they are defeated,' Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake said Friday.
The hardline stand has only added to the miseries of thousands of civilians trapped in northern Sri Lanka. With the suffering of civilians on mind, Mukherjee underscored India's 'grave concern over the humanitarian crisis that is building up with every passing day in Sri Lanka.'
'There are reports that over 70,000 civilians are trapped in the conflict zone in Sri Lanka and there is acute shortage of food, water and medicines,' he said.
'The pause in hostilities must be utilized to facilitate the movement of Tamil population out of the war-affected areas to secure locations where proper rehabilitation is possible,' he said.
These safe locations will ensure, he stressed, that international aid organisations like the International Council of Red Cross (ICRC) have free access to provide medical and other forms of humanitarian aid.
India Thursday announced it would send an emergency medical unit to provide medical assistance to internally displaced people in northern Sri Lanka.
Such relief to civilians, the minister stressed, must be followed up by 'a proper devolution of powers to the provinces, with assurances of equality and equal rights to all citizens, particularly the Tamil people, within the constitutional framework of Sri Lanka maintaining its territorial integrity.'
'I sincerely hope that the government of Sri Lanka and all others will respond to this sincere appeal that is made in the interest of all sections of the people in Sri Lanka,' Mukherjee said.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Isn’t it awesome how President Mahinda Rajapaksa picks the best men for the best jobs?
A nation being bamboozled
Namini Wijedasa Writes
Isn’t it awesome how President Mahinda Rajapaksa picks the best men for the best jobs? That chump who mindlessly drove a budget airline to the ground has just been made Galle district organiser for the UPFA.
Some people are even saying that Sajin de Vass Gunewardene will be chief minister of the southern province after elections are held there. Imagine that? People with buckets of talent are going to waste while Sajin gets another chance. This time, he can drive an entire province into insolvency.
(Actually, these moves would make perfect sense if you warp your mind just enough to understand them).
An ordinary person of average intelligence could assume that Sajin — who made a monumental mess of Mihin Lanka — would quickly be banished to some insignificant village to spend the rest of his life weaving coir rope. He had started up an airline with no starter capital, no aircraft and no business plan. He later managed to secure some rickety, inefficient planes and a bit of money — and promptly rendered the venture bankrupt.
Mihin Lanka was in the red
Parliament was recently told that tender procedures had not been followed in the leasing of Mihin’s three aircraft. By the time Sajin stepped down as chief executive officer, Mihin Lanka was billions of rupees in the red, its employees were complaining that their salaries were not being paid, the lessors took back the aircraft Sajin had leased on terribly costly terms, nobody wanted to fly them and the company was a dead duck.
But the Rajapaksas never give up, especially when it concerns an airline that has affectionately been named ‘Mihin’. The president has hired a few other people to do the job Sajin mucked up and told them (loosely) to “get the damn thing flying again”. And we hear they are doing a pretty bad job. The new chairman Raja Edirisuriya recently resigned after saying he cannot work with the other executives.
Clearly, this is not a country for ordinary people with average understanding. Sajin was not condemned to a life of coir-weaving. He was not even reprimanded for the colossal waste of money that he had been directly responsible for. He got to keep his presidential advisor post and he will now lead the UPFA in the Galle district. One day, he will write a book: ‘The Idiot’s Guide to Bamboozling a Nation’. And we will all be proud to know him.
Bestseller
We learn that Ranil Wickremesinghe is also compiling a bestseller: ‘How to win an Election, conceptually’. Another set of provincial council elections is scheduled for April 25 and the UNP will bite the dust again. Afterwards, the same tired UNP mouthpieces will host press conferences during which they will valiantly attempt to find plausible excuses for yet another inglorious electoral rout.
Namini Wijedasa Writes
Isn’t it awesome how President Mahinda Rajapaksa picks the best men for the best jobs? That chump who mindlessly drove a budget airline to the ground has just been made Galle district organiser for the UPFA.
Some people are even saying that Sajin de Vass Gunewardene will be chief minister of the southern province after elections are held there. Imagine that? People with buckets of talent are going to waste while Sajin gets another chance. This time, he can drive an entire province into insolvency.
(Actually, these moves would make perfect sense if you warp your mind just enough to understand them).
An ordinary person of average intelligence could assume that Sajin — who made a monumental mess of Mihin Lanka — would quickly be banished to some insignificant village to spend the rest of his life weaving coir rope. He had started up an airline with no starter capital, no aircraft and no business plan. He later managed to secure some rickety, inefficient planes and a bit of money — and promptly rendered the venture bankrupt.
Mihin Lanka was in the red
Parliament was recently told that tender procedures had not been followed in the leasing of Mihin’s three aircraft. By the time Sajin stepped down as chief executive officer, Mihin Lanka was billions of rupees in the red, its employees were complaining that their salaries were not being paid, the lessors took back the aircraft Sajin had leased on terribly costly terms, nobody wanted to fly them and the company was a dead duck.
But the Rajapaksas never give up, especially when it concerns an airline that has affectionately been named ‘Mihin’. The president has hired a few other people to do the job Sajin mucked up and told them (loosely) to “get the damn thing flying again”. And we hear they are doing a pretty bad job. The new chairman Raja Edirisuriya recently resigned after saying he cannot work with the other executives.
Clearly, this is not a country for ordinary people with average understanding. Sajin was not condemned to a life of coir-weaving. He was not even reprimanded for the colossal waste of money that he had been directly responsible for. He got to keep his presidential advisor post and he will now lead the UPFA in the Galle district. One day, he will write a book: ‘The Idiot’s Guide to Bamboozling a Nation’. And we will all be proud to know him.
Bestseller
We learn that Ranil Wickremesinghe is also compiling a bestseller: ‘How to win an Election, conceptually’. Another set of provincial council elections is scheduled for April 25 and the UNP will bite the dust again. Afterwards, the same tired UNP mouthpieces will host press conferences during which they will valiantly attempt to find plausible excuses for yet another inglorious electoral rout.
Sri Lanka must be Declared Rogue State and Economic Sanctions Applied
Sri Lanka must be Declared Rogue State and Economic Sanctions Applied
by Malarthamil
The international community is slowly waking up to the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka which is quite overdue for the last few months. However it is regrettable that a discussion in the Security Council of United Nations, either about the humanitarian crisis or about the political settlement for Ealem Tamils, has been kept in abeyance due to the geopolitical considerations of the member countries. The day by day account of the last week indicates a stalemate in this issue.
Mr Ban Ki-moon called on for a “suspension in fighting”.
On 19 February 2009 the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes, on a three day visit to Sri Lanka, stressed the need to ensure the protection of civilians caught in the conflict zone in Sri Lanka
On 20 February 2009 UK Ambassador John Sawers at the UN spoke of a Security Council briefing once Holmes return from Sri Lanka.
On 21 February 2009 while returning after the visit Mr.John Holmes urged combatants on both sides of the battle ravaging the northern Vanni region of Sri Lanka to make greater efforts to stop the rising toll of civilian casualties
On 23 February 2009, the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on for a “suspension in fighting” between the Sri Lanka government and Tamil Tiger separatists to allow civilians to escape. Ban further told “There is an urgent need to bring this conflict to an end without any further unnecessary loss of civilian life and destruction of Sri Lankan society,”. He also said the United Nations was renewing its call on all sides to work for a “political discussion to achieve an orderly end to the conflict.” But on the same day Sri Lanka Government rejected a call for ceasefire by LTTE.
On 24 February 2009 the U.S. Senate committee focused its attention on the situation in Sri Lanka.. Witnesses at the Senate hearing descried the actions of both sides. Anna Neistat, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, described a deplorable situation in the so-called safe zone, established by the government to protect refugees. “We received several detailed accounts from people who stayed within the safe zone, and these accounts suggest that the shelling by Sri Lankan forces killed dozens if not hundreds of people inside there,” she said.
[UN Nations humanitarian chief John Holmes addresses journalists during a press conference in Colombo on February 19, 2009-AFP pic by Lakruwan Wanniarachchi, via Yahoo! News]
Other witnesses in the US Senate Committee described what they called the Sri Lankan government’s growing assault on dissent and pointed out that nobody has been prosecuted for any of incidents of attack on journalists or abduction and disappearance of Tamils. Ambassador Lunstead said the world community could play an important role in shaping Sri Lanka’s future. He recommended that international donors impose conditions on economic aid to the government of Sri Lanka. He said those conditions should include an improvement in the country’s human rights record, the resettlement of displaced persons and a devolution of power from the capital, Colombo, to local areas to allow all Sri Lankans to have a greater say in how they are governed. Anna Neistat further urged the United Nations Security Council to hold a special session to address Sri Lanka’s humanitarian catastrophe.
On 24 February 2009 Britain’s Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, agreed with UK parliamentarians who said that the Sri Lankan government is “quite prepared to go ahead with acts of genocide.” Responding to Mr. Elfyn Llwyd, MP, Mr. Miliband said “the resolution of [a] terrorist problem cannot be achieved at the expense of the rights of minority communities in Sri Lanka, and that is what we are trying to work on.”
But to the dismay of the Human rights activists, few days back, at the UN, it is learnt ,a move by Mexico to bring the Sri Lanka situation on to the Security Council was scuttled by Russia. Russia took up the position that Sri Lanka was not on the agenda of the Security Council. A Foreign Ministry source in UK said there was little chance that the Sri Lanka situation would be brought up before the Security Council. He said both Russia and China would oppose such a move because the Russians wanted to avoid its human rights situation in Chechenya being put on the Security Council agenda and the Chinese would protect their flank against any attempts to put Tibet on the agenda.
These happenings only show the diplomatic manipulations of the state of Sri Lanka in keeping the big powers beyond the focusing distance of the crisis at Sri Lanka.
But what the international Community could not ignore is that the State of Sri Lanka enjoys unabated impunity in spite of having engaged in extrajudicial killings, abductions, extortion, conscription, and the use of child soldiers. Despite confirming use of cluster bombs by the Sri Lankan Army, the United Nations could take no further action on such open crime.
Under these circumstances, Tamils are wondering whether any country in this world is concerned about putting the Humanitarian or Political aspirations of Tamils in the agenda of the Security Council.
Sri Lanka turning a deaf ear to the international community is understandable but the International Community showing a blind eye to the sufferings of Tamil population could not be explained by its own standards set in the United Nations.
In all their statements the UN, UK, USA or EU appeal to both GOSL and LTTE, accepting very well that LTTE represents the Tamil nation in the island of Sri Lanka and they equally deplore both parties for the crisis but at the same time have proscribed LTTE and allowed the GOSL to proceed with genocide. This is seen as an off-balanced stance and is not justified. Just blaming both sides or appealing both sides could not be considered as neutral if it is not going to stop the killing. They should either declare Sri Lanka a rogue country and apply economic sanctions or lift the ban on LTTE or openly discuss the issue in the security council putting aside the geopolitical compulsions of the big powers and come to a conclusion to stop the count down of the Tamil population in Sri Lanka first and to declare freedom to Ealem.
(Malarthamil is a civil engineer and writer-poet inspired by Thirukkural.This piece appeared in Kalugu.com)
Posted by transCurrents on February 27, 2009 10:17 PM | Permalink
by Malarthamil
The international community is slowly waking up to the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka which is quite overdue for the last few months. However it is regrettable that a discussion in the Security Council of United Nations, either about the humanitarian crisis or about the political settlement for Ealem Tamils, has been kept in abeyance due to the geopolitical considerations of the member countries. The day by day account of the last week indicates a stalemate in this issue.
Mr Ban Ki-moon called on for a “suspension in fighting”.
On 19 February 2009 the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes, on a three day visit to Sri Lanka, stressed the need to ensure the protection of civilians caught in the conflict zone in Sri Lanka
On 20 February 2009 UK Ambassador John Sawers at the UN spoke of a Security Council briefing once Holmes return from Sri Lanka.
On 21 February 2009 while returning after the visit Mr.John Holmes urged combatants on both sides of the battle ravaging the northern Vanni region of Sri Lanka to make greater efforts to stop the rising toll of civilian casualties
On 23 February 2009, the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on for a “suspension in fighting” between the Sri Lanka government and Tamil Tiger separatists to allow civilians to escape. Ban further told “There is an urgent need to bring this conflict to an end without any further unnecessary loss of civilian life and destruction of Sri Lankan society,”. He also said the United Nations was renewing its call on all sides to work for a “political discussion to achieve an orderly end to the conflict.” But on the same day Sri Lanka Government rejected a call for ceasefire by LTTE.
On 24 February 2009 the U.S. Senate committee focused its attention on the situation in Sri Lanka.. Witnesses at the Senate hearing descried the actions of both sides. Anna Neistat, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, described a deplorable situation in the so-called safe zone, established by the government to protect refugees. “We received several detailed accounts from people who stayed within the safe zone, and these accounts suggest that the shelling by Sri Lankan forces killed dozens if not hundreds of people inside there,” she said.
[UN Nations humanitarian chief John Holmes addresses journalists during a press conference in Colombo on February 19, 2009-AFP pic by Lakruwan Wanniarachchi, via Yahoo! News]
Other witnesses in the US Senate Committee described what they called the Sri Lankan government’s growing assault on dissent and pointed out that nobody has been prosecuted for any of incidents of attack on journalists or abduction and disappearance of Tamils. Ambassador Lunstead said the world community could play an important role in shaping Sri Lanka’s future. He recommended that international donors impose conditions on economic aid to the government of Sri Lanka. He said those conditions should include an improvement in the country’s human rights record, the resettlement of displaced persons and a devolution of power from the capital, Colombo, to local areas to allow all Sri Lankans to have a greater say in how they are governed. Anna Neistat further urged the United Nations Security Council to hold a special session to address Sri Lanka’s humanitarian catastrophe.
On 24 February 2009 Britain’s Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, agreed with UK parliamentarians who said that the Sri Lankan government is “quite prepared to go ahead with acts of genocide.” Responding to Mr. Elfyn Llwyd, MP, Mr. Miliband said “the resolution of [a] terrorist problem cannot be achieved at the expense of the rights of minority communities in Sri Lanka, and that is what we are trying to work on.”
But to the dismay of the Human rights activists, few days back, at the UN, it is learnt ,a move by Mexico to bring the Sri Lanka situation on to the Security Council was scuttled by Russia. Russia took up the position that Sri Lanka was not on the agenda of the Security Council. A Foreign Ministry source in UK said there was little chance that the Sri Lanka situation would be brought up before the Security Council. He said both Russia and China would oppose such a move because the Russians wanted to avoid its human rights situation in Chechenya being put on the Security Council agenda and the Chinese would protect their flank against any attempts to put Tibet on the agenda.
These happenings only show the diplomatic manipulations of the state of Sri Lanka in keeping the big powers beyond the focusing distance of the crisis at Sri Lanka.
But what the international Community could not ignore is that the State of Sri Lanka enjoys unabated impunity in spite of having engaged in extrajudicial killings, abductions, extortion, conscription, and the use of child soldiers. Despite confirming use of cluster bombs by the Sri Lankan Army, the United Nations could take no further action on such open crime.
Under these circumstances, Tamils are wondering whether any country in this world is concerned about putting the Humanitarian or Political aspirations of Tamils in the agenda of the Security Council.
Sri Lanka turning a deaf ear to the international community is understandable but the International Community showing a blind eye to the sufferings of Tamil population could not be explained by its own standards set in the United Nations.
In all their statements the UN, UK, USA or EU appeal to both GOSL and LTTE, accepting very well that LTTE represents the Tamil nation in the island of Sri Lanka and they equally deplore both parties for the crisis but at the same time have proscribed LTTE and allowed the GOSL to proceed with genocide. This is seen as an off-balanced stance and is not justified. Just blaming both sides or appealing both sides could not be considered as neutral if it is not going to stop the killing. They should either declare Sri Lanka a rogue country and apply economic sanctions or lift the ban on LTTE or openly discuss the issue in the security council putting aside the geopolitical compulsions of the big powers and come to a conclusion to stop the count down of the Tamil population in Sri Lanka first and to declare freedom to Ealem.
(Malarthamil is a civil engineer and writer-poet inspired by Thirukkural.This piece appeared in Kalugu.com)
Posted by transCurrents on February 27, 2009 10:17 PM | Permalink
Sri Lankan Government hires lobbying firm to counteract Tamil Genocide " MODEL" indictment.
Sri Lankan Government hires lobbying firm to counteract Tamil Genocide " MODEL" indictment.
The Sri Lankan Government has hired lobbying firm Patton Boggs to counteract the indictment filed by Bruce Fein at the Department of Justice and to lobby Congress on their behalf. The reported fees paid to Patton Boggs is a contract for $35,000 per month according to official records filed in the Department of Justice's Foreign Agent Registration office in Washington, DC
This appointment in a bizzare way has a Tamils Against Genocide conenction. Their current counsel Bruce Fein's neighbor for over a decade in Washington is the immigration attorney Basanayake, whose son has joined the Patton Bogg law firm last year. Basanayake Senior secretly arranged a meeting with Sri Lanka's foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama and Bruce Fein, in New York last year in May. However the foreign minister when questioned in the Sri Lankan Parliament denied the actual meeting. Bruce Fein although confirmed of the arrangment when he was Tamils For Justice attorney,
later denied the meeting arranged by Basanayake.
Patton Boggs were seen at the Senate Hearings on Sri Lanka, and so was Basanayake and Bruce Fein.
Politics make strange bed fellows?
Details of Vinoda Basanayake.
Vinoda B. Basnayake
Associate
Public Policy and Lobbying
International Practice
Financial Services and Products
2550 M Street, NW
Washington, DC 20037
T: 202-457-6159 F: 202-457-6315
Vinoda Basnayake assists international and domestic clients with a range of legislative and policy matters. Mr. Basnayake focuses his work in the Public Policy and International practice areas, helping clients navigate Washington's legal and policy arenas.
Mr. Basnayake brings to Patton Boggs a background at the intersection of international business and public policy. Having worked for several years with the World Bank's Development Economics Group, served as the Interim Director of the International Trade Center's International Gateway, and worked for Congressman Ronald Dellums, Mr. Basnayake provides strategic counsel to clients facing international policy and business concerns.
Mr. Basnayake's knowledge of international affairs is further bolstered by his experiences working at a global investment bank in Sri Lanka, researching transitional governments in El Salvador as a Penn Law Global Justice Fellow, studying corporate governance in Japan at Waseda Law School, and having studied abroad at Oxford in England.
Education
University of Pennsylvania Law School, J.D., 2008
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Certificate in Business and Public Policy, 2008
Georgetown University, B.S.B.A., cum laude, 2003
Bar Admissions
New Jersey
District of Columbia (pending)
The Sri Lankan Government has hired lobbying firm Patton Boggs to counteract the indictment filed by Bruce Fein at the Department of Justice and to lobby Congress on their behalf. The reported fees paid to Patton Boggs is a contract for $35,000 per month according to official records filed in the Department of Justice's Foreign Agent Registration office in Washington, DC
This appointment in a bizzare way has a Tamils Against Genocide conenction. Their current counsel Bruce Fein's neighbor for over a decade in Washington is the immigration attorney Basanayake, whose son has joined the Patton Bogg law firm last year. Basanayake Senior secretly arranged a meeting with Sri Lanka's foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama and Bruce Fein, in New York last year in May. However the foreign minister when questioned in the Sri Lankan Parliament denied the actual meeting. Bruce Fein although confirmed of the arrangment when he was Tamils For Justice attorney,
later denied the meeting arranged by Basanayake.
Patton Boggs were seen at the Senate Hearings on Sri Lanka, and so was Basanayake and Bruce Fein.
Politics make strange bed fellows?
Details of Vinoda Basanayake.
Vinoda B. Basnayake
Associate
Public Policy and Lobbying
International Practice
Financial Services and Products
2550 M Street, NW
Washington, DC 20037
T: 202-457-6159 F: 202-457-6315
Vinoda Basnayake assists international and domestic clients with a range of legislative and policy matters. Mr. Basnayake focuses his work in the Public Policy and International practice areas, helping clients navigate Washington's legal and policy arenas.
Mr. Basnayake brings to Patton Boggs a background at the intersection of international business and public policy. Having worked for several years with the World Bank's Development Economics Group, served as the Interim Director of the International Trade Center's International Gateway, and worked for Congressman Ronald Dellums, Mr. Basnayake provides strategic counsel to clients facing international policy and business concerns.
Mr. Basnayake's knowledge of international affairs is further bolstered by his experiences working at a global investment bank in Sri Lanka, researching transitional governments in El Salvador as a Penn Law Global Justice Fellow, studying corporate governance in Japan at Waseda Law School, and having studied abroad at Oxford in England.
Education
University of Pennsylvania Law School, J.D., 2008
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Certificate in Business and Public Policy, 2008
Georgetown University, B.S.B.A., cum laude, 2003
Bar Admissions
New Jersey
District of Columbia (pending)
Dwindling foreign exchange reserves of Sri Lanka:
Dwindling foreign exchange reserves
By the Economist
The Central Bank is certain that the foreign exchange reserves of the country at the end of 2008 are quite adequate. The gross official reserves of US$ 1,753 million by end December 2008 it states are equivalent to 1.5 months of imports on the basis of the previous 12 month average imports. The Bank also makes the point that the “total reserves, with and without ACU funds, by end 2008 were US $ 3,799 million and US $ 2,992 million respectively and these reserve levels are equivalent to 3.3 and 2.6 months of imports, respectively.” These several figures, especially the counting of reserves in the Asian Clearing Union as part of the country’s reserves, have contributed to some confusion. However that is not the issue that we would address here. We discuss here some of the basic issues in the external finances of the country and the emerging situation. The fact is that the external reserves have come down and there is a public apprehension that they are at a critically low level.
The Central Bank points out that the adequacy of the reserves for imports has been based on the high import bill of last year and that current and expected low imports, resulting from the sharp reduction in the oil and petroleum product import bills, would ensure that the actual number of months of imports is much higher than those quoted above. This is most likely as the downturn in import prices of oil in particular will ease the trade balance. The monthly requirements of imports are likely to be less than those of 2008. There are however other aspects that have to be considered too. This is in respect to the prospects for the country’s exports that we discuss later in this column.
Irrespective of the adequacy of the reserves for imports, the serious concern is that the foreign exchange reserves have been dwindling last year. This is clear when one compares the reserves at the end of the two previous years. In 2006 foreign exchange reserves (total official assets) were US $ 4005 million. At the end of 2007 it had risen to US$ 4956 million. The foreign exchange reserves at the end of 2008 were much lower at 2992 million US $. Therefore it is clear that the external reserves had dwindled significantly and were much lower than what it was at the end of the previous year. This is an incontrovertible fact. Moreover even when the foreign exchange reserves rose in 2007, it was due to heavy borrowing by the government. In fact the decrease in the foreign reserves in 2008 was partly owing to the repayment of loans taken previously.
The Central Bank’s expectation that import expenditure would be less this year is quite reasonable as import prices of petroleum and other essential imports have been low this year. If they remain at a low level, which is likely, there is no reason to think that the recessionary conditions would be reversed in the next ten months. Then the import bill would be significantly lower. Even more certain is the fact that even if oil prices rise they will not reach the heights of last year. In 2008 the country spent US $ 3368 million on oil imports alone. This was almost one fourth (24 percent) of the total import expenditure of US $ 14,008 million.
It may be realistic to expect the expenditure on oil to be about 30 percent less. Such an expectation is based not only on the price of oil remaining at current levels but that domestic consumption will not rise. Further reduction in the domestic fuel price could change this expectation. This is an important argument for keeping the price of petroleum products high through taxation. Similarly the prices of other imports are expected to remain around current levels. Lesser economic activity, especially in respect to manufactures, would also ease intermediate imports. If this were to happen then the import bill of the country would be significantly less.
There is however another part of the trade equation that must be considered. While import expenditure is likely to decline, export revenues too could drop significantly. This has happened in recent months. For instance, last December exports declined by 19.1 per cent compared to December 2007. The performance of agricultural and industrial exports, have been adversely affected by the downturn in commodity prices. Tea exports earnings decreased by 22.5 per cent in December mainly due to price reductions in the international market. Similarly rubber prices are on the decline. Therefore in considering the trade balance for this year the prospects of export expenditure decreasing must be counter balanced by the prospect of lower agricultural and industrial export earnings. On balance, the recessionary conditions are likely to benefit the trade balance more than being unfavourable to it. However any optimistic expectations in improvements in import expenditure must be tempered with the prospect of lower export earnings. The trade deficit may be less than in 2008, but it would nevertheless be a deficit and not a small deficit either.
The persistent trade deficits have not generally resulted in balance of payments deficits owing to capital inflows. Despite the unfavourable developments in trade the country has had small surpluses in the balance of payments. In 2007 the balance of payments surplus was US$ 531 million. In 2008 too the expectation is a balance of payments surplus of about US$ 400 million. In recent years this surplus in the balance of payment has been achieved owing to private remittances from abroad and large scale foreign borrowings. Private remittances have counterbalanced a significant proportion of the trade deficit. For instance in 2008 private remittances financed around one half of the trade deficit. In 2008 apart from the massive trade deficit there was an outflow of funds to repay a part of the foreign loans borrowed in earlier years. This also accounts for the dwindling of the foreign reserves of the country.
No doubt the government has plans to replenish the reserves through further borrowing. It is very important that such borrowing is on terms that are not too onerous. It is vital that the problem faced by the country at the present moment is not transformed into a burden for the future. The foreign debt of the country has reached a high proportion already and every effort must be made to ensure that debt servicing costs are not excessively onerous.
State finances on life-support
Politics Unwound by Rakshaka - Lakbima:
This is the week in which Fitch Ratings, the international financial outlook index brought down Sri Lanka’s rating from a ‘stable outlook’ to a ‘negative outlook’ underscoring the financial morass the state may be getting into, even as the war is near an end and the LTTE is on life-support.
Harsha de Silva, economist, had earlier in the week told TIME magazine that ‘’it just doesn’t work’’ to fight a war at such an expense because the government is in clear financial trouble due to the double impact of the global meltdown and the war-budget.
But, the people are definitely with the government, especially in this last mile when after decades and more for the first time there seems to be virtual certainty that the LTTE, as we know it, as an organized fighting force can now be eliminated.
Problems later
The provincial council polls which were deliberately made a referendum on the war, also clearly indicated that there is clear support for the government on its strategy to wipe out the LTTE and think about financial problems later.
However, the problems were getting messier, with a great many people being directly affected by the first sign of trouble in any melting-down economy —- the unraveling of ponzi schemes in which finance companies had offered unrealistic interest rates to investors.
When Lalith Kotelawala, the virtual financial czar of the country was remanded last week — it seemed that there was no more chance of keeping a lid on these nasty developments in the financial sector.
President told Cabinet that he is introducing a ‘stimulus package’ to help finance companies pay investors and tide over their immense difficulties, and Central Bank governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal was on hand to explain the package.
He said that monies lent by the government to finance companies would eventually be recovered by Lankaputra Bank, and that lending would be on collateral provided by the finance companies.
Ministers however were skeptical, saying there is little likelihood that monies could be recovered whereupon a senior minister had to intervene to say that this is what’s called a ‘stimulus package’, meaning it was also in effect ‘free money’’ to keep hapless investors from losing. The president intoned somberly that ‘the people should be protected from the deteriorating global situation.”
More ‘meltdowns’’ and other disasters could be in store for the people in the financial sector if the Fitch ratings etc., are anything to go by, even as gas prices came down drastically however, due to sliding gas and oil markets worldwide.
Embroiled
It’s in this atmosphere that the government and opposition parties handed in their nominations for the Western provincial council elections last week.
The UNP was embroiled in its usual post election leadership problem when the party’s parliamentary group met at Sri Kotha. Rukman Senanayake, Johnston Fernando, Lakshman Seneviratne, Jayalath Jayewardene etc., lambasted the leader and said his time is definitely up, but others such as Vajira Abeywardene, Renuka Herath etc., as usual said that this is not time to oust the leader when the UNP is fielding ‘a better list than the UPFA in the Western province and could win there.’
On the government’s side, the UPFA nominated Raginold Cooray the former chief minister at the head of the list in Kalutara, which could be seen as a demotion, and Sunil Jayamini at the top of the list in Colombo, which seemed to indicate that a relative newcomer at the top of the list would give the advantage to anyone who might top the preferences in Colombo.
Thilanga Sumathipala, probably the most publicly known face in the UPFA list started his publicity campaign last week soon after nominations were handed in a campaign office at his home in Punchiborella.
By the Economist
The Central Bank is certain that the foreign exchange reserves of the country at the end of 2008 are quite adequate. The gross official reserves of US$ 1,753 million by end December 2008 it states are equivalent to 1.5 months of imports on the basis of the previous 12 month average imports. The Bank also makes the point that the “total reserves, with and without ACU funds, by end 2008 were US $ 3,799 million and US $ 2,992 million respectively and these reserve levels are equivalent to 3.3 and 2.6 months of imports, respectively.” These several figures, especially the counting of reserves in the Asian Clearing Union as part of the country’s reserves, have contributed to some confusion. However that is not the issue that we would address here. We discuss here some of the basic issues in the external finances of the country and the emerging situation. The fact is that the external reserves have come down and there is a public apprehension that they are at a critically low level.
The Central Bank points out that the adequacy of the reserves for imports has been based on the high import bill of last year and that current and expected low imports, resulting from the sharp reduction in the oil and petroleum product import bills, would ensure that the actual number of months of imports is much higher than those quoted above. This is most likely as the downturn in import prices of oil in particular will ease the trade balance. The monthly requirements of imports are likely to be less than those of 2008. There are however other aspects that have to be considered too. This is in respect to the prospects for the country’s exports that we discuss later in this column.
Irrespective of the adequacy of the reserves for imports, the serious concern is that the foreign exchange reserves have been dwindling last year. This is clear when one compares the reserves at the end of the two previous years. In 2006 foreign exchange reserves (total official assets) were US $ 4005 million. At the end of 2007 it had risen to US$ 4956 million. The foreign exchange reserves at the end of 2008 were much lower at 2992 million US $. Therefore it is clear that the external reserves had dwindled significantly and were much lower than what it was at the end of the previous year. This is an incontrovertible fact. Moreover even when the foreign exchange reserves rose in 2007, it was due to heavy borrowing by the government. In fact the decrease in the foreign reserves in 2008 was partly owing to the repayment of loans taken previously.
The Central Bank’s expectation that import expenditure would be less this year is quite reasonable as import prices of petroleum and other essential imports have been low this year. If they remain at a low level, which is likely, there is no reason to think that the recessionary conditions would be reversed in the next ten months. Then the import bill would be significantly lower. Even more certain is the fact that even if oil prices rise they will not reach the heights of last year. In 2008 the country spent US $ 3368 million on oil imports alone. This was almost one fourth (24 percent) of the total import expenditure of US $ 14,008 million.
It may be realistic to expect the expenditure on oil to be about 30 percent less. Such an expectation is based not only on the price of oil remaining at current levels but that domestic consumption will not rise. Further reduction in the domestic fuel price could change this expectation. This is an important argument for keeping the price of petroleum products high through taxation. Similarly the prices of other imports are expected to remain around current levels. Lesser economic activity, especially in respect to manufactures, would also ease intermediate imports. If this were to happen then the import bill of the country would be significantly less.
There is however another part of the trade equation that must be considered. While import expenditure is likely to decline, export revenues too could drop significantly. This has happened in recent months. For instance, last December exports declined by 19.1 per cent compared to December 2007. The performance of agricultural and industrial exports, have been adversely affected by the downturn in commodity prices. Tea exports earnings decreased by 22.5 per cent in December mainly due to price reductions in the international market. Similarly rubber prices are on the decline. Therefore in considering the trade balance for this year the prospects of export expenditure decreasing must be counter balanced by the prospect of lower agricultural and industrial export earnings. On balance, the recessionary conditions are likely to benefit the trade balance more than being unfavourable to it. However any optimistic expectations in improvements in import expenditure must be tempered with the prospect of lower export earnings. The trade deficit may be less than in 2008, but it would nevertheless be a deficit and not a small deficit either.
The persistent trade deficits have not generally resulted in balance of payments deficits owing to capital inflows. Despite the unfavourable developments in trade the country has had small surpluses in the balance of payments. In 2007 the balance of payments surplus was US$ 531 million. In 2008 too the expectation is a balance of payments surplus of about US$ 400 million. In recent years this surplus in the balance of payment has been achieved owing to private remittances from abroad and large scale foreign borrowings. Private remittances have counterbalanced a significant proportion of the trade deficit. For instance in 2008 private remittances financed around one half of the trade deficit. In 2008 apart from the massive trade deficit there was an outflow of funds to repay a part of the foreign loans borrowed in earlier years. This also accounts for the dwindling of the foreign reserves of the country.
No doubt the government has plans to replenish the reserves through further borrowing. It is very important that such borrowing is on terms that are not too onerous. It is vital that the problem faced by the country at the present moment is not transformed into a burden for the future. The foreign debt of the country has reached a high proportion already and every effort must be made to ensure that debt servicing costs are not excessively onerous.
State finances on life-support
Politics Unwound by Rakshaka - Lakbima:
This is the week in which Fitch Ratings, the international financial outlook index brought down Sri Lanka’s rating from a ‘stable outlook’ to a ‘negative outlook’ underscoring the financial morass the state may be getting into, even as the war is near an end and the LTTE is on life-support.
Harsha de Silva, economist, had earlier in the week told TIME magazine that ‘’it just doesn’t work’’ to fight a war at such an expense because the government is in clear financial trouble due to the double impact of the global meltdown and the war-budget.
But, the people are definitely with the government, especially in this last mile when after decades and more for the first time there seems to be virtual certainty that the LTTE, as we know it, as an organized fighting force can now be eliminated.
Problems later
The provincial council polls which were deliberately made a referendum on the war, also clearly indicated that there is clear support for the government on its strategy to wipe out the LTTE and think about financial problems later.
However, the problems were getting messier, with a great many people being directly affected by the first sign of trouble in any melting-down economy —- the unraveling of ponzi schemes in which finance companies had offered unrealistic interest rates to investors.
When Lalith Kotelawala, the virtual financial czar of the country was remanded last week — it seemed that there was no more chance of keeping a lid on these nasty developments in the financial sector.
President told Cabinet that he is introducing a ‘stimulus package’ to help finance companies pay investors and tide over their immense difficulties, and Central Bank governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal was on hand to explain the package.
He said that monies lent by the government to finance companies would eventually be recovered by Lankaputra Bank, and that lending would be on collateral provided by the finance companies.
Ministers however were skeptical, saying there is little likelihood that monies could be recovered whereupon a senior minister had to intervene to say that this is what’s called a ‘stimulus package’, meaning it was also in effect ‘free money’’ to keep hapless investors from losing. The president intoned somberly that ‘the people should be protected from the deteriorating global situation.”
More ‘meltdowns’’ and other disasters could be in store for the people in the financial sector if the Fitch ratings etc., are anything to go by, even as gas prices came down drastically however, due to sliding gas and oil markets worldwide.
Embroiled
It’s in this atmosphere that the government and opposition parties handed in their nominations for the Western provincial council elections last week.
The UNP was embroiled in its usual post election leadership problem when the party’s parliamentary group met at Sri Kotha. Rukman Senanayake, Johnston Fernando, Lakshman Seneviratne, Jayalath Jayewardene etc., lambasted the leader and said his time is definitely up, but others such as Vajira Abeywardene, Renuka Herath etc., as usual said that this is not time to oust the leader when the UNP is fielding ‘a better list than the UPFA in the Western province and could win there.’
On the government’s side, the UPFA nominated Raginold Cooray the former chief minister at the head of the list in Kalutara, which could be seen as a demotion, and Sunil Jayamini at the top of the list in Colombo, which seemed to indicate that a relative newcomer at the top of the list would give the advantage to anyone who might top the preferences in Colombo.
Thilanga Sumathipala, probably the most publicly known face in the UPFA list started his publicity campaign last week soon after nominations were handed in a campaign office at his home in Punchiborella.
Grim economic forecast:World recession will Hit Lanka, Ronnie warns Biz Community
World recession will Hit Lanka, Ronnie warns Biz CommunityBy Winston de Valliere
Former Finance Minister Ronnie de Mel, now senior economic advisor to the President, warns that " the more disastrous consequences of the global recession will hit Sri Lanka any time from six months to a year from to date. The Sunday Island spoke at length with the former finance minister about his perceptions on how the global economic downturn will affect the Lankan economy. But first, a look at what the economy really portrays at the moment.
What does the economy really look like at the moment? Consider the hard facts.
Dwindling export revenue combined with higher import expenditure caused by global recession on the one hand and a depreciating rupee on the other paint a bleak picture in which appreciably lower tax revenue will logically compel government to resort to more foreign borrowings to fund development. The latter will cause a massive increase in external debt servicing on interest alone. Increased state borrowings from the banking system can leave us with a seriously cash-strapped private sector that will be compelled to resort to ad hoc short term borrowings from private sector commercial banks to merely stay afloat until the crisis is hopefully past.
Pressed for defence funding, the government will certainly be in no position to extend a lifeline to private banks to bankroll the private sector that will be compelled therefore to put development plans on hold. The broader picture would then suggest that one can forget all about planned budgetary development targets at which even the ADB has begun to look askance. An increasingly worried private sector, specially some listed companies, may not be declaring dividends at year’s end, 2009 or in other cases at end of March 2009. No matter what some brokers predict, the facts do not substantiate their optimism. The more forthright ones don’t want to be quoted. Inflationary trends show no signs of letting up despite some ministers claiming a drop in inflation citing lower commodity prices chiefly caused by greater agricultural output. They conveniently forget that this is done by footing a huge all round fertilizer subsidy, which would be politically suicidal to remove with several elections lined up for over the next two years. So much for sound fiscal policy!
With more internally displaced persons (an approximate 300,000) now ready for resettlement and rehabilitation in the north and east, and billions of dollars needed for rehabilitation and reconstruction of the east and those areas of the north which are ripe for such action, the pressures on the Treasury will right now be absolutely toe crunching. Add to that gloomy reality the dwindling external reserves in the context of a continuing drop in export revenue and what pops up is the picture of an economy under unrelenting siege teetering on the edge of a huge crisis.
This is the backdrop against which the Sunday Island had a frank chat with the former Finance Minister Ronnie De Mel, now the senior economic presidential advisor, on his perceptions of the direction in which the economy is headed.
Q: What’s your assessment of the impact of the current world economic downturn on the Sri Lankan economy?
De Mel: Businesses the world over have not fully understood the magnitude and inherent dangers in the current global economic crisis. I’ve observed and interpreted our private sector attitudes to this crisis as being similar to that of their global counterparts. Foreign businesses reacted too late to the crisis after it affected them and with negative consequences to the economies of their countries. This is obviously the case in Sri Lanka too. The recession has still not made deep inroads into our economy but it is my opinion that even our politicians, besides the business community, have been overlooking the potential threat to the stability of our economy that is inherent in the crisis, even to the extent of underestimating the adverse impact it could have on the country and the common man besides the business community."
Warning that the " recession is just beginning to affect us in a big way" de Mel feared that "its more disastrous consequences will be felt by Sri Lanka in about six months to one year’s time."
Q: What areas of the economy have already been hit by the global downturn?
De Mel: Tourism has been dragged deeper into the doldrums. I have never before in my political career seen the traditional tourist resort areas from Kalutara and Bentota down to Tangalla, Hambantota and Tissamaharama so totally bereft of tourists as in this last year. There are few low spending types but the big spenders are almost completely out. I have known these areas from the inception of tourism in 1965 having been an MP from this area for nearly 40 years. But this is the worst ever excepting the decline at the height of the JVP insurrection.
The tea and rubber sectors have also been seriously affected as foreign buying has dropped of very substantially. The smallholders who sustain the overall performance of these sectors produce between 65 to 70 percent of the country’s tea. Until the onset of the crisis, they received between Rs.50 to 75 for their green leaf. They now get between Rs.25 to Rs.35 a kilo and these are prices considerably below the cost of production. The rubber smallholder who used to get from between Rs.200 to Rs.300 a kilo of latex now gets a mere Rs.100 to Rs.120.The same is true of the spices range and our other minor export crops. Our exports have been hit all round. Though coconut has held up somewhat in comparative terms, there too prices are considerably lower.
Q: What about the apparel, textiles and industrial exports sectors?
De Mel: The entire industrial sector is just beginning to be affected with several smaller apparel factories having already wound up operations here while the bigger ones have started retrenching staff. One of our biggest solid tyre manufacturing factories which is ranked second largest in the world, recently retrenched 25 percent of its workforce of 8,000. There are others who are also retrenching while some others are not filling available vacancies.
Q: What are the concerns you have briefed the government about?
De Mel: I am deeply worried about our foreign employment and our foreign remittances which constitute one of the most vital forex earners for the country. The economic downturn has begun making inroads into the Dubai, Abu Dhabi and other Gulf and Middle-Eastern economies as well while the crisis has been exacerbated by the very serious downturn in Italy, France, Spain, UK, Malaysia, South Korea and even Japan. All this will result in the loss of jobs for Sri Lankan workers in those countries as the recession drags on resulting in a decline in remittances which will present a very serious problem to Sri Lanka before long.
Q: Which means our village economy that is sustained by these remittances will be badly hit….
De Mel: It will also very seriously affect our foreign exchange position and impact badly on our balance of payments.
Q: So if the global decline in demand for our products is not reversed soon, our industrial production will nosedive seriously?
De Mel: Yes because the crisis has very considerably hit almost all of the countries which are traditional importers of our products. At the moment, oil prices have dipped but there is no guarantee whatsoever that they will remain at today’s low levels of $38 to $ 40 a barrel for Brent or West Texas for long.
Q: Many countries have come out with economic revival packages. What’s your feeling about such an option for Sri Lanka?
De Mel: The first package from the US government helped a little bit in the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US but it hardly touched even the fringe of the overall crisis there. A second package of $789 billion came out a week ago. We will have to wait and see what results it will produce. Other countries hit by the crisis have also come out with similar packages. President Rajapaksa also announced a series of economic relief measures despite being seriously handicapped by the enormous military expenditure. With an end to the war the government will come out with a broader relief package to help the country tide over the difficult times which are approaching.
Q: All our donor countries have been seriously hit by the downturn and have necessarily had to deal with this crisis in their economies. How will this impact on their usual aid and grants to Sri Lanka?
De Mel: President Rajapaksa has been able to get large amounts of aid from China, Iran and several other countries. And I don’t envisage any great reduction of aid or other forms of assistance from donor countries either. I recall that during a recession in UK and Europe in the late 1970’s when I was finance minister, it was possible to get more aid during the recession because aid often means large contracts for firms in aid giving countries which increase employment opportunities for their people. I got all the aid we needed at concessionary terms for the Victoria Dam and other major hydro power and other development projects. I told the British Premier James Callaghan that when they help us build our dams and power stations they will also create jobs for their own people manufacturing sophisticated machinery needed and for connected work here. I used the same rationale in Germany. France and Sweden for some of our large construction works because during that recession they were looking for new avenues of employment for their people. So these things work both ways if one knows how to present a sound brief for aid and assistance.
Q: Have foreign banks in Colombo whose head offices in recession hit countries have been affected by the crisis modified their credit to our private sector industry and trade?
De Mel: I have not checked this out but banks such as HSBC, ICICI, Deutsch, Standard Chartered and some others have immense resources despite the crisis. I am fairly confident they won’t have any change of stance on any of their operations in Colombo.
Q: Is there the possibility of an earlier than expected resurgence of the global economies which will save the day for Sri Lanka?
De Mel: The huge bail out programs would suggest otherwise and economists in those countries are not expecting a turn around for anything between 18 months to four or five years.
Former Finance Minister Ronnie de Mel, now senior economic advisor to the President, warns that " the more disastrous consequences of the global recession will hit Sri Lanka any time from six months to a year from to date. The Sunday Island spoke at length with the former finance minister about his perceptions on how the global economic downturn will affect the Lankan economy. But first, a look at what the economy really portrays at the moment.
What does the economy really look like at the moment? Consider the hard facts.
Dwindling export revenue combined with higher import expenditure caused by global recession on the one hand and a depreciating rupee on the other paint a bleak picture in which appreciably lower tax revenue will logically compel government to resort to more foreign borrowings to fund development. The latter will cause a massive increase in external debt servicing on interest alone. Increased state borrowings from the banking system can leave us with a seriously cash-strapped private sector that will be compelled to resort to ad hoc short term borrowings from private sector commercial banks to merely stay afloat until the crisis is hopefully past.
Pressed for defence funding, the government will certainly be in no position to extend a lifeline to private banks to bankroll the private sector that will be compelled therefore to put development plans on hold. The broader picture would then suggest that one can forget all about planned budgetary development targets at which even the ADB has begun to look askance. An increasingly worried private sector, specially some listed companies, may not be declaring dividends at year’s end, 2009 or in other cases at end of March 2009. No matter what some brokers predict, the facts do not substantiate their optimism. The more forthright ones don’t want to be quoted. Inflationary trends show no signs of letting up despite some ministers claiming a drop in inflation citing lower commodity prices chiefly caused by greater agricultural output. They conveniently forget that this is done by footing a huge all round fertilizer subsidy, which would be politically suicidal to remove with several elections lined up for over the next two years. So much for sound fiscal policy!
With more internally displaced persons (an approximate 300,000) now ready for resettlement and rehabilitation in the north and east, and billions of dollars needed for rehabilitation and reconstruction of the east and those areas of the north which are ripe for such action, the pressures on the Treasury will right now be absolutely toe crunching. Add to that gloomy reality the dwindling external reserves in the context of a continuing drop in export revenue and what pops up is the picture of an economy under unrelenting siege teetering on the edge of a huge crisis.
This is the backdrop against which the Sunday Island had a frank chat with the former Finance Minister Ronnie De Mel, now the senior economic presidential advisor, on his perceptions of the direction in which the economy is headed.
Q: What’s your assessment of the impact of the current world economic downturn on the Sri Lankan economy?
De Mel: Businesses the world over have not fully understood the magnitude and inherent dangers in the current global economic crisis. I’ve observed and interpreted our private sector attitudes to this crisis as being similar to that of their global counterparts. Foreign businesses reacted too late to the crisis after it affected them and with negative consequences to the economies of their countries. This is obviously the case in Sri Lanka too. The recession has still not made deep inroads into our economy but it is my opinion that even our politicians, besides the business community, have been overlooking the potential threat to the stability of our economy that is inherent in the crisis, even to the extent of underestimating the adverse impact it could have on the country and the common man besides the business community."
Warning that the " recession is just beginning to affect us in a big way" de Mel feared that "its more disastrous consequences will be felt by Sri Lanka in about six months to one year’s time."
Q: What areas of the economy have already been hit by the global downturn?
De Mel: Tourism has been dragged deeper into the doldrums. I have never before in my political career seen the traditional tourist resort areas from Kalutara and Bentota down to Tangalla, Hambantota and Tissamaharama so totally bereft of tourists as in this last year. There are few low spending types but the big spenders are almost completely out. I have known these areas from the inception of tourism in 1965 having been an MP from this area for nearly 40 years. But this is the worst ever excepting the decline at the height of the JVP insurrection.
The tea and rubber sectors have also been seriously affected as foreign buying has dropped of very substantially. The smallholders who sustain the overall performance of these sectors produce between 65 to 70 percent of the country’s tea. Until the onset of the crisis, they received between Rs.50 to 75 for their green leaf. They now get between Rs.25 to Rs.35 a kilo and these are prices considerably below the cost of production. The rubber smallholder who used to get from between Rs.200 to Rs.300 a kilo of latex now gets a mere Rs.100 to Rs.120.The same is true of the spices range and our other minor export crops. Our exports have been hit all round. Though coconut has held up somewhat in comparative terms, there too prices are considerably lower.
Q: What about the apparel, textiles and industrial exports sectors?
De Mel: The entire industrial sector is just beginning to be affected with several smaller apparel factories having already wound up operations here while the bigger ones have started retrenching staff. One of our biggest solid tyre manufacturing factories which is ranked second largest in the world, recently retrenched 25 percent of its workforce of 8,000. There are others who are also retrenching while some others are not filling available vacancies.
Q: What are the concerns you have briefed the government about?
De Mel: I am deeply worried about our foreign employment and our foreign remittances which constitute one of the most vital forex earners for the country. The economic downturn has begun making inroads into the Dubai, Abu Dhabi and other Gulf and Middle-Eastern economies as well while the crisis has been exacerbated by the very serious downturn in Italy, France, Spain, UK, Malaysia, South Korea and even Japan. All this will result in the loss of jobs for Sri Lankan workers in those countries as the recession drags on resulting in a decline in remittances which will present a very serious problem to Sri Lanka before long.
Q: Which means our village economy that is sustained by these remittances will be badly hit….
De Mel: It will also very seriously affect our foreign exchange position and impact badly on our balance of payments.
Q: So if the global decline in demand for our products is not reversed soon, our industrial production will nosedive seriously?
De Mel: Yes because the crisis has very considerably hit almost all of the countries which are traditional importers of our products. At the moment, oil prices have dipped but there is no guarantee whatsoever that they will remain at today’s low levels of $38 to $ 40 a barrel for Brent or West Texas for long.
Q: Many countries have come out with economic revival packages. What’s your feeling about such an option for Sri Lanka?
De Mel: The first package from the US government helped a little bit in the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US but it hardly touched even the fringe of the overall crisis there. A second package of $789 billion came out a week ago. We will have to wait and see what results it will produce. Other countries hit by the crisis have also come out with similar packages. President Rajapaksa also announced a series of economic relief measures despite being seriously handicapped by the enormous military expenditure. With an end to the war the government will come out with a broader relief package to help the country tide over the difficult times which are approaching.
Q: All our donor countries have been seriously hit by the downturn and have necessarily had to deal with this crisis in their economies. How will this impact on their usual aid and grants to Sri Lanka?
De Mel: President Rajapaksa has been able to get large amounts of aid from China, Iran and several other countries. And I don’t envisage any great reduction of aid or other forms of assistance from donor countries either. I recall that during a recession in UK and Europe in the late 1970’s when I was finance minister, it was possible to get more aid during the recession because aid often means large contracts for firms in aid giving countries which increase employment opportunities for their people. I got all the aid we needed at concessionary terms for the Victoria Dam and other major hydro power and other development projects. I told the British Premier James Callaghan that when they help us build our dams and power stations they will also create jobs for their own people manufacturing sophisticated machinery needed and for connected work here. I used the same rationale in Germany. France and Sweden for some of our large construction works because during that recession they were looking for new avenues of employment for their people. So these things work both ways if one knows how to present a sound brief for aid and assistance.
Q: Have foreign banks in Colombo whose head offices in recession hit countries have been affected by the crisis modified their credit to our private sector industry and trade?
De Mel: I have not checked this out but banks such as HSBC, ICICI, Deutsch, Standard Chartered and some others have immense resources despite the crisis. I am fairly confident they won’t have any change of stance on any of their operations in Colombo.
Q: Is there the possibility of an earlier than expected resurgence of the global economies which will save the day for Sri Lanka?
De Mel: The huge bail out programs would suggest otherwise and economists in those countries are not expecting a turn around for anything between 18 months to four or five years.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Canadian Leader of the Official Opposition expresses deep concerns about the continuing violence in Sri Lanka
Canadian Leader of the Official Opposition expresses deep concerns about the continuing violence in Sri Lanka
Feb 28, 2009, 07:38 Digg this story!
Ruba Xavier - TNS
Toronto: Michael Ignatieff, Leader of the Official Opposition in Canada, released a statement today expressing deep concerns about the continuing violence in Sri Lanka. Hi statement further states, countless lives are being lost on a daily basis and more than 250,000 civilians are trapped on the frontline. An immediate ceasefire is needed now more than ever.
Michael Ignatieff urged both the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to work together to find every possible way to save lives and to further avert a humanitarian disaster.
Canadian Leader of the Opposition
He also calls on the international community to come together to work towards political reconciliation in Sri Lanka and to provide humanitarian assistance where it is needed. He said, we have a responsibility to protect innocent civilians whose lives are at risk as a result of this military conflict.
Full Text of Press Release from the Liberal Party Leader of Canada:
Date February 27, 2009
For Release: Immediate
Statement from Michael Ignatieff, Leader of the Official Opposition, on the situation in Sri Lanka
I am deeply concerned about the continuing violence in Sri Lanka. Countless lives are being lost on a daily basis and more than 250,000 civilians are trapped on the frontline. An immediate ceasefire is needed now more than ever.
I urge both the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to work together to find every possible way to save lives and to further avert a humanitarian disaster.
I also call on the international community to come together to work towards political reconciliation in Sri Lanka and to provide humanitarian assistance where it is needed. We have a responsibility to protect innocent civilians whose lives are at risk as a result of this military conflict.
In this regard, I urge United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to send a special envoy to Sri Lanka to find ways to ensure no further loss of life and to begin immediate discussions on the political future of the country involving all sectors of Sri Lankan society.
There is no excuse for terrorism and attacks on civilians, and the world has to show its concern for the protection of the civilian population.
Our thoughts are with the people of Sri Lanka at this time as well as the Canadians of Sri Lankan descent whose lives are affected by this terrible situation.-30-
Contact:
Press Office
Office of the Leader of the Opposition
613-996-6740
Feb 28, 2009, 07:38 Digg this story!
Ruba Xavier - TNS
Toronto: Michael Ignatieff, Leader of the Official Opposition in Canada, released a statement today expressing deep concerns about the continuing violence in Sri Lanka. Hi statement further states, countless lives are being lost on a daily basis and more than 250,000 civilians are trapped on the frontline. An immediate ceasefire is needed now more than ever.
Michael Ignatieff urged both the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to work together to find every possible way to save lives and to further avert a humanitarian disaster.
Canadian Leader of the Opposition
He also calls on the international community to come together to work towards political reconciliation in Sri Lanka and to provide humanitarian assistance where it is needed. He said, we have a responsibility to protect innocent civilians whose lives are at risk as a result of this military conflict.
Full Text of Press Release from the Liberal Party Leader of Canada:
Date February 27, 2009
For Release: Immediate
Statement from Michael Ignatieff, Leader of the Official Opposition, on the situation in Sri Lanka
I am deeply concerned about the continuing violence in Sri Lanka. Countless lives are being lost on a daily basis and more than 250,000 civilians are trapped on the frontline. An immediate ceasefire is needed now more than ever.
I urge both the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to work together to find every possible way to save lives and to further avert a humanitarian disaster.
I also call on the international community to come together to work towards political reconciliation in Sri Lanka and to provide humanitarian assistance where it is needed. We have a responsibility to protect innocent civilians whose lives are at risk as a result of this military conflict.
In this regard, I urge United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to send a special envoy to Sri Lanka to find ways to ensure no further loss of life and to begin immediate discussions on the political future of the country involving all sectors of Sri Lankan society.
There is no excuse for terrorism and attacks on civilians, and the world has to show its concern for the protection of the civilian population.
Our thoughts are with the people of Sri Lanka at this time as well as the Canadians of Sri Lankan descent whose lives are affected by this terrible situation.-30-
Contact:
Press Office
Office of the Leader of the Opposition
613-996-6740
This is a grave blow to Democracy -UNP
This is a grave blow to Democracy -UNP
Friday, February 27, 2009 Leave a Comment
(February 27, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The UNP records its strong protest against the anti Democratic action of the Govt. in the arrest of ‘Sudar Oli’ Editor N. Vidyadaran, the United National Front, a main opposition in Sri Lanka said in a press statement.
According to the statement, “if the Govt. suspects that he has been assisting the LTTE or had terrorist connections , there is a legal procedure to follow for the Govt. It could have legally and duly arrested him and produced to the Courts. In that event , we certainly have no objections.”
“But, the Govt. resorted to its dastardly action of abducting him in the infamously famous white Van ,using force. This is a grave blow to Democracy.”
“Because of these violations of law and the violence directed against the Journalists , the whole World is looking down on Sri Lanka which has lost its good image. This unlawful action, is the latest in the series of violence and assassinations which claimed the life of Lasantha Wickremetunge and launched attacks on Upali Tennekoon and many others.”
“If this abduction by any chance turns into a threat to his life , nothing can be more shameful and disgraceful than that to tarnish the image of the Govt. in the opinion of the world.”
“Let those who are behind this be reminded that these actions inspired by irresponsibility, lack of foresightedness and despicable motives can only do more harm than any good to the country and the people.”
Vithyatharan attacked by 'abductors' inside white-van
[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 February 2009, 17:06 GMT]
The wife of Chudaroli (Sudar Oli) Editor who was 'abducted' first and later claimed 'arrested' by the Sri Lankan Police, told media Thursday night that her husband had been attacked on his head and heels inside the white-van by the abductors. Meanwhile, Vithyatharan was dumped at Demattagoda by the abductors, Police told Mrs. Kala Vithytharan Thursday evening. However, Vithyatharan is detained at the Crime Division of the Police in Demattagoda where his wife visited him with their three children with police permission.
In the meantime, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, when contacted by Uthayan Press Group Chairman M. Saravanapavan, reportedly claimed that it was not abduction, but an arrest as police was involved in it.
However, there was no arrest warrant or police vehicle involved in the episode at the funeral parlour where the editor was 'abducted’.
Media circles in Colombo said the act was a pre-planned intimidation against the prominent Tamil editor.
Meanwhile, Sravanabavan, said that Mount Lavinia police had interrogated him for nearly an hour Thursday evening at his residence on 70 Davidson Road in Bambalapitiya.
The interrogating police officers had asked for information on how Vithyatharan was abducted besides other details, he said.
Chronology:
26.02.09 RSF seeks guarantee of Vithyatharan's safety
26.02.09 Vithyatharan attacked by 'abductors' inside white-..
26.02.09 Prominent Tamil Editor abducted in Colombo, later ..
Friday, February 27, 2009 Leave a Comment
(February 27, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The UNP records its strong protest against the anti Democratic action of the Govt. in the arrest of ‘Sudar Oli’ Editor N. Vidyadaran, the United National Front, a main opposition in Sri Lanka said in a press statement.
According to the statement, “if the Govt. suspects that he has been assisting the LTTE or had terrorist connections , there is a legal procedure to follow for the Govt. It could have legally and duly arrested him and produced to the Courts. In that event , we certainly have no objections.”
“But, the Govt. resorted to its dastardly action of abducting him in the infamously famous white Van ,using force. This is a grave blow to Democracy.”
“Because of these violations of law and the violence directed against the Journalists , the whole World is looking down on Sri Lanka which has lost its good image. This unlawful action, is the latest in the series of violence and assassinations which claimed the life of Lasantha Wickremetunge and launched attacks on Upali Tennekoon and many others.”
“If this abduction by any chance turns into a threat to his life , nothing can be more shameful and disgraceful than that to tarnish the image of the Govt. in the opinion of the world.”
“Let those who are behind this be reminded that these actions inspired by irresponsibility, lack of foresightedness and despicable motives can only do more harm than any good to the country and the people.”
Vithyatharan attacked by 'abductors' inside white-van
[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 February 2009, 17:06 GMT]
The wife of Chudaroli (Sudar Oli) Editor who was 'abducted' first and later claimed 'arrested' by the Sri Lankan Police, told media Thursday night that her husband had been attacked on his head and heels inside the white-van by the abductors. Meanwhile, Vithyatharan was dumped at Demattagoda by the abductors, Police told Mrs. Kala Vithytharan Thursday evening. However, Vithyatharan is detained at the Crime Division of the Police in Demattagoda where his wife visited him with their three children with police permission.
In the meantime, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, when contacted by Uthayan Press Group Chairman M. Saravanapavan, reportedly claimed that it was not abduction, but an arrest as police was involved in it.
However, there was no arrest warrant or police vehicle involved in the episode at the funeral parlour where the editor was 'abducted’.
Media circles in Colombo said the act was a pre-planned intimidation against the prominent Tamil editor.
Meanwhile, Sravanabavan, said that Mount Lavinia police had interrogated him for nearly an hour Thursday evening at his residence on 70 Davidson Road in Bambalapitiya.
The interrogating police officers had asked for information on how Vithyatharan was abducted besides other details, he said.
Chronology:
26.02.09 RSF seeks guarantee of Vithyatharan's safety
26.02.09 Vithyatharan attacked by 'abductors' inside white-..
26.02.09 Prominent Tamil Editor abducted in Colombo, later ..
Security Council discussions and back ground review on Sri Lanka. Great listening.
A worthwhile debate to on disgusting UN politics. Mathew Lee makes some insightful and informed points from how an outsider/westerner should see the current situation in Sri Lanka.
Praise be to him at this horrific time for Tamil civilians. What a sincere and committed journalist!
His global perspective will be educational for Tamil activists, while his insights and the courage of his conviction inspiring for westerners and Sri Lankan observers alike.
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
A debate that must be listen to.
UN Plaza: Pay Attention to Sri Lanka!
The pending war crimes indictment of Sudan’s president (11:14)
Matthew asks why Sri Lanka isn’t on the Security Council agenda (09:30)
Are humanitarian NGOs ignoring Sri Lanka? (09:31)
Obama’s first UN appearance leaked? (03:02)
Will the US join the Human Rights Council? The ICC? (05:53)
Damning report on UN peacekeeping efforts in Congo (11:58)
Play entire diavlog
Recorded: February 12 Posted: February 14
Praise be to him at this horrific time for Tamil civilians. What a sincere and committed journalist!
His global perspective will be educational for Tamil activists, while his insights and the courage of his conviction inspiring for westerners and Sri Lankan observers alike.
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
A debate that must be listen to.
UN Plaza: Pay Attention to Sri Lanka!
The pending war crimes indictment of Sudan’s president (11:14)
Matthew asks why Sri Lanka isn’t on the Security Council agenda (09:30)
Are humanitarian NGOs ignoring Sri Lanka? (09:31)
Obama’s first UN appearance leaked? (03:02)
Will the US join the Human Rights Council? The ICC? (05:53)
Damning report on UN peacekeeping efforts in Congo (11:58)
Play entire diavlog
Recorded: February 12 Posted: February 14
Statement by John Holmes to the UN Security Council
Statement by John Holmes to the UN Security Council
Briefing to the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka: Statement by John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator
Thank you, Mr. President, for this opportunity to brief the Council on my recent visit to Sri Lanka.
As you know, the humanitarian situation in northern Sri Lanka has deteriorated significantly over the last few months, in particular since the beginning of this year. As Sri Lankan Government forces have advanced deep into the Vanni area, which had been under the control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, almost all the civilian population has been progressively displaced along with the LTTE. They are now in a rapidly shrinking pocket of land, and are increasingly being squeezed into a narrow coastal strip of 14 square kilometers, declared a 'no-fire zone' by the Sri Lanka Government, as shown in the map that I have distributed. Many of these people have been displaced many times in recent months, and indeed over the years, but they now face very great danger from fighting between the Sri Lankan Government forces and the LTTE. And there is strong evidence that the LTTE are preventing them from leaving.
Estimates vary of the number of civilians trapped, from 70,000 according to the Government, through around 200,000 according to UN estimates, up to 300,000 or more according to Tamil groups. The number of casualties from the fighting, among whom we believe are many civilians, cannot be verified in the absence of independent sources, since humanitarian agencies and the media have no access to the area, but we believe dozens of people per day at least are being killed and many more wounded.
The physical condition of these civilians is also of increasing concern. Because of the fighting in late January, land convoys organized by the WFP were suspended, leaving only the Government Agents and the ICRC providing some relief supplies by sea. Food, medical supplies, clean water, sanitation facilities and shelter are now extremely short. The risks from hunger and diseases are growing rapidly, in addition to those from the fighting.
Mr. President, the purpose of my visit was to obtain first-hand information about the dire humanitarian situation of those trapped, to look at arrangements for taking care of those who manage to escape, and to promote compliance by all the parties with international humanitarian law and international principles and standards for treatment of the displaced. I had discussions with the highest levels of the Government, including the President. I also met opposition politicians, including the leader of one of the important Tamil political parties; the Co-Chairs, namely the US, Norway, Japan and EU, as well as a wider selection of donors; and UN Agencies, NGOs, the ICRC, and representatives of civil society.
An important part of the visit was to Vavuniya, just south of the formerly LTTE held area, where some 36,000 IDPs who escaped from the fighting have been accommodated in the last three weeks. I visited transit sites in a school and other local buildings, where temporary shelters and other facilities have been set up by the Government and local authorities, with the help of UN agencies, the ICRC and NGOs. I also visited a local hospital where some of the injured evacuated by sea from the Vanni pocket are being treated, and a large site to which the IDPs are gradually being moved - Menik farm - which has caused much controversy because of accusations that it is intended to house Tamil IDPs on a long term basis against their will. In both the transit site and Menik farm, basic needs such as food, shelter, clean water, sanitation and health care appeared to be being met, despite serious overcrowding in some of the transit sites. UN agencies and NGOs now have more or less free access to these sites, which is very important. But movement into and out of them is otherwise currently highly and unacceptably restricted.
Mr. President, I highlighted a number of key humanitarian issues with all I met. First and foremost, I expressed my extreme concern about the fate of the tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the Vanni pocket. I called on both sides to respect international humanitarian law, to ensure the protection of the civilians there, and to do everything possible to avoid further civilian casualties. This includes guaranteeing the safety and the security of a number of UN national staff and their dependents, and of NGO staff and their dependents, still trapped with the rest of the civilian population. I called in particular on the LTTE to let the civilian population leave freely, amid credible reports of shootings of some trying to flee, and to stop forced recruitment, especially of children. I also urged the Government to do all they could to make it possible for the civilian population to get out safely, including by means of agreement to a temporary halt to hostilities or a humanitarian corridor to allow people to leave, if this could be arranged and agreed, and in general to ensure a peaceful, orderly and humane end to the fighting. The risk of a very bloody end to this long running conflict is otherwise unacceptably high.
The Government assured me at every level that they have virtually stopped using heavy weapons because of their recognition of the need to spare the civilian population, who are of course their own citizens. It remains unclear how far this is the case in reality.
Secondly, I called upon both the Government and the LTTE to allow unhindered humanitarian access, to ensure that sufficient relief supplies are delivered into the Vanni pocket. Latest efforts by the Government in cooperation with the ICRC and WFP to ship food and medical supplies via the sea route are welcome. For example, on 26 February, 40 metric tonnes of food provided by WFP were delivered by a tugboat chartered by the Government. UN staff and dependents in the no-fire zone played a key role in its offloading and distribution. The next similar shipment by WFP is planned for this weekend. This is in addition to previous use of an ICRC-chartered passenger ferry, with a capacity of 10 metric tonnes, whose main task is to evacuate the wounded and other particularly vulnerable individuals. Since these evacuations started two weeks ago, nearly 2,000 people have managed to get out by this route. I repeat that recent supply deliveries are welcome, but to have any chance of meeting the most basic requirements of those trapped, such operations need to be scaled up much further.
Thirdly, I emphasized to the Government at every level that the treatment of IDPs has to be in line with international standards and principles. I urged the Government to step-up capacity and arrangements for receiving IDPs in Vavuniya dramatically, especially by allocating additional land for temporary sites, in view of what I very much hope will be an imminent major influx of those currently trapped. I understand that, since my visit, an extra 250 acres have been cleared for temporary sites to accommodate 25,000 people. We expect another 400 acres to be allocated very soon. In addition, I urged the Government to move swiftly to eliminate progressively the military presence inside IDP sites, and to ensure increasing freedom of movement for the IDPs. I also raised specific concerns with the Government about the transparency of the initial security screening processes and about cases of family separation, and stressed the need for enhanced monitoring by the ICRC and UNHCR. I was assured by the Government that UNHCR can be present during the screening as the displaced leave the Vanni area, and that the Government will soon complete the registration of existing IDPs and distribute temporary ID cards, which will help to allow increasing freedom of movement. I understand that IDPs over 60 years of age have already been allowed to move out of the IDP sites to stay with relatives outside the camps where possible.
Fourthly, I reiterated the importance of the displaced being able to return to their places of origin as soon as possible. The Government, at every level, assured me that this was their firm intention, including the goal of returning 80 percent of the IDPs by the end of 2009, once the necessary de-mining is completed. I underscored the need to put to rest suspicions of wanting to manipulate the ethnic mix in the north or keeping IDPs in long-term camps against their will.
Finally, while not part of my humanitarian mandate, I urged the Government to take the historic opportunity to move swiftly, after the end of the fighting, to tackle underlying political issues, and move to a generally acceptable devolution settlement on a fully democratic basis.
Mr. President, I understand that there are continuing attempts via intermediaries to persuade the LTTE to let the civilians go and agree on a peaceful end to the fighting. I desperately hope these attempts will succeed very soon. I also urge the Government of Sri Lanka to hold back from any final military battle in order to allow time for the civilian population to get out safely, one way or another.
Mr. President, the Common Humanitarian Action Plan, or CHAP, 2009 for Sri Lanka was launched on 18 February, for a total amount of USD155 million. In order to accelerate humanitarian response by UN agencies in partnership with NGOs, I have released USD 10 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund. The funds will be utilized for life-saving activities in the areas of protection, food, nutrition, health, shelter, water and sanitation, and emergency education. I appeal to the donor community to respond generously to the CHAP, in the light of the existing and future needs in this very worrying situation.
Mr. President, my visit to Sri Lanka was intended as a visible demonstration of the international community's high level of concern about the humanitarian consequences of the continuing fighting. I trust that my pleas to all parties to do all they can to protect civilians and respect international humanitarian law will not fall on deaf ears. The continuing close attention of the international community will be a very important part of this, including scrutiny of the implementation of the assurances given by the Government. I urge again all those with any influence on the positions of the LTTE to use that influence now to persuade them to let the civilian population go. There is no time to lose.
Thank you for your attention.
Briefing to the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka: Statement by John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator
Thank you, Mr. President, for this opportunity to brief the Council on my recent visit to Sri Lanka.
As you know, the humanitarian situation in northern Sri Lanka has deteriorated significantly over the last few months, in particular since the beginning of this year. As Sri Lankan Government forces have advanced deep into the Vanni area, which had been under the control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, almost all the civilian population has been progressively displaced along with the LTTE. They are now in a rapidly shrinking pocket of land, and are increasingly being squeezed into a narrow coastal strip of 14 square kilometers, declared a 'no-fire zone' by the Sri Lanka Government, as shown in the map that I have distributed. Many of these people have been displaced many times in recent months, and indeed over the years, but they now face very great danger from fighting between the Sri Lankan Government forces and the LTTE. And there is strong evidence that the LTTE are preventing them from leaving.
Estimates vary of the number of civilians trapped, from 70,000 according to the Government, through around 200,000 according to UN estimates, up to 300,000 or more according to Tamil groups. The number of casualties from the fighting, among whom we believe are many civilians, cannot be verified in the absence of independent sources, since humanitarian agencies and the media have no access to the area, but we believe dozens of people per day at least are being killed and many more wounded.
The physical condition of these civilians is also of increasing concern. Because of the fighting in late January, land convoys organized by the WFP were suspended, leaving only the Government Agents and the ICRC providing some relief supplies by sea. Food, medical supplies, clean water, sanitation facilities and shelter are now extremely short. The risks from hunger and diseases are growing rapidly, in addition to those from the fighting.
Mr. President, the purpose of my visit was to obtain first-hand information about the dire humanitarian situation of those trapped, to look at arrangements for taking care of those who manage to escape, and to promote compliance by all the parties with international humanitarian law and international principles and standards for treatment of the displaced. I had discussions with the highest levels of the Government, including the President. I also met opposition politicians, including the leader of one of the important Tamil political parties; the Co-Chairs, namely the US, Norway, Japan and EU, as well as a wider selection of donors; and UN Agencies, NGOs, the ICRC, and representatives of civil society.
An important part of the visit was to Vavuniya, just south of the formerly LTTE held area, where some 36,000 IDPs who escaped from the fighting have been accommodated in the last three weeks. I visited transit sites in a school and other local buildings, where temporary shelters and other facilities have been set up by the Government and local authorities, with the help of UN agencies, the ICRC and NGOs. I also visited a local hospital where some of the injured evacuated by sea from the Vanni pocket are being treated, and a large site to which the IDPs are gradually being moved - Menik farm - which has caused much controversy because of accusations that it is intended to house Tamil IDPs on a long term basis against their will. In both the transit site and Menik farm, basic needs such as food, shelter, clean water, sanitation and health care appeared to be being met, despite serious overcrowding in some of the transit sites. UN agencies and NGOs now have more or less free access to these sites, which is very important. But movement into and out of them is otherwise currently highly and unacceptably restricted.
Mr. President, I highlighted a number of key humanitarian issues with all I met. First and foremost, I expressed my extreme concern about the fate of the tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the Vanni pocket. I called on both sides to respect international humanitarian law, to ensure the protection of the civilians there, and to do everything possible to avoid further civilian casualties. This includes guaranteeing the safety and the security of a number of UN national staff and their dependents, and of NGO staff and their dependents, still trapped with the rest of the civilian population. I called in particular on the LTTE to let the civilian population leave freely, amid credible reports of shootings of some trying to flee, and to stop forced recruitment, especially of children. I also urged the Government to do all they could to make it possible for the civilian population to get out safely, including by means of agreement to a temporary halt to hostilities or a humanitarian corridor to allow people to leave, if this could be arranged and agreed, and in general to ensure a peaceful, orderly and humane end to the fighting. The risk of a very bloody end to this long running conflict is otherwise unacceptably high.
The Government assured me at every level that they have virtually stopped using heavy weapons because of their recognition of the need to spare the civilian population, who are of course their own citizens. It remains unclear how far this is the case in reality.
Secondly, I called upon both the Government and the LTTE to allow unhindered humanitarian access, to ensure that sufficient relief supplies are delivered into the Vanni pocket. Latest efforts by the Government in cooperation with the ICRC and WFP to ship food and medical supplies via the sea route are welcome. For example, on 26 February, 40 metric tonnes of food provided by WFP were delivered by a tugboat chartered by the Government. UN staff and dependents in the no-fire zone played a key role in its offloading and distribution. The next similar shipment by WFP is planned for this weekend. This is in addition to previous use of an ICRC-chartered passenger ferry, with a capacity of 10 metric tonnes, whose main task is to evacuate the wounded and other particularly vulnerable individuals. Since these evacuations started two weeks ago, nearly 2,000 people have managed to get out by this route. I repeat that recent supply deliveries are welcome, but to have any chance of meeting the most basic requirements of those trapped, such operations need to be scaled up much further.
Thirdly, I emphasized to the Government at every level that the treatment of IDPs has to be in line with international standards and principles. I urged the Government to step-up capacity and arrangements for receiving IDPs in Vavuniya dramatically, especially by allocating additional land for temporary sites, in view of what I very much hope will be an imminent major influx of those currently trapped. I understand that, since my visit, an extra 250 acres have been cleared for temporary sites to accommodate 25,000 people. We expect another 400 acres to be allocated very soon. In addition, I urged the Government to move swiftly to eliminate progressively the military presence inside IDP sites, and to ensure increasing freedom of movement for the IDPs. I also raised specific concerns with the Government about the transparency of the initial security screening processes and about cases of family separation, and stressed the need for enhanced monitoring by the ICRC and UNHCR. I was assured by the Government that UNHCR can be present during the screening as the displaced leave the Vanni area, and that the Government will soon complete the registration of existing IDPs and distribute temporary ID cards, which will help to allow increasing freedom of movement. I understand that IDPs over 60 years of age have already been allowed to move out of the IDP sites to stay with relatives outside the camps where possible.
Fourthly, I reiterated the importance of the displaced being able to return to their places of origin as soon as possible. The Government, at every level, assured me that this was their firm intention, including the goal of returning 80 percent of the IDPs by the end of 2009, once the necessary de-mining is completed. I underscored the need to put to rest suspicions of wanting to manipulate the ethnic mix in the north or keeping IDPs in long-term camps against their will.
Finally, while not part of my humanitarian mandate, I urged the Government to take the historic opportunity to move swiftly, after the end of the fighting, to tackle underlying political issues, and move to a generally acceptable devolution settlement on a fully democratic basis.
Mr. President, I understand that there are continuing attempts via intermediaries to persuade the LTTE to let the civilians go and agree on a peaceful end to the fighting. I desperately hope these attempts will succeed very soon. I also urge the Government of Sri Lanka to hold back from any final military battle in order to allow time for the civilian population to get out safely, one way or another.
Mr. President, the Common Humanitarian Action Plan, or CHAP, 2009 for Sri Lanka was launched on 18 February, for a total amount of USD155 million. In order to accelerate humanitarian response by UN agencies in partnership with NGOs, I have released USD 10 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund. The funds will be utilized for life-saving activities in the areas of protection, food, nutrition, health, shelter, water and sanitation, and emergency education. I appeal to the donor community to respond generously to the CHAP, in the light of the existing and future needs in this very worrying situation.
Mr. President, my visit to Sri Lanka was intended as a visible demonstration of the international community's high level of concern about the humanitarian consequences of the continuing fighting. I trust that my pleas to all parties to do all they can to protect civilians and respect international humanitarian law will not fall on deaf ears. The continuing close attention of the international community will be a very important part of this, including scrutiny of the implementation of the assurances given by the Government. I urge again all those with any influence on the positions of the LTTE to use that influence now to persuade them to let the civilian population go. There is no time to lose.
Thank you for your attention.
On Sri Lanka, UN Meeting Called One-Off, UK Makes No Proposals, Holmes Differs from Ban
On Sri Lanka, UN Meeting Called One-Off, UK Makes No Proposals, Holmes Differs from Ban
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, February 27 -- After the Security Council's closed-door meeting on Sri Lanka, Council president Yukio Takasu emerged to tell the Press that that conflict, in which more than 2000 civilians have been killed so far this year, will not be a Council agenda item going forward. Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, even before the meeting began, called the briefing by UN humanitarian chief John Holmes a "one-time" event. Video here, from Minute 6:45.
While in London UK Foreign Minister David Miliband spoke about publicly about a strategy of proposing a Council resolution on Sri Lanka, in New York UK Ambassador John Sawers did not even propose a Presidential Statement. He left the Council stakeout after taking a single question, ignoring Inner City Press' question about what Minister Miliband had said. By contrast, even knowing albeit late that it would be vetoed, the UK and U.S. put forward a sanctions resolution on Zimbabwe last year. (US Ambassador Susan Rice was not at Friday's meeting, and no US representative came to the stakeout to speak.)
Inner City Press has obtained a copy of Holmes prepared remarks to the Council's closed-door session, and puts it online here. Whereas Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on February 23 called for a suspension of fighting and for political discussions to bring an end to the conflict, Holmes on February 27 spoke of tackling underlying political issues only "after the end of the fighting."
It appears that the UN Secretariat's public call is undermined by a more private green light to the Sri Lankan military's offensive in north Sri Lanka.
Holmes also dodged the question of whether UN money would be use for camps the Sri Lankan government in building in which Tamil people who flee the bombs in the conflict zone would be detained until at least the end of 2009. Inner City Press also asked Japan's Takasu, who had mentioned international humanitarian law, about the camps, and his lengthy answer did not address the legality of the planned detentions. Video here, from Minute 6:25. Nor did he answer whether it is the government which is keeping media from covering the conflict. (While under no restriction, at the post-meeting stakeout interviews, while Bloomberg News was there, other wires including UK-based Reuters were not present.)
When both in New York, UK's Miliband and Sawers, Sri Lanka proposals not shown
Inner City Press asked Holmes about reports that he used the Sri Lankan government's Minister of Resettlement as his translator. Holmes admitted that this happened, then said "you should credit me with enough intelligence" to assess what people told me, surrounded by the military's armed guards. But locals say that while a woman spoke of her son abducted by the Army, Holmes was told she'd said her son was killed by the Tamil Tigers or LTTE.
Holmes told the Council of various assurances the government gave him. But when Inner City Press asked if he had proof the government has stopped using heavy weapons, he admitted he did not. He went on, as he did but only initially in Gaza, to note that it is "hard to distinguish civilian and LTTE cadres." Video here, from Minute 4:30.
In fact, Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders put out of field report of February 26 describing how a " family spent days in a bunker without food and water. Out of desperation, and despite the shelling, they left their bunker to get some food when three out of her 15 family members were killed on the spot." This is the situation which the UN's humanitarian operation is, some say, glossing over, because of politics in the Security Council.
Inner City Press asked outgoing Council president Takasu about these politics, to explain why for example in Sudan the Council does not demand that the Justice and Equality Movement, which recruited child soldiers and used them in an assault on Omdurman last year, lay down its arms before urging Khartoum to refrain for retaking rebel held land and negotiating with JEM. Takasu tried to say that the Council's approach to Darfur and Sri Lanka is consistent. Video here, from 14:13.
Why, Inner City Press, is Sudan then on the Council's agenda, and Sri Lanka is not? The answer is politics. This topic is explored on an online debate, following-up on the one linked-to below, that will go online this weekend.
Click here for Feb. 12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan. 16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press' review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press' December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund. Video Analysis here
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Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, February 27 -- After the Security Council's closed-door meeting on Sri Lanka, Council president Yukio Takasu emerged to tell the Press that that conflict, in which more than 2000 civilians have been killed so far this year, will not be a Council agenda item going forward. Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, even before the meeting began, called the briefing by UN humanitarian chief John Holmes a "one-time" event. Video here, from Minute 6:45.
While in London UK Foreign Minister David Miliband spoke about publicly about a strategy of proposing a Council resolution on Sri Lanka, in New York UK Ambassador John Sawers did not even propose a Presidential Statement. He left the Council stakeout after taking a single question, ignoring Inner City Press' question about what Minister Miliband had said. By contrast, even knowing albeit late that it would be vetoed, the UK and U.S. put forward a sanctions resolution on Zimbabwe last year. (US Ambassador Susan Rice was not at Friday's meeting, and no US representative came to the stakeout to speak.)
Inner City Press has obtained a copy of Holmes prepared remarks to the Council's closed-door session, and puts it online here. Whereas Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on February 23 called for a suspension of fighting and for political discussions to bring an end to the conflict, Holmes on February 27 spoke of tackling underlying political issues only "after the end of the fighting."
It appears that the UN Secretariat's public call is undermined by a more private green light to the Sri Lankan military's offensive in north Sri Lanka.
Holmes also dodged the question of whether UN money would be use for camps the Sri Lankan government in building in which Tamil people who flee the bombs in the conflict zone would be detained until at least the end of 2009. Inner City Press also asked Japan's Takasu, who had mentioned international humanitarian law, about the camps, and his lengthy answer did not address the legality of the planned detentions. Video here, from Minute 6:25. Nor did he answer whether it is the government which is keeping media from covering the conflict. (While under no restriction, at the post-meeting stakeout interviews, while Bloomberg News was there, other wires including UK-based Reuters were not present.)
When both in New York, UK's Miliband and Sawers, Sri Lanka proposals not shown
Inner City Press asked Holmes about reports that he used the Sri Lankan government's Minister of Resettlement as his translator. Holmes admitted that this happened, then said "you should credit me with enough intelligence" to assess what people told me, surrounded by the military's armed guards. But locals say that while a woman spoke of her son abducted by the Army, Holmes was told she'd said her son was killed by the Tamil Tigers or LTTE.
Holmes told the Council of various assurances the government gave him. But when Inner City Press asked if he had proof the government has stopped using heavy weapons, he admitted he did not. He went on, as he did but only initially in Gaza, to note that it is "hard to distinguish civilian and LTTE cadres." Video here, from Minute 4:30.
In fact, Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders put out of field report of February 26 describing how a " family spent days in a bunker without food and water. Out of desperation, and despite the shelling, they left their bunker to get some food when three out of her 15 family members were killed on the spot." This is the situation which the UN's humanitarian operation is, some say, glossing over, because of politics in the Security Council.
Inner City Press asked outgoing Council president Takasu about these politics, to explain why for example in Sudan the Council does not demand that the Justice and Equality Movement, which recruited child soldiers and used them in an assault on Omdurman last year, lay down its arms before urging Khartoum to refrain for retaking rebel held land and negotiating with JEM. Takasu tried to say that the Council's approach to Darfur and Sri Lanka is consistent. Video here, from 14:13.
Why, Inner City Press, is Sudan then on the Council's agenda, and Sri Lanka is not? The answer is politics. This topic is explored on an online debate, following-up on the one linked-to below, that will go online this weekend.
Click here for Feb. 12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan. 16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press' review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press' December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund. Video Analysis here
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UN SECURITY COUNCIL:UN urges Sri Lanka to delay final assault until civilians rescued
UN urges Sri Lanka to delay final assault until civilians rescued
New York - The Sri Lankan government has been urged to hold back its final military battle in areas where tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped, the United Nations' chief humanitarian emergency coordinator said Friday. The UN's John Holmes recently visited the troubled island nation to gain first-hand information of the humanitarian situation in refugee camps.
The battle between the government and separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been raging since January, and the government was planning a final assault in the Vanni region held by the rebels.
While it was clear that tens of thousands of civilians were trapped in the region, there were no exact numbers available. The government put the figure at 70,000 civilians, the UN said 200,000 and the Tamil Tigers claimed 300,000 people were trapped in the fighting.
In addition, thousands of displaced people were living in camps while UN and relief groups tried to gain access for the distribution of food supplies.
"The risks from hunger and diseases are growing rapidly, in addition to those from the fighting," Holmes said in briefing to the UN Security Council.
Some 36,000 displaced people have taken refuge in government-held regions of Vavyniya, Jaffna and Mannar after escaping LTTE areas.
Holmes said there had been attempts through intermediaries to persuade the Tamil Tigers to allow those trapped to escape.
"I desperately hope these attempts will succeed very soon," Holmes said. "I also urge the government of Sri Lanka to hold back from any final military battle in order to allow time for the civilian population to get out safely, one way or another."
Security Council president, Japanese Ambassador Yukio Takasu, said council members encouraged UN officials in Sri Lanka to increase efforts to help the government and people displaced by the fighting.
The World Food Programme (WFP) announced Friday that it had secured a sea route to deliver 40 metric tons of food, enough to feed 80,000 people for a day. The government designated a safe zone for WFP to deliver its supplies to Vanni.
WFP said another ship was expected in the same area on Saturday.
"Now the challenge is to sustain this activity and ship sufficient quantities of food to meet the needs of tens of thousands of people caught in the conflict," said Adnan Khan, WFP's representative in the country.
New York - The Sri Lankan government has been urged to hold back its final military battle in areas where tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped, the United Nations' chief humanitarian emergency coordinator said Friday. The UN's John Holmes recently visited the troubled island nation to gain first-hand information of the humanitarian situation in refugee camps.
The battle between the government and separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been raging since January, and the government was planning a final assault in the Vanni region held by the rebels.
While it was clear that tens of thousands of civilians were trapped in the region, there were no exact numbers available. The government put the figure at 70,000 civilians, the UN said 200,000 and the Tamil Tigers claimed 300,000 people were trapped in the fighting.
In addition, thousands of displaced people were living in camps while UN and relief groups tried to gain access for the distribution of food supplies.
"The risks from hunger and diseases are growing rapidly, in addition to those from the fighting," Holmes said in briefing to the UN Security Council.
Some 36,000 displaced people have taken refuge in government-held regions of Vavyniya, Jaffna and Mannar after escaping LTTE areas.
Holmes said there had been attempts through intermediaries to persuade the Tamil Tigers to allow those trapped to escape.
"I desperately hope these attempts will succeed very soon," Holmes said. "I also urge the government of Sri Lanka to hold back from any final military battle in order to allow time for the civilian population to get out safely, one way or another."
Security Council president, Japanese Ambassador Yukio Takasu, said council members encouraged UN officials in Sri Lanka to increase efforts to help the government and people displaced by the fighting.
The World Food Programme (WFP) announced Friday that it had secured a sea route to deliver 40 metric tons of food, enough to feed 80,000 people for a day. The government designated a safe zone for WFP to deliver its supplies to Vanni.
WFP said another ship was expected in the same area on Saturday.
"Now the challenge is to sustain this activity and ship sufficient quantities of food to meet the needs of tens of thousands of people caught in the conflict," said Adnan Khan, WFP's representative in the country.
Indo-American group calls for intervention
Indo-American group calls for intervention
A group of Indians settled in the US concerned over the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka, have circulated a petition asking New Delhi to take "urgent and effective" action to stop the "unfolding humanitarian disaster" in the island nation.
The group, comprising Indian citizens and non-resident Indians, have invited signatures to the petition that is posted on the internet and is addressed to Indian Ambassador to the UN, Nirupam Sen.
As at Friday night 400 people had signed the petition that calls for an end to hostilities in Sri Lanka where a large number of civilians have been trapped in the war zone.
"We ask Government of India to call for an immediate ceasefire, to provide urgent medical and humanitarian assistance to war refugees, and to challenge Sri Lankan government's decision for compulsory confinement of refugees in detention camps for as long as three years," it says.
The anonymous petition says "India's claim to be a morally responsible regional power" will be "tarnished" if no action in this direction is taken.
(Times Now)
A group of Indians settled in the US concerned over the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka, have circulated a petition asking New Delhi to take "urgent and effective" action to stop the "unfolding humanitarian disaster" in the island nation.
The group, comprising Indian citizens and non-resident Indians, have invited signatures to the petition that is posted on the internet and is addressed to Indian Ambassador to the UN, Nirupam Sen.
As at Friday night 400 people had signed the petition that calls for an end to hostilities in Sri Lanka where a large number of civilians have been trapped in the war zone.
"We ask Government of India to call for an immediate ceasefire, to provide urgent medical and humanitarian assistance to war refugees, and to challenge Sri Lankan government's decision for compulsory confinement of refugees in detention camps for as long as three years," it says.
The anonymous petition says "India's claim to be a morally responsible regional power" will be "tarnished" if no action in this direction is taken.
(Times Now)
Plane crash in Sri Lanka:Tamil freedom struggle can’t end until the last Tamil gives up.
Farm Hounds and Moose Hunters
Thursday, February 26, 2009 Leave a Comment
By Roy Ratnavel
Ever spend a summer's night on the farm? Sometime ago, while traveling through the flat lands of the Canadian Prairies, I was invited to stay at a farm. After enjoying mid-Western hospitality of barbeque and chat around the fire pit, I retired for the night in the farmhouse. In the middle of the night I was woken by loud barking at the farm I was staying at, which was immediately followed by many barks from dogs in neighboring farms.
This middle-of-the-night, unprovoked barking went on every night, and soon I started to notice a pattern. A dog thinks he hears something he doesn't like and starts barking. Within a minute, dogs from other farms join in. After a few minutes of annoying barking, they all go silent, unsure as to why they were barking in the first place, and go back to being the lazy ol' porch-hounds that they are. Unlike other dogs, these particular farm dogs are not needed for any important chores like hunting or sheep herding; rather they just sleep all day, and when they are not, they walk around the farm aimlessly. It's what they do.
In the context of the Sri Lankan conflict, there are many real, and ‘nom de guerre’ porch hounds of such caliber – Sebastian Rasalingam et al. They like to bark it up just to show everyone that they are still hanging around by the porch, while sporting a massive chip on their shoulders that could be seen from outer space. At heart, these Sri Lankan hounds – some senile, are morbid rubberneckers. Give off even the faintest sense of suffering, or sordid circumstance, and they will pop their snout in peoples’ pain and start admiring the magnitude of misery. Like those farm dogs of the Prairies, they do nothing of value except to cause distraction with tiny annoying insidious barks, and waxings of eloquence with verbal machetes; so their political masters can carry-on with the “agenda.”
The “agenda” – of course is to get the entire nation on the same “Genocide” page. In return for being loyal “Genocide Sympathizers,” these barkers get rewarded, from time to time, with a little scratch behind their ears and a few doggy biscuits to chew on. Currently, the line between truth and propaganda is a border so often crossed it makes Sri Lanka look like cold war Berlin. And, ironically the last time I can remember the entire nation on the same page was Germany in the late 1930’s, and we all know how that turned out.
Back in the dim past, when I was a pup in the investment arena, a revered veteran passed along a story to illustrate the point that enforcing the same unproductive economic policies over and over can only produce the same unproductive economic results; and the story is worthy of note here as it is jarringly similar to the Sri Lankan saga.
Two politicians went on a moose hunt. Since the terrain was unknown to them and a punishing one to boot, they hired a plane and pilot to take them for hunting and for the trip back home. The pilot was happy to do it, as he knew that it is a chance to make a quick buck while being in charge. But he warned the politicians – as he has done such trips before – that they could only bring back one moose, as the small plane cannot take the weight of more than three people and a moose. The politicians agreed.
However, after the hunting was over, the politicians brought back two moose. To which the pilot said: “I told you guys the plane can only take one moose and three people.” Conniving that they are, the politicians coaxed and cajoled and finally convinced the pilot to take both moose and them, pilot agreed.
After a painfully long taxi, take-off and a short flight – the plane crash-landed due to being overweight. When the dust settled, one of the politicians managed to get out of the wreckage, looked outside and asked the pilot “Where are we?” And the pilot replied “We are about few kilometers away from where you two dummies crashed the plane last time.”
While this is a simple story, it profoundly reflects the current situation in Sri Lanka; the pilot denoted by the ‘consortium of countries’ which are helping Sri Lanka to crush the Tamil freedom struggle, the plane is ‘the country,’ the punishing terrain is the ‘Tamil Heartland,’ and, of course, the ‘two politicians’ are Colombo drunks who adamantly believe that the best way to prevent a hangover is to stay drunk.
It is a mystery why Sri Lanka stubbornly refuses to learn from the mistakes of its past. A cursory glance at the experience of the past in Sri Lanka would suggest that it is a very bad idea to celebrate military battles – which always have the tracings of a low budget Bollywood movie. Politicians have been trumpeting their recent ‘elusive’ victory for months with displays and dances, which can only lead to nothing but more Tamil anger, resentment and subsequently more violence. Rubbing salt in old wounds with military bravado speeches is guaranteed to inflame passions best allowed to recede. In a country awash in violence, it seems egregious to celebrate this conflict.
Albert Einstein’s insight was never more apt: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them,” said one of humanity's biggest brains half a century ago. For Sri Lanka – a sinking ship; reintroducing the same old bad policies is like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. The evidence is abundant to support such a claim.
Most of the population lives below the poverty line. Almost 45% of the population makes less than $2 a day. Schoolchildren in Sri Lanka suffer from malnutrition. Global investors continuously deprive foreign direct investments – a key prerequisite for economic growth. Basic services still remain rudimentary. The general standard of living is on the decline. The rule of law is absent for the most part. A huge number of people have fled abroad to seek better opportunity and to do better things with their skills and money, resulting in brain drain and capital flight. The country is financially levered infinite times over, and completely broke beyond belief. Generations of unborn Sri Lankans are now in financial debt, forever. Foreign reserve is evaporating fast, and the rupee is on a freefall. For a net importer like Sri Lanka, this is very inflationary. Not too farfetched to expect a Latin American style hyper-inflation anytime soon. It’s like watching an economic train wreck in slow motion.
Despite all this, a sizeable myopic majority of hounds are fixated on short-term fixes, and say that the “Eelam” idea is dead, and a sizeable plurality of politicians say it is because they have “won the war.” Meanwhile the bulk of the Sri Lankan population is dancing hard to this drumbeat at the party financed by the foreigners; without giving any deep thought and totally oblivious to the mess they are in by adhering to the notion that “Two drunks don’t make a sober person.”
So the natural question is, is the party over? Well, I do not know. But if I were at this party, I would be dancing near the exit door. Because one thing is for sure: the Tamil freedom struggle can’t end until the last Tamil gives up. French poet and playwright Victor Hugo's dictum is now unfolding: “No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.” The Tamil Diaspora’s recent show of force around the globe is an example of such defiance.
It took Sri Lanka, many foreign countries' support – military advisers, consultants, strategists, pilots, guns, bombs – and about 30 years to get to this point, and it’s still not over. The Eelam cause, on the other hand, relied on no one – not a single foreign entity, but owned by Tamils and operated by the high-grade fuel of freedom. It managed to outsmart all the thug politicians and heavily decorated Sri Lankan army generals with gold braid and badges, who painfully rely on foreigners to do the heavy lifting for them. I am not sure what military traditions these brave sons emanate from – maybe West Point Academy, but it is categorically embarrassing to say the least.
Even after all those claims of the ‘annihilation’ of the Tigers by these hounds, they still managed to penetrate Sri Lanka’s “borrowed” – not bought – air defense, and managed to cause some mayhem and embarrass the Colombo goons. True to form, the hounds of course dismissed this by barking at those planes and calling it a kite with primitive technology. If the Tigers can surprise them with a kite, imagine what they could do with real ones! And, Ukraine pilots were not flying those Tiger planes either. I am not sure who is skillful and brave in this scenario. These hounds apparently prefer to remain comfortably inside a particular bubble – a bubble that most Tamils recognize as the empty illusion of intelligent thought with more shine than substance.
Given the current abominable situation, every Sri Lankan who fails to vociferously urge the ‘hounds and hunters’ to be responsible forfeits the right to peaceful sleep and safe flight in this little farm called Sri Lanka. Remember, those who sleep with dogs wake up with fleas.
The moose hunters have finally tipped the scale, and crash-landed the country – once again. Soon the farm dogs will stick to the animalistic legacy of their evolutionary past and will go silent, unsure as to why they were barking in the first place. In a country that loves its clichés, “there’s no silver bullet” to this long-term issue of the Tamil freedom struggle; but the hounds and hunters have given way to a “perfect storm” once and for all in this contentious battle.
I used to take an almost perverse delight in being politically incorrect about countries with bad leaders. Now I see otherwise: There is no humane way to destroy a country.
Thursday, February 26, 2009 Leave a Comment
By Roy Ratnavel
Ever spend a summer's night on the farm? Sometime ago, while traveling through the flat lands of the Canadian Prairies, I was invited to stay at a farm. After enjoying mid-Western hospitality of barbeque and chat around the fire pit, I retired for the night in the farmhouse. In the middle of the night I was woken by loud barking at the farm I was staying at, which was immediately followed by many barks from dogs in neighboring farms.
This middle-of-the-night, unprovoked barking went on every night, and soon I started to notice a pattern. A dog thinks he hears something he doesn't like and starts barking. Within a minute, dogs from other farms join in. After a few minutes of annoying barking, they all go silent, unsure as to why they were barking in the first place, and go back to being the lazy ol' porch-hounds that they are. Unlike other dogs, these particular farm dogs are not needed for any important chores like hunting or sheep herding; rather they just sleep all day, and when they are not, they walk around the farm aimlessly. It's what they do.
In the context of the Sri Lankan conflict, there are many real, and ‘nom de guerre’ porch hounds of such caliber – Sebastian Rasalingam et al. They like to bark it up just to show everyone that they are still hanging around by the porch, while sporting a massive chip on their shoulders that could be seen from outer space. At heart, these Sri Lankan hounds – some senile, are morbid rubberneckers. Give off even the faintest sense of suffering, or sordid circumstance, and they will pop their snout in peoples’ pain and start admiring the magnitude of misery. Like those farm dogs of the Prairies, they do nothing of value except to cause distraction with tiny annoying insidious barks, and waxings of eloquence with verbal machetes; so their political masters can carry-on with the “agenda.”
The “agenda” – of course is to get the entire nation on the same “Genocide” page. In return for being loyal “Genocide Sympathizers,” these barkers get rewarded, from time to time, with a little scratch behind their ears and a few doggy biscuits to chew on. Currently, the line between truth and propaganda is a border so often crossed it makes Sri Lanka look like cold war Berlin. And, ironically the last time I can remember the entire nation on the same page was Germany in the late 1930’s, and we all know how that turned out.
Back in the dim past, when I was a pup in the investment arena, a revered veteran passed along a story to illustrate the point that enforcing the same unproductive economic policies over and over can only produce the same unproductive economic results; and the story is worthy of note here as it is jarringly similar to the Sri Lankan saga.
Two politicians went on a moose hunt. Since the terrain was unknown to them and a punishing one to boot, they hired a plane and pilot to take them for hunting and for the trip back home. The pilot was happy to do it, as he knew that it is a chance to make a quick buck while being in charge. But he warned the politicians – as he has done such trips before – that they could only bring back one moose, as the small plane cannot take the weight of more than three people and a moose. The politicians agreed.
However, after the hunting was over, the politicians brought back two moose. To which the pilot said: “I told you guys the plane can only take one moose and three people.” Conniving that they are, the politicians coaxed and cajoled and finally convinced the pilot to take both moose and them, pilot agreed.
After a painfully long taxi, take-off and a short flight – the plane crash-landed due to being overweight. When the dust settled, one of the politicians managed to get out of the wreckage, looked outside and asked the pilot “Where are we?” And the pilot replied “We are about few kilometers away from where you two dummies crashed the plane last time.”
While this is a simple story, it profoundly reflects the current situation in Sri Lanka; the pilot denoted by the ‘consortium of countries’ which are helping Sri Lanka to crush the Tamil freedom struggle, the plane is ‘the country,’ the punishing terrain is the ‘Tamil Heartland,’ and, of course, the ‘two politicians’ are Colombo drunks who adamantly believe that the best way to prevent a hangover is to stay drunk.
It is a mystery why Sri Lanka stubbornly refuses to learn from the mistakes of its past. A cursory glance at the experience of the past in Sri Lanka would suggest that it is a very bad idea to celebrate military battles – which always have the tracings of a low budget Bollywood movie. Politicians have been trumpeting their recent ‘elusive’ victory for months with displays and dances, which can only lead to nothing but more Tamil anger, resentment and subsequently more violence. Rubbing salt in old wounds with military bravado speeches is guaranteed to inflame passions best allowed to recede. In a country awash in violence, it seems egregious to celebrate this conflict.
Albert Einstein’s insight was never more apt: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them,” said one of humanity's biggest brains half a century ago. For Sri Lanka – a sinking ship; reintroducing the same old bad policies is like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. The evidence is abundant to support such a claim.
Most of the population lives below the poverty line. Almost 45% of the population makes less than $2 a day. Schoolchildren in Sri Lanka suffer from malnutrition. Global investors continuously deprive foreign direct investments – a key prerequisite for economic growth. Basic services still remain rudimentary. The general standard of living is on the decline. The rule of law is absent for the most part. A huge number of people have fled abroad to seek better opportunity and to do better things with their skills and money, resulting in brain drain and capital flight. The country is financially levered infinite times over, and completely broke beyond belief. Generations of unborn Sri Lankans are now in financial debt, forever. Foreign reserve is evaporating fast, and the rupee is on a freefall. For a net importer like Sri Lanka, this is very inflationary. Not too farfetched to expect a Latin American style hyper-inflation anytime soon. It’s like watching an economic train wreck in slow motion.
Despite all this, a sizeable myopic majority of hounds are fixated on short-term fixes, and say that the “Eelam” idea is dead, and a sizeable plurality of politicians say it is because they have “won the war.” Meanwhile the bulk of the Sri Lankan population is dancing hard to this drumbeat at the party financed by the foreigners; without giving any deep thought and totally oblivious to the mess they are in by adhering to the notion that “Two drunks don’t make a sober person.”
So the natural question is, is the party over? Well, I do not know. But if I were at this party, I would be dancing near the exit door. Because one thing is for sure: the Tamil freedom struggle can’t end until the last Tamil gives up. French poet and playwright Victor Hugo's dictum is now unfolding: “No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.” The Tamil Diaspora’s recent show of force around the globe is an example of such defiance.
It took Sri Lanka, many foreign countries' support – military advisers, consultants, strategists, pilots, guns, bombs – and about 30 years to get to this point, and it’s still not over. The Eelam cause, on the other hand, relied on no one – not a single foreign entity, but owned by Tamils and operated by the high-grade fuel of freedom. It managed to outsmart all the thug politicians and heavily decorated Sri Lankan army generals with gold braid and badges, who painfully rely on foreigners to do the heavy lifting for them. I am not sure what military traditions these brave sons emanate from – maybe West Point Academy, but it is categorically embarrassing to say the least.
Even after all those claims of the ‘annihilation’ of the Tigers by these hounds, they still managed to penetrate Sri Lanka’s “borrowed” – not bought – air defense, and managed to cause some mayhem and embarrass the Colombo goons. True to form, the hounds of course dismissed this by barking at those planes and calling it a kite with primitive technology. If the Tigers can surprise them with a kite, imagine what they could do with real ones! And, Ukraine pilots were not flying those Tiger planes either. I am not sure who is skillful and brave in this scenario. These hounds apparently prefer to remain comfortably inside a particular bubble – a bubble that most Tamils recognize as the empty illusion of intelligent thought with more shine than substance.
Given the current abominable situation, every Sri Lankan who fails to vociferously urge the ‘hounds and hunters’ to be responsible forfeits the right to peaceful sleep and safe flight in this little farm called Sri Lanka. Remember, those who sleep with dogs wake up with fleas.
The moose hunters have finally tipped the scale, and crash-landed the country – once again. Soon the farm dogs will stick to the animalistic legacy of their evolutionary past and will go silent, unsure as to why they were barking in the first place. In a country that loves its clichés, “there’s no silver bullet” to this long-term issue of the Tamil freedom struggle; but the hounds and hunters have given way to a “perfect storm” once and for all in this contentious battle.
I used to take an almost perverse delight in being politically incorrect about countries with bad leaders. Now I see otherwise: There is no humane way to destroy a country.
Prof. Rajiva throws a temper tantrum on Bruce Fein and Tamil Net. How dysfuntional?
A Fein Imbalance
27 February 2009
TamilNet seems to be working overtime now on disinformation, with claims that the cause of its leader has been taken up by the highest in the world. Most recently it has attributed to the British Foreign Secretary – and from a Sri Lankan expatriate point of view you cannot go higher than that – some strange views on genocide and Sri Lanka. It declared that Britain’s Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, agreed Tuesday with parliamentarians who said that the Sri Lankan government is 'quite prepared to go ahead with acts of genocide.'
Going through the actual extracts from Hansard, it seemed to me that Mr Miliband, while being his usual charming self, had not quite said that, but doubtless our Foreign Ministry will call in the British High Commissioner for a clarification, so I will reserve comment until later on young Miliband.
Incidentally, the British envoy in Geneva thought I was being rude when I thus described him shortly after he had taken up his current position, but I was only being affectionate about a fellow Corpuscle. He was so much younger than me, and looked even more so, that I was reminded of an old adage, that one realises one is ageing when policemen looked younger than oneself. When it comes to British Foreign Secretaries, one realises that the time for walking sticks is drawing nigh.
My present concern however is not that holiest of holies, but rather the egregious Bruce Fein, who TamilNet claims was invited to present written testimony on 'Recent Developments in Sri Lanka' before the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Middle East and Asia. I cannot believe that that exalted body actually invited Mr Fein, since American traditions of justice would surely have demanded that it also invite me along, if it had gone out of its way to ensure it had the benefit of Mr Fein’s views. After all, it was I who accepted Mr Fein’s challenge to a debate, only to find him worming his way out of it, which surely the Senate (assuming it takes people like Mr Fein seriously) must have realised cast some doubts on the validity of his case.
Unless my idealistic view of America is all wrong, what must have happened, I decided, was that Mr Fein had asked to be heard, and had been gently told that he could provide written testimony instead. It should be noted however that Fein himself claimed that he had been contacted by the office of the Chairman of the Subcommittee. If this was an unsolicited request, based on Fein’s sterling reputation, one assumes the office aides were also aware of Fein’s history of courageous if quixotic diatribes against American politicians of every hue, beginning with President Clinton, which may have been what endeared him to the Tamil Tigers and their surrogates who have hired him.
Mr Fein certainly did not disappoint, at least according to TamilNet. He talked of an ‘impenetrable media blackout and eviction of all outside observers’, to a Subcommittee which had heard from a representative of Human Rights Watch who claimed to have visited the affected areas and talked at length to various anonymous international observers.
Fein claims that best estimates from neutral persons in Sri Lanka place the death toll of innocent Tamil civilians in the predominantly Tamil northeast over the past two months at more than 2,000. This figure coincides with that of TamilNet itself, not surprisingly, since TamilNet is the best exemplar of Wittgenstein’s man who bought a second copy of the morning paper to check that what the first said was true. Fein then talks of the latest number of displaced persons numbering about 350,000, whereas recently observers have noted that even the worst case scenarios have plunged steadily, to at most 150,000, including those now safely in government controlled areas. Fein is however right if he includes what are termed old IDPs, those displaced before 2005, many of whom are Muslims forced out of the North by his friends the Tigers, in the only example of ethnic cleansing this country has suffered.
Fein goes on to talk of the ‘Sinhalese Buddhist GOSL’ which has ‘imposed a media blackout. It has evicted all NGOs. It has evicted all humanitarian aid workers. It has evicted the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission. It has evicted the International Committee of the Red Cross.’ This is all nonsense, as anyone who reads recent reports of the ICRC knows. And it was the Tigers who threw out most of the countries that comprised the SLMM, after the SLMM had found them guilty of nearly 4000 violations of the Ceasefire Agreement. The SLMM left, after the abrogation of the Ceasefire Agreement, which a year previously it had said seemed dead because of Tiger actions.
Fein talks of the ‘all Sinhalese 'Tamil free' armed forces and security services of Sri Lanka’, which is nonsense, though it is certainly true that minorities have feared to join recently, given that the Tigers killed several of them as traitors. Nevertheless, this government has specifically targeted Tamils and Muslims in its recent recruitments, and the former policeman, Mr Nadesan, who heads the Tiger political wing, must have had the cockles of his heart warmed to see, some decades after his own passing out, pictures of the last batch of Tamil policemen trained at the new facility in the liberated Eastern Province.
Fein exceeds himself in describing ‘the indiscriminate violence that rains down daily on innocent Tamil civilians whether in hospitals, temples, churches, schools, or 'safe zones',' not realizing that even TamilNet, throughout the period in which the forces were liberating the North, has registered hardly any attacks that affected hospitals, temples, churches and schools – whilst the UN itself pointed out that the attacks on the safe zone were ‘most likely …. From an LTTE position.' The same was true about the only shell the trajectory of which could be identified that fell into the hospital grounds when UN staff were there.
One hopes the United States Senate will not be taken in by this hired charlatan. But one certainly realises the depths to which TamilNet has sunk if, on the same day, it highlights disinformation not only about an old Corpuscle now in the shoes of so many distinguished statesmen, and a pathetic attorney who does not dare to debate even a lowly Sri Lankan, but instead has recourse to increasingly shrill claims based on information supplied by TamilNet itself.
Prof Rajiva Wijesinha
Secretary General
Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process
27 February 2009
TamilNet seems to be working overtime now on disinformation, with claims that the cause of its leader has been taken up by the highest in the world. Most recently it has attributed to the British Foreign Secretary – and from a Sri Lankan expatriate point of view you cannot go higher than that – some strange views on genocide and Sri Lanka. It declared that Britain’s Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, agreed Tuesday with parliamentarians who said that the Sri Lankan government is 'quite prepared to go ahead with acts of genocide.'
Going through the actual extracts from Hansard, it seemed to me that Mr Miliband, while being his usual charming self, had not quite said that, but doubtless our Foreign Ministry will call in the British High Commissioner for a clarification, so I will reserve comment until later on young Miliband.
Incidentally, the British envoy in Geneva thought I was being rude when I thus described him shortly after he had taken up his current position, but I was only being affectionate about a fellow Corpuscle. He was so much younger than me, and looked even more so, that I was reminded of an old adage, that one realises one is ageing when policemen looked younger than oneself. When it comes to British Foreign Secretaries, one realises that the time for walking sticks is drawing nigh.
My present concern however is not that holiest of holies, but rather the egregious Bruce Fein, who TamilNet claims was invited to present written testimony on 'Recent Developments in Sri Lanka' before the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Middle East and Asia. I cannot believe that that exalted body actually invited Mr Fein, since American traditions of justice would surely have demanded that it also invite me along, if it had gone out of its way to ensure it had the benefit of Mr Fein’s views. After all, it was I who accepted Mr Fein’s challenge to a debate, only to find him worming his way out of it, which surely the Senate (assuming it takes people like Mr Fein seriously) must have realised cast some doubts on the validity of his case.
Unless my idealistic view of America is all wrong, what must have happened, I decided, was that Mr Fein had asked to be heard, and had been gently told that he could provide written testimony instead. It should be noted however that Fein himself claimed that he had been contacted by the office of the Chairman of the Subcommittee. If this was an unsolicited request, based on Fein’s sterling reputation, one assumes the office aides were also aware of Fein’s history of courageous if quixotic diatribes against American politicians of every hue, beginning with President Clinton, which may have been what endeared him to the Tamil Tigers and their surrogates who have hired him.
Mr Fein certainly did not disappoint, at least according to TamilNet. He talked of an ‘impenetrable media blackout and eviction of all outside observers’, to a Subcommittee which had heard from a representative of Human Rights Watch who claimed to have visited the affected areas and talked at length to various anonymous international observers.
Fein claims that best estimates from neutral persons in Sri Lanka place the death toll of innocent Tamil civilians in the predominantly Tamil northeast over the past two months at more than 2,000. This figure coincides with that of TamilNet itself, not surprisingly, since TamilNet is the best exemplar of Wittgenstein’s man who bought a second copy of the morning paper to check that what the first said was true. Fein then talks of the latest number of displaced persons numbering about 350,000, whereas recently observers have noted that even the worst case scenarios have plunged steadily, to at most 150,000, including those now safely in government controlled areas. Fein is however right if he includes what are termed old IDPs, those displaced before 2005, many of whom are Muslims forced out of the North by his friends the Tigers, in the only example of ethnic cleansing this country has suffered.
Fein goes on to talk of the ‘Sinhalese Buddhist GOSL’ which has ‘imposed a media blackout. It has evicted all NGOs. It has evicted all humanitarian aid workers. It has evicted the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission. It has evicted the International Committee of the Red Cross.’ This is all nonsense, as anyone who reads recent reports of the ICRC knows. And it was the Tigers who threw out most of the countries that comprised the SLMM, after the SLMM had found them guilty of nearly 4000 violations of the Ceasefire Agreement. The SLMM left, after the abrogation of the Ceasefire Agreement, which a year previously it had said seemed dead because of Tiger actions.
Fein talks of the ‘all Sinhalese 'Tamil free' armed forces and security services of Sri Lanka’, which is nonsense, though it is certainly true that minorities have feared to join recently, given that the Tigers killed several of them as traitors. Nevertheless, this government has specifically targeted Tamils and Muslims in its recent recruitments, and the former policeman, Mr Nadesan, who heads the Tiger political wing, must have had the cockles of his heart warmed to see, some decades after his own passing out, pictures of the last batch of Tamil policemen trained at the new facility in the liberated Eastern Province.
Fein exceeds himself in describing ‘the indiscriminate violence that rains down daily on innocent Tamil civilians whether in hospitals, temples, churches, schools, or 'safe zones',' not realizing that even TamilNet, throughout the period in which the forces were liberating the North, has registered hardly any attacks that affected hospitals, temples, churches and schools – whilst the UN itself pointed out that the attacks on the safe zone were ‘most likely …. From an LTTE position.' The same was true about the only shell the trajectory of which could be identified that fell into the hospital grounds when UN staff were there.
One hopes the United States Senate will not be taken in by this hired charlatan. But one certainly realises the depths to which TamilNet has sunk if, on the same day, it highlights disinformation not only about an old Corpuscle now in the shoes of so many distinguished statesmen, and a pathetic attorney who does not dare to debate even a lowly Sri Lankan, but instead has recourse to increasingly shrill claims based on information supplied by TamilNet itself.
Prof Rajiva Wijesinha
Secretary General
Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process
SLAF jet exploded over Mullaiththeevu
World has already held a funeral for them without finding the body.
SLAF jet exploded over Mullaiththeevu
[TamilNet, Friday, 27 February 2009, 10:41 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bomber was shot down in Mullaiththeevu on Friday at 11:25 a.m., civilians sources in Ira'naippaalai told TamilNet. Several civilians saw the jet explode in mid-air as it was beginning an attack run towards an unidentified locality. A huge plume of smoke followed after the flaming debris fell to earth, they said. The LTTE is yet to comment on the attack.
The civilians observers could not say in whose controlled area the wreckage had fallen. The Sri Lankan army (SLA) is locked in fierce clashes with the LTTE in areas west of Puthukkudiyiruppu.
The civilians could not identify the aircraft type - SLAF operates Israeli built Kfirs and Mig-27s – and could not say what had brought the plane down. Defence writers observing Sri Lanka have long said the Tigers do not have surface-to-air missiles (SAMs).
The civilian sources in Ira'naippaalai said, however, that the SLAF, which continuously attacked Mullaiththeevu stopped flying over Vanni for 3 days after the LTTE launched an air raid against SLAF installations in Colombo last Friday night.
Sri Lanka claimed that both LTTE aircraft were shot down Friday before the pilots dropped their bombs and that one plane flew into the Inland Revenue building after being hit by anti-aircraft fire.
The LTTE said their pilots, who were earlier awarded with Neelap Puli Viruthu (The Blue Tiger Award) for five consecutive and successful flight operations of attack, were on a Black Air Tiger mission and gave military rank of Colonel and Lieutenant Colonel to the pilots.
end:
Other than that it would be interesting see what Tigers can do next to upset the 'apple card'.
World has already held a funeral for them without finding the body.
I am reminded of the famous economist -- John Kenneth Galbraith's quote at this juncture: "There are two classes of people who tell what is going to happen in the future: Those who don't know, and those who don't know they don't know."
Many in Colombo and in world capitals fit into such categories.
Especially Racist, chauvinist, extremist and war mongers, supporting the Jingoist, and State Terrorist.
The casualties in the past 30 years of war is over 125,000 excluding the JVP -Singhala Terrorism according to British Journal of medicine.
I will be happy to provide all the links.
T4J
SLAF jet exploded over Mullaiththeevu
[TamilNet, Friday, 27 February 2009, 10:41 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bomber was shot down in Mullaiththeevu on Friday at 11:25 a.m., civilians sources in Ira'naippaalai told TamilNet. Several civilians saw the jet explode in mid-air as it was beginning an attack run towards an unidentified locality. A huge plume of smoke followed after the flaming debris fell to earth, they said. The LTTE is yet to comment on the attack.
The civilians observers could not say in whose controlled area the wreckage had fallen. The Sri Lankan army (SLA) is locked in fierce clashes with the LTTE in areas west of Puthukkudiyiruppu.
The civilians could not identify the aircraft type - SLAF operates Israeli built Kfirs and Mig-27s – and could not say what had brought the plane down. Defence writers observing Sri Lanka have long said the Tigers do not have surface-to-air missiles (SAMs).
The civilian sources in Ira'naippaalai said, however, that the SLAF, which continuously attacked Mullaiththeevu stopped flying over Vanni for 3 days after the LTTE launched an air raid against SLAF installations in Colombo last Friday night.
Sri Lanka claimed that both LTTE aircraft were shot down Friday before the pilots dropped their bombs and that one plane flew into the Inland Revenue building after being hit by anti-aircraft fire.
The LTTE said their pilots, who were earlier awarded with Neelap Puli Viruthu (The Blue Tiger Award) for five consecutive and successful flight operations of attack, were on a Black Air Tiger mission and gave military rank of Colonel and Lieutenant Colonel to the pilots.
end:
Other than that it would be interesting see what Tigers can do next to upset the 'apple card'.
World has already held a funeral for them without finding the body.
I am reminded of the famous economist -- John Kenneth Galbraith's quote at this juncture: "There are two classes of people who tell what is going to happen in the future: Those who don't know, and those who don't know they don't know."
Many in Colombo and in world capitals fit into such categories.
Especially Racist, chauvinist, extremist and war mongers, supporting the Jingoist, and State Terrorist.
The casualties in the past 30 years of war is over 125,000 excluding the JVP -Singhala Terrorism according to British Journal of medicine.
I will be happy to provide all the links.
T4J
Upset as Sri Lanka editor seized
Upset as Sri Lanka editor seized
By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi
st was a violation of the rule of law," it said. "What is this respected Tamil editor accused of? Outspoken coverage of the situation in Sri Lanka."
The day before, police had visited his newspaper's offices and demanded the names and addresses of all employees. The paper's managing editor E Saravanapavan, said his paper had been critical of the government and supported Tamil rights. "We support the right to freedom of expression," he said. "We don't support the armed struggle."
Last month, a newspaper editor critical of the war was killed by gunmen, a private TV station was attacked by assailants armed with guns and grenades and another editor was stabbed. The government denies any involvement.
By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi
st was a violation of the rule of law," it said. "What is this respected Tamil editor accused of? Outspoken coverage of the situation in Sri Lanka."
The day before, police had visited his newspaper's offices and demanded the names and addresses of all employees. The paper's managing editor E Saravanapavan, said his paper had been critical of the government and supported Tamil rights. "We support the right to freedom of expression," he said. "We don't support the armed struggle."
Last month, a newspaper editor critical of the war was killed by gunmen, a private TV station was attacked by assailants armed with guns and grenades and another editor was stabbed. The government denies any involvement.
SRI LANKA: Tamil editor arrested in continued media crackdown
Committee to Protect Journalists
330 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001 USA Phone: (212) 465‑1004 Fax: (212) 465‑9568 Web: www.cpj.org E-Mail: media@cpj.org
Contact: Bob Dietz
Telephone: (609) 647-3075
http://www.cpj.org
e-mail: bdietz@cpj.org
SRI LANKA: Tamil editor arrested in continued media crackdown
New York, February 26, 2009—The Committee to Protect Journalists questions charges leveled against Sri Lankan newspaper editor Nadesapillai Vithyatharan, who was arrested this morning. According to friends who were with him at the time, police detained Vithyatharan while he was attending the funeral of a friend in Colombo. The arrest comes at a time when Sri Lankan journalists have been under increased attack.
The Associated Press reported that a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, Lakshman Hulugalle, said Vithyatharan was being held in connection with a February 20 attack on Colombo by two airplanes from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is fighting a secessionist war in the north and east of the country. The attack killed three people and injured 43, according to AP. The Sri Lankan Army's Web site announced Vithyatharan's arrest soon after the incident.
Vithyatharan publishes two Tamil-language dailies, Uthayan in Jaffna in the Tamil-dominated north of the country, and Sudaroli in Colombo.
“Nadesapillai Vithyatharan has been a respected journalist for more than 25 years in Sri Lanka,” said Bob Dietz, CPJ's Asia program coordinator. “The nature of his arrest and the allegations that he was somehow involved in an aerial attack on Colombo point to more government repression of critical reporting. We call for his immediate release and are concerned that like other arrested journalists he will be held for lengthy period. This is a tactic we have seen before in Sri Lanka.”
Vithyatharan’s newspapers have been critical of the government's all-out military push to end the war with the LTTE. In a 2007 interview with CPJ in Colombo, Vithyatharan said he was proud of his papers' editorial integrity and the fact that they had covered the government fairly.
Many journalists allege government involvement in a number of recent attacks, including one tha t took the life of one newspaper editor, put another in the hospital , and blew up a control room of the country's leading independent broadcaster, all in a three-week period in January.
Tamil journalists like Vithyatharan have been persecuted in the past. The case of another Tamil journalist, The Times’ columnist J.S. Tissainayagam, who has been jailed on state security charges since March 2008 under harsh conditions, has attracted international attention.
On Tuesday, CPJ testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations about media conditions in Sri Lanka. CPJ submitted the findings of a recent reporting trip to Colombo in a special report,20“Failure to investigate,” which found that recent attacks, jailings, and harassment of journalists and media outlets have grown worse under the government of President Mahinda Rajapkasa, and that there is an increasing level of impunity for those who carry out such attacks.
CPJ is a New York–based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit www.cpj.org.
Bob Dietz bdietz@cpj.org
Asia Program Coordinator
Madeline Earp mearp@cpj.org
Asia Program Researcher
Committee to Protect Journalists
330 Seventh Ave, 11th floor
New York, NY 10001
+1 212 465 1004
www.cpj.org
330 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001 USA Phone: (212) 465‑1004 Fax: (212) 465‑9568 Web: www.cpj.org E-Mail: media@cpj.org
Contact: Bob Dietz
Telephone: (609) 647-3075
http://www.cpj.org
e-mail: bdietz@cpj.org
SRI LANKA: Tamil editor arrested in continued media crackdown
New York, February 26, 2009—The Committee to Protect Journalists questions charges leveled against Sri Lankan newspaper editor Nadesapillai Vithyatharan, who was arrested this morning. According to friends who were with him at the time, police detained Vithyatharan while he was attending the funeral of a friend in Colombo. The arrest comes at a time when Sri Lankan journalists have been under increased attack.
The Associated Press reported that a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, Lakshman Hulugalle, said Vithyatharan was being held in connection with a February 20 attack on Colombo by two airplanes from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is fighting a secessionist war in the north and east of the country. The attack killed three people and injured 43, according to AP. The Sri Lankan Army's Web site announced Vithyatharan's arrest soon after the incident.
Vithyatharan publishes two Tamil-language dailies, Uthayan in Jaffna in the Tamil-dominated north of the country, and Sudaroli in Colombo.
“Nadesapillai Vithyatharan has been a respected journalist for more than 25 years in Sri Lanka,” said Bob Dietz, CPJ's Asia program coordinator. “The nature of his arrest and the allegations that he was somehow involved in an aerial attack on Colombo point to more government repression of critical reporting. We call for his immediate release and are concerned that like other arrested journalists he will be held for lengthy period. This is a tactic we have seen before in Sri Lanka.”
Vithyatharan’s newspapers have been critical of the government's all-out military push to end the war with the LTTE. In a 2007 interview with CPJ in Colombo, Vithyatharan said he was proud of his papers' editorial integrity and the fact that they had covered the government fairly.
Many journalists allege government involvement in a number of recent attacks, including one tha t took the life of one newspaper editor, put another in the hospital , and blew up a control room of the country's leading independent broadcaster, all in a three-week period in January.
Tamil journalists like Vithyatharan have been persecuted in the past. The case of another Tamil journalist, The Times’ columnist J.S. Tissainayagam, who has been jailed on state security charges since March 2008 under harsh conditions, has attracted international attention.
On Tuesday, CPJ testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations about media conditions in Sri Lanka. CPJ submitted the findings of a recent reporting trip to Colombo in a special report,20“Failure to investigate,” which found that recent attacks, jailings, and harassment of journalists and media outlets have grown worse under the government of President Mahinda Rajapkasa, and that there is an increasing level of impunity for those who carry out such attacks.
CPJ is a New York–based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit www.cpj.org.
Bob Dietz bdietz@cpj.org
Asia Program Coordinator
Madeline Earp mearp@cpj.org
Asia Program Researcher
Committee to Protect Journalists
330 Seventh Ave, 11th floor
New York, NY 10001
+1 212 465 1004
www.cpj.org
At UN, Sri Lanka Briefing Now Set for Friday, As Editor Arrested in Colombo
At UN, Sri Lanka Briefing Now Set for Friday, As Editor Arrested in Colombo
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, February 26 -- A UN Security Council briefing on Sri Lanka has now been scheduled for Friday, February 27, Inner City Press has learned. Three days after the spokesperson for the UN's top humanitarian John Holmes told Inner City Press that "there is no request for a Council briefing," and a week after the Council's president, Yukio Takaso, said "there is no strong request" anymore, a Permanent Five Council member told Inner City Press on Thursday morning that the Sri Lanka briefing is set for Friday.
He said it was not easy to set up, and that the Sri Lankan government has been consulted and informed. It will take place under the heading "Other Matters," after presentations on peace-building and by the Greek Foreign Minister.
UN's Holmes in the Security Council, under P-5 eyes, closed consultations not shown
Meanwhile in Colombo, Nadesapillai Vithyatharan, the editor of the Tamil daily newspaper Sudar Oli, was picked up by police for questioning. The government has confirmed the arrest, here. Reporters Without Borders, among others, have issued protests. India's foreign minister is due in Colombo on Friday. Sources say the target audience is in Tamil Nadu, to show them that the government is trying to do something. The play acting continues.
Click here for Feb. 12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan. 16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press' review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press' December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, February 26 -- A UN Security Council briefing on Sri Lanka has now been scheduled for Friday, February 27, Inner City Press has learned. Three days after the spokesperson for the UN's top humanitarian John Holmes told Inner City Press that "there is no request for a Council briefing," and a week after the Council's president, Yukio Takaso, said "there is no strong request" anymore, a Permanent Five Council member told Inner City Press on Thursday morning that the Sri Lanka briefing is set for Friday.
He said it was not easy to set up, and that the Sri Lankan government has been consulted and informed. It will take place under the heading "Other Matters," after presentations on peace-building and by the Greek Foreign Minister.
UN's Holmes in the Security Council, under P-5 eyes, closed consultations not shown
Meanwhile in Colombo, Nadesapillai Vithyatharan, the editor of the Tamil daily newspaper Sudar Oli, was picked up by police for questioning. The government has confirmed the arrest, here. Reporters Without Borders, among others, have issued protests. India's foreign minister is due in Colombo on Friday. Sources say the target audience is in Tamil Nadu, to show them that the government is trying to do something. The play acting continues.
Click here for Feb. 12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan. 16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press' review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press' December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
Fitch cuts Lankan rating outlook to negative: Sri Lankan financial crisis gets worse.
Fitch cuts Lankan rating outlook to negative
Fitch Ratings changed the outlook on Sri Lanka from stable to negative today, expressing worries about its external financial position reflected in the sharp fall in its foreign exchange reserves.
The agency said it had affirmed the country's B-plus rating, four notches below investment grade.
Fitch also cited concerns about the stresses in the country's balance of payments, its fiscal deficit and the government's increased reliance on foreign-currency borrowing in recent years.
"Without a sharp contraction in domestic demand to curtail imports, or a significant depreciation of the exchange rate to otherwise correct the trade imbalance, Sri Lanka may not have access to sufficient international funding to cover the current account shortfall and its international debt repayments, resulting in ongoing pressures on official reserves," the agency said in a statement.
ri Lanka May Need Bailout as War Debt Drain Reserves (Update1)
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By Cherian Thomas
Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Sri Lanka may need a bailout from international donors to help pay its debts as the island’s 26- year civil war draws to a close.
Since August, the South Asian nation has spent half its foreign reserves, now $1.7 billion, on supporting its currency, paying debt and buying imports. That doesn’t leave much after the government shells out another $900 million due in 2009. The reserves aren’t getting replenished as the ailing world economy pummels exports and overseas investors flee emerging markets.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government is unwilling to turn to the International Monetary Fund, which requires austerity measures in return for loans. Securing financing from other countries may be challenging for a nation whose credit rating from Standard & Poor’s is the lowest apart from those of Bolivia, Pakistan, Grenada, Argentina and Lebanon. Fitch Ratings downgraded its outlook on Sri Lanka today.
“Sri Lankan authorities have to act fast to beef up the country’s reserves,” said Ashok Parameswaran, senior emerging markets analyst at Invesco Inc. in New York. “Otherwise, they may have to devalue their currency significantly.”
Since December, countries including Russia, Vietnam and Kazakhstan have weakened their currencies rather than use reserves to prop them up. That has made imports costlier, reducing demand for goods from overseas.
Neighboring Currencies
Sri Lanka kept its exchange rate at about 108 rupees per dollar between January and October 2008 to slow inflation, even as the currencies of neighboring India and Pakistan weakened. The Sri Lankan rupee has since dropped to 114.95.
“Sri Lanka has relaxed the rupee in stops and starts, but they need a controlled devaluation,” said Agost Benard, a Singapore-based sovereign analyst at S&P. “The implicit currency peg will have to change and that’s one of the long-term solutions to the nation’s foreign-exchange problems.”
S&P cut Sri Lanka’s rating by one level in December to B, five steps below investment grade. Fitch Ratings lowered the nation’s rating outlook to negative from stable because of “heightened concern” over a “marked” decline in the nation’s reserves. It affirmed Sri Lanka’s rating at B+, which is four levels below investment grade and unchanged since April 2008.
Sri Lanka is banking on currency swaps with central banks, sales of treasury bills and bonds and offering higher interest rates on deposits to citizens living abroad to boost reserves.
Tamil Tigers
Once the northern region of the country is recovered from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, peace will lead to more remittances and aid for construction of houses, schools and hospitals, said P. Nandalal Weerasinghe, chief economist at the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. This will provide “some balance of payments support,” he said.
The Tamil Tigers, who have been fighting for a separate homeland, have retreated from most of the northern part of the island nation. They now control a pocket of only 87 square kilometers (34 square miles) in the Mullaitivu region in the northeast, the Sri Lankan Defense Ministry said Feb. 22.
John Keells Holdings Plc, Sri Lanka’s biggest diversified company, last week doubled its stake in Union Assurance Plc, a local insurer, to 74 percent. The company said it’s anticipating that the liberation of Tamil Tigers-occupied territories will spur demand for finance and insurance.
To be sure, the dispute hasn’t ended yet.
“Although there is the possibility of outright military defeat of the Tamil Tigers, a potentially different style and lower-intensity conflict will continue to pose a risk to growth prospects and public finances,” S&P’s Benard said.
Still Raiding
Tamil Tigers launched an air raid in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, on Feb. 20. Their two aircraft were shot down, one crashing into a building housing the Inland Revenue Department and the second north of the city.
Sri Lankan police yesterday arrested a Tamil newspaper editor in connection with the air raid, prompting a protest by media rights group Reporters Without Borders.
At the end of November, Sri Lanka had 1.4 trillion rupees ($12 billion) of foreign debt outstanding. Its total debt is 3.4 trillion rupees, or 75 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, according to S&P.
Liabilities increased as Sri Lanka, which spends a fifth of its annual budget on defense, borrowed from local and foreign sources to build roads and ports, among other spending. The nation’s budget deficit has averaged 8.7 percent of GDP in the past decade.
Debt ‘Distress’
Sri Lanka must reduce reliance on dollar-denominated short- term commercial borrowings to ease public debt “distress,” the IMF said in October. It called on the government to weaken the rupee as part of a “comprehensive policy package that would underpin confidence in the currency.”
The central bank said Jan. 19 that it will neither let the currency fall nor approach the IMF for a bailout to pay for imports and repay its debt.
On Feb. 19 Governor Nivard Cabraal said the central bank received $200 million from Malaysia, declining to reveal the terms of the deal or whether it was a swap or any other facility with Bank Negara Malaysia. Bank Negara didn’t respond to an e- mail sent by Bloomberg News for comment.
“It’s unlikely that Sri Lanka will go to the IMF for funds,” said Dushni Weerakoon, deputy director of the Institute of Policy Studies in Colombo. “At whatever cost, they will try to raise small sums from other countries.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Cherian Thomas in New Delhi at Cthomas1@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: February 27, 2009 01:20 EST
Fitch Ratings changed the outlook on Sri Lanka from stable to negative today, expressing worries about its external financial position reflected in the sharp fall in its foreign exchange reserves.
The agency said it had affirmed the country's B-plus rating, four notches below investment grade.
Fitch also cited concerns about the stresses in the country's balance of payments, its fiscal deficit and the government's increased reliance on foreign-currency borrowing in recent years.
"Without a sharp contraction in domestic demand to curtail imports, or a significant depreciation of the exchange rate to otherwise correct the trade imbalance, Sri Lanka may not have access to sufficient international funding to cover the current account shortfall and its international debt repayments, resulting in ongoing pressures on official reserves," the agency said in a statement.
ri Lanka May Need Bailout as War Debt Drain Reserves (Update1)
Email | Print | A A A
By Cherian Thomas
Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Sri Lanka may need a bailout from international donors to help pay its debts as the island’s 26- year civil war draws to a close.
Since August, the South Asian nation has spent half its foreign reserves, now $1.7 billion, on supporting its currency, paying debt and buying imports. That doesn’t leave much after the government shells out another $900 million due in 2009. The reserves aren’t getting replenished as the ailing world economy pummels exports and overseas investors flee emerging markets.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government is unwilling to turn to the International Monetary Fund, which requires austerity measures in return for loans. Securing financing from other countries may be challenging for a nation whose credit rating from Standard & Poor’s is the lowest apart from those of Bolivia, Pakistan, Grenada, Argentina and Lebanon. Fitch Ratings downgraded its outlook on Sri Lanka today.
“Sri Lankan authorities have to act fast to beef up the country’s reserves,” said Ashok Parameswaran, senior emerging markets analyst at Invesco Inc. in New York. “Otherwise, they may have to devalue their currency significantly.”
Since December, countries including Russia, Vietnam and Kazakhstan have weakened their currencies rather than use reserves to prop them up. That has made imports costlier, reducing demand for goods from overseas.
Neighboring Currencies
Sri Lanka kept its exchange rate at about 108 rupees per dollar between January and October 2008 to slow inflation, even as the currencies of neighboring India and Pakistan weakened. The Sri Lankan rupee has since dropped to 114.95.
“Sri Lanka has relaxed the rupee in stops and starts, but they need a controlled devaluation,” said Agost Benard, a Singapore-based sovereign analyst at S&P. “The implicit currency peg will have to change and that’s one of the long-term solutions to the nation’s foreign-exchange problems.”
S&P cut Sri Lanka’s rating by one level in December to B, five steps below investment grade. Fitch Ratings lowered the nation’s rating outlook to negative from stable because of “heightened concern” over a “marked” decline in the nation’s reserves. It affirmed Sri Lanka’s rating at B+, which is four levels below investment grade and unchanged since April 2008.
Sri Lanka is banking on currency swaps with central banks, sales of treasury bills and bonds and offering higher interest rates on deposits to citizens living abroad to boost reserves.
Tamil Tigers
Once the northern region of the country is recovered from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, peace will lead to more remittances and aid for construction of houses, schools and hospitals, said P. Nandalal Weerasinghe, chief economist at the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. This will provide “some balance of payments support,” he said.
The Tamil Tigers, who have been fighting for a separate homeland, have retreated from most of the northern part of the island nation. They now control a pocket of only 87 square kilometers (34 square miles) in the Mullaitivu region in the northeast, the Sri Lankan Defense Ministry said Feb. 22.
John Keells Holdings Plc, Sri Lanka’s biggest diversified company, last week doubled its stake in Union Assurance Plc, a local insurer, to 74 percent. The company said it’s anticipating that the liberation of Tamil Tigers-occupied territories will spur demand for finance and insurance.
To be sure, the dispute hasn’t ended yet.
“Although there is the possibility of outright military defeat of the Tamil Tigers, a potentially different style and lower-intensity conflict will continue to pose a risk to growth prospects and public finances,” S&P’s Benard said.
Still Raiding
Tamil Tigers launched an air raid in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, on Feb. 20. Their two aircraft were shot down, one crashing into a building housing the Inland Revenue Department and the second north of the city.
Sri Lankan police yesterday arrested a Tamil newspaper editor in connection with the air raid, prompting a protest by media rights group Reporters Without Borders.
At the end of November, Sri Lanka had 1.4 trillion rupees ($12 billion) of foreign debt outstanding. Its total debt is 3.4 trillion rupees, or 75 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, according to S&P.
Liabilities increased as Sri Lanka, which spends a fifth of its annual budget on defense, borrowed from local and foreign sources to build roads and ports, among other spending. The nation’s budget deficit has averaged 8.7 percent of GDP in the past decade.
Debt ‘Distress’
Sri Lanka must reduce reliance on dollar-denominated short- term commercial borrowings to ease public debt “distress,” the IMF said in October. It called on the government to weaken the rupee as part of a “comprehensive policy package that would underpin confidence in the currency.”
The central bank said Jan. 19 that it will neither let the currency fall nor approach the IMF for a bailout to pay for imports and repay its debt.
On Feb. 19 Governor Nivard Cabraal said the central bank received $200 million from Malaysia, declining to reveal the terms of the deal or whether it was a swap or any other facility with Bank Negara Malaysia. Bank Negara didn’t respond to an e- mail sent by Bloomberg News for comment.
“It’s unlikely that Sri Lanka will go to the IMF for funds,” said Dushni Weerakoon, deputy director of the Institute of Policy Studies in Colombo. “At whatever cost, they will try to raise small sums from other countries.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Cherian Thomas in New Delhi at Cthomas1@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: February 27, 2009 01:20 EST
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Asian Tribune goes ballistic with former US Ambassador's testimony at the Senate hearings in Washington.
Former US State Department Official Lunstead incites International Community against Sri Lanka at Senate Hearing
Wed, 2009-02-25 15:41
Daya Gamage – US National Correspondent Asian Tribune
Washington, D.C. 25 February (Asiantribune.com): Painting a Ambassador Jeffrey Lunstead almost incited the International Community and Sri Lanka’s closest neighbor India. Ambassador Jeffrey Lunstead almost incited the International Community and Sri Lanka’s closest neighbor India. dismal picture about Sri Lanka, advocating what this South Asian nation should do in terms of constitutional reforms, while denouncing Tamil Tiger terrorism, but indirectly connecting the terrorist outfit with Tamil grievances, projecting a doomed future for minority ethnic Tamils and the re-emergence of the Tamil Tigers if Tamil grievances are not met former American ambassador to Sri Lanka Jeffrey Lunstead almost incited the International Community and Sri Lanka’s closest neighbor India which has taken a surprisingly neutral stance on Sri Lanka issue when he gave his testimony before the U.S. Foreign Relations Committee at Capitol Hill Tuesday, February 24 on ‘Recent Development in Sri Lanka.’
Lunstead’s submissions carried more weight than Human Rights Watch Senior researcher Anna Neistat or Committee to Protect Journalists’ Asia Program Coordinator Bob Dietz as he was a veteran U.S. State Department Foreign Service Officer who served in this South Asian nation as ambassador from 2003 through 2006. Foremost, he has close ties with the principal players of the U.S. Congress who are prepared to listen to him.
Advocating that the International donors like Japan should bring stringent conditions to its economic assistance to Sri Lanka, while tying the aid to good governance and human rights Mr. Lunstead anyway lamented that U.S. economic assistance at the lowest ebb and military assistance is almost nil.
Despite U.S. assistance to Sri Lanka is insignificant, former ambassador Lunstead indirectly reminded Sri Lanka that the United States has some clout over principal players of the International Community to bring pressure for stringent conditions tied to their economic assistance.
He then advocated a system of government for Sri Lanka. Asian Tribune needs to remind its readers that when Lunstead was ambassador in Sri Lanka, he got the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to conduct workshops and seminars in Colombo and other districts to civil groups and organizations the fruitfulness of a federal system.
Before the Foreign Relations Committee last Tuesday he almost advocated it but sugar coated it with the term ‘devolution’.
Mr. Lunstead told the Senate Committee that the Sri Lanka Government (GSL) harasses the ethnic Tamil civilians, does not give adequate food and medicine to them and inhumanly herded them into camps, all of which are LTTE accusations when the latter is being defeated militarily to gain a cease-fire.
Jeffrey Lunstead once famously said when he was U.S. Envoy in Sri Lanka addressing a workshop sponsored by the USAID to impress civil society the importance of devolution and federal system that he was not advocating any system for adoption in Sri Lanka told the U.S. Foreign relations Committee “The first long-term issue is dealing with the need for political change. Sri Lanka's Tamils have legitimate grievances which need to be addressed. Sri Lanka's political system, which centralizes power in Colombo, needs to be changed to devolve power to local areas. This will allow Tamils--and indeed all Sri Lankans--to have a greater say in how they are governed and how they lead their lives.”
Asian Tribune carries here some selected statements of Jeffrey Lunstead which could be considered most provocative and inciting against a South Asian nation which is battling a ruthless terrorist movement which is a micro group but has a macro effect in both Sri Lanka and abroad to safeguard her sovereignty, territorial integrity and democracy while striking a balance between national security and human rights.
The macro effect of the LTTE is seen in some of the statements of Mr. Lunstead given below.
(Begin Lunstead Statements) "In the short-term, as the fighting intensified and the area held by the LTTE diminished, the toll on civilians trapped between the two forces increased. Both the LTTE and the Government have shown a callous disregard for civilians. There is a desperate need for food and medical care. Both sides have fired into civilian areas. The LTTE has forced children as young as 14 into its ranks, and fired upon civilians trying to cross into Government-controlled territory. Tamil civilians who managed to flee the conflict area have been forced into camps by the Government. This situation must be dealt with on an emergency basis.
The Government has an obligation to protect its own citizens. It must do better at preventing collateral damage to civilians in its military campaign, and ensure that food and medical care reach them. Conditions in the camps are abysmal, and must be improved. After initial resistance, the Government is now allowing UN and other international and local agencies into the camps. This is an important step. The Government must also allow a competent outside agency, such as the ICRC, to be present when it screens those entering the camps, and to establish a record of those who are detained. Tamils have a real, and legitimate, fear that those taken off by Government forces will be abused and may never be seen again.
"The first long-term issue is dealing with the need for political change. Sri Lanka's Tamils have legitimate grievances which need to be addressed. Sri Lanka's political system, which centralizes power in Colombo, needs to be changed to devolve power to local areas. This will allow Tamils--and indeed all Sri Lankans--to have a greater say in how they are governed and how they lead their lives.
"The second long-term issue is wider than the ethnic conflict. It is the growing assault on dissent, which takes place in a culture of complete impunity. Sri Lanka has maintained its democracy, despite some rough patches, for over 60 years since independence. The recent murder of prominent newspaper editor Lasantha Wickematunga was but the latest in a series of incidents. Tamils and Sinhalese suffer alike from these attacks on basic freedoms.
"Many Tamils have been abducted and have simply disappeared, as documented in the State Department's Human Rights Report. It is sad to say, but it is almost a certainty that these attacks have been carried out by elements of the Government. Impunity seems total. No one has been prosecuted for any of these incidents, and no member of the security forces has been prosecuted for any abuses. Past efforts to break the culture of impunity have failed. For instance, the Government in 2007 invited the international community to set up an "International Independent Group of Eminent Persons" (the IIGEP) to observe the work of a Government Commission of Inquiry into a number of human rights abuses, including the murder of aid workers. The IIGEP terminated its mission in 2008, reporting that it had encountered an "atmosphere of confrontation" and an "absence of will on the part of the Government of Sri Lanka…to investigate cases with vigor, where the conduct of its own forces has been called into question."
"The Government now faces a choice. It can fail to treat its Tamil citizens properly, fail to engage seriously in political reform, and continue to allow human rights to be violated and dissent to be threatened. If so, unrest will continue, violence will certainly recur, and the promising future which has always seemed just out of reach will recede even further. Or it can act immediately to show its Tamil citizens that they are valued as highly as every other Sri Lankan. It can make the dramatic changes that will give better governance to all Sri Lankans, and set a standard for responsibility and accountability which will diminish human rights violations and strengthen democracy. The decisions made now will affect the island, for better or worse, for decades to come.
"What can the U.S. and others do? The U.S. military relationship with Sri Lanka is almost nil, with military assistance terminated. U.S. development assistance is relatively small. However, Sri Lanka will require massive assistance to rebuild war-devastated areas and to meet Sri Lanka's other development needs. The U.S. could join with other donors, both bilateral -- Japan, the EU, and others -- and multilateral, including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. A powerful and united donors group could insist that development assistance will flow only if strict conditions are met. These could include genuine devolution of power, quick resettlement of displaced persons, and a clear improvement in the human rights situation. The U.S. should also seek close coordination with India, Sri Lanka's close and large neighbor. With its own large Tamil population, India has a significant stake in the outcome in Sri Lanka.
"With long experience in these matters, I will not pretend that meaningful donor coordination and aid conditionality are easy to accomplish. They are easy to propose but fiendishly difficult to do. If the U.S. and other donors made World Bank and ADB loans conditional on these changes, and if Japan, Sri Lanka's largest bilateral donor, conditioned its own assistance, Sri Lanka's friends could have a major impact. Without such changes, the prospect is for an inevitable recurrence of the ethnic conflict.(End Lunstead Statements)
The former American ambassador to Sri Lanka has almost given a lecture to Sri Lanka how she should put in place a system that suite that country. Before the U.S. Foreign Relations Committee Lunstead has impeached the Rajapaksa government something the U.S. State department is unable to openly make. Some accusations are so serious that one wonders whether the GSL could ignore the scenario painted by Lunstead to the Senate Committee. Despite Lunstead says that he does not speak for the United States Government he is in fact continues to have the State Department mindset. In fact Richard Boucher, State Department assistance secretary for South Asia, once said in Colombo at a press briefing that he advocates ‘Homeland’ for the ethnic Tamil minorities.
Does Mr. Lunstead aware that 54% of ethnic Tamil minorities are living in other districts away from the Northern and Eastern Region among the ethnic majority Sinhalese?
- Asian Tribune -
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The type of Constitution and
Submitted by Thamby7 on Thu, 2009-02-26 03:01.
The type of Constitution and governance system for Sri Lanka should be of concern to all those who are interested in a fair and just settlement. Thus Lunstead is absolutely correct in emphasising this point. Let us not forget that it was a Constitution that lacked sufficient checks and balances that made possible the ramming through of legislation that engendered division and anger. And this situation, in turn, alienated the minorities. And this alienation provided the fertile ground for the growth of militancy. Unless certain basic issues are grasped, solutions cannot be found. The type of Constitution and governance system is central to a solution.
Wed, 2009-02-25 15:41
Daya Gamage – US National Correspondent Asian Tribune
Washington, D.C. 25 February (Asiantribune.com): Painting a Ambassador Jeffrey Lunstead almost incited the International Community and Sri Lanka’s closest neighbor India. Ambassador Jeffrey Lunstead almost incited the International Community and Sri Lanka’s closest neighbor India. dismal picture about Sri Lanka, advocating what this South Asian nation should do in terms of constitutional reforms, while denouncing Tamil Tiger terrorism, but indirectly connecting the terrorist outfit with Tamil grievances, projecting a doomed future for minority ethnic Tamils and the re-emergence of the Tamil Tigers if Tamil grievances are not met former American ambassador to Sri Lanka Jeffrey Lunstead almost incited the International Community and Sri Lanka’s closest neighbor India which has taken a surprisingly neutral stance on Sri Lanka issue when he gave his testimony before the U.S. Foreign Relations Committee at Capitol Hill Tuesday, February 24 on ‘Recent Development in Sri Lanka.’
Lunstead’s submissions carried more weight than Human Rights Watch Senior researcher Anna Neistat or Committee to Protect Journalists’ Asia Program Coordinator Bob Dietz as he was a veteran U.S. State Department Foreign Service Officer who served in this South Asian nation as ambassador from 2003 through 2006. Foremost, he has close ties with the principal players of the U.S. Congress who are prepared to listen to him.
Advocating that the International donors like Japan should bring stringent conditions to its economic assistance to Sri Lanka, while tying the aid to good governance and human rights Mr. Lunstead anyway lamented that U.S. economic assistance at the lowest ebb and military assistance is almost nil.
Despite U.S. assistance to Sri Lanka is insignificant, former ambassador Lunstead indirectly reminded Sri Lanka that the United States has some clout over principal players of the International Community to bring pressure for stringent conditions tied to their economic assistance.
He then advocated a system of government for Sri Lanka. Asian Tribune needs to remind its readers that when Lunstead was ambassador in Sri Lanka, he got the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to conduct workshops and seminars in Colombo and other districts to civil groups and organizations the fruitfulness of a federal system.
Before the Foreign Relations Committee last Tuesday he almost advocated it but sugar coated it with the term ‘devolution’.
Mr. Lunstead told the Senate Committee that the Sri Lanka Government (GSL) harasses the ethnic Tamil civilians, does not give adequate food and medicine to them and inhumanly herded them into camps, all of which are LTTE accusations when the latter is being defeated militarily to gain a cease-fire.
Jeffrey Lunstead once famously said when he was U.S. Envoy in Sri Lanka addressing a workshop sponsored by the USAID to impress civil society the importance of devolution and federal system that he was not advocating any system for adoption in Sri Lanka told the U.S. Foreign relations Committee “The first long-term issue is dealing with the need for political change. Sri Lanka's Tamils have legitimate grievances which need to be addressed. Sri Lanka's political system, which centralizes power in Colombo, needs to be changed to devolve power to local areas. This will allow Tamils--and indeed all Sri Lankans--to have a greater say in how they are governed and how they lead their lives.”
Asian Tribune carries here some selected statements of Jeffrey Lunstead which could be considered most provocative and inciting against a South Asian nation which is battling a ruthless terrorist movement which is a micro group but has a macro effect in both Sri Lanka and abroad to safeguard her sovereignty, territorial integrity and democracy while striking a balance between national security and human rights.
The macro effect of the LTTE is seen in some of the statements of Mr. Lunstead given below.
(Begin Lunstead Statements) "In the short-term, as the fighting intensified and the area held by the LTTE diminished, the toll on civilians trapped between the two forces increased. Both the LTTE and the Government have shown a callous disregard for civilians. There is a desperate need for food and medical care. Both sides have fired into civilian areas. The LTTE has forced children as young as 14 into its ranks, and fired upon civilians trying to cross into Government-controlled territory. Tamil civilians who managed to flee the conflict area have been forced into camps by the Government. This situation must be dealt with on an emergency basis.
The Government has an obligation to protect its own citizens. It must do better at preventing collateral damage to civilians in its military campaign, and ensure that food and medical care reach them. Conditions in the camps are abysmal, and must be improved. After initial resistance, the Government is now allowing UN and other international and local agencies into the camps. This is an important step. The Government must also allow a competent outside agency, such as the ICRC, to be present when it screens those entering the camps, and to establish a record of those who are detained. Tamils have a real, and legitimate, fear that those taken off by Government forces will be abused and may never be seen again.
"The first long-term issue is dealing with the need for political change. Sri Lanka's Tamils have legitimate grievances which need to be addressed. Sri Lanka's political system, which centralizes power in Colombo, needs to be changed to devolve power to local areas. This will allow Tamils--and indeed all Sri Lankans--to have a greater say in how they are governed and how they lead their lives.
"The second long-term issue is wider than the ethnic conflict. It is the growing assault on dissent, which takes place in a culture of complete impunity. Sri Lanka has maintained its democracy, despite some rough patches, for over 60 years since independence. The recent murder of prominent newspaper editor Lasantha Wickematunga was but the latest in a series of incidents. Tamils and Sinhalese suffer alike from these attacks on basic freedoms.
"Many Tamils have been abducted and have simply disappeared, as documented in the State Department's Human Rights Report. It is sad to say, but it is almost a certainty that these attacks have been carried out by elements of the Government. Impunity seems total. No one has been prosecuted for any of these incidents, and no member of the security forces has been prosecuted for any abuses. Past efforts to break the culture of impunity have failed. For instance, the Government in 2007 invited the international community to set up an "International Independent Group of Eminent Persons" (the IIGEP) to observe the work of a Government Commission of Inquiry into a number of human rights abuses, including the murder of aid workers. The IIGEP terminated its mission in 2008, reporting that it had encountered an "atmosphere of confrontation" and an "absence of will on the part of the Government of Sri Lanka…to investigate cases with vigor, where the conduct of its own forces has been called into question."
"The Government now faces a choice. It can fail to treat its Tamil citizens properly, fail to engage seriously in political reform, and continue to allow human rights to be violated and dissent to be threatened. If so, unrest will continue, violence will certainly recur, and the promising future which has always seemed just out of reach will recede even further. Or it can act immediately to show its Tamil citizens that they are valued as highly as every other Sri Lankan. It can make the dramatic changes that will give better governance to all Sri Lankans, and set a standard for responsibility and accountability which will diminish human rights violations and strengthen democracy. The decisions made now will affect the island, for better or worse, for decades to come.
"What can the U.S. and others do? The U.S. military relationship with Sri Lanka is almost nil, with military assistance terminated. U.S. development assistance is relatively small. However, Sri Lanka will require massive assistance to rebuild war-devastated areas and to meet Sri Lanka's other development needs. The U.S. could join with other donors, both bilateral -- Japan, the EU, and others -- and multilateral, including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. A powerful and united donors group could insist that development assistance will flow only if strict conditions are met. These could include genuine devolution of power, quick resettlement of displaced persons, and a clear improvement in the human rights situation. The U.S. should also seek close coordination with India, Sri Lanka's close and large neighbor. With its own large Tamil population, India has a significant stake in the outcome in Sri Lanka.
"With long experience in these matters, I will not pretend that meaningful donor coordination and aid conditionality are easy to accomplish. They are easy to propose but fiendishly difficult to do. If the U.S. and other donors made World Bank and ADB loans conditional on these changes, and if Japan, Sri Lanka's largest bilateral donor, conditioned its own assistance, Sri Lanka's friends could have a major impact. Without such changes, the prospect is for an inevitable recurrence of the ethnic conflict.(End Lunstead Statements)
The former American ambassador to Sri Lanka has almost given a lecture to Sri Lanka how she should put in place a system that suite that country. Before the U.S. Foreign Relations Committee Lunstead has impeached the Rajapaksa government something the U.S. State department is unable to openly make. Some accusations are so serious that one wonders whether the GSL could ignore the scenario painted by Lunstead to the Senate Committee. Despite Lunstead says that he does not speak for the United States Government he is in fact continues to have the State Department mindset. In fact Richard Boucher, State Department assistance secretary for South Asia, once said in Colombo at a press briefing that he advocates ‘Homeland’ for the ethnic Tamil minorities.
Does Mr. Lunstead aware that 54% of ethnic Tamil minorities are living in other districts away from the Northern and Eastern Region among the ethnic majority Sinhalese?
- Asian Tribune -
» login or register to post comments or DONATE NOW | printer friendly version
The type of Constitution and
Submitted by Thamby7 on Thu, 2009-02-26 03:01.
The type of Constitution and governance system for Sri Lanka should be of concern to all those who are interested in a fair and just settlement. Thus Lunstead is absolutely correct in emphasising this point. Let us not forget that it was a Constitution that lacked sufficient checks and balances that made possible the ramming through of legislation that engendered division and anger. And this situation, in turn, alienated the minorities. And this alienation provided the fertile ground for the growth of militancy. Unless certain basic issues are grasped, solutions cannot be found. The type of Constitution and governance system is central to a solution.
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